Finished chair

Here is the finished chair...

A Beryl of Fun...

That rain I mentioned? You know, that persistent drizzle? Well, turns out it was Tropical Storm Beryl and we didn't know it was a direct hit! But no TS can stop my dear husband! He was inspired to build the oldest princess a desk after building the chair and seeing it finished. He used mostly scrap wood from some other projects. Total out of pocket for this desk? $4.00! This is his own sketch and it turned out great. We are still in the process of finishing and filling the holes with wood filler but here it is in the rough.

Saturday's Adventures

The Prince went on a building frenzy yesterday. He built two chairs, finished some work on his parents' privacy fence and then added some details to his work bench. For my part, I sanded and painted the first coat on the chairs and finished the final coats of polyurethane on the media console. All-in-all, a very productive day for us. So, here are some details.

As promised, here is the photo of the media console. It is the Tryde Media Console from Ana White. The stain is Rustoleum and the color is Kona. This is two coats of stain, and several coats of satin polyurethane. From the picture, it looks crooked but I promise it isn't. Today's project will be for the prince to reign in the cords you see underneath by installing a surge protector to the back of the unit and for me to find the right accessories to dress it up and make it perfect.

Chairs
The chairs are, of course, Ana White's plans. Ana White's Harriet Chair. We bought the lumber to make these quite some time ago but other projects took center stage. Therefore, I can't approximate the cost to build. But, I can tell you that it was far less expensive than I could have bought them for and I was able to customize them to my needs. For the finish, I sanded with 60 grit, 100 grit, and then 220 grit. I used tack cloth to remove the sanding dust and gave them a coat of rustoleum painter's touch spray paint. Today I will sand with 220 grit and give them another coat followed by several coats of polycrylic. I have a few pictures that I took before sanding. The prince added an ogee edge using his router to dress them up a little.

More pictures of the finished chairs to come later today once I finish them. Right now, its drizzly and overcast so it may be tomorrow before I can finish them. Thanks for looking!

Kids chairs...

These chairs were one of our first projects. We made the two chairs and table. Total cost with paint was about $25. Why? Because I mistakenly thought buying quarts of paint and brushing it on would give a better finish. I was wrong. So to make a long story short, the finish was less than satisfactory. It was time consuming to fit a brush into the little crevices to painstakingly cover every inch. It was costly to cover buy 3 quarts of paint. I didnt know to use polycrylic so the finish didnt hold up. It has been at the top of my list to sand these down and refinish them. I finally got to it.

So here they are. These arent the best pictures. My camera was out of batteries and so I used my phone and it was dusk also. For these, I sanded with 60 grit paper, then 220 grit. I sprayed them with rustoleum painter's 2x the coverage spray paint. Best part: it was $3.48 per can. A can covered the chair well with two coats. One chair is pink, the other lilac. I then gave them 2 coats of minwax spray polycrylic. The paint and polycrylic were both in satin finish.

One More Thing...

I forgot to add that most of our inspiration comes from Ana White! She's nothing short of amazing. If you are new to woodworking and DIY, her site is such a wealth of info and you truly must visit. Ana White
Everything on the site is offered for free and she has created an inspirational community where DIY'ers can share plans, photos, tips, advice, whatever. The TV stand below was a sketch my husband did himself but we are working on a specific plan from her site for our family room media console and I will post pictures when that is (hopefully) finished later today.

Our first big undertaking...

I have been meaning to post these photos forever. As I mentioned before (I think), we undertook re-decorating our son's room, which also happens to be the smallest bedroom in the house. It made the project infinitely easier that we were able to custom build the furniture to our own specifications. We ended up building two platform beds in twin size to go on the walls (with the look of a sectional sofa) for when he has a friend over. We built a desk and a custom entertainment center. We stained all in Minwax American Walnut and covered with a few coats of semi-gloss polyurethane. I learned a lot from that project and for being our first really big project, I think it turned out really well. Here's the entertainment center.

Total cost for his room so far has been about $200, including bedding, paint, wood, finishing supplies, etc. He does still need a new desk chair, some new window treatments and a few decorative elements for the walls. But, all in all, a makeover on a serious budget that we are proud of.  I'm going to get a few pics of the bed later to post.