Preparing the Pillars

Today the weather was lovely so I spent most of my time outside, sanding down the wooden pillars for my wardrobe archway. Here are pictures of them from a couple of days ago, after being washed. They were filthy, covered in mud and I expect what was soot from the fire:

 They appeared to be painted in a sort of black wash, either that or they were seeeriously caked in soot from over many years. Either way, I wanted to bring the wood back to its former glory.

I began by hand-sanding the wood, but this proved to be a lot of effort, and so I eventually resorted to the machine sander, which worked miracles. A couple of hours later and they looked totally different:

 The colour of the wood is actually really nice, so in a way it'll be a shame to paint it, but I need the archway to be uniform with the mdf structure of the wardrobe, and hence it'll all have to be painted in cream (clunch!) to match. I plan to sand the paint down in parts though, to retain the character.

I didn't sand inbetween the long grooves in the upright part of the pillar, but left them black, which created a really nice contrast:

The wood grain came out really nicely, I think it must be oak or some other hardwood:

I'm making it my mission to sand down the archway to the same quality tomorrow whilst the weather is still nice - stay tuned for more updates!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I've been up to a lottt of exciting stuff since my last post - prepare yourself for an overview of my endeavours! 

Furniture Refurbishment

So the plan chest I've been working on was put on hold whilst I was clearing out my attic, but as soon as I'd finished that mini project, I decided I wanted to get straight back to it. Transforming this piece of furniture is just one step towards my overall summer goal, which is to convert my bedroom into an art studio, with sufficient storage space for all of my equipment. Textiles is my main thing (it's my dream to someday be a costume designer for a living!), so I need more space for using my sewing machines, storing fabric, and I also want a room which inspires me to create.

With this in mind, getting my plan chest up to scratch is essential, as it's going to store all of my scrap fabrics, each draw sectioned in half to provide space for two different colours (so blue scraps in one half, red in the other, for example). The top drawer will also be a light box for tracing - I'll go into the details about how this will work later. In my previous post, I had done little work on the beaten up chest I had salvaged from my school - I had removed the stickers and washed the front of two drawers, but that was all. Since the completion of my attic clearout I've done loads more, starting with sanding down all of the drawers by hand, then sanding down the main frame:

I was so pleased at how nicely the wood grain came up - it looked like a totally different piece of furniture by the end of it! Despite its clean appearance, the wood was still water damaged and generally not in the best of condition, so rather than leaving it natural I went ahead with my original plan - painting it. I went to Homebase, grabbed every paint booklet they had, poured over colours for ages, and finally settled on 'Clunch' by Farrow and Ball:

Okay, so the name is pretty hilarious, but that just adds to the appeal if you ask me. I knew I wanted to paint my furniture in creams from the start, as I love the shabby chic look, and cream is very neutral - you can accessorise with any bright colours and vibrant patterns when your furniture and walls are plain. Farrow and Balls' colour sample booklet drew me in from the start (it looks so professional and quality), and 'Clunch' was the shade of cream that I decided upon from their collection.

The Cheapest Piece of Furniture I've Ever Bought From an Antique Shop

At the same time as bringing my plan chest to life, I was blessed with the piece of furniture of my dreams - a bookcase with glass sliding doors. I've been looking for one of these for ages, for displaying my collectables, but they've always been pretty pricey on eBay, or else too far away for me to collect. However, I was shocked and delighted to find just the bookcase at my local antique shop for £8!! Say what? I had to look at the sticker closely to make sure the '0' hadn't faded in the sun. Nope, definitely £8. Eight. Pounds. Quite a beautiful number to see on a piece of furniture when you're a skint student. Isn't it lovely?

I think it's probably a reproduction piece, hence the cheap price, but it has the charm of an antique, and of course its old/ slightly battered state is good cause for bringing this baby back to life! I'd feel guilty for painting it if the wood were in good condition, so just as well the top surface was all scratched up and water damaged.

Painty Paint Paint Paint!

The first step on both pieces of furniture, once washed and sanded down, was priming them. White primer basically gives wood an even coloured surface to paint on, which is particularly useful when you're using expensive, light-coloured Farrow and Ball paint - if the surface is already light in colour, you have to use less of the cream later on. Here is the bookcase after one coat of primer:

As you can see it looks really streaky - this is the stage where you wonder if you made the right decision. It gets better though! On the second coat it looks a lot fresher:

And then it was on to the Clunch, which really started bringing it to life!

It took me a couple of days, but I really enjoyed the process - painting is veeery therapeutic (Plus I've been getting through my sister's Gilmore Girls box set at the same time - always a bonus!) I still need to paint the shelves and the drawers, but they should be reasonably quick to do. And of course I was working on my plan chest at the same time - check it out!

This was in the first stage of priming, including the top drawer. I'll eventually take out the drawers individually and paint their insides - I want them to be perfect!

After a second coat of primer, it was looking pretty fresh. By the last coat of Clunch, it looked like a totally different piece of furniture!

I can't wait to sort my fabric into this badboy once it's finished - I'm hoping to get the drawers painted ASAP and then construct the dividers for the materials. I still can't believe I got this chest for free when they go for hundreds on eBay, I'm so lucky!

 Wardrobe Planning


My final announcement concerns the planning of my new wardrobe (yep, I'm going all-out on changing my bedroom!) My current wardrobe, although beautiful (a cream french armoire), is very small and impractical for my clothing - a lot of them are screwed up and shoved into compartments because there isn't enough room to hang them. I want a larger space where my shoes won't be littering the floor, my expensive dresses won't be screwed up and creased and my bags won't be dumped in a corner. I plan to build my own wardrobe from scratch, which will be fitted across the whole of my largest wall, and will also incorporate my wall bed/ 'murphy bed' - a bed which folds up into the wall in day time to make more space. Anyway, the basics of this wardrobe will be plain old MDF, but as I like EVERYTHING to be pretty, I purchased this beast from eBay to build into the front:

This beauty is a 19th century surround to either a fireplace or a door, the seller wasn't sure which, but either way it's absolutely beautiful - the carvings are so intricate, it has real character. It's also massive, nearly the length of the biggest wall in my room and nearly the height when mounted on the pillars. Once sanded and painted it'll look stunning I'm sure, and house my clothing with true magnificence. My DIY king of an uncle has agreed to help me put it all together - more updates on this front soon!

Finishing Up the Loftovers

I am proud, amazed and most importantly relieved to announce that my experience in the attic is at a close. After 11 days of hard labour in grimy, sweltering conditions, no less than 145 boxes are numbered, colour-coded, documented and organised. Honestly, I don't know how I did it. My sister gave up after three days, so feeling motivated was difficult at times, but the work paid off.

Applause for Klaus.

I had a real breakthrough when I started moving out the big junk - old headboards, laminate flooring, rolls of carpet - floor was finally visible and I could actually start moving things around. I like to think that I had a bit of an adrenaline rush in the sixth evening - I spent until gone midnight at the job. I'd like to take this moment to thank Klaus Badelt for composing the music that kept me going through the hard times. Here are some pictures I took at the end of the night:

Think back to my last post - on Day Three the floor was still near-invisible. I think this must have only been about Day Six, but as you can probably see, the progress made was substantial!

There bin liners pictured here were just filled with rubbish...I seriously dread to think of how many bin liners went to the tip in total - I hate the thought of landfill sites and waste. Thankfully most stuff is recyclable these days, so a lot of the junk was sorted into electronics, metal, wood etc.

This was the pile left to sort, which believe me, looked like a heap from heaven at the time, in comparison to the scale of work I had been facing all those days before. It still took me another five days to complete, despite this. Such is life.

Fini!

And here are some pictures of the end result. I'm yet to finish typing up 'The Roof Book', where the contents of the numbered boxes will be documented, but you can see how the system will work. What's more, we have a massive amount of unwanted stuff to car boot, so hopefully my efforts will pay towards the decorating of our hallway. This is the middle part, for household things:

The front right-hand side, for camping equipment. Some of the larger camping stuff was too big for boxes, but most bits are stored:

Childhood, on the front left-hand side. It was really hard to stack this all neatly as there were so many boxes, the most out of the five categories by far:

A close up of the Childhood sign, just a print-out stapled inside a plastic wallet for protection. Simple yet efficient:

There's a raised ledge at the back of the attic, and this is where all of the Christmas stuff is stored in plastic boxes - there didn't seem much point in documenting it as it has to come out every year:

One of the pathways on the right-hand side, leading from Camping to the smaller Work category. The left-hand side is similarly organised, the pathway leading from Childhood to School. The Household category fits neatly in the middle:

A little plastic basket I found whilst clearing in the earlier stages is now used for holding the permanent markers for labelling, a torch, scissors, tape and the colour-code stickers:

Flat-pack boxes by the ladder, ready for use should there be new things to store:

An overview photo, which nicely sums up my work. There will also be a 'Sign In/Out' book, so when you remove or put stuff back up, everyone knows. Sounds a hassle I know, but it'll avoid it becoming chaotic again! I feel like a proud mum: