Refinished Sewing Table

Hey Everyone!

With a little bit of extra time off this week, I actually finished a few things around the house!  Unfortunately, most of them are not really blog worthy, but are things that I have wanted to get done, like repainting our ceilings.  I like painting walls, especially when there is a big color change, but ceilings are an entirely different story.  The only mildly interesting before and after picture would be where I repaired some peeling paint- thrilling, huh?!  Ok, I'll spare you from that one.  


Lest you think that all of my endeavors go smoothly around here however, I will tell you that it took two days to paint the ceilings, only because for some reason it never even crossed my mind that 2/3 of a gallon of leftover ceiling paint would not cover most of the ceilings in my house (made it halfway through the kitchen...), my roller kept falling off the handle, which made paint tend to splatter everywhere, and caused me to break my 'extension pole" (mop handle) while I was trying to push it back on (my poor, trusty mop!).  Oh, and I was climbing off a chair and dunked my bare foot in paint.  Not just a toe either... I had just filled my tray with paint, so paint was nearly up to my ankle.  Just in time for the hubby to walk in and see me standing there, holding my foot over the paint tray while it dripped dry, then hop on one foot to the bathtub to wash it off.  Probably would have been worth a photo to laugh at later, but at the time I was more concerned with finding a rock to hide under (If you are going to be the self-proclaimed paint-master of the house, you really can't be caught paint-footed).

Anyway, I also finished another project to share with you- a "new" night stand for our guest bedroom.

A few years ago my neighborhood had a yard sale, and I picked up this sewing table, complete with ancient sewing machine:

  

The picture on the right kind of gives you an idea of how the table works- the machine would swing up through the hole in the top, and the front piece opens to give you access to the lower part of the machine.  I couldn't get the sewing machine to work, so I bought a new one that unfortunately won't fit in the table like the old one did.  I'm still hoping that I can use the table for storage of some kind, but it's going to take some retrofitting down the road.  

I had always planned to use the table as a night stand, but just never got around to working on it.  At some point I started sanding it, and then neglected to finish it.  So, my photos pick up with it already partially sanded (sorry!)

After sanding, I cleaned the table off and wiped it down with liquid deglosser to get off the rest of the finish.  Then I primed the whole table.

At this point, I found a can of paint that I hadn't used yet, which I remembered being a dark gray color.  I liked the idea of darker legs and lighter sides and top, because the legs have a nice shape to them that I wanted to highlight.  But, as it turned out, the color was way more blue than I remembered and it started to look like this:

 

I actually continued on from here and painted the sides a lighter blue, which I didn't photograph.  It just didn't work for this table.  I thought about finding a more gray color to continue with my plan, but decided to go safe and paint it a classic white instead.  Four coats of paint later, here she is:

Much better, huh?  I didn't want it to look pristine (I'm working toward kind of a rustic feel in this room), so I did a little bit of distressing:

And check out the handle on the front- true oil rubbed bronze (I think)!  I didn't have to do anything to it!

 

Bet you didn't even notice it in the first 'before' picture!  Isn't it neat?

So here she is, all night stand-like:

...and she can still do the sewing table thing too (sort of):

My sewing machine is carefully hiding the old sewing machine hole in the picture, but it's a little deceiving.  The new machine is small enough that it will fall into the hole if I push it back on the table where it would be, but too big to store in the table.  Bummer.

Anyway, that is one piece of furniture in my guest room that is actually in its finished state!  Only took 4 years...

Have you had any good yard sale finds that you have put to good use? Anything sitting around for a long time that you finally finished?

Oh, and yes, I am intentionally hiding the bed's headboard in these photos.  I have one modification that I want to make to it, and then it will be ready to share! Stay tuned!

Have a great week!

~Amy