The Finished Product- An Estate Sale Find

It's done. 

Finally.

Ok, actually, it's been done for almost a month. 

But still.

Like it?

For some reason the drawers look dusty in the above picture, but I promise, it's not. It's just weird lighting.

It's home is in a corner of our kitchen that would otherwise be empty. The piece itself is actually pretty short, so I found a little lantern for it.

 Here's a picture of it in the context of our kitchen. The patio door is on the left, the kitchen table on the right.

 

I had stained the inside of the drawers in order to get rid of the smell associated with the piece and so they were kind of tacky, even after being allowed to dry for a few weeks while we were in Europe. Hence, the need for shelf liner paper covering even the sides of the drawer. 

Also, I'll admit it...my stain job looked TERRIBLE. 

I took the drawers out of the unit and stained the inside of that as well and...there's a reason I didn't take a picture of that. It's not pretty. But thankfully, how the stain looks doesn't matter at all, because you can't see any of it.

I found the shelf liner at the Dollar Tree. Even I'm surprised they had a nice design like this and I'm not ashamed to say- it might be one of my favorite stores. 

And the smell is gone thanks to the stain, so it's a win-win. Pretty drawers, no gross smell.

I'm kind of amazed that I managed to turn out a piece of furniture that I'll not only allow in my house, but that I'm happy to have in my house. Still not sure how that happened. And it's useful, too!

So, what do you think of it? Willing to take on a project of your own?

No More!

No more mouse hair, that is! 

I showed a co-worker friend of mine the hair that came out of the little set of drawers I'm redoing and she was fairly certain it was mouse hair. I'm so glad I didn't think it was mouse hair when I first found it...I would have been even more grossed out. 

Yep...that's mouse hair I cleaned out of there. 

But before I could take on the eradication project, I wanted to finish sanding everything.

I told my Dad I was having a hard time getting the icky finish off and he suggested trying a different grit of sandpaper. It made ALL the difference. The finish came off so much easier and faster after I took his suggestion.Thanks, Dad!

On the left is a paper similar to what I used the first time I sanded...and on the right is the one I changed to. Big difference! 

I got to the bottom of the piece and had to deal with sanding around these little knobs. I thought that was relatively difficult.

But then I had to do the drawers...

 

...and they were WAY more difficult than those little knobs. 

But they ended up looking like this...

...so I guess it was worth the fight I had with them. I'm sure my neighbors were having a good laugh as I fought to keep the drawer upright while sanding it by holding it with my knees so I could use two hands on the sander. 

The corners were especially tricky, so I finally gave up and sanded them all down.

Maybe it'll help give the piece a little softer look? 

After I got everything sanded down, I sprayed all the pieces down with a hose and then scrubbed them out. I was determined that there be no more mouse hair! 

And I made sure to protect my hands this time around...

Then I let everything sit out in the sun for a while to dry out.

Yep, these are all the pieces soaking wet. 

Next up...staining the inside and painting the outside. Stay tuned!

Making Progress...and Other Unique Discoveries

Remember this piece of furniture I found? 

I finally started working on it. 

I put on a pretty mask. (It was windy, so please excuse my hair).

And started to use a sander for the first time. And this is what I ended up with after about 15 minutes.

Nice, right? I'm kidding. Obviously, it's not that good looking. But I had an old piece of sandpaper on the sander and it ultimately doesn't matter if I get it all off since I'm painting it, as long as the surface is pretty smooth.

Then I decided to work on one of the sides. And made the mistake of taking out the drawers.

And I found this inside:

Nasty. 

But I'm pretty sure this stuff was the source of the smell I mentioned in that previous post. 

I tipped the whole thing over and these are some of the things that came out:

Gross. At least they were dead. And I did a decently thorough inspection, so I'm pretty sure they didn't have any live friends. 

And then I tipped it over again and kind of knocked on the back of it to get more stuff out, and this is what I found:

Yes, that is a pile of hair and dust, in a line. I have to wonder, with this many short little hairs, did somebody trim their hair over a drawer? Or maybe store a razor full of little hairs in it?

I don't want to know.

At this point, I was extra thankful for the mask my mom had recommended I use and that my dad had found for me. The smell of that hair and all that dust was bad, but it could have been much worse. And I could have been breathing it in.

There was some stuff that just didn't want to come out without some assistance, but there was no way I was touching it with my bare hands. I didn't have any gloves in the house though, so I had to resort to this, the next best thing:

By this point I was pretty much ready to call it quits for the day. There's still a substantial amount of cleaning/vacuuming to be done in this piece before I'll let it anywhere near my front door. But hopefully the worst of it is gone and the smell will start to dissipate...

An Estate Sale Find

I've never been overly crafty or had too much motivation to do a DIY project. But then I joined Pinterest last summer after I took the bar exam and all that changed. Suddenly I was inundated with craft ideas, sewing patterns and furniture overhauls. I've made a couple of shirts, tote bags, and paint chip calendars.

But I've never attempted to redo a piece of furniture. When Jason and I came across this at an estate sale last week, I knew this was destined to be my first project. Plus, you can't beat estate sale prices.

I think it's the perfect size for a starter project!

The finish is peeling off, the wood isn't nice quality, it has the "I've been in a basement or garage for a while" smell and the hardware is, well, not my style. A defunct maple leaf doesn't match anything else in my house. I know it was in style at one point, but I don't know when that was and I probably wasn't alive for it!

If you disagree with me about the hardware and happen to want the handles for a project you're working on, let me know and I'll save them for you. They're really not that ugly; they're just bigger than I like and not the style any of the rest of my furniture is in.

Doing a furniture project means I get to use a sander (borrowed from my dad) and wear a stylish face mask. It doesn't get better than that.

Will it turn out nice enough that I'll actually want it in my house? I have no idea.

But,with any luck, there will be pics in coming posts of the work in progress and the final product!