Campaign Side Table

I've never met a piece of campaign furniture that I didn't like.  They're classic and modern - easy to paint, and easy to sell.  Okay - I don't like the cheap-o particle board/laminate ones.  But if it's wood, and reasonably priced, it's coming home with me.

Last Friday, the boyfriend and I found ourselves childless and commitment-free.  Shockingly, he suggested going thrift store shopping - together.  I was already in the car before he finished the sentence.

We spotted this bad boy at the Salvation Army.  The tag read $30, but there was also a sticker on top that said "As Is $3"!!  We called someone over and he instantly dashed our delight by ripping the tag off and saying, "Oh, this is not right."  But he mended our broken hearts (okay, maybe only my broken heart - I'm sure the boyfriend was fairly neutral about the entire transaction) by offering it to us for $10.  Sold.

Later we stopped by Lowes and I picked up a $3 quart of OOPS paint - a lovely dark charcoal color in semi-gloss.

There were fairly significant gouges where the bottom brass plates were missing, as well as on the top.  While at Lowes, I had also finally picked up wood filler in a tub.  I've been using wood filler in a squeeze tube that I bought when I first started working on furniture.

Talk about a nightmare to use.  The tub is so much easier and faster.  So if you're in the market for some wood filler - get the tub.  I always resort to using my fingers anyway to get a nicely filled gouge, then just sand off the excess after it's dried.  Does anyone else do this?

So after wood filling and sanding, I gave the table three coats of paint.  I took off the brass and polished it with Brasso.  I left off the brass corners since I didn't have the bottom two - hopefully I'll find a piece I can use them on in the future. 


Closest picture to actual color.

I love how the gray looks with the brass.

My lame attempts at styling - you can laugh, I don't mind. (And yes, the lamp in the background is hideous - but it was free and I have yet to replace it or the other three that match even though I haven't liked them since I first got them about 6 years ago.  The downside of free stuff - it's always more expensive to replace.)


Sorry for the super crooked pic.

If I was going to buy this color - It would definitely get it in a satin, not a semigloss, because it hides the brush strokes better.  But I can't really complain for $3.

My total investment so far is $14.08 (after tax).  I listed it on Sunday on Craigslist for $40, but I haven't had any bites yet.  Not sure if it's the piece, or just the fact that it's the end of a very expensive month (end of summer/back to school shopping/high electricity bills).  I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't sell.  I think it would be perfect for my son's room.  But don't tell the boyfriend that.

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.