As we continue to work on our kitchen and entertain the visiting in-laws, it seemed like a good idea to share with you another furniture makeover success.
Here is a hall stand I scored at a garage sale in October. In this photo I have half the paint stripped because I forgot to take a photo in its original state.
I loved the look of this piece when I found it, but it was completely painted a drab, streaky green (use your imagination…failed shabby chic isn’t exactly our style). Additionally, when I finally got it into our front hallway it didn’t fit where I wanted it. The seat/storage area stuck out about two inches too far. Unfortunately, most garage sales do not have a return policy. Garth and I pondered this problem and decided to just slice a few inches off of the seat. Antique surgery!
This project was accomplished in sunny October, so I was able to set up my work space in the back yard. My first step was paint removal (which you can see partially accomplished in the above image). Using a cheap three inch paint brush I smeared on some orange paint stripper. It was great to do this outside because despite the “No Harsh Fumes” promise of the label, this stuff is pretty aromatic.
Following the instructions, I waited thirty minutes and was then able to fairly easily scrape the layer of green paint off with a plastic scraper. This paint came off easily in lumpy, gooey hunks which I carefully wiped into plastic bags. Compared to the nightmare I am having getting our banister stripped, this job was a cinch. My best guess is that this was because the paint on the hall stand was applied directly onto finished wood without sanding or priming.
Once I scraped away the green goo I cleaned the entire stand with paint thinner, removing all remaining paint and stripper. This was an important step, as the wood surface was still too sticky to sand.
At this point, I decided to take the seat off the back of the hall stand before I sanded off the finish. To do this I removed a few heavy duty screws that were helping to hold the seat to the tall back of the stand and found that there were still lots of stubborn nails holding everything together. Using a crowbar I pried the seat/box area of the hall stand off the “stand” portion and pounded any remaining nails from the back of the stand.
Hinges held the seat of the box to the back of the stand so I unscrewed these and removed the old hinges entirely. I would need to cut away the part of the seat where the hinges attached later on.
Once the hall stand was disassembled, it took several hours with a hand sander to remove the remaining wood finish.
Now that the entire piece was paint and finish-free, I carefully measured in two inches from the back edge of the stand seat and marked a straight line to cut on. I did the same thing on the flat seat top.
If I had proper tools I could have very easily cut away this two inch strip from both places. I had to make do with what we had, which worked fine, but this all could have been done in moments with a better saw. I found our reciprocal saw too wild and out of control to cut an even line so I grabbed our multi-purpose tool and set to work, slowly cutting away that pesky extra two inches.
Before I finished the wood and put the piece back together, I used our shop vac to suck as much dust and grit as possible from the wood. Next I wiped and wiped every nook and cranny with tack cloth (a sticky cheese cloth you can get from your hardware store to remove dust and debris before you finish wood). Now the wood was clean, paint free, and ready to be put back together.
I used an Ace Hardware dark walnut stain on the wood applied with a big, cheap foam brush. Once again, it was nice to be outside so the fumes didn’t seem as harsh. I did this step very carefully to be sure the stain was even, thin, and not dripping anywhere. I waited a day for the stain to set and applied two coats of Ace polyurethane clear coat (with proper drying times in between). Now the hall stand pieces were ready to be put back together.
Garth and I are both tool geeks, and we owned an air compressor and nail gun before we owned a house. I need it to build panels to paint on, but the nail gun has come in handy for all sorts of in-home jobs. If you are trying to chop up a piece of furniture to make it smaller (or larger, or weirder) a nail gun can come in handy. However, you can certainly accomplish the same task with a good old fashioned hammer and nails.
I carefully put wood glue on the edge of the seat box, pressed it back into place against the tall stand and used the nail gun to nail it all together. Now that the box was affixed, I needed to reattach the hinged seat on top. This was pretty easy because the holes for the screws from the original hinges were there as a marker.
The coat hooks were returned to their original holes and the final touch was installing the mirror. The hall stand came with a mirror that was too large to fit in the mirror opening, so I took this it to our local glass shop and had it cut down to size. I would much rather pay someone to cut a mirror than to mess with the sharp edges of mirror or glass (you can’t DIY all the time).
The original mirror appeared to have been nailed into place on the back of the hall stand, but I took several small metal brackets and ran them across each corner to hold it in place.
Voila! A new hall stand!
This entire project took about two days of work during daylight, outside working hours. It wasn’t too bad, and I’m sure that I will do an even better job on the next piece of furniture I need to cut apart. Fear not! I have another one waiting in the wings!
