The Little Rocking Chair That Could

So this is a very delayed post. Last Christmas I was looking for something special to give to my baby cousin. I babysit him two days a week and every day he is here he sits in a little rocking chair. This rocking chair was actually mine when I was a child and he loved it so much.

To buy them new and unfinished was a bit expensive and I wanted something that I could really put my efforts into. Ask and you shall receive. I found two little rocking chairs on Craigslist! They had been painted and repainted and chipped off and just sad looking. I ended up taking them home for $15 total.

I only took pictures of one chair but they were both in the same condition.

Such a sad little rocking chair. Don't worry little fella I will fix you up.

These chairs required a lot of sanding trying to get off all tat old paint. Unfortunately the red paint seemed to be embedded in the wood. I did my best but it wasn't going away. Primer Time!

Once I had it covered in primer. I spray painted it. I started with the bottom first and worked my way to top. This required a lot of paint and wait due to the many angles that needed paint. Once all the paint was dry I put a protective coating on it.

Good as new! I gave one chair to my baby cousin and the other to my baby nephew. Every month my sister in law posts a picture of her son in this chair with a little button saying how old he is and it warms my heart.

Bench Love

I love benches. I haven't had many opportunities to create or refinish one until I came across this adorable country style bench.

I know a lot of people will say the hearts are outdated but I think they are darling.

I followed my usual prep work on this bench, sand, sand and more sanding. Then I simply stained the bench with rust-oleum weathered gray.

Viola! I even made the pillow from scrap material.

A Barrel of Fun

Last year I acquired a barrel that was used as a grocery store display. It has been sitting in my garage waiting its turn to be refreshed.

Yesterday was the first time in months that the weather was decent. My house was clean and my laundry was done. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. This was going to be barrel day.

After dropping my babies off at school, I shot on over to Lowe's picked up some spray paint and headed home to get cracking on it.

The reason I chose to go with spray paint is the wood on this barrel was really rough. There was no way it was going to be smoothed out. So to avoid drips and weird spots I figured spray paint would be best.

I started off by painting the barrel hoops white. After letting that dry, I taped them off to protect from the paint used on the body of the barrel.

The body is done in Valspar Nautical. I also mixed in just hints of Valspar Everglade Glen. It took about 3 coats to get the desired color but only one can of spray paint. When the paint dried I used an ebony wood stain and just dabbed it on. I didn't want to completely coat it. I wanted an antique/rustic/unique finish. The final step was to clear coat it. The barrel will sit outside so protection is key.

It turned out just beautifully.

**Disclaimer**Never take displays from behind a grocery store. Talk with the store manager to see if they are throwing any away. I have a relative who works for the store that gave the barrel to me and the manager loves seeing what I can do with old display items.

Wooden Spool Turned TV Stand!

I am a pinterest junkie! While browsing the DIY section I kept seeing pins using wooden cable spools. I thought some of them were pure genius, so I asked my dear husband to keep an eye out for one at work. He was lucky enough to find one for me and shortly after my sister in law's husband found some too. So here I am sitting on two wooden cable spools!

Well the remodel was getting loud and I was tired of being cooped up in one room so I decided to work on a spool. My original plan was to remove one of the slats in the center and make a TV stand. My thought process was, TV on top, run the cord down the center and out the opening where I removed the slat, keeping the cords from showing.

I started off by removing any hazards (staples, loose nails etc.). Then spent several hours sanding it down.

An important thing to remember is proper sanding is key! Especially if you plan on using the spool as furniture you want the surface to be smooth and safe.

I started off with an 80 grit sand paper, followed by a 120 and completed with a 220. The spools are raw wood and have holes on the surface so I used my dremel 3000 to sand down the inside of these holes. I used an orbital sander on the tops of the spool and my mouse sander for the sides of the top. For the slats I used sanding sponges. It is very time consuming but the finished product will look amazing!!

I was half way through staining the spool when the husband had a brilliant idea! Why not add a shelf? Not a shelf around the center slats but INSIDE the slats?? Sometimes he is too good to be true.

This is where a simple yet time consuming project becomes more complicated and more time consuming!!

After some brainstorming we went to the hardware store and picked up a 2'x2' piece of wood. We measured the inside space of the spool slats which for our spool was 15". So from the center of the wood we measured out 7.5" and made 4 marks then used a make shift protractor and drew a circle.

This is where a jigsaw would come in handy which of course we do not own. So our comes the dremel 3000 again! I attached the cutting bit and guide and cut out my circle just outside of the line. I used my mouse sander to smooth the surfaces down to the line.

The spool has metal rods inside the slats for support and we had to cut in grooves to the shelf to fit around the rods. I used the cutting bit on my dremel to create the groove and the sanding bit to smooth them out.

After some finessing the shelf was installed. We found little plastic shelf supports at the hardware store to hold the shelf in place.

This is one of my favorite projects. So much work went into it and this bad boy will be in my house forever!

Sorry for the poor quality photo. I recently was given a fancier camera to use, hopefully future photos will be better.

Hey I almost forgot I had a blog

So it has been awhile since I have written about well anything. The remodel took its toll on me. Before I knew it summer was here which meant vacations! Then BAM! It is back to school.

The kids are finally back into their school routines and temperatures are finally below 100 degrees (98 degrees woo hoo!) So I am back at the DIY stuff again. I have a lot of projects lined up and I am excited to get started.