Wine crates: They aren't just for breakfast anymore! :)

...Ha Ha

Do you ever get tired of stripping, sanding and painting?
And you have a piece of furniture staring you in the face,......
just begging you to do something "out of the box"?

I did.

This little white dresser was in great structural shape, but she definitely needed a face lift!
(And paint alone wasn't going make anyone give this girl a second look, she was pretty plain.)
After looking around in my stash o junk, I thought i might have the answer...

Wine crate panels!
They are graphic and charming and the pine is easy to cut.
I decided to attempt to make a wine crate "slip cover"!

I began covering all the edges in assorted pine trim pieces from the local lumberyard.
It was kind of fun actually...because I. LOVE. MY. NAILGUN!
Measure, cut, glue and nail....repeat as necessary.

Laying out the top, I tried to make it visually interesting
and showcase some fun graphics on the wine crate panels.
I added some trim to act like a frame and give it a nice finished edge.

Most of the drawers just got covered in plain pine wood.

Except the top drawer, i added a wine crate panel to her and some more detailed trim pieces.

Now on to the hardware.
It had to be kind of rustic like the pine crates, kind of masculine
...and yet I kind of wanted to use something unexpected.
Hmmm...how about leather straps!

See those colorful belts from the thrift store? Perfect!...Really!
I just cut away all of the colored belt material and attached the leather pieces.

I thought they were pretty darn cute...and fit the piece so well.
(forgive me for the poor quality photos)

A light stain rubbed over all toned down that new pine look.

Here she is in all of her new found rustic beauty.
Earthy and mellow, with just a hint of sweetness...just like I like my wine! HA

(She sold at JunkFest 2010...
but you never know she could have a sister showing up in 2011!)

Go drink some wine, people...there are naked dressers everywhere!!
Linking to:
http://www.funkyjunkinteriors.net/2012/07/sns-143-creative-dressers.html

SNS Crazy for Crates

Before and After...a quick fixer upper.

Wanna sit here a while with me and have a glass of wine? Oops, it's still morning...make that COFFEE! We can chat about our love of junk, right?! Tell me what you like to do with your junk...do you usually love it as is, all natural in it's former self? Or do you like to give your junk a bit of a fresh facelift? How do you decide?


That decision for me is sometimes quite easy, but sometimes also quite difficult. I love the natural time worn elegance and "life" marks most pieces present to me. Sometimes, however, a fresh look is in order. Take a look at the picture below. The wood trim on this room divider is dark and gets lost between the sweet toile panels. I debated. Facelift won.

And below is the after. The wood now frames the toile and brings out a lighter tone to the entire look of the room divider. The pictures really don't show how gorgeous this is (had to flash, sorry!)....and it looks SaWeet by my bistro set.

Tempted. To. Keep. It. But since it blocks the view out the door, I won't. You'll find this item at JunkFest! And a whole lot more!

Christmas in July!

When you only have one sale per year, not only do you have to appeal to the masses, but you have to cover each holiday as well! Sometimes when you look at a piece, you might not know what you're going to do with it, but you may have a certain holiday in mind...

Last week I showed you this piece, in my "name that junk" post....

No definate answers, but some good ideas. No matter. I thought it was cool and had a vision that included fresh greenery, candle light, and shiny, reflective baubles.

That was the before, this is the after:



After a couple rounds with some white spray paint, and some "distress" sanding it was starting to look like exactly what I had envisioned.

I found some chunky glass votive or tea light holders that fit perfectly in the holes.

For some added elevation and bling to tie in with the glass balls, I added some cut glass knobs that I had in my stash.

Some freshly plucked Juniper berries fit nicely in the otherwise vacant holes...

This mix of textures is pleasing to the eye...

Almost makes me anxious for Christmas.....but I'll wait!

Have a great weekend!

Now Dat's One Whoop A$$ Bar

If you're going to have a can of Whoop A$$ Peanuts...you'd better have a heck of a bar to serve them on! And you'd better not hesitate...or you're a damned fool!! Mae West said it best!


After aquiring this door...thank goodness for store owners who call before discarding...I spent a bit of time scratching my head wondering what best I could accomplish with it. This was not your typical door. Once a store front entrance, this door was grande...and HUGE. It stood extra tall, was extra thick (almost 3 inches), had an enormous beveled glass window, and took THREE adults to get it out of the basement of the store in which it once resided.

It was fabulous.

But maybe a tad unsightly.

So I went to work. Starting by removing some of the hardware and stripping off the old layers of paint.

A little less green...a little more wood!

By this time the door had spoken to me like only junk does, and a vision of a bar was rolling around in my brain.

It was going to take more than the door to make a bar, so I pulled out the heavy wood sides of an upright piano that had been waiting for it's turn at a new life. The veneering was not in good condition so had to be scraped off, and the wood had to be sanded down for staining.

The stripping, the scraping, the sanding...by now the bar was worth about a gazillion bucks in sweat equity. And there was lots more to be done!

I really felt my creation needed a fabulous focal point. Think, think, think. Yes...etch a name right into that awesome beveled glass window.

"Bar"? too plain

"Wine and Spirits"? too fancy

"Social"? only my silly family would "get" that one

"Saloon"? PERFECT!!

So I went on a search for the perfect font to fit the name, then graphed it out on a sheet of paper so I could graph it larger on contact paper for etching the glass. (this was in my pre-projector days)

It took a bit of time to get the graphing drawn bigger, apply the contact paper to the glass, then cut out the wording with an exacto knife. Then after the etching cream had been on long enough I had dear hubs help get the door out where the etching cream could be rinsed off with the garden hose. Love. The. Results. !

Now time to stain all the wood a warm, dark walnut. Then protect with polyurethane. OK, I'm thinking it needs to be several gazillion bucks by now and I'm not even close to being done! Oofda.

The entire time I'm working on the door and the piano pieces...my mind continually wanders further into the project to determine the best route to finish it.

This is a constant for Junker Fixer Upper People. We don't often just automatically start and finish a project. They're usually a work in progress and as we move along the ideas keep flowing. Some get tried and tossed by the wayside.

For instance, the bar needed a TOP. How about another door? Ok, I tried a few I had around. Nope. I just wasn't feelin' it. Then I remembered some old lumber I had around...ahhh, perfect.

I also added some half porch posts to the front, the patina they added was FAB!

Some glass shelves and a wine glass rack on the back side for perfect display and storage. And the bar was assembled with brackets, making the heavy beast perfectly portable by simply separating into sections.

What do you think???

Would anyone like to see another bar at JunkFest? We've had several varieties and no two will ever be alike! Perhaps another will be conjoured up from the junk piles.....

And did I charge several gazillion bucks for the bar? No, I did not. It was a labor of love and I am SO happy with the results. It's by far one of my proudest junk feat moments, and I wanted the new owners to be happy with their new bar...and it's price!

Linked to:

Met Monday 129

Furniture Feature Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Name that junk..and a vendor update!

Greetings fellow junkers and readers! Summer is finally here in ND, and with it comes the junking. And there has been some really good junking going on! On a recent haul I found this "object" and have great plans for a repurpose, but I have no idea what it is. Do you?

Looks like a repair job was in the works before it was abandoned....lots of wood filler here and there...







See the entire length of the side in the below pic? Yes, that's wood filler. I'm guessing the project ended when the wood filler ran out!





Stay tuned for the reveal. I've got lots of projects in the works...unfortunately not too many are near the completed stage!

On to the vendor update: We have over 70 vendor spaces sold so far! All indoor spots are SOLD OUT! Plenty of outdoor spots left, but hurry! They're filling fast! We have a great line up this year...something for everyone. Watch for some vendor spotlights coming this summer.

Give me a holler if you know what my mystery object is! Enjoy your weekend!

Head over to Donna's SNS #88 for some great indoors-out inspiration!