Our hamper is, I guess you can say, well loved. After having it a few years, the rattan/wicker was starting to show it’s age. Yikes, I mean just look at the picture below. I can’t remember it ever encountering any significant trauma, so I guess it’s just the normal wear and tear of every day life. Instead of throwing it away or painting it, I had the idea to freshening it up by using stain pens.

Yup, those stain pens that are designed to touch up furniture or wood floors. When Jer and I moved, a few pieces of wood furniture were slightly damaged, so I tried a couple of the pens to hide the scratches. Overall, the pens worked OK. I never seemed to find the exact right color, so while the stain makes it less noticeable, if you really look at a scratch you’ll tell the color is slightly off. I had two stain pens left over from that project – Ebony and Dark Walnut. Since the wicker on the hamper is on the darker side, I thought they might just work to conceal some of the damage.

The application is super easy. Shake the pens a few minutes and gently press the pen tip down a couple of times to release the stain. Then simply “color” the damaged areas. When you use the stain pen on wood, it recommends that you wipe off the stain. I found that the wicker will absorb the stain, so there is no need to wipe off excess stain. I did a combination of dabbing and coloring the stain on –particularly in the areas with extensive damage. The rattan in those parts were sometimes soft and fragile, so the dabbing helped to cover the area without causing any more damage. At times, you may need to remove broken slivers of rattan. Usually you can just pull it off with your hands, but you may want to use scissors to have a nicer finish. Since I had two colors I tried to use the ebony where the darker rattan naturally was and the dark walnut in the lighter areas. I think having a couple of stain variations helped blend the damaged parts. If I had to do it again, I would have purchased one more pen (maybe golden oak or cherry?) to more closely match the lightest rattan, but overall I’m happy with how it turned out.

I put the photos side-by-side, so you can really see the difference. This project can definitely be completed in an afternoon (maybe an hour or two depending on the size and amount of damaged). I just listened to an audio book as I completed the project and I took a break after a while because the smell started to bothered me. If it’s warm outside, maybe do it out there.

I love large, I mean HUGE, pieces of art. It commands your attention and immediately makes a statement. But really large art is hard to find and/or super expensive. I knew I wanted something large (greater than 50″ x 50″) in our living room. It has a large blank wall that needs some visual interest.

I found a downloadable print from Etsy that I loved and thought would work well in the room. I was also encouraged when I read in the description that it could be printed for any square size (more than 30″ x 30″| & up). The image itself was inexpensive, so I had very little to lose.

I noodled around a bit with different ideas including having it printed and framed from an online framer or making the frame myself. However, I couldn’t find a local store that sold glass or Plexiglas large enough to cover my desired size and ordering a custom one online was a minimum of $500. I sat on the print for a long time and then it just occurred to me to print it on canvas and stretch it on wood frame. We also plan on building an outer frame (Part II), but right now I’ll check give you the step-by-step directions on how to make a the internal wood frame and attach the canvas. (Quick note: the art could totally be hung without an outer frame).

The first thing I did was tape out my desired art size (60″ x 60″) on the wall (no picture– sorry this was a year ago) and I lived with the outline for a couple of months. I felt confident that the size was good and I then ordered the custom printed canvas from Contrado. I printed it on the Woven Canvas 14.75 oz fabric. One of the thinner fabrics may work but I wanted to ensure that it was completely opaque. The fabric arrived in a sturdy tube and the canvas was wrapped around an internal tube. The canvas came out completely wrinkle free (yes!! small victories). In addition, the quality of the print was great!

My husband designed the inner frame. We decided to make the frame 58″ x 58″ which will give us 1 inch on each side of the canvas to wrap around the frame. To help support the frame, my husband added internal corner pieces ( the blue pieces below). I’ve linked his Onshape model here, if you are interested.

We purchased premium pine lumber and cut four 58″ pieces for the main outer frame (pink) and four 30″ pieces (blue) for the internal stability. The end of each piece was cut at a 45 degree angle (opposite ways on each end), so that the two ends will come together to create a nice corner (see diagram below).

My husband used the Kreg Jig to attach all the pieces together. The first picture shows the holes that you drill using the Kreg Jig guide and the second picture you can see that the screws fit into this pocket and will attach to the two pieces of wood together when screwed in place.

After we attached all pieces by using the pocket holes and screws, viola, we had a completed frame. The internet makes it look much faster than it is in real life!

We then laid the canvas picture faced down on the carpet and put the frame in the approximate place. As I mentioned above, I initially planned on doing a 1 inch wrap on each side, but after looking at it and measuring the actual picture, 1 inch was not possible because the image was not exactly 60 x 60. So we decided on .5 inch wrap on each side. My husband carefully drew a line a half inch into the picture. I didn’t take a picture but here is a quick diagram of the set up.

I aligned the frame with the guide, pulled back the fabric and stapled it to the frame. I don’t have any pictures of this because both my husband and I were pretty involved in pulling it straight. We continued this around the entire frame and took a care when folding in the corners. I approached the corners like wrapping a gift (see image below). I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to do the corner–I think 3 out of the 4 corners are wrapped slightly different than each other!

After all the staples were added, we flipped the frame around and, to my relief, the canvas looked great! We are currently working on part 2–the outer frame. I’ll share this project with in you sometime over the next month.

Last year I purchased a little vanity set from an antique shop. I thought I could strip all the paint and create a nice table for our foyer, but when I first attempted to remove the paint, it seemed to do nothing but reveal more paint! I was discouraged, so when the weather turned cold we put the vanity in the shed and I happily forgot about it.

I dug it out in early May when it was warm enough to work on it again. I was not feeling particularly confident in my skills to make the vanity into anything usable. It still looked liked a mess. The paint was chipping in some places from the stripping but other places were completely unfazed. The paint that did come off revealed that the top of the vanity was not wood, as I had hoped, but laminate that looked like marble.

Since I didn’t have much hope that I going to salvage the vanity, I decided to try sanding it. To my surprise the sanding revealed, mostly, beautiful wood. I asked my husband to pry off the laminate top and it revealed a wood top. I was completely stoked and now every weekend I spend at least an hour or so slowly sanding this baby in hopes that one day I can actually use it in the house.

The top is in pretty rough condition. The sheet of laminate was glued which did not come off without some damage. In addition, the top had a several small nail holes, various gouges and discoloration. I am encouraged though because, although it may not look like much, the “nice” wood that you see below is the “after” section of the top. I still have a lot of work left to do, but I’m already dreaming about where I’m going to put it in the house.

Fingers crossed it’s completed by the end of summer!!