Vintage relocation program

sometimes the simple things ain't so simple

my friend picked this piece up at auction because he thought it would be nice for his mighty fluff buffalo to have a food cupboard, so he asked if i could freshen the look and fix a minor problem with it.

i said sure, i had nothing else on my worktable at the moment...but as i soon found out, the minor problem was a major flaw.

the problem with a lot of stuff these days is that we, the consumer, have begun sacrificing quality for looks...and i'm not picking on my friend here, i mean consumer as a society.

in the past, when something like this was mass produced, it was still done with good materials, or at least all wood, the design flaw in this is that the back panel and floor was made from compressed cardboard, and therefore structurally weak. couple that with poor design and it was almost a gaurantee this thing would break as soon as the original person who purchased it brought it home.

i decided to replace the floor in the container since i had to fix it anyway, so i cut one from a piece of ¼" plywood i had, and i made a new brace for the back to help strengthen the overall frame. i cut the floor so that it would be snug, but not tight. i had to do some adjustment cuts as i was installing it, because i'm a lazy guy and i like when things just fall in to place without struggling, but as i was doing the final part, the wood on the side of the piece just split like wet paper.

i was not impressed.

so i got the floor in place, then got my big clamps and glue out, the whole time singing the four letter word songs of my people and got everything back in order. i would normally have taken the screws out and puttied the holes, but i know the particular war moose this is for, and while not a destructive lass, she's the type who would spin about excitedly as her rump unwillingly wipes small villages from the map, so i elected that industrial strength was a better option than ornate beauty.

speaking of ornate beauty, i chose a nice purple to accent the interior of this food holder because molly is a lady after all...a strong coat of polyurethane should keep everything protected and clean as well.

i collect cassettes...i have been since the 80's, and my collection is quite...hefty. and up until this weekend i didn't have a place to really display, or even just play my trophies. so, using the other thing i like doing (building stuff from recycled materials) i scratched two itches.

using some old corral boards, a crate that's just been sitting at my dad's place for years and a box my son figured i should have from a thrift store garbage pile, i mined the ingredients for a neat little desk and shelf area.

i went with the same colours i have on my vinyl cabinet i refurbished a few years ago, and i think it turned out pretty decent!

this little guy was given to me to see if i could revive him to a former glory, as he had put in a long and hard shift dressering through the years.

not gonna lie, it took considerable sanding to get down to the base wood, and even then i decided that i would have to paint key areas, as there was a little too much damage for stain to do it's job proper, which was a shame as there was some nice graining on this piece.

i decided to remove the mirror accent, and just go with a flat-top, as well as not include the one piece of drawer flair it originally had because i didn't think it worked with my clean line vision for this guy.

washington cherry is the name of the oil based stain i used, it's so very rich and warm, i just love how it looks on whatever i put it on. i've used this paint on a few other pieces i've done as well, it has a weird, almost sandy texture to it, which i imagine is why it was in the severe discount bin at the paint store, but i find it to be very sturdy and long lasting, particularly when coupled with a polyurethane top coat.

the other thing i switched out was the hardware, opting for a more modern look, and i painted them copper instead of leaving their nickel finish, as i think copper gives this piece a warmer feel.

this was a fun, then not so fun, then fun again project for me. i 'inherited' this set from friends who 'inherited' it from their parents and i thought "cool, wood, real wood! i can do an easy flip with these because wood is easy to work with and i'll keep it simple!"

wrong

they are wood, it just turned out that the middle was chipboard with a fancy faux design on it, and i did not know this until my orbital sander with 40 grit paper was all like "hey! guess what?"

so i abandoned my simple design plan and went with flamboyantly elegant. i kept the nice grained top, but also did a paint pour design for the table portion, and the legs i decided to blend. overall i'm pretty happy with the results.

here's a project i've had on the backburner for months now...i don't remember where i got this little metal stool, i think it used to be one of my grandparents at one point because i found it in the garage with some other inherited projects...i mean treasures. none the less, i've wanted to try the cartoon shaded look for quite some time, and this was my guinea pig.

first i covered the brown with some white spray paint, then when i had a good base i switched to ivory because i absolutely love this colour, then once dry it was just clumsily spply black outline. i'm fairly happy with the results, now that i've done it i know i can do it better next time.

to finish it, two coats of gloss clearcoat and this bad boy's ready for action once again!

i have a feeling either people are going to love this table, or hate this table.

i aquired it like i do for many pieces, through auction, and since it was made in the mid 90's, it had that crappy spray stain as a finish, so i set to sanding the top as i knew the graining was going to be pretty nice. i also knew that i was way too lazy to sand the body, so painting was in order.

i got the top sanded down, and yes! it had a cool pie shape design and i had just enough coffee coloured stain left to do the top. i've been doing so much light coloured staining the last while, so i needed a change.

for the paint i was back and forth trying to decide which one of my colours i don't normally use to choose and i went with the indigo, which is a nice colour, but when i got it on the body, i wasn't blown away by it. therefore i did what i normally do, leave it sit in the middle of my kitchen for a bunch of days while i walk by and cuss at it every time until i have an idea...my idea was leopard print!

my brain and body need to get more sympatico because one definitely doesn't understand how lazy the other is. i chose a nice aquamarine to really pop, then added the dark blue for definition with a sharpie pen. after only about 7 hours i said "well i'm pretty content with this"

3 coats of glossy urethane and now she's ready to find a new home!

this is the second painting i did when i was experimenting with pouring paint, and i'm quite happy with the results.

the colours i chose are almost visceral, and work very well together, in my eyes anyway.

the only complaint i have is that i had a difficult time getting a good picture of the piece as i used a high gloss to seal it, so the light source was always reflecting, that's why 2 pictures seem duller or darker than the others, but i chalk that up to me getting old and accepting that struggling with art and technology is just what happens now.

i've been putting paint to canvas in an attempt to stay creative yhis last little while...this is my first try at using tempura paint for a textured look. i really enjoy the subtle hints of gold, which is suprising to me, as i thought i used a considerable amount.

all in all i'm fairly pleased at how it turned out.

my friend al collects vinyl, and he's commissioned me to build him storage for his records, he's purchased other storage i had for sale for his records, and now he's decided to test me by bringing me items he thinks would make neat storage for his vinyl records.
..i'd never ask him to stop collecting, so i indulge his eccentricity.

this was a magazine rack at some point...probably sat inbetween the easy chairs of some old couple who would sit for hours reading magazines and actively ignoring each other, but i saw potential.

i saw potential after this thing sat in my kitchen for like two weeks and thought "just what in the blue hell am i going to do with this to keep records in it?"

i thought about cutting it, extending it, widening it....all of which was honestly more work than this was worth.

then for some reason i tipped it up on end and i said: "oh."

it just needed a cool paint job.

here's hall tree 2 of 2!

this one i built out of 2 vintage doors, the backing was a door in fairly decent shape, just needed some paint, and the other door that was in less than good shape became the seat on which to sit...i also painted it to match the house decor of it's destination.

the shelf is an old piece of barn wood, and i had the brackets from my multitude of auction finds.

i was commissioned to do a pair of hallway trees for christmas gifts this year, this is one of two.

i decided on a farm/ranch styled theme, mainly because i have some ranch/farm odds and ends laying about on my farm/ranch.

the frame i made from a pair of broken fence rails, the seat from some barn boards out of an old stall and the hook boards are from a board from our old corrals.

some sanding, pulled a few nails, a couple screws, a coat of white paint and some stain and i was quite happy with the results. i then added the custom coat hooks supplied by the gift giver, and i had a damn fine hall tree on my hands!

okay, yes...i think crate shelves are pretty cool. so when i find one, i like to pick it up and put my spin on it.

i know shabby-chic is sorta 2019-ish, but i still dig it, so i hit the paint with my sander to give the piece a worn look.

what i felt was missing on this guy was feet....so, i had some old railing spindles with little balls on them and i was like "those would be neat feet", and by golly they didn't turn out too bad!

so i painted them a baby blanket blue just because.

finished the entire piece with good old matte polyurethane for protection and ta-daa!

here's a commission i picked up after i sold the last decopauge nightstand i did.

a lot of work actually goes into these pieces. for starters, i usually strengthen the frame then add legs, and usually adapt new hardware for the build. i like to use bold colors for the legs and handles to really have them pop out from the piece.

in my down time, i usually clip articles and pictures out of old books, but that is slow and tedious, so i only do a bit at a time lol. then i try to produce a good mix of bland articles, eye catchers and cool pieces over the body using carpenters glue....i could use modge podge, but i find the glue works almost as well, and i prefer a little character on my work.

i finish it all off with a clearcoat of polyurethane.

here's something a little different....i can't remember if this no. 9 findlay cast iron skillet came on a treasure pallet from auction, or was a dump find, but nonetheless, i've had it kicking around my garage for years, so the other day i decided that i would restore and use it because i had some wings to cook!

i put my handy-dandy wire brush bit in my ⅜" corded dewalt drill, and after about an hour, i had all of the surface rust free!

next up was 2 rounds of seasoning the pan with oil in the oven, which took about 3 hours total.

all this time gave my wings time to marinate in lemon peppery goodness, until it was time to bbq!

they turned out pretty darned decent, if i do say so myself, as it was my first time cooking in a cast iron pan, but i look forward to using my new addition to make many more dishes!

when your very good friend asks if you can refinish her dinette set exactly how she envisions it, i know there's a level of trust and admiration of my skills that is very complimentary.

and since she has a terriffic eye for design, and is quite particular, i was happy for the challenge!

unfortunately, one of the chairs had seen much better days, and had i repaired it, there would be noticeable differences between the two. thankfully, i had an extra chair quite similair to the two in her set, just a bit bigger and heavier duty, so i switched them out like a parent pulls the ol' switch-a-rooski on a dead goldfish and now she has a 'his and hers' or 'one captain's chair' set.

she wanted flat black, except for the tabletop which was to be just naked wood, no stain. the good thing about flat black, actually the great thing, is that it hides imperfections better than any shade or colour does. the bad thing, however, is that it's a pain in the ass to paint and get perfect...and it's delicate as all get out.

i got it all to a point i was happy with, and then covered it with a flat urethane for protection from wear and tear.

the tabletop sanded so nicely, and exposed some wonderful graining. all i did to it was give the same flat urethane protective cover, but in 2 generous coats.

all in all, i am very pleased with the final product, and she loves it too, and in yhe end that's all that really matters!

gping through some old photos on my computer, i found a treasure trove of work from days gone by...

this is an insert i drew for 'then friends'...you know, friends you have when you're younger, but time has a way of drifting islands apart....it was for their son's toddler headboard. it had a different picture there, but they wanted a personalized piece, so i gave it a shot!

i think it turned out okay for cutesy-wutesy stuff.

not really a vintage post, juat a reminder that i'm still alive, and kicking.

my boy obtained a storage box for the top of his chev-zuki through a form of inheritance...some guy was just getting rid of it, going to toss it to the trees as they say, and randomly asked sam if he wanted it. ever the third generation thrifter, he jumped at it, as he's decking out his little unit to his liking.

it was rusty, but i have sandpaper aplenty, and i had a goodly amount of black spray paint, so i freshened it up a bit for him.

he affixed it to the mighty suv, and is now on to the next upgrade.

i haven't been very productive with furniture style things the last little while, but i've still felt the need to be creative, so i decided to to a set of paintings on some 8.5" wood canvas i had kicking around.

i used some red crayola finger paint i found in a box from when my kids were just wee, so i decided to use it as a base coat. 'washable' it read, 'easy clean-up' it boasted....myth-busted! i honestly had red crayola finger paint staining my fingers red for about 3 days afterwards.

the lines were done with spray paint and impatience.

"i think you got took....this is pretty rough"

that's what my dad said when he picked the tallboy up from the auction for me.

i shrugged, "well, i'll see what i can do with it."

"gonna take a lot of work...not worth it if you ask me"

"yeah, but this is sort of like therapy for me, it's not work because i enjoy it."

so i brought this dirty, used and abused old guy home....some pieces were broken, some missing...one drawer was flat.

but i tinkered, i nailed, i glued and i sanded and i got the shape back to sturdy and handsome. i had a piece of oak that i added to the top in the back where it looks like a mirror, or some moulding sat.

the amount of blemishes i had to fill on the drawer fronts meant it was only going to have a stained top, the rest would be paint, so i chose nuetral colours to really show off the lines.

all in all this is one of the pieces i've done that i'm most proud of in it's final form.

i seem to have taken a break from doing crate upcycling to do more small chair upcycling!

these kids' chairs are pretty much perfect for raised dog dishes, first of all it helps larger puppers eat or drink easier. and second, i dunno...it kind of looks cool.

this guy must've had a useful life....you could see years of wear and tear, marks from writing/doodling, tool marks, it must have spent some time in a garage to get the oil spilled all over it.
..but i appreciate work ethic and character....i respect that this drawered table probably helped kids with homework. it probably had vegetables from the garden washed and maybe was involved in the canning process. it had parts strewn across it, leaving grime and gunk where they lay....i imagine it was the cornerstone for glasses of whiskey during more than one summit of rural world fixing.

i appreciate it, and i celebrate it.

that's why when i saw this table-desk at auction, only bargain hunter bids circling it's proud frame, i decided that it wasn't retired yet....it deserved to have a makeover and the chance to be useful again....maybe as a kitchen table, or a desk in a den for someone...a chance to be a source of pride.

i went with a sort of farmhouse look, the body painted white, and the top and drawer stained grey. the inside of the drawer is black. two coats of poly to help protect the finish....and i'm very happy with the end product.

another dang drawer turned shelf/storage?

yup!

all i had to do to this dirty old guy i found in the back of one of dad's shops is reassemble the back, pressure wash the grime off and hit it with some polyurethane to perserve it's natural awesomeness!

i have a thing about crates it seems. i see a wooden drawer, crate or box and i'm all like: "that'd make a good shelf, or other display/storage solution!"

and i quite enjoy the process of taking each piece through the transformation process, so there's a therapuedic element in there for me i suppose.

this little box started off like so many i accumulate, holding greasy parts of things purchased from an auction by my dad. he is always buying things like this..."look at all these screws and nails that i got and will never use because i haven't made anything from wood since 1997, but i'm retired and bored now! anyway, you want this box to make one of your things with?" is usually how i imagine our conversations when i dump his stuff onto his bench so i can have the crrate....it's not parent abuse by the way, it's a little thing i like to refer to as "payback"

look at me ramble on, this box was fairly dirty, so it got a quick pressure wash, then sanding, then i decided on a nice industrial enamel white i had left over from my days as a painter, because there were some stains i could not get out no matter how hard i tried. the exterior is almost a gunstock coloured stain i picked up as a mistint sample from home depot. it's an olympia stain, which i don't regularily use so i thought i'd try it out, and it seems pretty good to me! and of course it's all sealed with urethane.

lots of words there, hopefully you made it all the way through!

i love finding these old pieces with layers of paint already on them, because all i have to do to tickle my fancy is subtract from what's already there.

i picked up this mid-century folding stool from an auction a while back, and i knew this was exactly the case. but i was very pleased at just how good of shape the structure is, usually these guys are pretty beat up, but this one had just the right amount of character...i only had to give it a little 'help'

as an artisty type of fella. from canvas to panel, furniture to wherever creativity drags me, the fact is that i do quite a bit of painting with all sizes of brush.

the little artist brushes are small, and easily kept in collector beer mugs for when i need them, but my bigger brushes always seem to never have a home.

until now....this is my all-new, very swag brush tree! a 2x2, some long deck screws and a few swipes of paint have given my brushes a place to be! (and it fits into my working-art motif i have going in my house)

of course, all of my brushes don't fit on here, so i either have to make another one, or cull the herd...

allrighty then, time for something a little different!

this little pressboard nightstand had seen some better days...water stained top, missing toe board...it was ugly 1980's pressboard.

but i saw potential...and a chance to experiment and upcycle at the same time.

those of you who know me, know i'm no hippie by a long stretch, but i do have hippie-esque tendencies...i believe in free love, i think bandannas are cool and i dislike throwing useful stuff out, even if it has no use at the moment.

enter a bunch of encyclopedias from the 1970's i had...no real purpose anymore thanks to the internet and some cancel culture stuff...but with a little creative scissor work, i had some nifty decoupage supplies.

the manufacture of the kick board was easy, i had some scrap mdf board laying about, and i decided to put legs under it, so i used 2 that i had with no matches, and made castor wheel legs for the back.

the tedious part was gluing all the articles in place on the body ( i did pictures for the drawer fronts ) so now i have the new nightstand of knowledge!

i've had this little home made stool on my deck for ages...i've sat, relaxing on it, it's held my groceries whilst i unlock the door...i've even put stuff on it to spray paint, so i thought that it's earned retirement from active outside duty.

all i've done to it is sand it down a tad, and put a protective coat of urethane on it...also i may have given it a splash of mauve underneath as well.

i picked this little 4-drawer upright at auction...it was in fairly rough shape from it's years of use. i would say it was homemade, judging by the stain i would say in the late 70's/early 80's.

when i got it home, i started prepping it for renewal...first thing was to get rid of the wooden drawer pulls (not a fan of those) then i sanded it all down. i was happy to discover a very nice graining hidden by the crappy stain that was on there, so i knew that i would be restaining a good portion of the piece.

i used a jacobian stain i've had for quite a while, it's an older stain that i got in a lot at auction, and i've been looking for a good project for it for quite some time...i love this stain, it really accentuates the grain in a unique way for a darker stain.

i then found new pulls in my collection of hardware, i was lucky because i found ones i could re-use the existing holes, i just sprayed them ivory.

here's some vintage themed art that i upcycled from old magazines and wall art i picked up from value village!

vintage...upcycled...thrifting....so many itches scratched!!

the content of this work is a little 2022 cacel culture-y maybe, what with the message of addiction it promotes, but i made it for a different reason.

as a gen-xer, i grew up with ads like these everywhere...everyone smoked, everyone drank, particularily here in saskatchewan, the blue collar mecca of rural life.

i called this piece 'bad ad-vices' clever? stupid? doesn't matter, i'm a gen-xer, and prone to not giving a f**k.

******es

i love old things, and i love finding new uses for old things, so when i came across this old carpenter's box, i pondered: "who could use this today and preserve it's beauty?"

the answer is obvious...cats.

cats love sleeping in boxes, people love their cats, so it's a good match of use-ability and showcasing unique design.