A Barn Wood-style frame, A Soap Dispenser, and my Kitchen Island Wanna-Be

March 08, 2012

A Barn Wood-style frame, A Soap Dispenser, and my Kitchen Island Wanna-Be

So I finished up a couple of projects today that seems like they have been sitting on the To-Do list ~~since last year~~ forever! The first is the antique French grain sack that I wanted to turn into a hanging picture instead of using it on furniture this time.
I had my mind set on a certain frame – old and funky – and nothing else would do. I went to Hobby Lobby and tried out their old barn wood frames, but they were too “new” for the look I was after.

I wanted old man... I wanted it old and rough!

I finally came across a bundled up section of reclaimed old barn wood that was ½ off at my fav antique store here. I had been eyeing it for some time, but the price wasn't right. At ½ off, who could resist!

My and my naivety thought that I could just sand down the gobs of white paint.

Boy was I wrong!

After sanding one board for over an hour, I realized I was forced to rethink using

p*a*i*n*t *** s*t*r*i*p*p*e*r

{Insert loud echo here},

I begin to think that I did bit off more than I could chew on this project. Since I have five eyes in this house looking over my shoulder at what I do next in a situation like this, failure was NOT an option.

I was loathing the thought of donning heavy gloves and 2 or 3 gas masks in the process of scraping goo and snorting noxious fumes at the same time. I literally HATE paint stripper! But off to Home Depot it was to check out my options, praying all the way there that they had something that was eco-friendly. To my delight, I found a bottle of Citristrip that was not only safe and non-toxic, it smelled like oranges!

I can deal with that!

Took my son and I a couple of hours to do four 6 foot boards, but what was revealed below all that goopie white paint was magical to me. Two of the boards were blue and two were a chateau grey color. I actually had the chalk paint to match, so all that was left to do is a little light sanding, some painting with my chalk paint, and then seal it all in with a flat varnish.

When it came time to make the frame, I enlisted the help of my son who was too eager to design something past the basic miter saw 45 degree angle cut.

“It's SO over-used mom!”

He drew up a designed and with my new band saw and I took to creating it.

He's my little artist.

Didn't I mention that the hubs just bought me a new band saw and it IS the first time I've E-ver attempted using a band saw in my life, and I still have all fingers intact.

I will admit that the frame had several “Oh Crap!”, moments and if you look really, really close, you can tell it's the first time I've ever used a band saw, LOL!

Thank you GOD for wood putty!

A little stain here, a little more paint there, and a little stain wax ALL over the place......

I have a new barn wood-style frame for my antique French grain sack!

After using my handy-dandy electric stapler

and screwing the hanging “mechanisms” in place;

she was ready to hang.

“Buh-BYE Picasso Poster!” You are SO 90's!

At least it wasn't a Nagel **rolling eyeballs**

I'm lovin the old telephone number on this piece. It was the reason I decided not to use her for reupholstering.

My mom actually wanted me to call the number to see if it worked. Is that woman stuck in the 19^th century or what!

There are some hidden stencilings that if you get a closer look, you can see. I wanted to focus on the grain sack and not the crate-style stencilings on this piece.

Make sure you turn your head upside down so you can see it!

Hope you like!

This frame was featured on The Vintage Farmhouse......THANKS!

Next up was finally trying my hand at making a vintage Ball jar soap dispenser. What's so hard about drilling a hole in the top of a zinc lid?

It helps to have the right size drill bit for the job first, which I didn't because we bought 10 different sizes and NONE of them were small enough. Luckily I found one of the hubs old ones and proceeded to drill a hole, breaking the plastic inside cover of the lid (which I found out later that a lot of first-timers do), then ending up using the Roto-Zip metal cutting disc to cut and sand the rough edges of the zinc.

Then all that was left to do was hot glue the lid to the spout! And.... Wha-LA! Very cool soap dispenser.