| D I Y | Industrial Oil Burner . . . in under an hour.

 

Cheap or thrifty, One has negative connotations and the other positive . They are kind of one and the same in my mind though.

If I go to a shop or stumble across something that I admire, it has to pass the DIY test. If I think that I can make it or recreate something like it at home,  I cannot part with cash for it. Especially if I can calculate that what I am looking at would cost under $20 in materials and yet was retailing for over $100. I understand manufacturing and retail costs, but still, I cannot do it. I try not to appropriate or steal someones intellectual property or idea but I do not see anything wrong with using it as inspiration to make something of my own.

So, mid last year I saw an industrial style oil burner that really caught my eye. I had been thinking about getting an old retort stand and making it from that, but then the thought of cutting hardened steel turned me off.

I am comfortable with timber so decided to make something from scraps I had at home.

I hunted down a round bottom flask, boss head and retort clamp from www.haines.com.au. I felt a bit Walter White and started imagining all the other things that could be cooked up!

I had some scrap laminated plywood from a previous project and bought some 10mm Tasmanian Oak dowel.

So the process is pretty easy.

What you will need-

Tools:

Jigsaw

Drill / drill bits

Hand sander

Material:

Scrap timber big enough for your base

Dowel

Round bottom flask

Boss head

Retort clamp

*paint / woodburning tool for however you wish to finish your piece.

1. Cut out the base shapes with a jigsaw to the size / shape that you want. For the round one I used a plate to draw an accurate circle with a diameter of 22cm. The rectangle measures 16cm by 24cm.

2. Measure where you wish the dowel to go. Drill a pilot hole, then use a drill bit slightly smaller than your dowel and drill right the way through. Try and make sure that you are drilling straight down at 90 degrees, if not, your dowel might be slightly lopsided when complete. Not a huge deal, but will look better the more straight it is.

3. Cut your dowel to the height you wish (mine was around 25cm).

4. Check that the dowel fits securely in the drilled hole. Place some wood glue in hole and place dowel in, making sure that it is straight.

5. Decorate how you wish!

*I taped off the black one and painted half with black spraypaint, the rectangle I used a wood burning tool to burn a kind of geo pattern.

I really didn't like this one. 

6. Paint with clear varnish.

7. Attach boss head and retort clamp to dowel and then attach flask. Fill with water and a few drops of your favourite fragrant oil and place a tea light underneath and doneskies.

This is a super quick DIY. Without the painting, it only takes about 1/2 hour to complete.

DIY Indian Bone Inlay Drawers

  

| **Update: featured on the Cutting Edge Stencils blog here. Whoo! |

Indian bone inlay furniture is a thing of dreams for me. I drool over images online and when I visit a local store that has some pieces, I always find myself next to them in a daze, running my hands along the slightly irregular surface, turning over the price tag and .........HAVING MYSELF A HEART ATTACK.

The prices of these bad boys are significant. I can see where the value is in them as the amount of work that would go into the bone / shell inlay is enormous. If I bought one I am sure I would keep it forever, but at this stage of my life I was after the look but not the cost.

Here's a link to a whole section in Houzz with some awesome examples of bone inlay furniture.

I saw some images on Pinterest of some DIY projects using Cutting Edge Stencils and thought, that's it, I am doing it. The price was reasonable (postage was a little scary to Australia, around $25, but not too bad) so I bought it after drooling of some of the inspiration pictures. I already had 2 Ikea Rast drawers in the garage from 18 months ago that I hadn't done anything with so it was easily decided that they would be my canvas. 

The hardest part of all was deciding what base colour to paint the drawers. I was very attracted to cobalt or turquoise but thought that I might get sick of it quicker, so went with a neutral of grey, 

First step was putting together the Rast drawers (not including the handles) and priming the raw timber.

via Ikea.com.au

After priming, I put two coats of the grey base colour on and left to dry. Fast forward 3 - 4 weeks later (as my inspiration for painting temporarily left me), and I started stenciling.

The paint I used to stencil was an artists acrylic in white and off white that I mixed together.

When I purchased the stencils, I bought a three pack of stippling brushes from Cutting Edge Stencils also. I wasn't sure at that point whether I wanted to use the stippling brush or a small foam roller. Stippling gave a nice result, but it took quite a while so then I used the small foam rollers from Bunnings. Much quicker, but you had to be very careful to roll most of the paint off the roller before using it with the stencil otherwise the paint would bleed underneath.

Overall, the stenciling took about 3 hours, not counting the time between waiting for layers to dry. 

Next step, the knobs. I am super happy with them as originally I was looking at Anthropologie for knobs and those suckers are expensive if you are buying 12. I really liked these ones, but paying more for knobs than I did for the actual drawers was  bit silly. So, I hit ebay and found these for a ridiculous $1.97 each. $23 (including postage) in comparison to $96 (without postage on top). The knobs are great quality, the only complicated thing was that I had to put a washer behind the screw to make them fit the drawer properly.

All in all, I do quite like the effect. I am sure I could have taken much more time and had a much more precise result, but that's just not my style! I like how there are stronger and weaker areas of the stencilled areas, it mimics how the inlay furniture looks, it is never completely uniform.

I have placed these babies in the front doorway as a kind of console to hide little bits and pieces, in the future I can see them as bedside tables as the knobs match perfectly with my DIY bedhead.

Next project with these, stencilling a huge mirror of a friends, It's a little more tricky with all the angles of the timber, but I think it will turn out well now that I have all this stencilling practice!

Here is the mirror pre-stencil.

Stay tuned for the result . . . . 

[DIY] Tufted Ottoman . . . . . a tufting initiation

I have been lusting after a number of tufted items recently. Tufted ottomans, chairs, bedheads. If it has a button on it, I have lusted after it.

I am making a tufted bed head soon so thought I would start on a smaller project to have a bit of a practice go.

There are a  heap of tutorials online for ottomans that reuse coffee tables and the like, I was more interested in a larger, rounder, close to the floor version (this week anyway).



I couldn't really find any comprehensive tutorials about making an ottoman from scratch so I thought I would add my contribution to the mix!

Disclaimer: as this piece is so low to the floor and doesn't have a heap of framing / reinforcement, I wouldn't use this for seating (except maybe for littlies).

First step, find someone with a large car or trailer to help you get a sheet of ply. My ottoman was around 800mm diameter, but you can change this to your own preference. The ply I got was 15mm thick.

To create the circle draw a 800 x 800mm square on the ply. Find the middle point of this square i.e. measure up 400mm each side and draw line across so lines intersect at centre, This intersection is the middle. 

Tap a nail into this intersection, lightly, as it will be removed later.

Knot a piece of string around nail, measure 400mm from nail to end of string, wrap extra string around pencil and make sure string length measures 400mm once wrapped.



Rotate string around nail to create circle. This circle is never going to be 1 billion percent perfection, as your hand is changing angles. I found this method was fine for my needs though.



Cut circle shape out with a jigsaw.



Place circle of ply atop foam (I used foam that was medium density and approximately 6cm thick).



Trace around circle with a marker. If the width of the foam is less than the diameter of the circle, patch up edges with extra foam as needed. 







Now to drill holes for the button tufting. I decided to do a 4 x 4 pattern (16 buttons in total). I measured them out evenly from the centre point that I had nailed in the ply and then drilled through.

Now to drill the holes for the feet plates. Using centre point and the lines you would have used to map out the tufting, mark where holes will go for the feet plates and then drill holes depending on the hardware you have chosen

At this point, I made a frame for the bottom as was going to use some different feet, I decided to remove it when covering though.



Place batting on the floor and place foam and ply on top. Tuck each edge of batting up and staple (whilst pulling firmly on the batting) and staple where north, south, east and west would be. 


Starting on one quarter, pull batting up and fasten with staple, pulling batting tight as you do so.



Once batting is secured all the way around, trim off excess.





Iron fabric that you are using and place on clean surface and fasten with staples like you did the batting. The circular shape can be a bit difficult to staple down and you may find that you need to add a pleat every now and then.

Trim off excess fabric.

Attach feet plates (I used the Leggz brand of legs and plates from Bunnings).


Now for the tufting! There are many tufting examples out there that explain the process a lot better than I ever could. 



Getting a long upholstery needle with make the whole process a lot less painful. Insert long needle up through tufting hole, thread through button and then thread back down through foam and out through same hole. Once both threads are out the bottom of the ply, staple gun in a haphazard pattern until the thread doesn't budge. Complete this with all tufts, making sure to check that the tuft depths are the same when you staple the threads.

I decided to neaten the bottom with some hessian. I just folded the edges under an stapled. 



I then found the feet plates and made a small hole on the hessian for the feet threads to screw into the feet plates.

AND DONE. I just need to Scotchguard it so sticky little fingers (or paws) get to it!



Not quite sure about furniture placement now either . . . I think a rearrangement is in order.

  

[DIY] Chalkboard catalogue drawers . . . . . for those who wish to draw on their furniture!

There are those who say that chalkboard paint has had it's day with furniture and DIY's, I say to those people . . . .NEVVEERRRR!

The original piece with a pile of yet to be completed projects to the right!

I found these drawers at a vintage furniture store in pretty gross condition but they immediately reminded me of library catalogue drawers which I love. The prices can be somewhat prohibitive though. I saw some about 2-3 times the size of these at a 'fancy' vintage furniture store in Sydney for $2000, and they had not been refinished / restored.  The drawer pulls on these were ok, just a little boring and not particularly memorable.

There are some examples below of how the library catalogue style has been used in homes.

image via HomeJelly

image via Designsponge

Having a number of different hidey places for all your treasures, along with the ability to label the individual drawers for organisational purposes is my idea of heaven. I long to be one of those perfect organised people and figure that good storage is a great place to start.

I have pinned a heap of chalkboard images in the past but this is only the second one I have actually completed. The first was a Ikea Lack table that I painted for my nephews birthday. I cut out a few safari kind of images from contact paper, adhered them to the table, spray painted blackboard paint on top and done. It was enjoyed, but I don't think it lasted too long!

So for the drawers I needed to sand back the body and the drawer faces and do a little rehab on the middle supports that had come undone. Nothing too drastic. 

The sanding took quite a while as the wood had been stained a dark kind of chestnut colour. I am not sure what kind of wood it is, maple? I don't think it is cedar. I think the piece might be handmade actually, and not commercially. There is not a heap of precision on the inner structure, almost as if the person has built the outside, then measured and cut the innards as needed. I quite like that!

So after a marathon sanding effort and puttying up the original drawer pull holes, I put a coat of oil based clear varnish on the body. The drawers got treated to a primer and the chalkboard paint. 

The delicious shiny, shiny top

Stella loves it too . . . . 

Then measured the holes for the new drawer pulls and done.

I tend to love furniture a lot more when I have refinished it or restored it and place a lot more value in it and keep it a lot longer. 

I love it. I am not sure whether I am going to draw so much on the chalkboard, but I love that I can if I feel the urge!