Makely

Let's Make Life Awesome

You are visiting: Home » Decorating/DIY » Transform Your Furniture » Page 5

DIY Window Screen Covered Furniture

by on 6,474 Comments

My garage is a refuge to homeless furniture.  Whenever “new” old pieces come into my life, they wait their turn in the garage until I am ready to work on them.  Sometimes I’m just waiting on time, but often I’m waiting on inspiration.

A friend of mine bought this vintage Acousti-Craft stereo cabinet for $15 at an estate sale.  Sadly (for her), it was too large to fit into the space where she wanted to put it.  She asked if I wanted it, and since I never turn down furniture projects, I was happy to welcome it into my garage.

It took up residence there for about 9 months until inspiration struck.  I knew that I wanted to do something different with it, so when I came up with the idea to use window screen on a piece of furniture, I decided to try it out on this record cabinet.

I bought a roll of window/insect screen from Home Depot to use on this project.  It was about $5 for a big roll, so I figured it was worth a shot on a free piece of furniture.  I chose a fiberglass screen because it was soft, and I hoped it wouldn’t be too brittle once I painted it.

I decided to screen the sides of the cabinet and the inset panels on the front doors.  I used my pneumatic stapler to attach the screen to the cabinet (pulling it tight before each staple), and used an X-Acto knife to trim the overhang around the edges.

I knew that I was going to give the cabinet a grungy feel, so I was happy to leave the staples in full view.  If I wanted to give it a different look, I may have added wooden trim over the staples or used a different fastening system.

I took the cabinet apart and spray primed it with Zinsser Cover Stain Primer in my garage.  I did a really horrible job, but it was good enough.  I didn’t sand before I primed, but I lightly sanded everything but the screened areas after the primer was dry.

I tried to spray paint the color coats on the piece out of laziness, but the finish was AWFUL.  It was blotchy in places and shiny in others.  I ended up lightly sanding it (again) and just painted it with satin latex paint and a brush.

When the paint was dry, I glazed it using my favorite technique.  On the screened areas, I over removed the glaze in some parts (by wiping the glaze with a lot of pressure) and under removed the glaze in others.  The end result was nothing short of awesomesauce.

GAH!  Right?  Here are some other detailed shots of my new favorite furniture transformation technique.

For now, it sits underneath the TV in our living room.  All of the ugly cable/Roku/Wii/DVD boxes are contained within.  It works out perfectly, because there is no back to the cabinet (so the original stereo components wouldn’t get overheated).  When we watch TV, we just have to open one of the doors for the remotes to work with our components and then they are hidden the rest of the time.

It’s not necessarily going to live right there forever since the living room will get Lindsay-fied next year, but I like being able to enjoy it every day for now.

What do you think about my window screen covered furniture invention?  I think it’s pretty cool myself!  The texture gives it a really different vibe.

Welcome inside the house, little homeless vintage stereo cabinet.

 

How to Repair a Stripped Screw Hole with a Toothpick

by on 2,842 Comments

Smart DIYers the label doors and hardware they remove from a project.  The labels make it much easier when everything needs to be reassembled.  Particularly with vintage furniture, the doors and hardware often fit best in their original positions since the piece has likely settled (or warped) a bit over time.

But, how do you label the doors when you need to paint the front and back of them?  Well, if you are like me, you think you are really smart and can just keep them in order.  Much like the shell game, though, they somehow seem to get out of order and then you (or maybe just me) are left with a big mess on your hands.

This is exactly what happened when I went to put the doors back on my now bright blue stereo cabinet.  I thought I had them  in the correct positions, but I didn’t.  I moved them around about five times, screwing and unscrewing the hinges (because those had to be just right, too!).  By the time I had it all figured out, the screw holes for the hinges were stripped.

I called Tom at work and asked him if we had any super glue.  He’s answer (and rightfully so) was, “Um, why?”  I told him I needed to just glue the screws into the too big holes.  Instead, he suggested that I use toothpicks.  Apparently, I could cut a toothpick down and use it to tighten the stripped hole a bit.

Y’all, it worked!

Tom said this was a “well known” fix, but I had never heard of it before.  Here’s what to do, in case you run across the stripped screw hole problem, too.

How to Repair a Stripped Screw Hole with a Toothpick

1.  Stick and ordinary wooden toothpick into the stripped screw hole.  Make a mark on the toothpick with a pen or marker so that you know about where it comes out of the hole.  Don’t look at the scraped up paint on the bottom of my door.  That’s what happened when I was trying to jam the wrong doors into the wrong places.  And the poly drip.  Seriously, why are you still looking?  I said “don’t look”!!

2.  Cut the toothpick (I just used scissors) slightly shorter than the mark.  You want the toothpick to be down in the hole enough so that the tip of the screw can push down on it.

3.  Now, you can just screw in your hardware as normal.  The screw will push the toothpick down and to the side so that it has something to bite into.

Genius!  I couldn’t believe that it was such a quick and easy fix.  Much better than super glue.  🙂

Have you ever tried this toothpick fix?  If not, file it away in your mental filing cabinet (or on Pinterest) so that you can remember it when the need arises.