Name: Jinx
Location: Paris, France
Time: About three days - two days of sanding and wax removal, two half-days of painting.
Cost: About 90 euros (c130 dollars) all in: cabinet: €60, paint and brush: €20, large amounts of sandpaper: €6.
Not all wood grain is beautiful. With this heavy older piece, Jinx refocused, sharpened and cleanup its act up. Now it's ready for another 50 years! Head below the jump for all her pics, tools, and instructions and VOTING...
Tell us the tools and resources you used for the project:
Lots of sandpaper, black gloss paint and two new brass handles.
Share step by step instructions for how you completed the project:
I started out by sanding down awful old paint job on my bedroom door so I could close it and limit the amount of sawdust elsewhere in my apartment. Once I started sanding the cabinet, I realised that what I thought was stain was actually wax. I'd thought I would just give a light sanding to prepare for the paint but the wax meant I had to remove it all. I set to with the 60-grade sandpaper, working down through 120 and 240 over the next couple of days and weaseling away at the carved bits to coax out as much of the wax as possible. In the end, I could probably have saved a lot of effort as the paint didn't seem to have a problem on the areas where there was still a little wax left.
I also used a touch of wood filler to plug the holes left by the old hardware. Once the wood was smooth, I wiped it all down with a damp cloth to remove the dust, then covered the marble top with clingfilm to protect it from any painting accidents. I used water-based black gloss paint all over, coming back for a second coat a couple of days later. Painting inside the two overhanging sections was pretty difficult and I didn't find any cunning solutions to make it easier. Once the paint was dry, I screwed in two new nickel-coated brass handles. All that remains is to make a nice clean black&white bathroom to host it.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Looks great, but I've never seen a piece of furniture like that before! What is its original intended use?
view ARC's profile
You are so totally on your way to glam! That's awesome, I want one!
view sparkle's profile
I would have preferred a really dark stain, leaving some of the wood visible. It looks like an old piece... it should be finished in the materials of the time.
view Jute Zak's profile
ARC, i think it's a telephone stand. super vintage... like.. nearly antique. :-)
my parents had something similar but i could be wrong. the phone sat on the top shelf and the marble shelf area was used to take messages and look up numbers in the telephone book (remember those days?), etc. the bottom was general storage. at least, that's how they used it!
view *heather leaf*'s profile
Hi,
Thanks for the kind comments. Yep, it's an old telephone stand that I found in my favourite second-hand place a few months ago. The idea was to make a cabinet that would pick up the black marble floor I've inherited in my bathroom and would create an impact against white walls.
I understand Jute Zak's comment about the finish I chose - I respect good craftsmanship and good materials and I'm happy to spend hours trying to restore nice pieces (I'm currently trying to love my flat back to its former glory after thirty years of neglect and bad paint jobs).
That said, this piece was in really bad shape. A lot of the wood was cracked and had already been filled with a strange waxy material and it's actually fairly poor grade wood to start with. Not that I realised that until I got it home and examined it more closely - glad to see it had you fooled from a distance too! :)
view El Jinx's profile
Great job! Very unique, and it sounds like it will look great in your bathroom!
view labchick's profile