Bedside Tables - After

They're FINALLY finished!

Silly me, I thought this would be a fairly quick job. (Don't I always think that?)  Unfortunately, they took two weeks to complete from purchase to listing - but that's what happens when it's 108 degrees.  I didn't want to move my workbench (who are we kidding - it's an air hockey table in the garage) into the house, so that meant my time was limited to really early and really late.  And I don't wake up really early if I can help it.  I don't even like waking up kind of early.

Remember the before?

Here they are now!

As I mentioned in this post, the wood was incredibly dry and the finish was peeling and flaking off.  I completely sanded the old finish off the tops and stained them a beautiful color:  Minwax Jacobean.

It was my first time staining and one top looks fantastic (pictured below), the other was a little splotchy.  I probably should have used wood conditioner.  Live and learn.

The goal was to use supplies I already had on hand to maximize potential profits.  I'm a big fan of color, so the only white I had on hand was a quart of custom-mixed semigloss from four years ago.  I kid you not.  It was one of those cans I probably would have discarded long ago if I ever bothered to find out how to properly dispose of paint.  (I think latex is okay to just throw out, right?  I mean, I wash it down my sink.)  Sorry to disappoint you if you needed the paint color, but it's just white with gray undertones.

(Totally off topic:  Did anyone see that episode of Sarah's Summer House where her husband Alexander is joking that all of her off-whites are really just white and Sarah was trying to keep her cool?)

The bedside tables definitely needed a coat or two of primer.  But since I didn't have some on hand (and I was trying to be cheap), I skipped that step.  Which meant that I had to do about 3 1/2 coats of paint.  It stuck well because the wood was so dry, but the dryness also meant the wood soaked up the paint like a sponge.

I spray painted the original hardware with oil rubbed bronze.  I also spray painted the grates, but you can't really tell, so that was a complete waste of a couple of yards of Frog Tape (which the boyfriend brought home as a present - isn't he the best?).  I went back and forth between glazing them or not, but in the end I think the details look pretty nice without the glaze, so I skipped it.  Honestly, I'm a little hesitant to try glazing on a product I want to sell since I've never done it before.  And sometimes things are better left undone.

I listed them this morning for $150 for the pair and hopefully they'll sell around that point.  That's on the high end of what I usually sell things for, but they are very solid, wood furniture and I put a lot of work into refinishing them.  In the end, I did buy new brushes and the stain, so my total investment (not counting my time) is $45.  As a rule, I always try to get about three times my investment.  I don't always get that - especially if I resell a piece without doing any work to it (love the flip pieces!) - but it's a nice place to start.

This brings up a topic I've been wanting to kind of address.  I'm obviously not at the point in the furniture rehab business that I'm making a living.  I hope to one day make more money, but right now I'm still learning and amassing supplies, so I'm happy when my profits cover groceries for the month.  One day I'll get a paint sprayer and be able to turn over a piece in a couple of days rather than two weeks, but right now I'm okay with doing a couple of pieces a month.

I've had a few private debates with myself about detailing on this blog the amount of money I buy and sell furniture for.  I don't want it to come off as braggy in any way (although I love bragging about a good deal I scored).  I would hate for someone who bought a piece of my furniture to one day find this blog and feel like I ripped them off because they paid $150 for something I paid $45 for.  However, I'm not running a charity and profits have to be made.  I don't think this blog will ever be a go-to source for tutorials, but I want to be upfront about the money so that another mom reading this blog who is maybe thinking of rehabbing furniture themselves will be able to learn a little from my experiences.

Anyway, sorry things got so wordy.  Have a happy Friday and I'll be back on Monday to show you my latest awesome Craigslist score (this one is for keeps... I think.)

 

Bedside Tables - Before

I mentioned last week that I bought a pair of bedside tables off of Craigslist for $35.

Structurally, they were in great shape.  They had all of the hardware, the drawers and doors opened smoothly.  There were only two trim pieces that needed to be reglued, but nothing was missing.

The finish, however, was horrible.  Remember crackle finishes - well these had naturally crackled, bubbled and flaked off.  If you ran a fingernail over the finish, half of it came off with  you.

I decided to completely sand the tops to restain them. 


Night and Day difference

Once I saw how beautiful the wood was underneath, I was a bit trepidatious to start the staining process since I had never actually stained anything before.  So I left them sitting on my patio Friday night.

And it rained.

We're in Austin and going through a huge drought.  I think it's rained twice since we moved in March.  But of course it decides to rain the night I leave my freshly sanded tables outside.  I don't get really freaked out by horror movies - but I literally had to work up the courage to even look at the damage.  It was as if someone had told me there might be a dead body out on my patio.

Luckily, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  I knew I could sand out the water spots, but there was a strange black marking on one of the tables that I was really worried about coming off.  (I would have taken a picture, but I was not in my right mind.)  Throughout the morning, I kept repeating "I hope that black mark comes off."  In my head, of course.  Well, except for the two dozen times I said it to the boyfriend.

Saturday afternoon, I pulled on my big girl underwear and decided to stop worrying and just get to sanding.  It took some elbow grease, but the black spot disappeared before I sanded a big divot in the top.  I may or may not have started dancing a jig.  You can probably guess which.

Stay tuned for the after pictures.