DIY Project: The Time I Stained the Vintage Side Table

So, once upon a time I lived on a Navajo Reservation. I got almost all of my furniture at Goodwill, with the exception of the leather couch my dad bought me at basically an abandoned warehouse in Gallup, NM called Big Bears Furniture Depot or Big John's Things and Other Stuff or something.

After my first year, this kid Josh moved from the Reservation to a real place like California and he gave a lot of his crappy stuff away.
He piled up everything on his porch and was like "Hey guys, I'm leaving stuff I don't want on my porch."
I acquired a really beat up vintage side table and a crooked wooden stool. When I left the Rez, I gave a lot of my stuff away, included the crooked wooden stool, but brought the table with me to Alabama.

The table was a...meh... color, beat up, and bothered me with its 70s-ness. I hated the table, but it's still a table, you know? And who am I that I think I'm too good to need this table. I can put things on it. And you can lift off the top and there's this little tray inside, which is nice. Also, it's real wood and not particle-board or something, so, a win there.

Here is the top of the table before. It had tons of scratches and marks and sadness.

The bottom of the table before. 

It still had some varnish and clear coating on it, especially on the lower part and the tray.

So I sanded it. A lot. 

A LOT OF SANDING HAPPENED. 

It would have probably been a lot easier to strip the table instead of cleaning and sanding it. 

But stripping furniture is frightening. Also, it was a zillion degrees outside that day so 

sanding inside > using chemicals outside

 

 (Ever noticed that my dog finds his way into a lot of the photos on this blog? I don't know how, but I think he senses the camera. Also, he's very clingy.)

I bought Minwax "Jacobean" stain. It's the darkest stain that isn't black. 

Here's how staining works:

1. clean and sand wood

2. brush on even layers of stain in the direction of the wood

3. wait for a few minutes...like 5...or 15 if you want to give it more time

4.  wipe off the stain with a cloth that doesn't have a lot of lint....

5. Repeat, or don't. It's up to you. 

I don't know what I thought staining would be like, but it wasn't really what I expected. I guess I thought you brush on the stain and it dries and you're done. I had no idea you have to let it kind of soak into the wood then take it off?

I did not, repeat, did NOT sand this enough. The parts that weren't bare enough and took about 2 days to dry and I felt very foolish because I wanted instantaneous results. 

Anyway, here's what that looked like after the first stain:

After the second stain:

After it fully dried, which took way longer than it should have if I had just followed directions, I put on the first clear coat of polycrylic.

After I brush on the first coat, it dried, I sanded out the brush strokes, and put on another layer.

 After it was fully dry.

BAM! done.

DIY Project: Prime and Paint Gross Bookshelf

Things I know (not a comprehensive list):

a. I have no money.
b. I want my house to look nice.
c. I want to have cute things in my house.
d. I have no money.

A solution to problems a and d is to buy cheap stuff.
A solution to b and c is to make that cheap stuff look nice.

I saw a bookshelf at a thrift store. It was $5.88.

And I was all like "Hey, I should buy this ugly bookshelf and paint it a nice color and put it under the wall of picture frames in my house!"

...and so I did. And so I did.

Here is the before!

I know. 

Right now, you are all like "Betsy, why did you buy this?" 

Because it was 5 dollars and 88 cents.

The first thing I had to do was clean it. You can buy a spray to do that. So I sprayed the stuff on. I wiped it off. Boom.Clean.

The next thing I had to do was sand the crap out of it. Because the surface was uneven and weird. So I did that. That took longer than I wanted, but eventually I evened things out.

I got some primer. I painted on a coat with a paint brush.
Waited an hour.
Sanded the primer.
Waited 2 hours.
Sanded it with a really fine sandpaper. (to get some larger brush strokes out)

I probbbbbably didn't sand it as much as I should have, but these things happen.

This is what it looked like after the primer:

I bought high gloss black spray paint because I wanted it to be shiny.

This is what it looked like after first coat:

And after the second coat:

In its new home, empty.

In its new home, with THINGS, you guys:

(Ed. note: I just piled a bunch of stuff in there.Other things will end up filling the shelves. I know we were all very concerned.)