Home: Craft Drawer

The project I'm sharing today is something that I've been wanting to make for a few years after seeing the idea in an old issue of Homemaker magazine. It's taken me this long to get around to it because the main item on the list of supplies needed was "Old wooden drawer". I don't know about you, but I don't generally have that many old wooden drawers sitting around so knew I'd just have to keep my eye out for one and put the project to the back of my mind until something came along. A little while ago I found just what I was looking for - here it is...

At this point I should say that, while I said in my post about my chest of drawers that I wanted to paint all the furniture, there are some things that I think are too nice to be repainted. Had this drawer still been in its chest with some fellow drawers, I suspect it would have fallen into that category because it is lovely wood. On its own, on the other hand, I decided that most people wouldn't want it so it was fair enough for me to adulterate it a bit, namely by painting it bright pink and putting some legs on it.

This might look like a slightly strange item of furniture, but when I saw the original project in the magazine I instantly thought that it would be great for sitting next to my sofa and holding all of my various crafting projects (knitting, crochet, EPP etc.).

I sanded the drawer down, and then painted it using V33 Easy Ultra Pink Gloss furniture paint. While I'm happy with the colour and finish that I've ended up with, I wouldn't particularly recommend this paint if you're aiming for a strong, solid colour. The coverage really wasn't great and the colour was quite watery - I ended up having to do five coats on the drawer. That's not a problem necessarily, but other furniture paint I've used as given a much better coverage and only needed one or two.

The legs that I've used came from Peter Cook International, and I would happily recommend them! They're just right for this project, and arrived really quickly. I would tell you about attaching the legs, but my Dad helpfully volunteered to take on that job and I'm not actually sure what he did.

The last step for the drawer itself was to line the bottom with some pretty paper. This is some children's wallpaper from Homebase, and is actually the same that I used to line the drawers of my chest of drawers too.

The only problem then was that, in my humble opinion, sofa-based crafts generally need a cup of tea and an occasional sweet treat to accompany them and the craft drawer didn't have any space for them. Thankfully, my parents had an old wooden tray that my Mum had sanded down a while ago, but then hadn't actually got around to painting. I painted it white, and then my Dad attached some dowels to the bottom to help it sit securely in place on top of the drawer. It's now the perfect place for refreshments (or flowers) to sit.

My craft drawer has now been in place next to my sofa for a couple of weeks, and I'm so pleased with it. It means that all of my knitting and crochet projects, and hand sewing supplies, are kept nice and tidy but within easy reach whenever I want to pick one of them up to work on for a while. And it's bright pink - who doesn't love a bit of cheery colour?! If you happen to have an old drawer lying around and lots of craft projects to keep in order, I'd definitely recommend giving this a go!

Home: Lace Chest of Drawers

If you don't mind, I've got something a bit different to share with you today. When I moved house towards the end of last year, I needed to get a new chest of drawers. Rather than buy a basic Ikea one, I decided to look for something more sturdy and came across this in a local secondhand shop...

While it was definitely sturdy in essence (it's a heavy beast!), it had a few problems that needed fixing and the dark wood and gold coloured fancy handles weren't entirely to my taste. Thankfully, my Dad is fairly handy when it comes to do-it-yourself projects and was happy to help me with the more technical aspects of fixing it up. Between us, we've worked on it gradually over the last couple of months and here's what it looks like now....

Quite a transformation, don't you think?

In terms of repair work, I ripped off what was left of the old trim around the top and bottom, removed the drawer handles and sanded the whole thing down. My Dad than attached a new trim, replaced the back with a new panel, repaired the stoppers for the drawers and filled in the holes left from where I removed the handles.

Then came the fun part - deciding what colour to paint it! That actually proved to be one of the trickier parts of the process as far as I was concerned because I had too many ideas about what I wanted to do.

In the end, my mind was made up when I discovered a pretty lace wall/furniture stencil from Dizzy Duck Designs on Etsy. If you're interested in doing anything similar, I'd definitely recommend these stencils. Mine arrived really quickly, the film used is flexible but sturdy and, most importantly, the stencil was easy to use. I was concerned about getting the pattern to match up properly as I moved the stencil along the drawers, but there are clear overlap points so it's easy to produce the repeating pattern.

I'll be honest and say that my stencilling is definitely not perfect. There are quite a few points on the finer lines where it looks like my 'lace' has broken slightly, but I don't think that detracts from the overall effect at all. If anything, it just goes to prove that it's done by hand instead of mass produced.

I was fairly heavily influenced by one of the example photos that was shown on the listing for the stencil, although I went against my usual tendency to make everything blue and went slightly more green when I chose the paint. Although, if I'm being honest, I had fully intended to buy cornflower blue paint but when I got to the shop it was out of stock so I had a quick reconsideration. The paint I used is Rust-Oleum Satin Finish Furniture Paint in teal (which I personally wouldn't call teal, but the colour on the pot is an accurate reflection of the paint colour, so that's fine) and cotton.

If you're thinking of doing any furniture make-overs, one practical thing that I'd recommend is that if you're doing it in winter I'd make sure that you have somewhere heated where you can work! I was originally working on this in my parents' garage, where at one point it took glue over a week to set because the temperatures were so low. When it came to doing the painting, the paint needed to be used at above 10°C. Thankfully my parents are very accommodating and didn't mind me taking over their dining room with my chest of drawers, paint and a ground sheet!

I'm so pleased with how my chest of drawers turned out, and it's lovely to have a piece of furniture that's completely unique. So much so that I now want to repaint all the things! I have a couple of smaller projects in the works already, so they may be popping up around here soon - but don't worry, normal sewing/knitting/occasional crochet service will still be happening too!