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.)

Fireplace remodel - revealed!

If you were wondering what our first remodeling project was going to be (remembered, it had the word FIRE in it?), it was in fact our living room fireplace!

Just look at this beauty...

Lopsided mantle, smoke-stained brick and gorgeous brass front...It was in desperate need of a little love. We figured that now was a great time to love on it a bit, since soon we will want to be curled up in front of a blazing fire...but not starting at the above picture.  So, it quickly became our first project. (Remember, we've lived in this house exactly...2 weeks...I think.)

Mark started by first removing an outlet and a phone jack that was on the side of the mantle. No idea why the previous owners put them there...but they did...so we removed them. I was given the fun job of cleaning the ash out of the firebox. Once all that prep type stuff was taken care of, we got into the destruction phase which is exciting and really dirty.

We first removed all the wood around the brick, including the mantel, since we decided to replace everything. Mark then inspected the chimney and found some cracks that needed to be filled in the firebox (which will happen a little later).

After all the wood was removed, it was time to do something about that 30 year old terracotta tile. We carefully removed the glass doors (they just popped off!) and it was ready to go. Mark first tried hitting the tile with a hammer. It wasn't doing a lot of damage so he decided to take it up a notch...and use the mighty sledgehammer.  It worked (see below) and it is a miracle that he did not sledgehammer a hole through our entire floor!!  A word of advice: when you are sledgehammering tile, wear safety glasses!  Sparks were flying, chunks of tile were flying in all directions (including at our windows, Cliff, and my head)...it was pretty hazardous..so be careful!

Oh, did I forget to mention that sledgehammering anything inside a house is messy?  Well, it is!  Anyway, once that mess was cleaned up I got to start my part of the project - painting the brick!  To prepare the brick for paint, I scrubbed it up really good with hot sudsy water. I used a sponge (the kind with the rough side) and steel wool. It pretty much tore through both, but it got the job done because it looked much cleaner when it dried. Once it was dry, I applied 2 coats of Kilz oil-based interior primer, which said on the can "for brick", so I knew I was using the right stuff.

I think I look a lot like Vanna White here. Cliff, meanwhile, is doing some of his own firebox inspections. Once the second coat dried, I applied two coats of the paint we choose, Glidden's Stone White.  It's pretty much white, but with barely a hint of grey.

As soon as the paint dried, Mark began laying out the slate we picked out to be the new hearth floor (from Mark's uncle's store Portland Direct Tile and Marble).  It is called "Indian Autumn" and it has blues, greys, and taupes - it's very pretty.

Once we got that all planned out, he began to set it with thin set. We noticed that when we weren't looking, Cliff left his mark on the thin set. Sneaky goof.

It didn't take long to set 10 pieces of slate. Once that was in, it really began to look a lot different (well, the paint kind of helped too)! (We spray painted the log holders which are those two things with big rings on the front inside of the firebox...we spray painted the doors (not the glass) the same flat black.)

Then we grouted the slate with some grey color...natural grey or winter grey.  I can't remember.  It goes really well with the slate.You can kind of see on each side of the hearth an unfinished gap...we are going to fill that in with the same wood from the floor, but since we haven't torn any up, we have nothing to fill it with yet, so for now those will be unfinished gaps. Oh, and all the white splotches in the firebox are crack patches. Just thought you'd like to know...

So, dismantling, painting, and slate done. What's left?  The new mantel, of course! We decided to have a very simple mantel, much like what was already there before, so after purchasing some wood (good 'ol hemlock), Mark got to work (not that he wasn't working before...).

And before we knew it...

It was pretty much done!  Oh! And look how pretty our freshly painted doors look! After filling all the nail holes with wood filler and then sanding everything down, we were ready to stain. Which led to our next decision:

Dark Walnut    or    Ebony?

We chose...

Dark Walnut!!  And we are very happy we did.  It actually almost perfectly matches our end tables and sofa table.  Plus, it looks a little rustic, which I like.  We gave it two coats of stain and finished it off with two coats of clear satin polyurethane.

And with that, our first project came to an end.  We think it looks much better than it did before.  Here's a little side by side of the before and after (technically, after and before) for you.

One very small project down...400 more to go! But who's counting?!