Chest of drawers makeover journey.

I jumped to the chance of getting a free tall boy drawers from some friends of ours, as they were moving away and saw the chance to lighten their load so to speak. It was a much loved item, and painted in festive bright colours and had plenty of stickers on it. I can only imagine the children having fun decorating it! It was not quite what I saw fitting with our interior so I decided to test out staining wood with tea, coffee, vinegar and steel wool. 

The reason why I chose to go that way with this furniture was; 1. I love to try out new things. 2, it is very cheap!

This was, as said earlier, a chance to try something new, hoping I would strike gold at first trial, (Not a very likely thing.) and watched as many videos on YouTube that I could find on this matter, and reading a few posts on the internet to prepare myself for the task.

(I will link a video at the bottom that will explain how and why this staining wood works, as they have already done a good job doing just that.)

What I saw most in these video's was the fact that the stains did not get that deep colour that I wanted paired with light grey paint meant for the main body of my tall boy drawers, and had heard mentioned that adding coffee to the mix would make it darker so I thought, ‘Ha! I will use so much coffee it will be super dark brown for SURE!’. Now even if that is the case, I might have gone overboard just a little. *coughs* But we live and learn.

I made my vinegar and steel wool (the soapy one.) in an old jam jar. (No pictures, sorry.) I didn’t measure it at all, it was just pouring that vinegar in until I thought I would have enough to use on my drawers, top and edge around the bottom of the chest, and I overshot that with good measure.

While that was “cooking”, I had a big job of cleaning, sanding and cleaning again, until I had reached all the raw wood that I could without ruining anything (too much anyway….) 

This would be to the right of my
work space. (our lawn is not
very big at all.)

This would be to the left of my work space.
(Ignore all that clutter and stuff. I was already
working so hard I didn't care to tidy up
everything just for a picture *le'wink* )

Some clean and drying nextto my lovely old
chairs.

Some paint that just sat too deep, it is still
there to day, but it gives the piece a charm.

Cleaning in progress.

Clean....

And there it is, my own little blue box.

Some people might think that this is
a nice distressed item, though
I prefer it painted.

Anyway, back to the case.

The cocktail were brewing for a good three days. It was still clear, though worked as a charm once used.

On the day of the staining, I boiled lots of water, because I didn’t want to run out of the coffee/tea brew, and threw in 5 teaspoons of instant coffee into my, If I had to guess, two litre warm water, and two bags of some earl-grey sort of tea. I let it sit for an hour or two before starting to ‘paint’ it onto the surfaces I had sanded and cleaned, and a slight darkness happened to the wood, (that I guess is pine wood.) but nothing as dark as I had hoped. 

Without anything on, just clean and dry.

One little layer with coffee and tea mix
but it mainly just looks plain wet
at this point really.

The top, halfway through applying the first
go with the coffee.

I knew that the coffee and tea would not stain the wood for me directly, but adding tannin to the wood for the steelwool’vinegar to react with, so after a second coat of the coffee to all surfaces, I began the real magic. Vinegar cocktail did its job.

And more pictures ensues. 

This is right after applying the cocktail.

..And this is just a few minutes after that.
something is happening. 

Painted drawers, all in a row...

.. look at the darkness starting to show!
(poetic!)

By the next day they were much darker, and I found myself surprised to find them grey, not brown. (I blame the coffee for this, not sure if I have right to blame the coffee, but I do.) 

 So I thought, ‘Hey, coffee has lots of brown in it, let’s slap some more of that stuff on top, of everything and let’s see it go gold on me.’ And I did, and I also moved them from under cover and out into the sun. That could only help, or so I thought, and well still think…

They did change from that first grey to sort of pretty charcoal like tone, and even if this was not what I had planned and hoped for, I liked it enough to not sand it down and try it again. I was out on an adventure! We do not turn and stop for a slight change in plans! 

The next step were to seal in this new, odd but interesting colour under three coats of clear polythurane. This was easy enough, and the colour changed even more with this on top of the dark charcoal like surface I had created (and please take my word for it, as the pictures I managed to take of the process was not brilliant or well done at all, the colour was simply difficult to capture.)

I loved it simply more, and the wood grains show so well through it, especially if you tilt your head in a certain angle and the light just hit it right. (I need lessons in taking pictures.)

The garage works well as work space. Out with the
cars!

 

I had never painted a furniture in my life, but I took the challenge head on and started to apply two coats of water based paint and prime, low shine paint. 

All my mess and tools in one picture.

I love the colour, even if I spent hours studying the finished product with slight fear in my eyes for days after it was completed. The dark wood sort of make the grey look sort of purple’ish, something it wasn’t supposed to be, and it was getting on my nerves thinking white might have been better, or pure grey, but my nerves have calmed all the way down to super cool now. 

All I need is some proper drawer pulls, but I have not settled on the design yet. But until then you can enjoy this almost finished chest of drawers! *Cheers*

YouTube video that will explain staining this way. This is not my video, so all the credit goes to : mossisawesome, which is the username of the video creator. Enjoy!

Update!

I finally got some hardware on, and I am quite happy about it!

No picture is complete with out dusty floor, toes and a tiny kinder-egg car.

Hubby made me a template so I could make the holes and be confident they were uniform and on the level with the rest. We used the original hardware hole as the center of the guide and made sure it was correctly placed with an angle ruler. Very smart.

And here it is! I think the silver handles fits well with the whole thing. 

If you want to look at my other makes, feel free look at the Buffet and Hutch I painted.

The old Loved chairs.

This is the short story about how I did not refurbish these old, well used gems that I bought one day for 60 dollars. It is not that I think they would look good when they get some new and fresh, perhaps even stylish fabric onto them, no, I am quite sure they will look fabulous when refurbished, but I am loving them for the way they look right now.

Please forgive the photobombing of toys,
laundry basketand other items that some people just
 left behind. These pictures
were never meant for internet.

Make note of the armrests thrown in a pile on the
right side there.

The two pictures show you how they looked at first and once the first layer was stripped off. (I still have that floral fabric hidden. *shrugs* you never know…). The chairs look very similar, but they are different on the top of their backs, and their arms are shaped differently.

The white fabric was worn down and had plenty of holes in them, that’s how much they’ve been sat in, and they weren’t really clean so I tried my best to make them clean so we could use them for the upcoming ‘40 year birthday/ baby princess is born/ meet my family from Norway / we got married / family party’, party. We needed chairs.

I knew that they were probably very retro underneath it all, but I dared not start to pluck the nails that held the fabric in place, in case it would show to be even worse than the white. And the fact that mom wanted to help making them pretty made me leave them alone. They lived under some knitted blankets for a while. This blanket is especially dear to me, as it was knitted by my now late Granny.

And so we fast forward in time. Mom is here, (yay *cheers*) and we started to study the way the fabric had been put on, thinking we would use that knowledge to make the new covers. (Yes, I still have the white fabric somewhere too.)

We made sure to document said corners and the likes, and as we revealed the fabric underneath we started to get very excited. It was almost perfectly flawless on both chairs.

This is where my heart started to beat a little faster, I do love old and retro stuff. Mom appreciated the quality, even if she had lived with items of this sort previously in her life and felt a bit bored with it, she thought it was too sad to cover them back up again, when they are in such a good condition.

Note that this one is a bit
flat on top of the back.

Note that this one is more curved
ontop of its back.

And even if they are a bit different from each other, the fabric is still the same. We do not know if they were bought different like this, and that the fabric is original, or if they were bought with different fabric as well and had someone change the upholstery sometime along the way. It looks very professional.

Mom found some of my yarn to match the colour of the chairs and patched up the hole. I had a hard time finding it to show you, it is quite well done. She spent a while doing this.

The chairs came with some big pillows the previous owners used to sit on top of, or use as back supports. We washed them in the machine and made new, very durable, pillowcases, and they are now being used in the rumpus room as extra seating or whatever the kids  might come up with. 

I might show them later sometime.

And that was the whole story really. The fabric we bought for the chars are still unused. Perhaps one day we will make those covers as first intended, but until then they will be as is. 

I think they are gorgeous.