September 10, 2011
It's festival time here in northwest TN. Every county is having their annual fair, and every city is having their annual festival. This weekend, Martin was celebrating the wonderful Soybean and that meant yardsales everywhere!
We however had a day of soccer games, hair appointments, and a trip to Lowes to fix our boo-boo on the Murphy cedar chest (see Murphy Cedar chest page).
But after watching the soccer game we made a quick trip around the residential side streets of Dresden, and found a yardsale with several wood furniture pieces in the yard.
They had some cute little dining room table sets, and I do mean little...I don't think anyone over 5'5 could sit comfortably at these and eat. An old metal school desk. Several bedroom dressers. And a gem...a solid oak potato and onion hutch.
For those of you in the north, this used to be a staple in our grandmother's garage or basement. It was a way to store them in a dark, damp area...and not mess clash with your kitchen decor.
It's not in too bad of condition. The varnish is not doing anything to make it look like a nice piece of furniture. The hinges on the top are crooked. The handle on the top is crooked. The scallop design is not completely symmetrical. The bottom drawer does not like to come out...which means it doesn't like to go back in either. The bottom of the drawers is cheap peg board...and apparently an onion or a potato had rotted out (yuck!)
But we believe we can fix it up! And besides, it kind of looks like a cute little dog sitting on it's hind legs grinning at you!
September 15, 2011
With the cedar chest completed, we decided to make this little guy our next project. Kelly removed the hardware and got to sanding while I was at work. When I got home we made some test patches on the back side to help us determine what color to stain.
All of the light stains looked horrible. They just didn't bring out anything in the wood. The black stain immediately disappeared on the lighter parts of the wood and stood out on the grain, giving this a zebra print look neither of us liked. But three stains stood out:
Rustoleum Kona
Rustoleum Black Cherry (used on the cedar chest)
Minwax Dark Mahogany
We were both drawn to the Black Cherry again, but really wanted to use another color. Kelly liked the Dark Mahogany, but I was partial to the Kona. Both looked good, but in the end we decided on Kona, as it really brought out some deeper tones in the grain that would go well with the black hardware.
This weekend we stain.
