Thanks to Pinterest, I have had a burning desire to find and paint a piece of furniture for our home. I really wanted some kind of hutch for all of my sewing stuff. Since SA doesn't have a KSL.com I was left to craigslist. (sigh) With KSL people can compare the price of what they are selling to gauge where they want to set a price. Here people just ask what they NEED/WANT to get out of it. Meaning that it's way overpriced in my opinion. I mean, come on, $600 dollars for a damaged china cabinet at goodwill??? Anyhow, I did finally find an entertainment center for $40, yes on craigslist. The only problem is we don't have a truck. Come to think of it, not many of our friends here have a truck. Luckily our friends Tim and Amy came to my rescue with their trailer. Thanks again guys!
Ready for some befores and afters?
The bottom doors fold into themselves.
nice eh?
I selected the color because of inspiration from the chair in the picture. It's RustOleum's Lagoon. I had Lowes color match some Valspar latex paint.
We sanded to rough up the original finish, then primed, then sanded some more.
I know that most of you will think, doesn't she know there are products on the market now that alleviates the sanding step?
I know but having grown up with parents who were in the furniture restoration business, there is some thing therapeutic to the sanding step. For me anyway.
I had originally intended to paint it this solid color. After my first coat of color, I was (say it with me) SANDING, I had sanded down a few spots to the primer and I liked it. So Weathered look it is.
We replaced the back paneling with new stuff from Lowes. It's lightly primed and I liked it so we left it that way.
I added cork board to the insides of the two big doors. The cork comes in 12 X 12 squares. 4 to a pack. On sale at Michaels for around $6. I have a big pin board above my sewing work space but it's time to de-clutter!
Great little nooks for some boxes and baskets.
And now the daunting task of organizing my fabric stash. I have been sewing for years and have lots of left overs. Not to mention my love of going to the fabric store to get a cut of this and a cut of that, just to have fun stuff on hand. After awhile I got tired of cutting cardboard pieces to wrap fabric around, so I resorted to my days at Jo-Anns and started measuring each piece and rolling it like remnants. I marked each band with the measurement so I don't have to un-roll to check how much is there when I want it for a project. It's not entirely pretty but it is more organized than it was, lying in a heap in a basket under my sewing table.
Eventually, I plan to install some kind of shelving unit in it. Something that could be removed in the future if we want to use this piece for something else down the road.
This has been a gratifying project for me. I survived all of the sanding and painting and sanding out in the garage in 97+ degrees in the evenings when I had time. My sweet husband helped me some and let us not forget the effort my son contributed! As seen here!
