Furniture Refinishing

This year, I have a lofty goal, as I described in an earlier post. I want to learn how to refinish furniture. There are so many helpful blogs out there that show how to refinish furniture, and it's given me hope that I, too, can someday do this.

This sofa table is just about the most awesome refinish I've seen yet. I'm not a turquoise furniture kinda girl, but I just LOVE this!

From This:

 {photo credit: Brooke@ All Things Thrifty}

to this:

{photo credit: Brooke@ All Things Thrifty}

Isn't that just fabulous? I love how she stained it with black to make the details really pop out.  Brooke & Kallie at All Things Thrifty have such wonderful projects, and fantastic tutorials, as well as selling some of their pieces. Check it out if you haven't!

Gwen is someone I've "known" online for a few years. We first met at Gather, and she's just a wonderful person! She's also a very thrifty decorator and refinisher, taking pieces found at yard sales & thrift shops, and even roadside treasures, and turning them into gems for her home.

She took this:

{photo credit: Gwen@ Murphy Grace Home}

And turned it into this:

{photo credit: Gwen@ Murphy Grace Home}

So, my main project ideas to start off with will be simple. I have 2 bookshelves that are real wood, real sturdy, and real ugly. They are just stained, so the wood collects dust like nobodies business. And you can't dust them, because the roughened texture of the wood. It just traps it there. I want to sand them both down, fix up the one quite a bit first, pain them, and seal them so they have a nice glossy finish.

With the one book shelf, I also want to add hinges to the top, and attach a bulletin board. That way, it's hanging, it can hide some of the storage mess behind it, and be out of the way. That will then become major storage for my craft area. The other one will become book movie storage, and swap places with the one I want on my side.

One other project I'm contemplating... well, two really. I have a dining room table I love. It's huge. It has self-storing leaves, which makes it heavy, heavy, heavy. It's a honey color, and blends in with my dining room, which has faux wooden floors (they came with the house, and I hate them in that room), and tan walls. Blah. Yes, that whole room is blah, and yet, when we moved in, I loved it.

This is how it is now, except the rug is under the table. The room is HUGE, which is part of the problem.

This is how we had the room when we first moved in. However, once winter hit last year, we realized that having the table right there made more of a mess of everything when we walked into the house. We do not use the door you see open. The door we use is immediatly to the left of the photo.

A blah, beige room, taken before moving in. The door you see to the right is the back room, which we use for storage. The room I was standing in is the nook, which we use for the kids computer, and a fish tank.

This is the opposite corner, by the other back door. The step-up area is the nook, and that's the outside door we use to enter and exit the house. I wish the door were hung the opposite way, so it opens to the left instead of the right.

Here is the western wall of the dining room. The left door is the main bathroom, the right door is the back storage room.

These built in shelves are right next to the nook.

This sits against the wall in between the bathroom and back room.

All in all, I hate the dining room. Given the size, I almost wish it were our living room. However, the actual living room is also too large for a dining room, and is carpeted, which I hate for dining rooms. The kitchen, while being an "eat in" kitchen, is likely too small for the dining room table, unless we keep it at it's smallest at all times.

Anyway, here's my ideas. I want to paint, first of all. I'm thinking a deeper tan color with red undertones, a rich earthy color. The trim work would be... well, I'm not sure. Probably a pale cream color, not flat out white. Next, I want a black dining room table set. Chairs and table both, all black and glossy. I would add curtains that are black at the top foot or so, and khaki from there all the way to the ground. We have two extremely large windows back there, which are currently open to the public, because the blinds were broken, and we finally removed them a few weeks ago.

The hutch I have, I want to keep. I want to paint it a deep red color with some black staining, I think. My only problem? It has a tile top. Can that even be painted? I have no idea. They are white, but grubby looking with some small cracks that have collected dirt over the years that can't be scrubbed away. I think if I can paint the tile, I would make it black to tie in the deep red with the black staining.

I also want to make a bench for the room, for the kids to use when putting on or taking off shoes, and to store shoes under.

{Photo credit: All Things Thrifty}

This bench was made from a sofa table chopped down over at All Things Thrifty. I think I can find a coffee table at Goodwill that will work for this, though, since sofa tables are harder to come by. That, and I don't have a saw or access to one to cut the legs down.

I would put the bench tight against the step into the nook, since it's a wide open wall, and there's a good 3 feet between that wall and where the door is. Plenty of room for the bench, and room for the door to open up just fine.

I'm half tempted to do the dining room before the bedroom, but since the table needs to be refinished, and the hutch, it feels like that room would be a LOT more work, you know? At least, for my first big project. But, on the other hand, it would be FAR easier to get started, since I could do the painting of the room itself with little or no moving items around, and at get the curtains up, then work on items for the walls before it warms up enough to take furniture outside to sand and paint.

Anyway, goals, goals, it's all just goals. Let's hope I actually get it done. ;)