Hospital Bedside Table, It's all Better Now, Thanks Dr. MacGIRLver

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Here's a quick little post on one of my latest projects.  I started with this old metal hospital bedside table.  Somebody had painted it red and black.

I stripped most of the paint off of it, it wasn't coming off very easily so I did resort to sanding the rest of it off.

I was hoping that the metal might be cool looking once it was stripped, but it wasn't, so I went ahead and spray painted the body of it off white, and then the drawer and the shelf gray.

I then antiqued it all and added some nice sparkly bling!

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More Styrofoam Coolers Made Into Ottomans

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I'm battling a headache but I can't stand doing nothing so I made a couple of ottomans this weekend.  Here are a couple of pics.

I lined this one, I will probably do the other one too, we will see.

The line up!  Do you have a favourite?

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Bed Made Into a Bench, Round II

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I've posted a similar project in the past, check it out here if you want to compare.  Quite a different look considering the bed was very similar.  I guess this is the best before shot that I have, oops. This is a pic of the foot board when it was still in one piece.

This always looks so bad doesn't it, when I massacre a piece of furniture?

Here it is all put together and sanded.  Oh the magic of blogland, just like the snap of your fingers, doesn't show all the hard and dirty work.  

All stained, painted, sanded and fitted with a nice cushy seat.

This is more distressed than I usually do, but I like it.

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Always Biting Off More Than I Can Chew; Part VI; Lean-to Makeover, Phase I

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In case it wasn't already obvious, I will makeover anything!  You've seen my outhouse right?  Anyway, at the log house there is a workshop with a lean-to and a carport.  This is phase one of the lean-to makeover.  I didn't take a picture of the lean-to when it was full, but this will give you an idea of what I was dealing with.

Anyway, I cleaned it out, restacked some of the wood and other stuff that I am keeping, and just generally organized it.  This is what I started with this morning, after a lot of work yesterday.  (See the sink!  Total score, saved my Grandmother's old kitchen sink from going to the dump)

I had to push some debris out of the way on the outside in order to access the walls.  We still have a lot of clean up to do and have more trees to get rid of. 

 I didn't take any "in between" pictures, but first I put up the two sheets of plywood, then decided to measure the windows from my Grandmother's house that I saved from the dump, at the same time as the sink.  I couldn't believe it but one of the styles was the perfect fit, they were also the ones I didn't have any plan for, but just didn't want to see them thrown out.  Stay tuned for future projects with the windows, I have a great one in mind.

My new wall!  You really have to look beyond the mess, and ignore the moss!

When I had the windows installed I realized that I needed to adjust them a little so the spacing looked better.  It worked out awesome!

I then moved on to the inside and added plywood on top of all the sleepers that were already laid down, just to make it smoother to walk on. 

I realize I am not going to win any "construction" awards with my handy work, but it is one step closer to being a much more usable space.  Next step is end walls, but not tomorrow, I think I need a rest, or at least a change ;)

See that rafter on the end, I hit my head on that all day!  I need a hard hat, a nice white one would be preferable!

p.s., I left the plywood long on this side because I am thinking about making the lean-to longer.

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Remaking an Antique Bed (Vacation - Day 1)

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I gave my daughter Jasmin a strong hint last year that this bed, that I found on Kijiji in her city, would make a great birthday present for her Mother, yeah, me.  Women obviously pick up on these things much quicker than men because the next time I went to visit, there it was in her hallway (lack of storage).  It stayed there for months until we were finally there with a truck.  She and Dan are such good sports, that would have driven me crazy!  Anyway, I love this bed, and I wasn't sure what I would do with it.  There were two problems, it is a double size, and old beds are sometimes really short!  I finally figured out how I was going to make it into a Queen size, and then realized that maybe that wasn't the best thing to do.  I decided I need a headboard more at camp than I do at home, and since the bedrooms are teeny tiny there (7.5' X 7.5'), it was probably better to leave it as a double.  Okay, well that cut out some of the work.  I still didn't like the height of the headboard.  So here is how I fixed that.

Ha ha, are you thinking that maybe the picture below is the "before" pic, nope, it was perfectly good when it came to me, then I knocked it apart.  Things always look worse before they look better.

So, after making little pieces out of big pieces, something I do really well, I did a little cutting, and used my Kreg jig, and my new screws that I got in the mail this week... and I added 2 of the boards from the footboard (I wanted the wood to match as someone had already stripped this piece and refinished it).  This filled out the bottom of the headboard so that I could make it taller, and still have some headboard where the pillows will be.  I couldn't leave a gaping hole.  After that I added 17" to the bottom of the legs.  In the picture below you can compare how much taller the headboard is now, compared to the footboard.  I am not going to use the footboard (well, what's left of it) with this bed, but will save it for another project.

I had to show it here with a queen size set because that's all I have here right now, which I realize looks a little ridiculous, but I wanted you to see the height, and how much better it looks, just imagine it 17" shorter, it would hardly be seen!

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Dresser Makeover; Two Pieces of Furniture Made From One Dresser

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This is just a quick post to show you a small part of what I have been up to lately.  Remember the dresser that I cut in half.

I used the top half to make a vanity (not yet finished, still need to add the sink), see that makeover here and here,

and today I am going to show you what I did with the bottom half.  I took a scrap piece of plywood, added some nice thick foam and wrapped it with some beautiful fabric.  I attached it to the top of the single drawer unit, and voila, a nice bench for an entrance or the foot of a bed, with storage!

Two pieces of furniture out of an old dresser, gotta say, the frugal side of me loves this!

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The House That Budd Built; Part II; Construction

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We couldn't get rid of the old house completely in the beginning because we had to protect the electricity.  So the new build began.  Garage first, men's priorities can be  little different than women's.

But the rest soon followed, and the old house is completely gone!

Yup, I'm pretty sure we are going to have one of these pics in all builds that we do.

I think he may be related to Spiderman, probably on my side of the family, ha ha.

This is hard work, but we have made memories that will not soon be forgotten.

The days got shorter and shorter.  One evening a man that lives down the road stopped and gave us some lights to use because he couldn't stand seeing us working in the dark.  You gotta love small towns!

And a friend that we went to school with saw us roofing and brought his nail gun and compressor and lent a helping hand for a couple of days. People can be great eh?

Tear down began in October and we put the roof on in November, not bad for weekend warriors!  A day or two after we got the shingles finished, the snow came, and stayed.  God blessed us with a very warm and late Fall!  We were so lucky!

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