Stripping

Well not much has been happening in the way of travel so I have instead been filling my time by going craft crazy! Over the past few months I have taken a keen eye to many of my furnishings and decided that they could use an update. Here's some of my work:
I started off small and spray painted an old spice rack and inserted some hooks to turn it into a jewelry rack.
 
Then I spruced up an old night stand by printing out some stencils online and spray painting them.

I needed a small file cabinet to organize all my paperwork and this one had been sitting out in the shop collecting parts so I had the boys clean it off, spray painted it white and just slapped some contact paper on the front. I was surprised at how much fancier a file cabinet can look!

I had this lamp that I was developing an increasing disdain for as it doubled as a CD holder (how vintage is that?). When I was organizing my filing cabinet I came across some old maps so I decided to grab some Mod Podge and just wrap the lamp with the map. I wrapped the base with an inset map of the greater Denver metro area and wrapped the CD holder portion with a map of the state of Colorado. In my excitement, I didn't pay attention to what direction I put the map on so when I went to put the lamp back together I realized the map was now upside down. I didn't really care though because I thought it looked really cool.

My biggest project was an antique dresser that has been in the house for ages. I got some stripper and went to town without realizing how ill prepared I was. A few weeks, 3 more cans of stripper, dozens of pieces of scotch brite, some wire brushes and some solvent resistant gloves later I had this gorgeous dresser.

I was debating what to do after I stripped it and Aunt Kathy came to the rescue and suggested danish oil which is amazing. I went with "natural" which doesn't change the color, it just enhances.  I even polished up the hardware and Dad managed to get me a new piece of glass for the mirror.


I got carried away with stripping and also did this end table. I had no idea it had such a pretty pattern in it!

Dad finally got around to re-doing the kitchen floor so I decided to also strip down a drop leaf table that was full of water marks that we were using in the kitchen. I'm really proud of this one because it looked terrible before. After stripping it still had a rustic patina so I researched online and decided to hold an iron over a dish towel to steam out some of the water marks which worked pretty well but was cumbersome. So I consulted Don (whose answer to everything is power tools) and he promptly handed me a sander which took the remaining water marks out.

The other dresser I had was a little worse for the wear with some chipped veneer so I took some wood putty and filled it in then spray painted.

For the drawers I bought a piece of lace and sprayed another color on but it wasn't contrasting enough and I didn't go dark enough so it doesn't really stand out. I may end up re doing the drawers to make it stand out because I really like the pattern.

I also snagged a bookcase for $10 and was delighted when I started peeling off the fake wood and discovered a pristine wooden bookcase underneath! I'm still debating about how to tackle this one. I need to take a break first.