Refinishing a TV Stand
I have been working on refinishing a TV stand for months. I got it for free, because someone at my apartment complex was going to throw it away. It wasn’t in perfect condition, but I knew that any flaws could be hidden by my work on it! Here’s the stand straight from the dumpster:
So to refinish it, I just sanded the whole thing down using an orbital sander wherever I could and hand-sanding the rest. I used a medium grade sandpaper, in case anyone was wondering. Then I wiped it all down to make sure the surfaces were completely clean. Finally, I painted it with a combined paint and primer (Behr Premium Plus). I put about three coats over the entire piece, but I put an extra two or three coats on the outer edges and top.
I wanted to the stand to be navy. When I went to Home Depot, there was only one paint chip that was dark enough to be navy, and it was Behr Premium Plus (590F-7 Peaceful Night). I don’t normally buy the expensive paint, but the chip stated that the color didn’t color-match well, so I sucked it up and spent the extra few dollars for a nicer quart of paint. Long story short, the paint never got to be the color of the chip. It didn’t look that way in the store, and I told them multiple times, but they couldn’t get it right (multiple people tried, and they all insisted it was right). I eventually left hoping they were right, and it was just me. After painting it, I learned I was right. I’m not saying this because I want to trash talk the paint or anything. Really, except for the color being wrong it worked really well. The only reason I put so many coats on it because I am a little obsessive at times and wanted to make sure that nothing was showing through (even though I couldn’t see anything). I’m only putting this up here in case you ever want to paint something navy. If the paint doesn’t look right, stand your ground because it’s not. Hopefully they just didn’t know what they were doing and this doesn’t happen to you! Either way, I decided to live with the new color. So far I’m liking it okay, but I still wish it was navy. Maybe down the road I’ll try again, but for now, I’m taking a break.
After painting, I just switched out the drawer pulls to something a little more fun, and I was done! Check it out:
Totally different, huh? The only bad thing about this, is now it looks like I need a bigger TV! Since you can’t see them very well in this picture, here’s a close-up of the new drawer pulls:
I got them at Hobby Lobby for 50 percent off, so they were really cheap!
In total, I spent $20 for the entire project. The stand was free from my dumpster, I had all of the painting supplies I needed except for the paint, which cost $17. Then I spent $3 on two new drawer pulls, and that was it! Not to shabby, huh?
If you read closely before, you are probably wondering how this took me months to do. Well, I spent most of that time trying to decide on a color. Then I waited until I could borrow my brother’s sander (I am still working on building up my own tool collection), and then I waited for my parents to visit so I could have help carrying the thing outside to sand it. (It is very heavy!) As far as the time actually working on it, I probably spent and hour sanding the stand and four or five hours painting it (plus dry time between each coat). Switching the drawer pulls took less than five minutes. Sound better now?
Eventually I want to line the drawer with something fun, but I’m saving that for another day. Stay tuned!
Fluffy Light
My posts have been light on the crafts and DIY posts, but I have been working on stuff. Part of the reason is some of the projects I’ve been doing have been time-consuming (such as the one I’ll talk about in this post), but the other reason is some of the things I’ve been making are gifts, so I don’t want to post about them until after I’ve given them. (Okay, they probably aren’t even reading the blog, but I’m still hesitating to post about them until after the gift giving.)
The past month or so I’ve been working bit by bit on a new light fixture to hang in my guest bedroom/office/craft room. The idea is kind of based on this Ikea light fixture, but also on ideas like this wreath made from cupcake liners.
To make my light I used a paper lantern and light fixture kit from Ikea ($5 and $3.99 respectively), approximately 600 coffee filters (I could easily have used another 100, but I was tired and decided people wouldn’t notice that I could have put more on because it would be hanging above eye sight), and a hot glue gun. I used the store brand coffee filters from Target, so they cost about $.84 per 100 (plus tax). The total cost of the light fixture was about $15, plus several hours of my time.
The first thing I did was put the paper lantern together, which was very easy. All you had to do was insert a square wire to hold the lantern’s shape.
This is what the light fixture looked like if I wouldn’t have done anything else to it. (I forgot to take a before picture at home, so here’s a shot from the store.)
Then I glued the coffee filters all over the outside of the lantern. I did this by putting my finger in the center of the filter and using my other hand to pull the filter over my finger, so the filter had a sort of “point” to it, which is where I put the glue to attach it. For the first half, I rested the lantern in a large plastic mixing bowl to keep it still. Once I had it about half done, I hung the lantern so I could finish the other side without crushing the work I’ve already done.
A quick word about the crushing comment: if you just sit the finished lantern down nicely for a short period of time, I didn’t have any problems with crushing the filters. I don’t know what would happen if you left it like that for more than I few minutes. I also wouldn’t do it while you finished the other half because you will be putting some pressure on the lantern, however small, to get the new filters to attach.
I have two tips for attaching the coffee filters. The first is just go for it. I hesitated and tried to think everything through, and that was just a waste of time. Just start glueing the things on. If you make a mistake, you can easily hide it or correct it. Just get going on the glueing.
The other tip is to not worry about getting the filters super close to each other, especially the first go around. It can get to be hard because when you move the side of a filter to get another one close to it, you can easily pull it off. I found it was better to just glue filters all over it, however close you can get without too much movement, and then go back when the glue had hardened a little bit to fill in the holes. By the time you work around the lantern once, the glue will be dry, and you can easily move the filters around to fill in holes. This method will not only help you work faster, it will also allow you to use fewer filters. If I moved around the filters on my finished product, I am sure that I could find holes to put more filters on the light. However, if someone is just looking at the lantern hanging, they won’t even notice it’s not perfectly filled.
The fixture does get to be pretty large. You could look for a smaller paper lantern somewhere else, or you could also use cupcake liners to make it a little smaller. (The nice thing about coffee filters is that they are much cheaper than cupcake liners!) Just keep the size in mind when you plan out where you want to put your light!
Once you finish glueing on the filters (which I did in spurts over several days, and it probably added up to 8 hours or so), I just put the lighting kit in the lantern according to the directions, and I was ready to hang the light! You don’t need to turn this into a light. You can easily just leave it as cool hanging decor. Below are some pictures of the light as it hangs today. Please don’t judge how it is hanging. I am living in a temporary place (I’m only here for another 6 months or so), and I didn’t have anyone to help me, so I didn’t spend a ton of time getting it perfectly positioned. It’s really hard to do that without someone on the ground telling you how to position the light!
And here’s the light turned on:
And I was feeling a little artsy, so here’s a close-up:
How fun is that picture?!?!
I would love to see one done with the coffee filters died a few different colors (or even multi-colored cupcake liners). You know, like a pink and purple one for a little girl’s room or a red, yellow, and blue one for a boy’s room. Or even just whatever colors matched the adult room it was hanging in! Unfortunately, none of my friends who would appreciate a gift like that live close enough for me to make them one (just to try it out). And while it is pretty light, it is very large, so mailing isn’t an option. If you make a colored one, please comment on where I can see photos of it! I’m really wanting to see how it turns out, because I think it could look amazing!
Who’s The Leader of Our Club?
Who’s the leader of our club that’s made for you and me? M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!
One of the things I picked up over my years working at Disney was collecting mouse ear beanies. Not in the crazy sense of I must have every kind of pair ever made, but rather in a pick the ones I like and that are meaningful to me sort of sense. Either way, I’ve accumulated quite a few pairs over the years. (Quick bit of trivia for you: Disneyland Resort in Tokyo doesn’t sell the beanie mouse ears. I was really quite sad to learn that.) With all of these pairs, I decided that I needed to find something to do with them (when I’m not wearing them, of course). I spent months looking for hat stands, but struggled to find anything that I liked. On the rare occasion that I did find a style I was willing to settle for, the price kept me from making the purchase. When I had given up hope, I did what I always do – I called my mom.
My mom happens to be a BIG DIY-er. She always made me so mad growing up. Every time I wanted something she would always respond that we could do it ourself, and it would be cheaper. Most of the time that comment was enough to make me decide I could live without whatever it was, but every so often I made her prove it. And while it kills me to say this, she was always right. True to character, my mom’s response was to make them.
So we made our way to one of my local happy places – Hobby Lobby. (I love that store!) There we picked up 20 round wooden plaques and two quarter-inch dowels, enough for 10 hat stands. Constructing the stand was super easy. We drilled a hole part of the way down on the top of one plaque and the bottom of another, cut the dowel to the height I wanted, put a dab of wood glue in the holes, and inserted the rod. That simple! The hardest part was drilling the hole, as the wood was pretty hard. Nothing a little muscle couldn’t solve! I waited a couple of days to let the wood glue dry. (I’m sure it dried much faster than that, but I wasn’t in any hurry.) Then I painted them assorted colors using acrylic paint. It took two coats for me to be satisfied with the coverage. When I was done, I had my hat stands!
I ended up displaying my ears on the tops of two bookcases. The final display is below. (No, that is not every pair I own. I also have holiday ears that come out with the rest of the decorations for the corresponding holiday.)
So I bought 20 round plaques for $.49 each, and two quarter-inch dowels for $1 each. I already had the wood glue and assortment of acrylic paints, which puts the grand total for the 10 hat stands at $12.51. (Which, by the way, was less than the price of one hat stand.) 90 percent savings – yes please!
Such Wonderful Things 