The Dreaded Drum Table Converted-to-Michelangelo-Night Stands-Project

When I first started working on "Al Di La", my farm, I focused on the major stuff: kitchen, baths,wiring, flooring etc.

Over time, I began to address smaller projects but ones which were important to my sense of style and comfort here in my wee maison.

My Master Bedroom has been a work-in-progress for a couple years now. I work on it as I can afford to, as I locate pieces I can up-cycle and re-purpose to suit.

I had no nightstands and that was a problem. I'm a voracious reader; I read everything and then I read it again years later.  :0)

 I need room for books close to my bed.It is my habit to read before sleep each night, so of course, that means lamps, too. Lamps have to sit somewhere……so….I had some shoppin' to do.

One of my most favorite resources for pieces I can upcycle & re-purpose is my state's "Habitat For Humanity" store. Most states have one, "Google" to find one close to you. When you shop there you're supporting the building of homes for families that need help; it's a wonderful cause AND you get
spectacular deals !!!

I absolutely adore shopping there ~ My kitchen gas stove, washer & dryer came from there, going 5 years strong now, no issues, thank God, and I got all 3 for less than $400 !! Our local Habitat For Humanity store has three wondrous floors, acres of every type of household and home reno goodie you can imagine, even tools and things like doors, windows and appliances of all kinds !

For my night-stand project, I was looking for something solid, tall enough to be at bed-top level and the hardest part: they both had to match. I have two sides to the bed, after all. :)

If you have a small space, you can certainly use just one, but my bedroom is largish, so two stands were needed to frame the bed and the spectacular headboard I made for it. ( more on that later.)

Pretty boring unit, eh ? The ole' much-maligned Mediterranean drum "cocktail table", as they once called them, God knows why unless they were drinking in bed. Hey, it could happen, don't laugh.  :)

I liked that these were roomy inside, the two of them had doors that swung open wide and allowed for lots of storage. Only problem was they were too short. I fixed that, but we'll come to that in a moment.

Cost of the two tables: $18.00

I am an artist; I must be surrounded by beautiful things. When I can't afford to buy beautiful things 

( which would be most of the time) I figure out how to make them. 

My home is therefore something of a temple to Art.

For these tables, I knew I would decoupage the tops with some art posters; I chose scenes from Michelangelo's famed Sistine Chapel ceiling as posters. As with all decoupage projects, always choose the best possible paper for your posters when you order them. Cheap paper will NOT decoupage , will wrinkly badly and tear when you try to smooth it. I had to learn this the HARD way so I hope you decoupage newbies are paying attention here.  :)

So my beautiful posters arrived and I began painting my drum tables. 

Because of the dark wood I needed a highly opaque paint, or else I would've been doing forty-seven coats to achieve a good "hide" of the under color. 

This was my first experience with Chalk Paint, which I learned after some research would be my best bet for this and many other projects. Because I am naturally parsimonious, I stubbornly refused to pay $40 or more for a gallon of Chalk Paint, so I found a recipe to make your own:

Best DIY Chalk Paint recipe : 2 TBLS Calcium Carbonate in 1 TBLS water…add to 1 cup of latex paint. ONLY latex paint; this will not work with oil-based paints. I only add the water if the paint is very thick already. You will learn all paint is not created equal, therefore the viscosity differs. Mix thoroughly, meticulously ; store leftovers in an airtight container. ( I use large old tupperware). Regular paint cans will allow some air in and your Chalk Paint will soon become joint compound.

You can buy Calcium Carbonate on either Ebay our Amazon.com. Five lbs will cost you about $6.00 or thereabouts ; some sellers offer free shipping and others do not. Take your time and search the best deal you can get.   If you research any, you'll see recipes for Chalk Paint using plaster of paris. I do NOT recommend these, with time that plaster of paris sets up and your paint becomes a huge solid hockey puck. Also, if you do not rigorously, fanatically mix, that plaster of paris will cause fine lumps and sediment which is very difficult to work with. Word to the wise. 

NOTE: with many Chalk Paint project instructions you'll see directions to use wax to finish them. I strongly urge you not to fall prey to that ! Waxing absolutely guarantees your piece will draw and adhere-imbed dust like it's being paid to. Also, you must periodically remove the wax and re-wax it. 

                                               Seriously ?!? Um, no, not for me.

Just use a good polycrylic finish, a non-yellowing polyurethane. Your piece will last for generations and you'll never have to do more than just dust it.

--- on with the show….

This is what my nightstands looked like part-way through:

My bedroom is turquoise and gold. My headboard/footboard are ivory. I chose a Behr creamy ivory color called "Buff" ( <---don't ask me why they called it this, it's NOT "Buff") and made my Chalk Paint using it.  I had some leftover from another project so I can't honestly call it a cost of this project.

I painted the wood trim turquoise, same shade my Peacock Armoire has, and stenciled damask designs in metallic gold into each panel of the table. I distressed the turquoise trim a bit with a fine grit sandpaper, and used a totally dry brush to "antique" some gold acrylic paint over top of the ivory to provide more of a stylized vintage look. 

TIP: Wipe your antiquing brush thoroughly dry/clean with soft old cloths or old tee shirts between brush-loads of paint in order to keep that light, vintage-y dry brush look.

Recall I said the drum tables were too short to reach bed-level ? I got these wooden furniture legs at Home Depot, $3.88 each. They are 8" tall and I painted them with the same gold acrylic paint I used to stencil the panels of the table, also used the turquoise and emerald armoire colors on them, too. They were easily attached using a drill to make holes on the bottom of the table for each leg ( I used 4 per table), then ya just screw 'em in. ( you can't see the embedded screws in the tops of these pix, sorry )      
                                                                 Voila ! Taller tables ! :)


TIP: for added leg security, prior to screwing the legs into the holes you drilled, apply a small daub of Gorilla Glue to the holes….SMALL is the operative word here; Gorilla Glue has a wildly unpredictable coefficient of expansion and can easily wreck your project if you're not very judicious in it's use. As it dries, it   e  x  p  a  n  d  s  like crazy ! So use just the smallest bit. Screw in your legs through the Gorilla Glue and keep the piece upside down for at least 48 hrs before proceeding to the next step. Good idea to peek inside your table and make sure no excess glue is dripping or leaking, wipe any drips away with some mineral spirits on an old cloth but be careful not to remove the glue from around the screw heads.

I trimmed the table tops in the same colors as I used on the wood trim and the legs. 

Then came the exciting part: decoupaging the Michelangelo posters onto the tops.

ModgePodge really can't be beat for this purpose. You should use something like a rolling pin or a clean, unused paint roller to smooth your artwork down after you've generously Modgepodged your surface. Oh, before I forget: to provide best possible adhesion, I fine-sand and dust off the surface of any decoupage project before I begin gluing. 

So it here is, coming down the home stretch. I did two of these, exact same process, different Sistine Chapel scenes on each top.

Cost of posters: $12.00

The finished night stand…..TAH DAH !!! :)

I used about 5 coats of non-yellowing poly on the tops of each, so lamps etc wouldn't mar the decoupaged artwork. You must be patient and allow each coat to dry thoroughly ( your thumbprint doesn't show when you gently press the surface) before you apply the next coat. 

I painted the trim gold to make it stand out, kinda like a bas relief frieze, and decoupaged some gorgeous turquoise Japanese paper with tiny golden figures in it onto the door panel middle. At the very bottom edge of each table, I decoupaged narrow strips of that same paper to give it a finished look. The knobs: I gold-leafed them with genuine gold leaf; I had some on hand from another project. Lots of poly over top of those so they don't oxidize or mar with time.

This is probably a good time to say I was mightily inspired by Sofia Coppoloa's film on Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst. The furniture and decor in that film are straight-up stunning. I can't quite afford Versailles here on the farm, so I make my own.  :)

These nightstands have held up like a champ and I enjoy them tremendously. I can hide lotsa stuff in them, love, LOVE that !

Total cost of both tables: $67.04 ( means each table has a finished cost of $33.52 )

Try to buy two large arts-fartsy nightstands for that. 

I didn't include the cost of certain elements I already had on hand that were leftovers from other projects, such as the Behr Buff latex paint, the damask stencil, the gold acrylic paint, the gold leaf and the polyurethane. 

                                  The Peacock Art Nouveau Armoire Project

         It's tough to figure out which project to begin with to show you, but here we go……

Every penny I had for renovations went into house fundamentals like wiring, plumbing, tile flooring, faucets, laminate flooring etc that were contractor-installed. I kept a firm grip on the process, however, going to home improvement stores and choosing all flooring, tiles, grout, laminate etc myself. After all, I'm living with this forever, not the contractor. I learned sometimes you must put your foot down about such things. For some reason, contractors tend to regard single women as incapable of making sound choices for home improvements. Go figure.

Anyways, having spent my life savings on those reno's left me financially embarrassed to add furniture, cabinets etc, so I had to get deep-down creative in order to complete my home.

Although I'm not physically capable of heavy-duty projects that involve demolition and/or heavy lifting, I have my own power tools, including a mini-chain saw, and use them with impunity. I designed a chicken coop and run entirely from free wood pallets and an old dog-house, for example…more about that in another post. Just saying, being a woman alone does not mean you hafta call a durned contractor every time you need a small repair or project. YouTube has amazing tutorials on just about every kind of home repair you can imagine. I learned how to replace elements of my toilets, for example, using only YouTube.

Completing those repairs gave me such a high, an invigorating sense of " I did this !" that is unmatched by very many things in life.

So, first project I'll show you is an armoire I did over. I found it at a yard sale for ten bucks. It was a mess, of course, and the guy I bought it off of said "That'll make great firewood !", an opinion shared by some of my dear, disgruntled family members who labored to help me get this monster in the house.

As with this house, I could see despite it's many defects that the busted-up armoire had good,strong shelving & good bones.

           That's the one, true must-have of any re-purposing/upcycling project: good bones.

                         Here's the grim "Before":

 As you can see, it was in critical condition; broken doors had to be glued-clamped back together in sections, moulding replaced, interior painted, some surface sanding and then exterior painted using 3 shades of blue & turquoise; hardware selected, polyurethane architectural elements & new wooden feet that I painted to coordinate & then attached as the last bit of work, along with cabinet magnets ( inside doors) to keep the doors flush and closed. The tape marks you see are where the doors were in so many pieces they had to be taped into place so I didn't lose any of the parts. The doors being nice and flat allowed me to play with ideas in ways that more convoluted doors wouldn't have.

                                                                  The "After"….
         

To get the artwork I wanted, I first bought 4 copies of a Van Gogh poster of his beloved "Almond Blossoms" that I decoupaged using ModPodge into the two inset wood panels. That had to "cure" for several days til bone dry, then I could proceed. It helps to use a very soft, dry clean cloth to smooth out any bubbles under your posters as you go; for larger bubbles that don't easily smooth, you can make a teensy tine-sy pinprick with a sewing needle, then smooth over that with your cloth. Over the curing process any air under it will escape and it'll flatten completely, if you've smoothed sufficiently. If you happen to have a clean, new roller for wall painting, that will work as well for smoothing, as will a clean un-used printing brayer. 

Don't forget to allow to dry totally before you proceed to your next step !!

I found a long-ish poster by artist Waterhouse that I love, took it to the printers and had them first enlarge it a bit to mimic my door dimensions, then reversed the image in Photoshop, so they'd be facing one another, and printed a copy of it on a special matte photo paper. 

DO NOT use a cheap, thin, bond type paper if you want to try this; it will not decoupage, will wrinkle and even tear. Good poster paper stock = great decoupage ! If you can select the kind of paper it's printed on when you order your poster, ALWAYS choose the best paper stock available if you're going to decoupage it. If you can't select the paper type when you buy your poster, when it arrives take the poster to your printer and have them copy & re-print it on matte photo paper. It's well worth it.

Cheap paper will wreck your project. 

Cost of posters plus printing: $32.00

After the printing came the tough part: I had to use manicure scissors to meticulously trim all the background out from around each figure, to allow Van Gogh's posters underneath to shine and to give a sense of cohesiveness to the overall look. While you don't need to do this if you're using only one poster, it does give enhanced continuity to your design if you're coordinating two or more different art posters.

After the decoupage was totally dried, I went over it all with some polyacrylic, to prevent yellowing of my gorgeous images and to allow the doors to stand up to dusting and Father Time.

      These are the polyurethane architectural elements I bought online, along with some elegant wooden furniture feet ( Ebay !) I found. I have to say the architectural elements aren't exactly cheap but the finish they provide is soooooo elegant, so I splurged a little on them. They come white and you can paint them any color you choose, just be sure to use a latex or water-based paint. I used two different colors, an emerald green and a cobalt blue.

The wooden feet were just plain wood, I painted them and installed them --after thorough drying-- into the floor of the armoire. It's original feet were pretty raggedy; it sat lopsided, so new feet for her !

TIP: if you're painting furniture pieces like these feet that have screws embedded in them, get a small cardboard box and stick the unfinished pieces upside down, screws stuck into the box bottom ( you can tape the box bottom to make it more stable & cooperative.)

This will securely hold your pieces upright so they can be 360-degrees-painted and save you a big messy clean-up and allow for unblemished drying.

                                 Cost of architectural elements plus wooden feet: $56.00

I have a Hardware Problem. As in, I ADORE unusual knobs, handles etc. The more unique they are, the more I want them. :) The handles I chose for this armoire are from Thailand, were hand-cast in bronze and are stylized peacocks. I know, SHUT UP, right ?!?!  They set me back $65.00 but were so worth every penny. I absolutely adore them. 

Oh, and I got them on Ebay, my international shopping fave. :) 

Cost of bronze handles: $65.00 with free shipping

A close up of the architectural detail….you can see on the left panel where I'd not yet finished all the moulding. That was added later.

This shot below gives you an overall look at the armoire…I blacked out the background to give it a wee bit more drama ( like it needs that, right ?! :)  I received a couple peacock-colored mosaic candle tea-lights as gifts that I put battery powered "candles" into and placed on top. The flicker at night is very calming, adds a nice ambience. You may notice the doors below aren't perfectly flush; this photo was taken after I'd just finished it; over time the magnets and a large book I leaned against the door bottoms tenderly pulled them into alignment.   Sometimes ya hafta improvise.  :)

I did this project over eight month's time. I bought each new element when I could afford to, and that allowed me to get truly unique pieces to finish it, plus it didn't tax my anemic budget all at once. I didn't mind the wait, I was working on other projects and doing my artwork in between. This is a common sense way to approach DIY makeovers & re-purposing, I think. Add new elements as you can afford to; take your time; it'll make your finished piece just that much more special~ :)

The inside of my lovely boudoir armoire…I keep my bedroom tv in here, along with books, towels and framed family photos. ( sorry for the yellow-orangey cast but I had the overhead light on, it tends to cast yellow tinges)

The inside of the doors were covered with a decorative paper of tiny flowers and feathers with metallic gold, it's from Italy. ( they're now out of this pattern but I posted a link to a similar pattern by the same company here---> )   Rossi Fine Decorative Papers . 

Yum~ ! gorgeous, inexpensive papers for any decoupage project  :)  

By the way, if you look closely at the middle of the center bar, you can see the cabinet magnets I added to keep the doors flush and closed. ( $3.98 a pair @ Home Depot)

Total cost of project: $163.00, spent over 8 month's time. 

I double-dog dare you to find an 8+ ft tall--4 ft wide armoire anything like this for less than that ! :)

You don't have to use architectural elements and pricey hardware like I did, you can definitely make it even cheaper, but I really wanted each of those special elements and was able to wait to get them. 

I love crafting pieces that have the potential to become heirlooms some day, so I use the best & most unique elements I can find at the least expensive cost. I make them to last and last. 

Any questions, just use the link to email me !!

Thanks for looking~

Warmly, Susi

So, I'm an Artist-Author living on a farm-in-progress waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out in the New England hinterlands, about 18 minutes from the ocean.  My home was a foreclosure in tough shape when I bought it five years ago. As in, hideous. It was nasty, neglected and downtrodden, but like any good woman, had amazing bones waiting for the right touch, ripe for an epic makeover.

Enter Moi.  :) The first time I saw this place, it was like meeting an old friend again. I could just hear her saying " Ah, at last you're here. Let's get busy".

Five years later, I'm surrounded by so many lovely things here at 'Al Di La" ( the name of my farm), all of which I either made/re-purposed/upcycled or salvaged. My budget for these projects is *ahem* frighteningly modest, so if it ain't DIY possible, it ain't, period.

I've applied to this house, this farm, a concept I firmly believe in: Most things have another life in them if you just allow yourself to envision it. This applies to human beings as well, I've learned. :)

My wee maison-in-the-woods features many hand-painted murals, a gorgeous Godin tubular ornate wood stove ( purchased used from another artist for a fraction of it's value !), chandeliers, many things fashioned from flea market and yard sale finds. More than a few of my upcyled treasures began life as discards from yard sales etc and were totally FREE. I strongly recommend www.Freecycle.org , as well as Craigslist, which has a "Free" category you should periodically scan if you're looking to up-cycle or re-purpose, either for your own use, for creating gifts or for re-sale.

Since this is kind of a retrospective, I'm showing you some of the more involved projects I've already completed here. I have a few To-Do's coming up in warm weather soon, but I'll save those tasty lil tidbits for later. :)

These pix will be Before's/After's and I'll include a bit of info on how I did them. If you want more info, drop me a line and I'll be happy to explain.

Thanks for your interest…..here are a few pix of some of my favorite things here on the farm….the image of the chickens is a portrait I did of my own lovely Poulet de Bresse, a rare French breed. Love 'em, great eggs !  :)

Thanks for stopping by and hope you find some ideas here you can use !

Best Regards, Susi Franco

P.S.--if you'd like to see some of my artwork, you can find it at Wayfair.com, Overstock.com and Amazon.com, to name a few. here's a lil link for you:

http://www.wayfair.com/keyword.php?keyword=susi+franco&filters=&itemsperpage=96&sortby=6&curpage=1

P.S.P.S.---if you'd like to read an excerpt  from my first non-fiction book, about my pre-retirement Nursing career ( I'm working on a novel now) here's a link to Amazon.com:

AngelsWithStethosopesbySusiFranco

I promise this really is the last P.S.----

I've re-Fabbed many pieces that are available for sale…you can see them and other of my goodies here at my Etsy store, if you like:

The Baroness's Bounty on Etsy

 I welcome your comments below…..Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you !

Warmly, Susi Franco