Tag: polyurethane

Furniture

Crate Coffee Table, part 2

Jessica Smith

Earlier this year I found a crate on my local Freecycle listserv that I scooped up, added some caster to and turned into a coffee table.

Crate Coffee Table

The crate sat as is for a while, but the wood was rough around the edges and the crate had been written on and scuffed up. I decided to take on the coffee table crate project for a second time, this time opting to stain the crate and make the piece a little more polished — well, as polished as an old wood crate can look.

The side of the crate was painted a dark, charcoal gray. I decided to stain the crate a gray to pull out the charcoal-colored sides.

Before I could start staining, I had to sand the hell outta the crate. The top was covered in nicks, scuffs, sharpie, old sticker goo…. It wasn’t pretty.

Crate

It looked like someone had kept score on the crate, or attempted math? Who knows. But the sharpie had to go.

CrateTop

Once the whole crate was sanded down, I applied a gray stain to the whole thing, including the painted sides. Since some of the paint was scuffed off, I wanted to make sure the exposed wood was gray, too.

CrateStained

The wood soaked up the stain lie crazy, turning the whole crate a charcoal gray with wood grain popping through. I love the color mixed with the natural wood peeping through.

Once it dried, I coated the whole thing in a polyurethane.

CrateGray

The finished product is still a roughed up, old crate — but a much nicer looking old crate. I like the gray a lot and how it tied the sides and the rest of the piece together. I also like the lack of graffiti on my furniture. That’s a plus for sure.

Crate iside

We aren’t currently using the crate as a coffee table, so I’m not sure what we’ll do with it. But I really like the cleaned up look for this neat old piece.

Furniture

Before & After: Run-Down End Table

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.

Navy Side Table_Before

 

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!!

Painting in PRogress

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.

Navy End Table

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

 

Craft Projects

Pallet Bar Sign

Jessica Smith

Remember this sweet pallet I scored from work? I got a lot of use out of this bad boy, making two different jewelry holders, one with knobs and one with spoon hooks.

But, what I’m about to show you is the pièce de résistance from my first-ever pallet — a BAR sign for, yes, our bar!

To make my sign, I had to demolish the pallet. I got out my handy-dandy jigsaw and cut out the middle planks to use. I decided to make my sign with four planks, and an additional plank as support along the back.

Once my pieces were cut (I cut one of the planks in half for the back), I lined them up outside and nailed them together using my nail gun. I didn’t want the edges to be perfectly even, so instead I lined up the four planks by the nail holes down the middle. This gave it a nice look.

First, I nailed the wood into the back supports from the front of the sign. Then, for added support and more nail gun fun, I flipped it over and added nails down the supports in the back.

Then, I got out my sander and sanded the edges down and the front and back down. I picked pieces with holes and knots on purpose, so I made sure to leave those spots alone.

With the sign all smoothed out, I brought it inside to begin taping out my letters. Using painters tape, I blocked out the letters “B,” “A,” and “R” at varying heights along the sign. I did this all by eye (no tracing, no stencils), which took a long time (about an hour) and a ton of patience, but was worth it in the end.

Then, I got out some of my remaining paint samples and started to fill in my letters. For the “B” I used Behr Smoky Slate, for the “A” I used Behr Contemplation, and for the “R” I used Behr Lime Light. I’ve gotten so much use out of these samples, it’s crazy! Anyway, I chose these colors so the letters would have a subtle ombre effect to them.

Once the letters were painted, I removed the tape — the paint was still wet, so the tape came off perfectly! Then, I set the sign aside to dry.

Afterward, I got out some leftover gray stain from my coffee table project and stained the entire sign. Yes, I did go over the paint. I let the stain sit for about five minutes, then wiped it off and let it dry. I came back a few hours later and gave the sign two coats of poly. I also attached heavy-duty picture hangers to the back before letting the sign dry overnight.

We hung up the sign last night right behind our bar and it fits perfectly! I’d pretend that I did that on purpose, but it was just dumb luck! Still, I’ll take it 🙂

{A Smith of All Trades} Pallet Bar Sign

Um yeah, I ❤ my sign. So does the hubby. Total win!

And, best part, it was totally free to make!