Furn with Stain

Furn is fun with an r added...or furniture for short...or just my really awesome play on words because I'll be talking both about FUN with stain and FURNITURE with stain. Wow. I can tell I blow your mind.

One of the things keeping us busy this last month has been a couple of finishing/refinishing projects.  In our master bedroom, we have a wall that I knew, one day, would hold a big honkin' mirror.  I really liked this one from Ikea when they had it in brown/black.  I loved the chunky (faux) wood frame and how big it was.  But ... it was $100 and Mark thought we could DIY our own from REAL wood (a big thing for him) for a fraction of the cost. So, instead we put our DIY hats on and bought this plain boring mirror and two hemlock 1x6 boards from the local big blue or orange for under $20.  Mark worked his magic and created the frame by using a:

miter saw
table saw
nail gun (finishing nails)
wood glue
sand paper

Once he was done with the frame, it was time to prep the wood for the stain.  We used wood conditioner to make sure the stain would go on evenly. I definitely recommend using wood conditioner, especially if you are working with a softer wood that is more absorbent.

Then, it was time for furn with stain (I know, I'm a riot).

Bad picture quality, sorry.  But you get the idea. I applied 3 coats of stain and two coats of satin polyurethane.  I wanted it to be REALLY dark.  In my master bedroom, I have some white painted furniture, but I wanted all my wood-toned furniture to be a really dark walnut-mocha-y color. And I really liked how this turned out.

And for another bad-quality, finished product picture!
Ta-daa!

There it is in all it's glory! (No, I hadn't cleaned the glass yet. Yes, those are smudges.)

The mirror was a fun project for me to get my feet wet with because I planned to next refinish a dresser I bought from Craigslist which would also go in our master bedroom.  This was obviously a much bigger project.  I had to strip the paint, sand, sand, sand, pry off the laminate top and pray it didn't ruin the wood underneath, and sand some more before it was ready to be stained.

I managed to do most of the work myself, but came home one day to find that Mark had finished off the last of the sanding, applied the wood conditioner, and started the process of staining it for me!

He said he did it because he was bored.  I think it was because he loves me and was so proud of all the hard work I put into it and he felt bad that he didn't help me with it before.  Whatever the real reason, he took over the project and three coats of stain and two coats of satin polyurethane later, I had a pretty 90% done dresser (and some more poor quality pictures)!

But, as you can see, the dresser has no handles...which is why I say that it's only 90% done - we haven't refinished the handles yet.  (The dresser's handles are very simple and wood that's painted black.)  They won't take long to refinish, but it's something we haven't gotten to yet.  Regardless, isn't it pretty?  I think so.  

The third furniture project we are going to undertake is building a master bed.  Thankfully, I found an AMAZING blog - Knock-Off Wood - run by Ana who creates furniture plans based on amazing pieces of furniture in your favorite catalogs.  We plan to tackle this bed with just a few minor tweaks to the plans. I hope to have it built before summer is over.  I'll share every step of that journey with you and let you know how much we spend on it versus what you could buy it for (plus shipping). More furn is coming your way!  (And I promise that's the last time I use that word.)