Vintage Door Knob Wall Hanger

I hope everyone is entering the Dremel Giveaway! You have until Tuesday to enter! 


I worked on a little project last week that I think is really fun. I've mentioned in the past that our old home was a gift that kept on giving; well even though we don't live there anymore it's still giving me supplies for projects today!


When we moved in I found several old door knobs leftover from who knows when. 

I had been wanting to make a coat/ purse hanger with them but wasn't sure how to attach the knobs to wood. It wasn't until I saw this post on Infarrantly Creative that I found the answer. She used this resin mixture to fill the holes in the knobs, luckily I had some leftover from another project I was able to use. It's easy to use but messy. It comes with two resins that you mix equal parts of, then pour in the knob holes and let it dry. 

Other materials you will need:

Vintage Door Knobs

Hangar Bolts (a screw with points on both sides- I had to ask around the store to find out what they were)

Two Part Resin

Drill and bit

Clear Tape

Disposable Cups and stirring sticks

Locking Pliers

1. Use the clear tape to cover the hole that is in the knob. Press it down and make sure it sticks well.

2. Mix equal parts of the resin in the mixing cups and stir. Pour it into the holes of the knob and fill it all the way up to the top.

3. Once the mixture has cured overnight it's time to drill. Use a drill bit that is slightly smaller than the hangar bolts your going to use.

4. Use the pliers to screw the bolt into the resin. This was the toughest part. I had to put some rubber gloves on the be hold the knob tightly while screwing the bolt.

Once that was over it was time to ready my wood backing. I used some more of the pallet wood I had leftover from my sign projects and stained it a dark walnut.

I drilled 3 pilot holes then screwed the knobs into place.

All done!

I really like the look of the brass knobs with the stained wood. I have it hanging near the door for now to use for hanging my purse, hats, scarf, whatever!

The resin is a great technique to use for repurposing old knobs. If you don't want a purse hanger you can use them for knobs on drawers, screw them straight into the wall, whatever!

What would you do with old knobs?

Linking Here

Out with the Old and in with the ....Old

So I finally finished our "New" TV credenza (Get the back story here). This was one of my first wood finishing projects. Usually when dealing with wood furniture I just paint the piece, but this project involved stripping and sanding. It was tough but the final product was worth it!


Here's the before piece; a dresser I bought off Craigslist about 2 years ago that we had used in Con-Man's room. It came with a mirror and everything!

And here it is now! All freshly painted and stained serving as our "new" TV credenza:

Like I said, it was a long process to get it to this point but well worth it. I started off by stripping the old paint off the drawers using a paint stripper.

I followed the directions on the can- you just brush the stripping solution on, wait about 10 minutes for the chemical to work, then scrape it off. I used a scraper with a metal edge. I tried using one I bought from Walmart that was cheap and had a plastic edge, but it didn't work well at all.

Most of the paint came off pretty easily, but some of it did not. 

My original hope was to strip off the paint and use the original wood stain underneath. But the paint came off unevenly and some of the veneer came off as well.

So I ended up having to sand everything off completely on all 8 drawer fronts. Hooray... Once that was done though the wood looked pretty nice. I was about to stain it when I noticed something- when I was using a damp rag to wipe off the dust from the sand the wood had a nice color to it. I liked it and decided to forgo staining and just put a clear coat of poly.

I skipped the water based poly because it was more expensive, but I wish I had shelled out the extra bucks because this stuff smelled! I put 3 coats of Semi-Gloss poly on each drawer. I tried using a brush meant for staining on the first coat but it left brush marks. So for the 2nd and 3rd coats I used a foam brush to ensure a smooth finish. 

Once the drawers were finally done I moved on to the credenza. I gave it a light sanding to even out the finish then rolled on a white primer/paint combo.

I rolled on 2 coats of the white paint letting it dry completely between coats.

My original plan was to buy new hardware. The hardware that came with the credenza was a brassy color that I had spray painted silver when I first bought it. But the only places in our town that sell hardware are Walmart and Ace- neither place had anything that caught my eye. (The things that did were too expensive). So for the time being I reused some spray paint I had from another project and repainted the knobs to go with the new finish.

To make the piece functional for it's new use I removed drawers that were behind the center doors and drilled holes in the back of the credenza to accommodate wiring.

All the drawers are perfect for storing DVDs and other things that seem to accumulate in our living room.

I love the newly finished wood and the way it contrasts with the fresh white paint.

Now that our credenza is looks all good and snazzy I need to get started on reupholstering those orange chairs! 

Linking here

"New" TV Credenza Progress

I feel like I've been out of the loop, like I was missing my arm or something- the Hubs went to a conference this week and took the computer with him! Ugh! So frustrating only being able to use my IPhone for internet use. But, he's back with the computer and all is well again. And if you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed that I've been up to something this past week.


In our old house we had hung our TV above the fireplace, which worked for that room. In our new house the fireplace mantle is taller, and I didn't want to drill large holes in the wall since we're renting. So I needed something to place our TV on. 


So I stole this credenza out of Con-Man's room.

I had bought it off Craigslist when I was doing his nursery. It was a dark walnut color and has a mirror that goes with it. I had painted it white because I used it as a changing table and it held all his clothes since the Hubs had to use the closet in that room since the one in our master was to small. It worked great for that purpose, but in our new house we have plenty of closet space and there's lots of room for Con-Man's clothes in his closet plus some. So instead of taking up floor space in his new room I'm repurposing the credenza in the living room.

I wanted to give it another update though. I thought stripping off the paint and re-staining the wood would give it a rich sophisticated feel and would go well with our furniture and the wood fireplace in the living room.

So that's what I've been up to this week:

Stripping

More Stripping

Sanding and Sanding the night away

With some success!

I still have some finishing touches to work on, and I'm looking for some new knobs since the spray paint isn't coming off of the old ones very easily. Hoping to have this baby finished and ready to show off this weekend!

Coffee Table Part 5: Table Tops!

Thanks for all the nice comments on my new tables! They certainly were a labor of love. But now that I know more about building them I'm more confident to take on other furniture related projects. In the meantime though; as promised, here is the final step of how I went from this:

to this:

I last left off with just the frames painted:

After the frames were all welded and painted the last step was making the wooden tops. My original inspiration tables are made of old railroad ties, so I wanted the tops to have a stained and aged wood look. 

I debated on buying old wood planks or buying new and making them look old. In the end it was easier and less expensive to buy the wood new, so I went over to my local Home Depot and took a look around. I decided to splurge and buy the nicer grade pine since I was staining it. Helpful Hint- always pull out the boards your going to buy and look them over. Make sure they are not warped or are damaged. And keep in mind that wood is labeled in "nominal" inches (ex-  an 1" x 8" wide board) but is cut in actual inches (a board labeled 1" x 8" is actually 3/4" x 7 1/4").

I had the guys at Home Depot cut my boards down to size. sometimes they charge for this and sometimes they don't, I think it depends on if they feel like writing it up or not...

I wanted the tops to be extra sturdy so I needed to join the board together end to end. Unfortunately I don't have a Kreg Jig (like the fabulous Anna White) or a biscuit joiner, so I settled for the next best thing, Liquid Nails that I had left over from my bathroom remodel!

I ran a bead down the the ends of the center board, then laid them on top of the table and made sure they were all in line and even. Then clamped them tightly together and weighed the whole thing down with heavy books; this way the boards wouldn't bow up.

I left it like that over night. In the morning, even though I had wiped off the excess Liquid Nails some of it still seeped through. So I tried scraping and sanding it off- it was a pain! Lesson learned: keep an eye on your project at all times!

After I was through with that I went onto the next step of making my extra sturdy wood tops. I used something called a mending plate on the underneath of the table top to further help join the wood together. I marked where I needed to put the screws then predrilled the holes so as to not split the wood. Then screwed them all on. 

I used 8 evenly spaced for the large table top and 4 for the small one.

I choose to adhere the tops to the frames before I stained them, I'm sure you could go either way this just seemed easier to me. I used the metal drill bit on my drill and drilled several holes on each of the table frames. Then using 6x 1 1/4" wood screws I attached the tops to the frames.

I gave the tops a final fine grit sanding and then cleaned them off really well with a cheese cloth. Then it was time for the staining! I haven't stained a lot of wood before, I usually just paint it. So I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing. I choose to use a Purdy Paint brush specially made for stain and choose a Minwax Stain in Dark Walnut.

I made sure to paint in the direction of the wood grain and did a small section at a time, wiping off any excess as I went along with a paper towel. I let the first coat dry completely overnight before applying a second coat.

Once all my stain coats were done and dry I sealed it with a rub in sealer also from Minwax. I bought the satin sheen because I didn't want it to be all shiny and new looking, I liked the natural look of the wood. I did 3 coats of this since I have a feeling the tops are going to receive a lot of abuse. I used the rub on kind because I didn't want to risk leaving brush marks on the wood. It goes on easily, I just wiped it on with a soft rag.

I also tried to add some vintage wood style details:

And then all done!! Overall the cost was about $100 for the steel, stain grade wood, and supplies. Not bad considering I had originally seen them selling at Anthroplogie and Viva Terra for $399-$599 respectively. Boo Ya!

I just want to say that if you really want something, and you put your mind to it you really can accomplish what you want. These tables are truly a testament to that! If there's something your not sure of how to do do research! Look online, ask the guys at Home Depot, ask a friend or neighbor if they have any insight. That's a big part of how these tables came to be!