We all love a freebie

My workshop has been a huge source of excitement for me because it means that I can now build all those wonderful projects on the  'Ana White' website that I've drooled over for months but lacked the real space to be able to get started. Space is no problem now though and with everything pretty much sorted and put away I'm ready to start hammering and drilling.

But first........

One of my daughters works at a local department store and I've been the lucky recipient of plants and hardware that was destined for the tip - all free of charge. The latest exciting load included plastic crates full of tester pots of paint, mainly Crown but also Laura Asley and Farrow and Ball. Luckily my daughter was also renewing her bedroom furniture at the time so I inherited an old (well not that old really) chest of drawers that was the perfect size for all these pots of paint. The drawers are a cheap Argos make so I had to reinforce the bottoms etc first but lookit

 3drawers full of Crown tester pots.

1 drawer full of Dulux tester pots

Loads more tester pots waiting to be sorted and hung.

I am going to have a field day making colourful bird houses this year. While emulsion paint cannot survive outside alone, coat it in outdoor varnish and it's good to go.

While we're talking freebies, look what else my daughter got, though she did have to pay £1 for each case this time - a saving of around £98 so well worth it. She got 2 for me and 2 for my husband and these could not have come at a better time because I was close to buying a set of 'Drillall' drillbits from a shopping channel despite dubious reviews online. 

I must also show you the handle to the door of my workshop. I couldn't find a proper pull down handle in any of my tool boxes nor Mr CH's toolkits but I'm way too tight to consider buying one at ridiculous prices or waiting 3 weeks for delivery from online shopping - I want what I want when I want it! Nosing around Mr CH's now 1/4 smaller workshop (due to my moving in ;) ) I found an old bricklaying trowel - least I hope it's old and figured it would make a cute door handle

Shabby Shelf

Projects have been a tad slow for me over the last wee while. I have loads of ideas and inspiration jingling around in my head but it tends to get to the point where I have so many projects going on that none of them actually get finished - how many others suffer from this infliction I wonder?

Anyways I've had a project for the hallway planned for ages. I wanted to make a pinboard from an old frame, a shabby shelf with hooks and some kind of table for underneath.
The pinboard idea has changed numerous times and is now nothing like a pinboard nor is it finished.
The table for underneath the shelf is still sitting in the shed and still looks exactly like what it is - a pine chest of drawers.

The Shabby shelf however is complete - Tada!

This entire shelf started out in life as a drawer - yep a drawer! A drawer that came from the pine chest I was given and the remainder of which will make a nice little table for below the shelf.

Basically I took 2 drawers apart, took the pine knobs off the front and used the fronts as the shelf ledge.
The first one I did I painted 'Patio Brick' and then went over with 'Oyster' from Laura Ashley paints (I picked up a tester pot for 50p).
Unfortunately when I sanded it down for that shabby look it ended up looking pink - so not the look I was going for. I'm not sure if it was the sanding down that created the Pink hint or the Laura Ashley paint having a pinkish tinge to it, either way - Urghhhh!
So I sidelined that shelf and then made another one, this time painting it 'Cloud White' and 'Oyster' and then sanded it down for that shabby look.

For the corbels I got the idea from a fabulous website called 'Not just a Housewife'. I'd bookmarked those corbels intending to make them just like Stacy but for the life of me I could not get one to resemble the other and lost patience. In the end I decided to use them as end brackets instead.
I cut these corbels from scrap wood with my trusty Dewalt jigsaw after I made a template by drawing the shape on paper first, cutting it out and using these to draw round.  They then got the same treatment and paint colours as the shelf top.

The back board was the back board from the drawer I took apart and made the shelf with.

Next I painted 3 of the pine knobs from the drawers in 'Patio Brick' and sanded them back a tad before fitting them to the back board.
During this process I came up with a simple idea for holding the knobs while painting them. Up until now I would awkwardly hold them, drop them more often than not and have to paint or spray them in sections.
So I drilled 3 extra long screws all the way through a piece of scrap wood (the sides of the drawers) and then screwed the knobs on making it super duper easy to paint and not having to sit on anything while they dried. Seemples!

 

Remember the shelf I first did that turned out Pink?  Well I didn't want to just waste it so I joined it back to back with the new shelf top and it gave the ledge that chunkier look - score!

So there you have it, my new shabby shelf.

Thanks for taking a look.



This post is linked to:

'Finding Fabulous'
'The Shabby Nest'
'Miss Mustard Seed'
'Craft Junkie Too'
'Thirty Handmade Days'
'Remodelaholic'
'Craft Envy'
'Nifty Thrifty Things'
'My 1929 Charmer'
'A world of crafts'
'Craftomaniac'
'Keeping it simple'
'The southern institute'
'Ginger Snaps Craft'
'DIY by Design'
'Under the table and dreaming'
'Not Just a Housewife'
'Sassy Sites'
'Funky Junk Interiors'

From yuk to Plum

So, I've been working on revamping old furniture for our new bedroom and I've just finished the second to last piece - just one more piece to go.
The colour theme is cream and Plum but you'll  have to take my word for that as the photos are showing more of a White/Purple theme.
This last piece was a dodgy old set of drawers I happened upon in a charity shop for £20. I loved it straight away but dithered about paying £20 and so walked away from it. All that night I regretted it and so the next day my very patient husband took me back to the town so I could snap it up - a well made six drawer set for £20, what was I thinking of walking away!
So this is the drawer set as it was

Yup, typical old fashioned grotty brown set of drawers straight from the sixties. The handles were bad enough (plasticky by the way) but just look at those awful ball feet and they weren't easy to get off either.
But get em off I did followed quickly by those awful handles *TOP TIP - number the drawers in sequence as you remove them, it makes replacing them sooooooo much easier * and then I set about sanding the whole thing down mainly to get a decent surface for the paint to key to.
The surface was in a good condition considering its age and the fact that it's probably seen alot of movement over time, just a few surface scratches that needed a bit of filler.
During that process I decided I didn't like the legs of this piece - even without the ugly ball feet - and so I   added a plinth to  the front. I wasn't too worried about the sides having a plinth because once it's in its final position (an alcove) it won't be seen.
Enter the Dewalt cutter - yes, the fun part!
I drew the pattern I wanted on some paper and then transferred it to the MDF and cut it out.

Gave it a really good sand down and then screwed it to the bottom of the drawers (using good old countersunk plasterboard screws). Next I filled over the top of the screws with wood filler and once dry sanded it all down till smooth.
BUT I then decided I didn't like the pattern I had just cut out. These drawers are very rectangular and the new handles I'd chosen were square so why on earth did I do such a poncy curved pattern! Oh well, I left it and just hoped it would grow on me - it hasn't!

I wasn't about to change it now though so I'm stuck with it!
Next the whole thing was primed as were the drawer fronts and sides followed by a light sand ready for painting.
And so to the painting: On the last piece I redesigned I 'discovered' painting with a sponge as opposed to a brush. I like the sponge finish because there are no annoying brush strokes, however this time I ran out of patience with it, it was taking too many coats just to get a cover so after 2 sponge coats I did a decent brush coat, lightly sanded between coats and then gave it  a final sponge coat.
I then gave everything 3 sponged coats of floor varnish because it'll probably get alot of knocks.
The drawers had the same treatment except for a different colour of paint obviously.
I then added the drawer pulls to the front - I had to buy these pulls though because I couldn't find 8 matching in my box of goodies (need 8 because I'm currently doing the matching wardrobe) and I managed to pick these up for 0.99 each. As they were silver coloured I had to  prime, spray and laquer them with the same colour car paint spray I had used on the other pieces of furniture.
I have to say that these pulls were really awkward to fix on. Underneath them they have a couple of pins that dig into the wood as they're screwed on from inside the drawer - a fab idea but it meant that I couldn't make adjustments to them to make them straight at the point of them being tight but loose enough to move (if you get me). I had to be spot on from the start which is difficult on your own.
Once that was sorted though I just had to get it indoors and put it all together.
*small problem* Despite me checking the running of the drawers at certain stages, when I got them indoors 2 of them wouldn't close (see the piccie). I was tempted to take it straight back out and sand them down but I suspect the wood has drawn in moisture from the air in the workshop - it's happened before- and therefore I've decided to leave it a week or so indoors and see if they shrink as they dry out.
Fingers crossed!
Anyways this is the finished deal:

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.




This post is linked to

'Under the table and Dreaming' 
'The Shabby Nest'
'The Southern Institute'
'Chic on a shoestring decorating'
'Tip Junkie'
'Delightful order'
'Happy Hour Projects'