Updating the Office

I have been hard at work this past week refreshing the office with new paint and stain and accessories!  The office was formerly painted a pale gray.  But it was so light that it always looked bluish to me.  It was supposed to be gray! 

It has been almost three years since I painted it, and the flat paint hasn’t really worked for me.  I can’t get the marks off the walls, so I figured it was time that I could try again.  This time I picked a nice medium gray color (Steeple Gray by Olympic) that was a shade darker and more gray than the previous color (Silver Threads by Olympic).  I also bought satin paint, so I could easily wipe it clean.  After clearing the room, I had to carefully maneuver our massive desk halfway into the room so I could crawl under it to paint the back wall.  #giantdeskproblems  Then I painted the rest of the room, moved the desk back, and painted what was left.  :)

Once the walls were finished, I decided to put a couple coats of polyurethane on our desk top (since it was all cleared off).  There were a couple of worn places where we run our computer mice around.  So I lightly sanded it with 320 grit and brushed on a couple coats of satin poly.  Then I realized that the rest of the desk was gloss poly.  Ugh!  So I had to go buy more poly and start over with the sanding and applying.  Needless to say, three days into this and not having our desk, I was getting frustrated so I quit after one coat of gloss.  It really needs one more coat, but I’ll just put that back on my to-do list.  Haha! :) 

While I was out shopping for polyurethane and lamp shades for the bedroom (since I stole to give to the living room) I spied a gray lamp with a gray trimmed drum shade!  I knew that would look awesome on my desk with the new paint color.  It really freshens up the space! 

Since I had the bookcase emptied and pulled into the other room, I decided now was a good time to refinish it as well.  I had always planned to stain it Bombay Mahogany to match everything else in the room.  And even though is particle board with a paper backing, I transformed it with a couple coats of poly-shade.  I think it turned out pretty nice!  It certainly looks more expensive than before, and it now matches the desk.

The gray paint also looks great with the velvet chair in the corner.

All in all, I am happy with how the room turned out.  Hopefully we won’t have to paint again until this room becomes something besides an office! :)  Now, I can turn my attention to other projects, including some new art for the den.  I’ll be back, but in the meantime, you can find me here:

A New Antique Chair

Yesterday we said goodbye to our beloved denim chair and now that we have dried our eyes, we are able to welcome the new fabulous antique chair!

This chair, as I said yesterday, came from my grandfather; he was saving it for someone who would love it and show it the attention it deserved.  Mama and I love it!  She brought it home and lived with it for a while before we decided that it would look perfect in my office if it was recovered in a nice gray velvet.  I admit, I am velvet obsessed!  Is it obvious that I don’t have children?!  Anyway this is my last velvet project until my retirement.  Haha!  No, I’m serious!  I told Mama there was a moratorium on velvet!  :)

We finally found some affordable velvet in the perfect color gray (to coordinate with my wall color and general black/gray-ness of the office decor.  Haha!  Can you decorate around computer equipment?  Why sure!  Once we got the fabric, I gave Mama a head start on the chair.  She got a lot accomplished before she needed my help.  :)

In its former life it was brownish-orange corduroy… please stop following my blog if I ever upholster anything in corduroy.  Yuck.

Once Mama started tearing it down, she discovered that before it was orange it was cream floral!

After tearing it down and restaining all the exposed woodwork Bombay Mahogany (the only color as far as I’m concerned) she began adding new batting to the seat and new webbing to the back.  Old chairs are never comfortable so we built this one up with new materials so it would be extra plush!

Next, she used the old fabric pieces to cut new ones and re-stapled them in the appropriate spot.  My Mama knows her way around an upholstery project.  Me = clueless.  But I help pull out staples and pull on the fabric when it needs to be tight and generally tell her when things are crooked or lumpy and need to be redone.  :)  Slave driver.

The back had all new batting rolled into shape and stuffed tightly into each section of the tufted back.  Then I stitched down the seam of each section through the upholstery layers into the back webbing so everything was nice and tight. 

At the top of the back, the fabric had to be gathered in and stapled just so.  The edges around the “wings” also had to be gathered in around the plump stuffing.  It was touchy… more reasons not to use velvet.  Sorry Mama! :)

All the exposed edges on the front and wings were finished off with double welt cording. 

And voila!  We’re finished:

I wrapped it up and carefully loaded it into the back of my car and brought it home with me that evening! 

Here it is in its new home.  The dark stain on the chair matches the desk perfectly.  The wood is really a rich, dark brown, but it looks black in this picture.

I love all its curves and the shiny finish!  Ahh, it’s gorgeous!

And of course, it wasn’t in the house five minutes before Bandit had climbed up to test it out.

It is Bandit-approved. :)

I will miss the denim chair, but this one is so perfectly suited for the office! Love it!  I’m still deciding if it needs a little pillow friend or perhaps a tiny side table?  We’ll see…

Ode to a Denim Chair

Way back in September I told you we were getting a new chair for the office.  Well, it is now June and I finally have possession of said chair.  The new chair is a bona fide antique that belonged to my grandfather and he gave it to my Mama since she loved it.  I, being the greedy daughter that I am, managed to talk Mama out of her fancy antique chair.  She was happy (okay maybe not happy, but willing) to give it to me since it was going to be soooo perfect in my office, and since I agreed to trade back her beloved denim chair which currently resides in the corner of our office. :) 

The denim chair is famous.  Many people have tried to steal/buy it from us over the years.  It was a secondhand chair that my mom upholstered with old blue jeans back when I was a sophomore in college.  It has knee stains and worn denim in places and over the past 11 years it has acquired a few more stains and worn places.  The backrest is long pieces of denim in different colors and the seat cushion is patchwork.  The back and sides are pieced strips and there are three jean pockets on each side.  :)  Most of the denim and all of the pockets are from Levi’s!  I had this chair in three of my dorm rooms and then it came with us to our apartment and of course onto our first house.  The back is curved and slopes down to the arm rest and kind of envelopes you, which makes it a perfect spot to snuggle in, tuck up your feet, and read.  We’ve lounged in, piled on, snuggled into and loved this chair for 11 years. Now it is time to say goodbye and pass the chair back to my mom or my sister to love for a while.

Though famous locally, the denim chair has never been featured on the blog.  Tragedy.  There is only a tiny corner of it depicted in our House Tour.  Probably because I thought it “didn’t go” with the rest of the office.  That’s why I am making the inexplicable decision to replace it with a fancier chair.  I am a strange one, I know it! 

So today let me introduce you to the famous chair, apparently also known as “Bandit’s chair”.  Okay we know that ALL the chairs in the house are Bandit’s chairs, but this one he took a particular liking to.  Even as a kitten he enjoyed sitting in the denim chair in front of the window at our apartment.

Our kitten grew up but he found that he could still fit in the denim chair…

And when we moved, he still made the chair his favorite perch.  It was situated between our desks in the office where he could keep a good eye on his humans.

Even when Bandit stretched out, he could still fit (just barely).

And after a while (once she was legitimately too big) Riley discovered that if she curled up just right, she could fit in the denim chair.  It truly is a magical chair and a special spot for a cat (or puppy) nap. :)

So it is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to our beloved denim chair and make a space for the new antique chair.  Don’t worry, Bandit has already found a comfy spot to sleep on the new chair, too.  And if Riley decides that she’d like to try it out, well let’s just say she better keep her paws off my new velvet chair!! :) 

I’ll be back tomorrow (after a suitable mourning period) to introduce the new, fabulous chair! :)

Office Desk: Dream to Reality

Okay, now you’ve seen the final results of our huge desk project, let’s rewind to the beginning so we can examine the details.  The dream desk all began with a plan (which I showed you here). 

I drew it all by myself in Sketchup and shared it with Papa who helped make it a reality.  We started with a bunch of drawings, a stack of stain-grade birch plywood, and a cut list.  And since I did not print my plans to any known scale, we had to redraw the cabinet and drawers with a T-square and architect’s scale.  Things I know nothing of.  I let Papa do that part. :)  It was pretty, too and very professional-looking.  So, I took pictures.

Now maybe I will remember how to draw drawers for next time.

We spent the next two days cutting all the pieces.  The majority of the desk is 3/4” plywood, except for the drawers which have 1/2” sides and back, and 1/4” bottom.  The legs are 3x3’s that we bought pre-fabricated.  They actually measure 2 5/8” (<—irritating).  After we had cut, labeled, and sanded all the pieces (of which there were many), we began building the drawers.  I was responsible for making the cut list and calculating all the dimensions for the drawer pieces.  I was a little worried about my calculations since I’ve never done this before. :)  We put all the pieces together to make sure it would work out before we glued it and lo and behold… they fit!  I was so excited that I hadn’t messed it all up.  I was cheering so loudly that my niece Abby came to see what was the matter! :)  Anyway, the drawers were glued, clamped and nailed together with the air nailer. 

Then we began the process of staining them… on the pool table.  Yes, my parents’ pool table has infinite creative uses other than to play pool.  We use it to cut out fabric, store cake layers, make crafts and now to build and stain furniture!  Luckily we had a roll of plastic sheeting to protect the surface from accidental drips.  :)

After the drawers were complete we built the center cabinet.  Building furniture is basically like putting together a puzzle… you must get the right pieces in the right slots and then using glue and brute force, bring it all together and make it square before you nail it.  :)  Luckily I have my Papa for that part.  When all else fails, clamp it with like ten clamps and call it a day. :)

After the cabinet was built, we installed the drawer runners.  This step was easily the most frustrating and most rewarding one of all.  Once again, I let Papa do the hard part.  My job was measuring and drawing lines and holding things in place.  If you see any flaws in this piece, I’m sure they are my fault.  Papa did the best he could to keep me from screwing things up, but he only has two hands. :) 

Ta-da!  Drawers that open and close! 

These babies are installed with heavy duty slide mounts that hold up to 100 lbs.  And they have ball bearings that make for a smooth glide and rubber bump stops to keep them from falling open. 

Apron staining came next, since it was easier to completely stain and finish everything before we put it together.  We stained first with dark walnut to bring out the grain, then followed up with two coats of Bombay Mahogany poly-shade to get that rich color I was after, then two final coats of polyurethane to seal it all up.

Stain:

Poly-shade:

Build puzzle:

Glue, clamp, check your square, nail in place.

You know how on Project Runway Tim Gunn is always saying “Make it work!”… well, in the world of woodworking our catch phrase should be “Check your square”.  I bet Papa said that a hundred times.  We did, we checked our square… that desk is more square than the room it’s in. :)

Anyway, after the two apron/leg pieces were constructed, all that was left was to finish the staining before we could put all the pieces together.  Mama did most of the poly-shade and polyurethane application for me while Papa and I built stuff.  The visible plywood edges were sealed with iron-on wood veneer edge banding.  It was super fun to use (at first)… just iron it on, trim it and sand it smooth.  After doing the cabinet front I thought it was super fun. 

Then we had to do the long straight edges on the tabletops.  That was not so fun.  But it worked out better than any other finishing technique to cover the plywood edge.  Everything was sealed with poly to make it super durable (and hopefully to prevent the veneer from coming un-stuck as time goes by). 

The tabletop for the desk was cut into two pieces because they don’t sell plywood ten feet long.  And also because I wanted this desk to be versatile in case the office ever moves to another room and for when we move to another house.  The way we constructed it, Michael’s side of the desk can be assembled with the cabinet and the large tabletop to make a separate desk.  That leaves me with a smaller tabletop and two legs, no cabinet.  I guess in this situation, I could fasten the other side of the desk to the wall to make a small table.  I had to put the seam somewhere so this plan seemed to make the most sense.  (If we had put the seam exactly in the center, the desk could never be made smaller into one half without there being a large gap on top of the cabinet.)

Once all the pieces were assembled and stained we had five sections:  2 apron/leg combos (left and right), 2 tabletop pieces (left and right), and 1 cabinet with drawers.  After Mama gave us the green light to transport the now dry pieces to my house, Papa came to install the desk. 

And I forgot to take any pictures of the installation!  Which is a shame, because I wanted you all to see the madness involved in trying to fasten sections together and make them level and square with only four hands and only an inch gap on three sides in which to work.  Madness!

We did it.  It was fun.  And once when I was putting a screw in the drawer slide while Papa held it… he said “Good!”  I think most of the rest of the screws I put it were crooked, or off-center, or over-tightened, which of course I got to hear about each time I did it wrong.  Except for that one.  I hope it was an important one.  :) 

Oh well, practice makes perfect.

And for all that hard work Michael and I were rewarded with a desk to be proud of!  Now if I can remember to dust the rich shiny finish once in a while, it will keep looking this good!  But for now, I’m just going to go stroke it some more and practice opening and closing the drawers…