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!

Sight Seeing in Seattle

Hello all! Hope everyone is doing well in these last few weeks before school starts again. We got back from out Washington Trip this past weekend. I'm am still incredibly grateful for the opportunity to go there. We were told that we scored the last available Space-A spots on the plane. This is one perk of being a military family I'll have to take advantage of more often!


Before you get to green with envy this is the type of plane we flew on:

It was a cool experience, but notice that there are no windows on the plane? That was interesting. And there were no real seats either- we sat on nylon slings that ran along the walls on the plane. And the cabin wasn't pressurized, so once we got to cruising altitiude it got really cold! But beggars can't be choosers and it was neat to be able to take Con-Man to see the cockpit and talk with all the guys working on the plane.

We were fortunate enough to know some friends in Seattle so we stayed with them and they showed us all the sights. First stop was the famous fish market downtown.

We also walked by the original Starbucks. I wanted to go inside and get some coffee but the line was a mile long. 

Space Needle!

I wanted to go to the Frank Gehry Experience Music Project Museum, mainly to just look at the building; but we didn't have time. We did drive by though.

Photo

We got out of the city for a few days and visited Washington Wine Country.

And we spent a night at Mount Rainier. We rented a small cabin and showed Con-Man some cool sights. The only bummer was that it was really cloudy both days we were there and we didn't get good pics of the mountain.

Our cabin looked small and shack- like from the outside but it was nice inside! The perfect size for the 3 of us.

We made a fire! Go us!

Using what Mother Nature gave us.

There was even snow!

We ended a our trip with a Seattle Mariners game. So fun!

And here's a little sneak peek of what I'm working on now:

Ohh!! What is it?!?!

Grillin & Chillin

Back home! We had a great time visiting our friends and seeing the sights in Seattle and Tacoma this past week- I'll post some pictures soon.


Quick side note; and I'm sure most people know this but don't go and plant a bunch of delicate vegetable plants and then jet off for a vacation for a week. Your plants will get depressed.

Even though I moved them to a shady spot in the yard that was in reach of the sprinkler they still seemed to hold a grudge against me leaving.

I'm hoping they'll forgive me and perk up with some water.

Anyway, when we got home I had few groceries and didn't have a lot of time to go shopping. I turned to my trusty grill and some frozen shrimp we had gotten when we last went to Grande Isle, LA. All I needed was some corn and zucchini to make this easy and yummy recipe come together and I thought I'd share it with you.


It's a recipe for Lemon Pepper Shrimp I found in my Prevention Magazine. 


After defrosting and shelling the shrimp I started by marinating the shrimp in the fridge for about 20- 30 minutes.

While that was going on I started up the grill and brushed some olive oil on my corn and zucchini began cooking them for the side dish. This only took about 10-12 minutes to cook.

While waiting for the vegetables to cook I prepped the shrimp for the grill.

Then just 2 minutes per side and they're done!

After I grilled the shrimp I put them in a white wine butter mixture,

Then all finished! I really liked this recipe, it was easy, quick, and yummy!

So easy in fact that I had time to fix up some dessert that also went with the recipe- a raspberry dessert also quick and easy.

It's just a mixture of sugar, cornstarch and raspberries, and crumbled Nilla Wafers. Then, because I have a problem where I make semi- healthy things completely unhealthy I poured the mixture over ice cream.

Mmmm! Totally worth it.

If you want to try any of these recipes yourself check them out here:

Lemon Pepper Shrimp

Corn and Zucchini with Herb Oil

Blackberry Dessert (the recipe calls for blackberries but my grocery only had raspberries which worked equally as well)

Enjoy!

Unexpected Vaca

We've only been in Oklahoma for less than two weeks but we're taking off once again. As I've mentioned we moved here because the Hubs is in the Air Force, he's the new base Pediatrician! 

He's spent the last week or so inprocessing, and doesn't start work for another week. I meanwhile am still jobless (I wouldn't say Altus is the best place for an Interior Designer to find a job but I'm still holding out hope something pops up). So we thought that this would be a good time to take advantage of one of the perks the Air Force has to offer- Space-A travel!

We'll be flying on one of these bad boys for just a few dollars each! This week the mission is to Tacoma, WA. We requested a spot and are on our way! 

We've never been to Washington and we're excited. We have friends from college there, there's a lot to do, and it's only 60 degrees as opposed to Oklahoma 100's.

We have to fly like this but it's worth it- I can't wait to go and share our adventure with you!