A Foray Into Furniture Refinishing

Hello, old blog. Sorry for the radio silence. I guess we've been too busy living in our "finished" house to bother posting about it. That, and the baby... Well, excuses excuses..

So here is the story of how we "upcycled" this old console stereo into an entertainment center. How did you say "super cool" back in the 60s??


We started with a Craigslist console record player / radio, circa 1966. The electronics still mostly work but it had been very thoroughly painted white - How chic!


Next we stripped off the paint. We used the no-scent safe stuff so we could do it in the garage and not stink up the house. Next time I think we'll wait for warmer weather and use the heavy duty paint stripper.


The paint stripper stuff did work, it just took a lot of elbow grease. And underneath, lovely walnut.


At some point we realized that it would be a lot easier to disassemble and then strip. This turned out to be surprisingly easy. I guess in that era furniture construction involved a lot of screws and very little glue. We lucked out in that respect.


Here's a shot after we've applied some tung oil and started re-assembling. You can see the shelf August added over the amp electronics.


TADA! We really liked the tung oil finish. Its easy to apply, very forgiving, and doesn't smell too bad.


Originally the only access was from the top. At first we planned to take out all the old electronics and decommission this door.


But the old school stuff was just too cool. Check out the turntable and radio. That grid thing on the right is the radio tuner. Why its a grid, I don't know, but it adds a cool 60s space-ship sort of vibe.


Now we just need a record!!

For access to the DVD player we split the old front panel and made it into doors. There's room for the Wii and some other random stuff too. We used Blum 170-degree hinges. I cannot recommend Blum hardware highly enough. It is awesome. Pure Scandinavian design genius. They are NOT paying me to say that!


In order to make the new doors as incognito as possible, we used magnetic touch latches.



The END! I love it. It turned out way better than my original vision which had involved the use of a recip saw to get that front panel off. And I might be a tiny bit addicted to this idea of taking old vintage stuff and making into something new. Example: Typewriter Ipad Dock.

The Light

At the end of the tunnel! Its visible! The kitchen project that never ends is nearly over. The "TO DO" list would fit on one hand these days. I have a secret plan to be finished with ALL of it over the Thanksgiving holiday. That will be appropriate because we kicked off this project with a trip to the fancy lumber store over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2008. The remaining items:

1) Make a kick board for the peninsula.
2) Make a little spacer block for the crown molding. (5 min tops)
3) Route out the glass doors and assemble them.
4) Order the glass.
5) Trim, route, and assemble the remaining frames for drawer fronts.
6) Stain items 1,2,3, and 5.
7) Attach spacers to drawer fronts.
8) Install all that stuff.
9) A little caulk maybe.

Okay two hands.

The New Addition

He's here folks! I think he likes the house pretty well.

In fact, he's six weeks old now. Since his arrival, we have gotten *a little* bit of work done on the kitchen. All the doors are hung and operational now. All that's left is the drawer fronts. Anybody know where to get a 20mm forstner bit that doesn't cost $40?

Baby room - getting there!

The baby room is functional now... All major furniture purchased. Pictures on the wall. Now we just need the baby, and probably some diapers.

Here's the view from the hallway door.


Here's the glider we picked up off craigslist today. I'm still scoping for one that's "exactly what I'm looking for", but they are hard to come by. I've only seen a couple in the past 2 months and both were gone before I could get to them. This one looks good enough though.

These are some of August's baby clothes - too cute to hang in the closet.

And a close up of my bumper. Turned out pretty well!

0 to 60 in... a couple of days

Here's the "zero" - from before we moved in. Don't worry, those drapes left with the previous owner.


And here's the work of just 2 days. Ceiling retextured. Carpet out. Walls and trim painted. Ceiling fan installed. New sheets. Now all we need is maybe some curtains, and a couple of matching night stands.


I feel so grown up now!! A good thing, since we are expecting to become parents in the next few weeks! See next post!

Quick question

So, we have been slowly adding to our collection of framed stuff to hang on the walls.. Its an expensive venture but well worth it. I am planning to get some old family photos reprinted and framed as well, particularly these:



Aren't they cool? The girl sitting in the dirt with a gun is my grandmother...

So the question - to crop or not to crop? The shadows of the photographers are kinda cool on one hand, a part of the story. On the other hand, that's a lot of dirt...

Okay, one other question, would you frame them in the same frame or separate?

Here's one more that I love! May put this one in baby boy's room...

For love of a pin nailer.. (continued)

We've put that handy pin nailer to use on another issue - cabinet crown molding.

Why I insisted on included crown molding above the upper cabinets? I don't know. Having those cabinets go straight to the ceiling would've been just fine... but, you know, hindsight...

We (I?) fretted about the process for months off and on. Remember what our crown molding motto is? "Cut close and caulk". Yeah, doesn't work so well on stained molding. Remember Franken-corner? Oh the horrors... Anyway, I'll spare you the drama and details but we made one hugely smart decision on this crown molding: to cut it out and assemble it on the ground, not in the air like we normally would. This way the corners look perfect.. Certainly there are gaps and imperfections in other places (small ones, August is still a perfectionist), but the corners are PERFECT.

And we of course used the pin nailer to attach the pieces, so you can't even see the little holes.