Easy Shelving: Apple Crates

I remember hanging a small wooden crate in the bathroom of one of my college apartments to use as a small shelf. I mean, what college student can afford to outfit a rental apartment W.C. with brand-new cabinetry?

So when a friend recently brought dinner over in this little apple crate, I knew exactly what to do with it:

Cute, simple, and useful!

Faux Antiquing: How to Antique Furniture

An online tutorial on faux antiquing: in other words, do-it-yourself instructions for restoring and refinishing old furniture to look antique.

Here it is, a step-by-step guide to faux antiquing for beginners like me!

It's like magic.

From this . . .

. . . to this! Bam!

Materials:

• old piece of furniture
• plenty of sandpaper or a sander (with grit coarse enough to strip old finishing)
• steel wool (coarse) or (again) sander
• a candle/chunk o' disposable wax
• ink/permanent marker (optional)
• 1 can paint (base coat, latex)
• 1 container glaze
• a paintbrush (and little roller, helpful for bigger items)
• screwdriver
• rags

Step 1: Remove Hardware & Prep Workspace
Remove knobs, handles, screws, hinges, etc. from the piece and set aside. Set your piece in a good working space where you can paint and make a decent mess. Clean up for us was super easy; we spread out an old bed sheet in the room over some plastic tarp/tablecloth-type stuff and threw it all out when we were done.



Step 2: Protect Unpaintable Areas
Cover up any mirrors or places you don't want to paint. I didn't have masking tape or anything, so I tucked some saran wrap into the corners of this mirror and it worked beautifully:

 
Step 3: Sand
 Remove the old finish/varnish. With this piece, I wanted the dark stain to show through, but I took off the shiny varnish layer so the paint would stick. This took a while, but it was a pretty big piece. After sanding, vacuum up the sawdust and wipe down the wood with a damp rag for a clean painting surface.



Step 4 : Ink Corners (Optional)
I brushed some Indian ink around the corners to show through. It was an experiment, but it looked pretty cool in the end. You can also use a permanent marker to add some black touches on the finished product, but I think that looks better on carvings and more intricate designs. This piece didn't have much flare in the woodwork to accent, so I just focused on edges.



Step 5: Wax
Not your legs. Because you'll be removing paint from certain areas to give the piece a worn, antique-ee look, you use the candle to rub on the corners and areas where you want the paint to come off easily. This step was really helpful; once the paint dried, it took a lot of elbow grease to scratch it off again, but you could tell where the wax was. It really worked.



Step 6: Painting

The fun part: painting! I got a whole gallon of paint, but I didn't even use half the can for two coats on this massive piece of furniture. I chose a shade of humble gray and a taupe glaze, which really warmed it up in the end. I painted in the morning and scraped some off at (see the next step) night, and that was enough time for the paint to dry.

Coat One

The saran wrap was a go! Worked like a charm.

Coat Two

Don't forget the doors!

Step 7: Get that Worn Out Look
Use the steel wool to scrape off your base coat where you want the piece to look worn out: corners, around hinges and handles, etc. It looked kinda lame with such new-looking paint, but using the glaze really helped. I hated it at this point, but I loved it when we were done . . . so don't give up yet!

Step 8: Glaze

This is when my husband joined in to help me glaze. He went around painting the glaze on and I followed him with a rag. We used the rag-rolling technique, removing the glaze and texturing with a rag. I used an old towel with a good cotton-y grain to it.

*Note: The finished product had kind of a chalky, matte texture. I think it would have been awesome to spray or paint a coat of lacquer over it for some gloss and protection. I also hear that using a finishing wax (wax on, wax off) like Minwax^® Paste Finishing Wax is a good protecting agent that also smooths out the finish.

And let it dry!

Viola!
The finished product: a new place for books.

That was that. On the Monday before a Saturday housewarming party I picked up two halves of a large piece of beat up furniture ($15 per half) at Savers. I bought paint and materials on Tuesday (for about $60), sanded on Thursday (4 hours), prepped and painted and glazed on Friday (8-10 hours), and it was ready to put up on Saturday morning (although it wasn't totally dry for the party).

A really fun project. Totally recommend it.


*After three years, I just sold this piece to a young couple. Last week, actually. A young New Yorker bought it for his wife's birthday. They had a cute four-month-old. So while I miss this piece, I'm happy it's in a good home. And I filled the space with a bomb.com retro table and chairs. And if I kept everything I made, I'd end up on Hoarders.

Mistledoe

My untroubled waterhole
of show and tell
portraits of creation
manic fixations, obsessions
Formations of my hands.

Work by day
craft by night
A young mother
homemaker, crafter, sewer, stitcher
doer of frilly things
Timeful things, busy things
They don't sum up in
value numbers
cents and graphs
but in value feelings and heart shelves.

Anthologies of past and time
objects made when the children are there
touching my hair
climbing my legs
pulling on both socks.

Hangings on the mantle at Christmastime
bits to drape the beds
dressings for bodies and feet

They are the ornaments
welcoming me, filling the dips
walls and voids in my house.
Feng shui painted in pockets of my life.

Meet the strings from my fingertips
strands building and stacking
the rug of my time.

Days, spans
stretches, instants
cataloged in stitches and strokes.
Actions I teach to share and share again.