The Candice End Table

     I made this piece for my wife. Once again, bulk trash day has been a gold mine for me this year. When I found this was literally in pieces. It had a laminate over the whole thing that was almost entirely peeled off. 

The first thing I did was remove the gross laminate and give it a good cleaning. Removing the old dry laminate glue was an adventure. A few coats of paint later and now my wife has a brand new end table in her favorite colors. 


I have gotten a lot of good feedback from this little piece. I am going to start to design my own version of this end table. I love the idea of multiple levels. Fixing this up was fun and has given me a lot of new ideas for future projects. 

Dresser to Record Shelf

My Wife has been asking me to build a new shelf for our records and record player for a while now. I figured moving into our new home was as good a time as any to build some new furniture. I wanted to make something that emulated 70's style furniture. I played around with a few designs but nothing really struck me. One day while I was walking my dogs I passed a house with several old pieces of furniture on the curb. I saw this dresser with six beat up drawers. It was old, dirty, dilapidated and 70's as hell.  I loaded it in my truck and brought it home and started working on it that day.

The first thing I had to do was get rid of the drawers. After I took them out as well as removing the back panel I was able to give it a thorough cleaning. I'm not sure how long it lived on the side walk but it dirt and bugs made me thing it had been there for quite a long time.

After cleaning I installed a shelf on the top and one of bottom out of some scraps of plywood I had lying around. For a nicer look I used a couple pieces of oak as fascia for the upper shelf. Once the shelves were installed I started sanding. This was the longest step in the whole process.

The top of the dresser was white laminate. I was initially going to remove it and make a new wood top but I had an idea to stain the whole piece a very dark color and leave the top bright white. I think it turned out great. I stained and polyed the wood and bleached the hell out of the top.


There you have it, a brand new 70's style record shelf. I used the two upper cubbies for my stereo and cd player and the lower shelf for our records.
The whole project took about a week and I am very happy with the way it turned out. Bulk trash week has been a bit of a gold mine for me this year.

Entertainment Center

In a previous post I shared some pictures of a piece of furniture in progress. Well, here is the finished piece!

this entertainment center is made from found and salvaged wood. The only things purchased where the drawer slides (new) and the drawer pull which I found at City Wide Garage sale here in Austin.

I decided to give it an aged white-wash look. The shelves and the two front panels at the bottom where previously stained. I liked contrast of the light white-washed wood with the dark stain so I decided to keep them how they were.

This was a fun piece to build. It was definitely a challenge finding enough materials to complete it. For a little while I thought I may have to purchase some wood but came across some bits and pieces that some friends were getting rid of.

The idea for this came out of how much I disliked my old entertainment center. It was very short, did not have a lot of storage space and was just a cheap pre-made bit of garbage we purchased at an enormous chain that will remain nameless. The lower drawer is not very deep or shallow but is very wide. It is perfect for video and dvd storage.