Charcoal Grey Mahogany Sideboard

On a shopping trip to Goodwill, I spotted this vintage mahogany sideboard and snatched it up right away.  It took me about a week or so to get started working on it because I couldn't decide on a color for it.  My head was sniping all over the place, so I looked for inspiration in Pinterest and that made it worse because then I had a ballillion choices.  I finally had a vision in my head of how I wanted the piece to look.  My gut was telling me to paint it in a dark charcoal grey with the middle section in a light grey and stain the top.

I started by sanding the top finish off completely working my way from coarse, to medium, to fine grit sand paper for a smooth finish.  I gave the body a light sanding with fine grit too.  Then I filled some spots where the veneer was missing.  Rustoleum's Kona gave the top a nice, even tone.  I mixed my own chalk paint for this piece.   After a few coats of each color, I let the paint dry over night and came back the next day and sanded the whole piece to remove any bumps and lightly distress the edges.  I sealed the bottom portion with Minwax polycrylic in satin and the top in gloss finish.

I liked the original hardware but I wanted to remove the years of tarnish, to give them a fresher look.  I used Bar Keepers Friend, it was working quite well.  They were a nice brassy color underneath, unfortunately two of the hardware pieces had a silver tone to them.  I needed another solution so I thought about using Rub and Buff.  I've never used it before but read good things about it.  I went to two different craft stores near by and neither of them carried it.  One of them had a similar product called Metallic Luster.  I bought it, took it home and tried it out but it was a bust.  It didn't work for me, it was too much of a bright gold and the finish was translucent.  Maybe I didn't do it right, I don't know.  Anyhow I finally found Rub and Buff at Hobby Lobby and it worked like a charm.
     

The decorative trim from the top back was missing so I picked up a piece of 1x2 at Home Depot.  My hubby cut it for me and then I screwed it in from the back, stained it and sealed it.   I also added some wooden corner pieces as supports to give it more stability since it is such a top heavy piece.

I am totally in love with how this Charcoal Grey mahogany Sideboard came out.  I wish I had a bigger house so that I could keep it!  I say that a lot but it's not true, I actually love that our house is not so big, it's perfect for us.  I guess what I mean is, I wish I needed it or had a spot for it at home, but I don't so hopefully this vintage beauty finds a perfect home soon.

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Dining Room Updates

A few months ago I shared our dining room with you guys and talked about some possible changes we would be making in the space for the future.  Yesterday I shared our new dining table and chairs, today I want to review our original to do list for the dining room updates.  Let's see what has gotten done, what still needs to get done, and what ideas have been added or changed.

Dining Room To Do List

1. First, remove the little black mirror by the shelves, seeing these pictures I'm now sure, I hate it there.
2. Sand, prime, paint the trims and window (you can see the blue tape where I started). 
3. Buy chairs I am not sure what style but they need to be comfy, strong, durable and easy to clean.
4. Build or buy dining table, I think I want to rebuild the same modern farmhouse dining table we built for our our previous house but tweaking it a bit so that crumbs don't get stuck in the crannies.
5. Replace the grey cabinet with something similar to the ones I mentioned earlier in the post. 
6. Maybe add a jute or sisal rug, I am not 100% I want to do that yet. I think it would add some nice texture and feel a little bit more layered and warm but at the same time I love the ease of sweeping and moping hardwood floors, and you know how crumbs and spills just happen with kiddos.
7. Adding some horizontal shiplap would be nice too. Another maybe... we did recently paint this room so I could see my husband cringe at the thought of having to repaint but he is a wood man so I think he might like the idea.  

Updates on the list

1. The first one was an easy one, I did that almost immediately after publishing that post.  I simply replaced it with the rattan mirror that was over the grey cabinet.  I gave the black mirror to my sister and it fits perfectly over her little entryway table in her home.  
2. We replaced the window with an energy efficient vinyl window so there is no need for painting the window anymore.  However we still have yet to paint all the surrounding trim.  Need to get on that pronto!  
3. We bought new chairs, yay!  Read more about those in this post and how we plan to build a bench for one of the sides.  
4. We bought a parsons style dining table for a steal on Craigslist!  
5. I wrote a post about our new vintage dining room hutch, which was, surprise! Another Craigslist score!!  I'm in love with that piece, it is so unique!  I still need to tweak it a little!
6. Number six and seven are still marinating!  The idea of having a nice textured rug is nice but not the maintenance it requires.  We've recently adopted a puppy and we are working hard at potty training but she still has little accidents here and there.  
7. Like I said still marinating on the ship lap walls.  It would be nice to add some character to the house but maybe farther down the line.  We have lots of other projects that need to get done around the house that have more priority. 
8. I would like to add that the light fixture needs to be centered, and tweaked a little.       

Overall I feel like the dining room is finally starting to come together, especially since we have most of our main furniture pieces.  I'm going to set small goals to finish it up all the dining room updates.  Like one week will be about finishing the trim, the next will be for building the bench and so on.  Soon I will have a dining room update where all the things on the list will be crossed off except for number six and seven, those will come later.  For now I'm really enjoying the small dining room updates we've made but I'm looking forward to getting it done!      
 

Skogsta Chairs and Parsons Dining Room Table

After stalking the Ikea website for a month waiting for the chairs to come back in stock, we got'em!  We now have a beautiful combination of skogsta chairs and parsons dining room table.  Our dining room has always suffered from identity crisis.  But it's finally starting to feel more like us.

A few weeks ago I shared this mood board for the dining room but some things have already changed.  As you can see we ended up buying four chairs instead of two.  After looking at the mood board a few times something didn't feel right.  I realized I didn't like the way the rounded back of windsor chairs looked next to the flat back of the skogsta chairs.  I was planning on keeping them and painting them black but instead we are just going to build a bench and use the skogsta chairs around.   I like the look of mix matched chairs but this room is small and I think it would look too busy with so many different types of seating.  We are going to keep it simple and use two styles of seating instead of three.

Now, can we talk about the parsons dining table for a minute?  Just look at it!  It's such a simple, white piece but it pops.  I love it, it has such a durable surface and it's easy to clean.  I got it from Craigslist to the tune of $20, yep, you read that right, twenty dollar bills yo!  Score!!  My hubby is so happy that he doesn't have to build another dining table or spend a couple hundred on a new one either.  Double score!!!      

Let's talk about the things that are not in the dining room mood board

• The curtains are a little bit faded from the light but it's not that noticeable, they are staying and so are the woven roman shades.
• The floating shelves are my besties, I love dressing them up with my favorite finds and plants.
• The new hutch stays in the corner right where it is, I will be refinishing it soon.
•  The light fixture in the mood board isn't the same one but it was the closest thing I could find. We got a few years ago from Overstock on clearance and it's staying.  It will receive some tweaking down the line.

We are happy that we purchased the skogsta chairs and the parsons dining table.  Those are the most important pieces we needed to get closer to the finish line, even though we move slower than a turtle.  But you know what they say slow and steady wins the race.  I know it's not a race but when you have owned seven different dining tables (and I can't even count how many different chairs we've had) we are just dying to finish it up.  We use this room on a daily basis and it's where all the family gatherings happen so it's nice to put the furniture limbo to an end and stop playing musical chairs.  The dining room is shaping up people! 

You can see pictures of the first dining room table we built here 
Our new dining room when we first moved in here
The vintage hutch we found for this room here

Anyone else out there have a room in their house suffering from identity crisis??  Can't seem to find the right furniture pieces or the right color for the walls....???    

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