knob – A Smith of All Trades

Refreshed Grain Bin

November 24, 2014November 23, 2014 Jessica Smith

I bought an old grain bin this spring that’s been moved from wall to wall until it found its home in my dining room. It’s lived in the dining room for months now, in its grungy, dirty state until I got tired of the grime and fixed it up this weekend.

You can see in this photo below the grain bin in its original state on the day I brought it home. It had a white knob and was all scratched up.

I took off the white knob, which was only drilled partially into the front of the grain bin. It was a pain in the bttt to remove, but I needed to do that before I could clean around it — it was oddly grimy. Yuck.

I took a few more photos of the piece before getting started on the refinishing. Here’s the beat up top — probably the worst part of the grain bin.

The front panel of the top of the bin was super scratched, too.

Since the wood was in super rough face and didn’t look like it ever had much of a stain on it, I was doubtful that my go-to Restor-A-Finish would work. But lo and behold, this might be the best use of the refinishing product yet. To use Restor-A-Finish, simply dab it on a paper towel and rub it on your piece. Let is sit for 20 minutes, then wipe any excess off.

The grain bin was thirstyyyyy, so there wasn’t too much of the finish to wipe off.

Notice any of the scratches or discoloration before?

Nope! Buh bye scratches!

And hello beautiful, shiny top. I mean, seriously, can you believe the difference?

All I needed to do at this point was add a knob back on the front. I grabbed my drill to make a hole through the front panel, then attached an antique0looking crystal knob.

So charming. Check out the whole thing:

I bought the grain bin on a whim — basically I just had to buy something at the Barn Sale I went to back in April. Now that it is freshened up, I love this impulse buy and think it totally belongs. It acts as such a nice mini-buffet in the dining room. We usually have our fruit bowl here, but my three apples looked sad and lonely.

Did I mention we store all of our outdoor equipment in it? Volleyballs, badminton racquets…. all sorts of fun stuff. What… don’t you store that sorta thing in your dining room?

Furniture

Before & After: Run-Down End Table

March 9, 2014 Jessica Smith

My latest piece for A Slap of Paint was a doozy. It should have been an easy flip, but I botched it big time. Luckily I was able to fix my mistake.

I started with this end table that I picked up from Habitat Restore. I can’t tell you how much I love that place.

To fix this piece up, I removed the table top and sanded the heck out of it.

Table Top

Then I stained it using a black Varathane stain. I coated the top in poly and set it aside.

I painted the bottom of the piece in navy chalk paint. I mixed the paint myself using Paint Minerals. It turns any flat paint into chalk paint. The best part — you can paint your pieces without sanding them down first. Awesome!!

Two coats later and my piece was painted and beautiful. I wanted to do a layer of protective coating on the piece, and I should have used wax, but I didn’t. I coated the entire piece in polycrylic, effectively ruining the beautiful paint job. See, the polycrylic dried and bubbled and made the whole piece a hot mess.

Bummer.

Once everything was completely dry, I sanded the paint job so I could start fresh.

Thankfully, the second round of navy paint covered beautifully. I didn’t totally mess the whole thing up after all. Phew.

The second time around I waxed the painted portion of the end table down. Right choice.

Even though this was more work than I anticipated, it turned out beautifully.

The knobs were also from restore for $1 a piece. Woo!

Home Improvement

Busy weekend

April 15, 2013April 15, 2013 Jessica Smith

Hello, blog!

Well, we did it. We finally installed our new doors. It took pretty much all weekend because our house is amazingly crooked, but they are installed. I’m only going to share one photo with you today because I’ve only had time to paint the outside of our doors. The inside is still a primed, boring beige.

Guess what color the doors are??

TEAL!

That’s right, teal. They look fabulous. Or at least I think they do. Turns out a lot of men don’t like the color teal, especially not on a house haha. Oh well.

Here’s a photo of our doors installed, not painted, and with no trim. Looking pretty good, huh?

Tomorrow I’ll share all of the troubles we (mainly my amazing stepdad) went through to get these bad boys onto the house.

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