I Wanna Rock

Seems like there is a theme recently of baby furniture, no? Well if there wasn't before, there will be now, because we found this old miniature rocking chair at an estate sale a few weeks ago, and it was begging for some TLC and a new home. I was happy to oblige. (semi-related editor's note: if I don't find something to do with all of these projects I have been completing, I might get kicked out of the house. Can I live with one of you for a while?)

This wasn't the worst it looked

I think it is important to point out here that, since I started this hobby back in the fall, the only thing furniture making/antiquing/restoring I have actually gotten WORSE at is taking photos. I just flat-out forgot to take a before pic of this beauty. The photo you see above was actually taken mid-project, after I had already done a ton of work to fix it up. You probably don't appreciate that because you can't see what it looked like before I started. To give you an idea, I paid all of $3 for the chair, a can of square nails bigger than Tyra Banks' forehead, an old hand drill and a screwdriver. So, if you're keeping score at home, I paid roughly less than $1 for the chair. Less than a penny if you count each nail individually, but you probably get the point.

I get why too. the thing was a piece of crap. Scratched and gouged? Check. Speckled with a rainbow coalition of paints? Check. Broken legs? Double check. So, the pic you see above is less than a "before" pic and more of a "oh crap, I'm halfway through this and need to take a photo before this thing looks beautimous" panic pic. I fixed the legs (no small task), took the sheen off with some TSP solution, and sanded the scratches out of the seat.

The scratched seat turned out to be a blessing in disguise because if I didn't have to sand it down, I wouldn't have ended up with the two-tone effect you see above. As has happened with most things I work on that turn out well, I completely fell into this one ass-backwards by accident. I stained it to make it match the rest of the chair so the top coat of paint I put on would look uniform. But I liked the way the stain (Minwax Early American in case you were wondering) looked so much that I said to hell with common sense, this sucker's gonna have an identity crisis. Am I painted or am I stained? Doesn't matter, cause I look awesome.

In your face, extreme close-up style

You Serious Clark?

If you've kept up with my projects thus far, you know that most have been small-ish in size (but not necessarily in scope). Well, now I have my first large project under my belt and wanted to share it with you, my fine readers. All three of you. I'll give you a hint, it's a custom daybed. I'm not sure if that is supposed to be one word or two, but if I'm too lazy to google it, then I'm too lazy to type a space, so it will remain one word. This particular project has been a beast, having taken a great deal of time and effort, but one that will pay off down the road. You see, it is for Court's parents' river cabin, and thus, something that Campbell and any future little Conaways/Eisons will be using for what I hope will be generations. At least that's the plan. Here's to hoping it's not like Clark's turkey in Christmas Vacation...something that looks great on the outside, but upon closer inspection, falls apart faster than Charlie Sheen's career.


There's an open loft area in the cabin that includes a dormer window cut-out. That was the future home of said daybed, and it measured just 62" wide. A standard twin mattress is 75", so if you're over 5 feet tall, you are too tall to ride this ride. I found the building plan on Ana-White.com, which is pretty awesome if you like DIY projects, because she provides detailed plans for just about any furniture project you could imagine...for free. I adjusted the plans to make it fit the space, and a few trips to Lowe's and a couple of weeks later, I had three identical boxes that looked like this:

without trim on left, with trim on right

The daybed is made up of three identical boxes that do two things: 1) provide storage cubbies, and 2) make it easier to move and fit through door frames. Put them together and you get this:

So, here is the unfinished naked base for the daybed. Notice the lonely cabinet door waiting for his brother on the right. If you're Fred Flintstone, this would be more than comfortable, but plans are in place to have a custom-sized cushion made to go on top. Wanted the daybed to fit in with the rustic decor, so I used the same stain that was used on all of the house trim to finish it off and here is the end result:

Looks like a built-in and (once the cushion is added) functions as a couch/bed with storage.

I've Missed You

Quick aside: I'm a bit biased because she's half me, but I think Campbell is pretty freaking cute. There are times though, where she makes some not-so-cute faces. Mostly when she's blowing out her diaper. I, on the other end, have no excuse, but I still make some pretty awesomely bad faces from time to time. (Editor's note: I was not blowing out my diaper when this picture was taken. Allegedly.)

Exhibit 1-A for why this baby is definitely mine.

My apologies for neglecting this blog for a bit longer than I wanted, but I have been really amping up my training for the 2012 thumb-wrestling world championships. Well, that, house-hunting with the Mrs., and working on several furniture projects for friends. Because of that, I unfortunately don't have any cool before/after photos of stuff I have done recently. BUT, we've been hitting up some estate sales recently, and if you want to see our latest find, then you might as well go buy a lottery ticket, because you happen to be the luckiest person in the world, cause that is what you're about to see.

Baby's gotta eat, so baby gets a high chair. Went to an estate sale a month or so ago, and saw this little gem tucked away in the corner of the attic. Although we had been looking for a high chair, our first visit happened to be on a Saturday, and as I've mentioned before, what has two thumbs and doesn't pay Saturday prices? *This guy* So, after conveniently tucking it away behind some other junk, thus making it hard to find, we came back the next day and got it for half of what we would've originally. $30. I did a quick search of the finest high chairs Target.com has to offer and found the cheapest one. This one is $34. You telling me you would rather pay more for that plastic beauty than the one we got at the estate sale? Give me the one that is completely made out of real wood and has decades of character, all day long.

Didn't do TOO much to this one, because we actually liked the red. Cleaned it up with some TSP, added some strategic distressing to complement what had already naturally occurred and put a couple of coats of Poly-crylic to seal it off. One thing that was missing though, was the strap. Campbell, at 5 months, is destined to be a future contortionist, so if I had not added a strap, every feeding would have required a body cleanup on aisle 3. Luckily, our youngest dog Knox had outgrown his nylon buckle collar a week earlier and so I just used that. Relax, people. I washed it first.