Rocking Chair Refinishing Project and Outfitting the Living Room

I got obsessed with getting a rocking chair this fall. I went hiking in the Adirondacks and we stayed at an old cabin that had several comfortable Craftsman style rockers. I had been keeping an eye on the various online auction and sale site and pretty much resigned myself to the thought I'd never find one.   

To my surprised, one came on the market at a good price. It was a solid oak piece that was just the size and style I was looking for. The chair had been refurbished once before but so long ago that it had a lot of wear. Some joints needed reinforcement, the main leather and springs in the seat weren't very comfortable and the shellac finish was chipping and uneven.

I decided to take on refinishing and re-upholstering the chair. Luckily the shellac came of relatively easy with some mineral spirits.

I applied a light stain and oil finish just a hint darker than the original wood so that you could see the character but so that it didn't look brand new.

I got a piece of leather at a local fabric outlet. An aside: if you are ever looking for any type of fabric for a project, this is the Textile Discount Outlet in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood has to be the best resource in the entire Chicagoland area. Floor after floor of fabrics and leather of every type you can think of.

Anyway, I removed the old spring seat and put in new webbing and padding to create a new one.

I am pretty happy with the outcome and for the first time, we have more than one seat in the living room. Here is a before and after so you can see the progress.  

Since I had already been paying attention to all of the local furniture ads, I soon became aware of another piece that I loved: an antique oak settle. I didn't plan on these purchases but am happy with the change. The new furniture fits the place perfectly and we really couldn't be happier. 

Garage Sale Purchase

The basement progress has slowed to a snail's pace as we are waiting for our floor covering and furniture shipments.  When it seems that there is nothing else to blog about, the latest garage sale purchase all of a sudden seems newsworthy.  This is the kind of purchase my wife hates.  Stuff we don't really need yet I think would look cool in a bungalow.  It is a small low-grade Craftsman Style bookcase made out of redwood.  It appears to have been made for the tourist trade in California over 50 years ago.  It still has the original "official redwood" sticker on it - very cool graphic.  For twenty bucks, it seemed perfect for the Tiny Bungalow and looks great in the dining room.  Most importantly, I finally have a place to showcase my favorite Twilight series books.     

Just Like New

So there was this table.  We are going to use it as our coffee table in the basement.  The issue was whether or not to refinish it.  After spending a couple hours in the basement today relocating lighting and readying things for re-installing the baseboard, I decided to get outside and take on a small project.

The cigarette and glass mark stains have to go. 

After an hour or so of elbow grease, a few pads of sandpaper, and then a coat of tung oil, the table is looking pretty good.   

It still has some very faint scratches if you look very close.  Hopefully they will make my wife happy as I think they give the piece a little character - just not as much as it had before.  I think its going to look great in the rehabbed basement.

Coming up with a new vision

I still don't have a good idea of what the basement is going to look like but things are starting to come together. I don't like diving into a project this big when I don't have some sort of "vision" so I am a little uneasy about things.  I also still get annoyed when I have to talk or think about the project.  I think I am still to exhausted from the flood coming on the heals of the pergola and bathroom renovation.  I thought I'd be relaxing and enjoying the summer at this point.  To push ahead, I need to try and find the bright side of things.  One of them is that the flood did force us to get rid of a ton of clutter.  The new space can be cleaner and seem larger.  The second thing is that we do have somewhat of a clean slate and a little insurance money to update some furnishings and finishes.  We want to keep the orange color, the lights and obviously the ceiling and trim but otherwise, the rest will be "new".

We already purchased a new sectional couch.  We didn't go with a sofa bed and guests will now have to use an aero bed instead.  We got this in a charcoal color.  It is comfy and our daughter loves the L-shape.  I think she has commented on it about a thousand times since we went to the store.

We are taking a new approach with the furnishings and finishes this time around.  Solid surfaces and getting things off the floor are the strategies.  We are choosing pieces that have legs so that when there is another water problem, none of the upholstery or other items will be damaged.  We'll need to find bookcases, entertainment center, and other items that are all "up".  This should make cleaning down there a bit easier as well.  

For the flooring, we'd like to do an epoxy flooring but are still unsure of the color/direction.  We have been playing with the color tool on the epoxy supplier's website and are mixing tans, browns, oranges and grays.  The guys that did the leveling of our basement floor several years ago will be coming out to look at patching and will let me know if the epoxy will adhere to the current topping.  Hopefully it will.

We have an old coffee table that has been in storage and we think will be perfect for the new room.  It was my wife's mom's table.  One of the debates we are having is whether or not I should sand the entire thing down to clean up the scuffs, watermarks and uneven finish and then put a new finish on it.  My wife would like to leave it as is.  She likes the "character".  If it weren't such a sleek piece, I might agree with her.  I'd like to clean it up and try to restore it.  The decision of which way to go still hasn't been made. 

Today I'll begin the plaster repair and removing a few pieces of drywall.  I think at the same time, I will put the finishing touches on the basement bathroom.  I have some new hired help coming in.  Hopefully he works out and I can get this done quickly.

Basement bookcase, pretty much complete for now.

I'll have to finish trimming the pegs that hold the shelves later this week. I also want to cut grooves into the bottom of each shelf so the dowels rest into the shelf and hold it steadier. It is a pretty solid piece though. I have been told that I can't do any more woodwork right now as my daughter is watching some very important television. I am happy with the project and I think that once I get the finish on it (later this spring), it is going to look nice.The dowels work well for holding up the shelves. I made room for four shelves with shallower storage area if I choose to assemble the shelves differently in the future. If I have need for a CD holder in the future, they seem to work well for that also.
After stacking some books on it, I realized that I can easily throw some of these into attic storage. I think that once I have this project finished, it might be time to start on that turntable and LP cabinet I designed some time ago.

Project for books in the basement

There are several piles of books in the basement that have been driving me a little crazy. The old table that we used to have them on doesn't seem to be holding up well and I have been trying to find something to put in its place. This week, I got intrigued by the idea of building my own ladder-style bookcase. I have a bunch of scrap wood so I can pretty much do it for "free". Typically, I like to come up with a very clear image of what I want to do and then sketch the hell out of it and then build it. For this project, I have a general idea of what I wanted but decided to wing it. I know I want a fairly light frame and then pins holding big fat shelves. I wanted to cur angles or curves in the wood to make it more interesting but any more than that I am not sure. I started by cutting the wood almost to size, cutting more, and then placing pieces together in the general configuration I wanted. I wanted the shelf to be close to the wall (there are often children running around the basement and I figure its best not to invite too much destruction. I have the frame assembled so far and it is pretty much as I was anticipating. I am not quite sure what to do with the shelves now. I originally wanted to use dowels, permanently installed, in pairs, at equal intervals, so the shelves could be adjusted to various heights.
Now that I look at the thing, I am having second thoughts on the dowels. They seem a little small and idiosyncratic. Hmm, maybe I can use blocks of wood, cut at slightly odd angles (similar to the legs) to support the shelves or maybe I can use some of the brass rods or even conduit I have left over to support the shelves. I think I'll sleep on it and finish it up tomorrow. I likely will end up "finishing" the wood to match the rest of the wood in the basement. Unfortunately, that will likely have to wait until spring.

Some things just don't turn out the way you envisioned them.

I think I perfected my pipe cleaner animal making this weekend. Eat your heart out, Martha! Pipe cleaner animals aside, believe it or not, it was actually a very busy weekend at the Tiny Bungalow: pulling in all of the outdoor pots and plants, bringing in the patio table and chairs, general cleaning of the yard and garden, trying to teach myself some linoleum printing techniques. In addition to this stuff, I actually tackled some "real" projects too.

I don't know if anyone recalls but some time ago, I made a table for the bedroom. It was done, right? Well, wrong, it may have looked complete but it wobbled and the top was never secured to the base properly. Yesterday, I couldn't leave well enough alone and I took the table apart to try and fix my shoddy craftsmanship. I had moderate success. The table still wobbles but much less than it did and the cross pieces are now nice and even - so it looks good. I also created some notches in the top to install some table-top fasteners and I fastened the top to the legs so the project is all in one piece - no more knocking the top off while reaching for the alarm clock!I had less success with the basement soffit (or anti-soffit), I finished demo on the framing and gyp board and I am going to keep the duct, beam, and pipes exposed - remember, I'm 6'-4" and height is a key here. It doesn't look great but hopefully when I paint everything out, it will look better. The issue I have been working through is how to trim out the "cut" ends of the soffit. On one side, I put in new blocking and then put in 1x pine trim, similar to the rest of the basement. I will eventually stain it to match the rest of the basement trim as well. There are still too many issues here: I hate the wires and need to figure out what do do with them. I am also not completely satisfied with the trim, maybe I need bigger pieces to conceal more, and I also need to get more ceiling strips for this area. It is slowly coming together but it isn't coming out quite the way I wanted. I keep telling myself it is just the basement - but it would be nice to get at least one area of the house "finished". Then there's the opposite side of the demoed soffit - the door to the "shop area" of the basement. What the hell do I do here? I don't want a door and have been living with a curtain. Maybe that's what we'll stay with. I don't know, I have a feeling that this entire project is going to go the way of the table and I will end up re-doing portions of this in a few months - except that this is a much bigger project.