DIY #2 - Done!

Remember a while back when I wrote about my coffee table refinishing project? At the time I was so frustrated with how much time and effort the whole thing took that I swore it'd be years before I took on another project like that! Well, that didn't happen!

First, some background... Three years ago, when moving into my first unfurnished apartment, I purchased a little table from Target for around $15 as a temporary nightstand. Buying the necessities, such as a bed and a desk, drained my wallet and I figured I would upgrade down the road. I didn't think I'd take three years, but I'm picky and cheap - not a good combo!

A few months ago I had the week off and took the opportunity to go shopping. I passed by an unfinished wood furniture store as I was driving around. I could hear it calling my name so I decided to pop in and see what they had to offer. It just so happened they were going out of business and everything was 60% off! Who can resist a deal like that? I picked up two new nightstands for $18 each, which were unfinished but already assembled.

This time I decided to do plenty of research ahead of time, not be so stubborn, and get the job done right! The first thing I did was go out and buy wood conditioner and more of those cheap foam brushes.

Since the wood was unfinished I only needed to do a light sanding to prep the tables. I applied the conditioner just like the directions specified and was able to stain one of the tables before I got too sore from all the bending over to get to the second table. Since I conditioned both tables the first day, but didn't stain the second one, I had to re-sand it to "open up the pores" and then apply conditioner again when I came back to work on it. Both tables came out fine, but I think it was this step that caused the two tables to be slightly different in color. One table has more of a reddish tint than the other.

  
I had a lamp on when I took the right photo so the color is slightly off, but still pretty accurate. I used the leftover red mahogany stain and semi-gloss polyurethane from my coffee table project on the nightstands.

The finished nightstands side by side.

I can't wait for the day when we have a garage or better yet a workshop where I can do these kinds of projects! 

Pinhole photography, part II

The first camera I made turned out to be the best. I used a shoebox that was large enough to fit a whole piece of 8.5 x 11" paper inside. For the aperture I cut 1" x 1" squares out of aluminum cans, made a tiny hole in the center with the tip of a sewing needle, and used sandpaper to smooth the hole. Since the box was so large I put 3 apertures on my camera (horizontally across the lid).

Remember that unlike the paper you stick in your printer to print your digital photos, this type of photo paper must not be exposed to light except when taking your photo! Loading the camera meant going into the darkroom, applying tape onto the back side of the photo paper so that it could stick to the inside of the shoe box (opposite the lid), and putting the lid back on. I had to seal the box very well to prevent light leakage using black electrical tape. Then I used the back tape to make 3 "lens caps" for the apertures on the front of the box.

Here is a sketch I did of my setup. Sorry about the quality, it was my first time using google sketchup.

To take a photo I would then go to my location (close to darkroom since I had to repeat the process for each photo) and steady the camera. With my subject matter in front of the camera I would peel the black tape off of the holes and count in my head a certain number of seconds depending on how sunny it was outside. It was more or less a guessing game. I think I found that 10 seconds or so was enough time for a sunny day. After I was done taking the photo I would cover the apertures again, return to the dark room, remove all of the tape, and put the photo paper in the chemicals to develop and make my negative. Then I took my negative (the original sheet of photo paper that came from inside my camera) over to the enlarger and used a new sheet of photo paper to make my positive.

Later I experimented with other pinhole camera designs, but none were as good as the first. The second best was a camera I made out of the small box my film came in where I could manually wind film through so that after taking a photo I would wind approximately 2" of film from one reel to the other and could then take another photo. I worked really hard on this design since it meant I could take 15 to 20 photos before I had to return to the darkroom. Unfortunately, it seemed like no matter how much black tape I used some light always seemed to find a way in. Also, my high tech winding mechanism (a paper clip taped to the film canister) broke a few times and occasionally the film would break off of the reel which required me to remove all the tape and go back into the darkroom to fix it. It was a total headache!

Here's what my camera looked like as it was being assembled

Here is a photo of someone else's camera to give you an idea for how the finished product looked.

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An example of how the film would look after developing.

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And for more fun... Check out cool pinhole photos people have uploaded to flickr.

Pinhole photography

Ever since I was a little girl I've enjoyed photography. Even though I use digital now, I grew up with film and learned how to develop and process my own photos in the darkroom. In both high school and college I enrolled in photography classes as an escape from all the science and math classes I was taking. Not that I don't like those subjects, but I think it's good to be well rounded.

One of the assignments we were given in our undergraduate photography class was to take photos using homemade pinhole cameras. It was a lot of fun to do and I was really impressed with how the photos turned out. It's so simple to do (assuming you have easy access to a darkroom) - all you need is a box or something that can be sealed shut to serve as the camera body, a small piece of aluminum (from a soda can) with a tiny needle sized hole for your lens, black electrical tape to seal your box closed and prevent light from getting in, and a piece of photo paper, which you can cut down to whatever size you need.

I recently scanned in some of my photos and thought I'd share them. Our scanner is a bit old and dirty so the quality here is a bit reduced. The first three were taken with a camera that had 3 apertures which is why the subject repeats.

The last two photographs are not pinhole photos. I made them by laying the lightbulb (or in the case of the photo on the right, the broken glass pieces) directly on the photo paper under the enlarger and exposing the paper for a few seconds.

Stay tuned for more on how I made my cameras later in the week!

DIY - Headboard Edition

I've been wanting a headboard for a while now and I've finally decided to try and make my own! The first time I looked at headboards I was hit with major sticker shock. So when my old roommate and friend Megan made her own I was inspired. I may not be quite as crafty as her, but I figured it's worth a shot, especially if it means saving a few hundred dollars!

I plan to keep it simple by making a rectangular headboard, no fancy sawing and upholstering involved. It's also important to me that it be a full length headboard, not just a small version that gets hung on the wall. First, I prefer the look when you can't tell that it ends right below the pillows and second, I like to avoid putting any extra holes in the wall whenever possible.

As far as the fabric, I was envisioning a neutral fabric color such as beige or light green that is likely go with whatever bedding we have. Something like the photos below:

However, during a recent trip to Jo-Ann fabrics to get an idea what our options are Andy rejected my neutral idea in favor of something bold with a cool pattern. My main concern is that if we have a bold headboard our bedding options will be limited to a solid that compliments the headboard and finding bedding is difficult enough without any color and pattern constraints.

Now, I will admit that Andy usually goes along with my decor choices so I'm trying to hear him out on this one. I turned to decorpad to see if I could find some bold headboards for inspiration. Here are a few I found:

Never one to jump into anything, I'm still mulling over all the options. (This is where Andy would jump in and tell you about some study that concludes that too many choices make people less happy because they continue to question their decision even after they've made their selection.) In the meantime I'm also drawing up plans for the headboard and making a list of all the supplies I will need.

DIY - Done!

I'm torn - I love to decorate and to have a home which truly reflect our style, but I can be incredibly frugal. So, what's a gal like me supposed to do when we have a perfectly good coffee table that just isn't working for me? Besides a few minor scratches my only real complaint was that the color was too light for my taste and it didn't seem to go with the rest of our darker, more contemporary furniture. I decided I would try to give it some new life with a little sanding and staining.

Before I get into all the details, here are the before and after photos:

{Before}

{After)

See our beige carpet in the second photo? Before, the light coffee table blended right in. Now, it pops!

I expected this to be a quick weekend project, but it ended up taking me a month or more, off and on. First I had to sand the table, removing all the old polyurethane. I bought an electric sander which I used for the top and some of the sides and sanded the edges by hand. I'm still not sure if it was the sander I bought or my technique (the more likely of the two), but I spent at least 2 hours sanding and except for a few spots I didn't get all the way down to the bare wood. I knew I needed to get it all off, but at a certain point I stopped caring and moved on to the staining process. 

For the stain I used Minwax wood finish in red mahogany. My first mistake here was going with the stain brush recommended to me by the guy at Home Depot. The brush was fine for the top, but too wide for the rest of the table so as I tried to paint one side of the leg the bristles would bend around the corner and some stain would get on the other side of the table leg. This resulted in the stain building up near the edges. My second mistake was not wiping the stain off soon enough so the whole thing became sticky and took forever to dry. And my third mistake (yes, I made a lot of mistakes) was not using a wood conditioner before I applied the stain. When I saw the wood conditioner at the store I figured it was a waste of money, but apparently it really does help, especially for a soft wood like pine. Live and learn!

The initial color was a beautiful lighter reddish color, but due to the splotches (from lack of conditioning) I knew I needed to apply a second coat. After letting it sit for a week I figured it was dry and with some cheap foam brushes of various sizes I set out for coat #2. The foam brushes worked much better than the fancy and more expensive stain brush. 

After letting the stain dry for another few days it was time for the polyurethane. I went with Minwax fast-drying semi-gloss polyurethane. After the first coat there seemed to be a whitish haze, possibly from not stirring the can enough. After sanding the top I realized that some of the stain at the edges came off so I applied the second coat of poly to the top, but left the rest with just one coat.

The final step was replacing the wooden knobs for some more modern looking brushed nickel ones. When all is said and done I think it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect, but it was a good start and I learned a lot along the way. In fact, Andy is so impressed with my work that he wants me to tackle the bedroom dresser next! However, I've got a totally different project in mind. 

So, have you ever tried your hand at refinishing a piece of furniture? If so, how did it turn out?

Where I'm At

I'm in the process of finishing up my last post about our vacation and hope to have that done within the next couple of days so keep an eye out for that! Tweaking the photos in photoshop, resizing, uploading, and aligning everything is the time consuming part of things.

In other news, I will finally be able to take down the "Coming Soon" sign that you see when you click on that little DIY link at the top of this blog since I finally finished the DIY project I've been working on for the last month or so. Phew! Naive me thought I would have it done in a weekend! Maybe if I had properly done my research I would have, but I'm more of a dive right in type of gal. Now I just need to take the after photos and write it up! Annnd...I've already got another DIY project in mind, but no promises as to when I'll get started with that. 

And on a sadder note, my trip to Jamaica has been cancelled! I was really looking forward to going, but there were safety concerns due to the current violence that's going on in Kingston. There's still a possibility that we may go later, once the violence has died down, but it's still up in the air. The upside to all of this is that it frees me up to possibly go with Andy to visit some of his family out of state. (Andy and I have known each other for 9 years now - we started dating over 5 years ago and have been married 1 year and there are still a lot of family members I have yet to meet! Can you believe that?)