Diary of a Dive - Part 5 - Dining/Desk Area

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If you've been following along, I'm fixing up an old, run down studio apartment. It's 266 square feet to be exact, and not only is it my living space, I do freelance design and crafts from here as well. (What can I say, I'm hopelessly creative...)  What furnishings that fit have to be multi purpose.

(Click on the photos for larger views)

BEFORE

AFTER

Towards that end, my dining table gets pressed into service as a desk more than it does as an eating area, hence why there is a table lamp on it. (The table is usually pressed tighter to the wall as a result, but for photos - or dinner guests, it gets pulled out.) 

Dining/Desk Area

The broken mini blinds got pitched and they were replaced with inexpensive 2" vinyl blinds from a home center. I already had the toile fabric to make the top part of the valance and sewed it in a scalloped pattern. As nice pearl colored buttons are pricey, (and I needed quite a few), I instead found a clearance, costume jewelry pearl necklace (Target) and just took it apart and sewed them on like buttons. (A plethora of pearly buttons for the same cost as 2 buttons! Bargain!  And they don't droop like the 1/2 round buttons do.)

Waverly Country House Toile Red Fabric

 The curtain panels themselves I also had from a previous apartment, but they were made from...

...wait for it...

This:

Cost Plus World Market: Indian Gauze Canopy

Oh Yes I Did!

I love the tightly pleated and crimped gauze, but it's hard to find as a curtain panel...or even as fabric by the yard. So I stumbled across this Canopy from World Market, and just cut off the muslin from the top of the canopy and kept the crimped gauze.  I had a mucho % off coupon, so all together, it was cheaper than buying curtain panels -or even just fabric!  As it already had curtain ties that had attached to the bamboo hoop, I just tied them around a standard $3, white curtain rod. As the canopy is very long, I cut off the excess and used it for the second tier of the valance.

The rest are all things I had. The lamp was my mom's, and it was in our house when I was a kid.  However, it did have a beat up frilly brown, circa 1960's shade on it, which may have had something to do with why mom didn't want it anymore. The shade got ditched immediately and replaced with something more elegant. 

The hurricane lamps I bought ages ago from one of those internet 'Everything is 12 bucks' stores. The red bows were actually just for Christmas, but I liked them, so they stayed up. The little vase of fake flowers are actually pens. A friend of mine's daughter made them for my birthday one year. Pretty AND handy! 

And of course, my vintage style poster of a Jules Cheret print. Ice skating, natch. 

 The dining table and chairs were a thrift shop find for some ridiculous price, like $45 or something. In fairness, the table was in good shape, but the sets original 6 chairs were already in some form of falling apart

Thrift Store find...with new fabric seat

 Two chairs imploded almost immediately, but for the remaining four, I recovered the seats. I found this beautiful fabric (Raymond Waites, Abington Ruby Red) which is sadly discontinued. I did the armchairs in the red floral with what I had left, but the side chairs all had to be done in a coordinating solid red fabric. 

And if anyone ever comes across that fabric in their travels, email me!!!

At any rate, the remaining chairs will need to be replaced eventually. I'm thinking these Overstock.com chairs.

Of course, the seats will be recovered in red. Hence, why I'd love to find more of that fabric someday.

All good things in time...

~ Coming up: Working our way through the other side of the apartment. Sofa/bed, How I incorporated my obvious book fetish, created a reasonable closet and the bathroom.

Diary of a Dive - Part 4 - Updating Old Furniture

By Michelle Portesi
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I found this lovely hutch in a second hand store for a mere $200 over a decade ago. I loved its overall shape and style, but I confess, I really hated the stain color. Kind of a dark ashy brown that had yellowed with age. Emulating the hinky look of that period, their idea of 'antiquing' it was to take a black paint crayon and make little squiggly marks all over it. (You can't see them in the photo, but trust me, they're there.) I also wasn't wild about the wired open doors either.

I originally bought it to
put my TV in. The center section fit the older style 24" TV perfectly width wise, and the VCR tapes fit perfectly in the drawers.

This was before flat screen TV's were affordable, and the old style TV was super deep, requiring that I cut a hole in the hutch's back to shove the rest of the TV's hind quarters through,

 in addition to needing a hole for the electrical plug. I admit, I did a sloppy job of cutting the hole, but since you couldn't see it when the TV was in it, I grinned and ignored it.  I always knew that eventually I'd get around to refurbishing it, and I vacillated for years as to whether to strip it down entirely and re-stain it a nicer color, or give in to my 'cottage look' proclivities, and just paint it white.
Guess which idea finally won? LOL  

Now that I no longer use it for the TV, I wanted to turn it back into the hutch's original purpose, which was for your typical dining room dishware and accoutrements storage. I had some mirror cut to size for the back of the hutch, which nicely covered my sloppily cut hole.  I pulled out the wired inserts from the doors, with the intent of replacing them with beveled glass...that is until I priced them out...  


 YIKES! Just those two small glass door inserts alone were going to cost over double what I originally paid for the hutch!  So I may need to rethink that option and decide if I just want to eventually put in some less expensive antique patterned glass, or live without until the day I can afford the beveled. (...and that could be a  l-o-o-o-o-n-g wait...)

I painted the old, turn of the last century, vintage, Windsor desk chair while I was at it. Yes, call me a blasphemer for painting it. The current finish was completely trashed, and I had already stripped it, sanded it and re-stained it once already when I had first bought it oh so many moons ago. It was a hot mess even way back then. One could even see all the hues of the chair's former transformations on the bottom of the seat.

The desk chair was the first piece of furniture I purchased when I moved out on my own and I still love its petite and delicately bended shape. It's had several decades of hard use and many moves - and that's in addition to the many years it had already racked up long before I bought it. Oh, all the stories it could tell!

But I digress...

The hutch has quite a bit of elaborate routing and carving, and I wanted a vintage feel, so I got some light grained sand paper and gently rubbed some of the edges so that the previous stain underneath would show through and showcase all of the hutches intricate detail. The handles to the hutch were beautifully shaped, but they were made of ugly colored, cheap pot metal, so I painted those white too with spray enamel. Originally I was going to seal the whole thing with water based varnish, but it really yellowed the white paint, so I bought some high quality furniture paste wax and sealed it that way. It only slightly darkened the white paint (and with no yellowing) which left the hutch with a lovely satin sheen that wasn't too glossy.

 

Next up, I'll be re-upholstered and painting a bench seat that doubles as my coffee table and extra dining table seating. And being hopelessly creative, I've got lots of fabric I've been carting around for years that needs to be used.

Reduce . Reuse . Recycle

In a small studio apartment, everything has to be multi-purpose!

Rental Transformation: Diary of a Dive...Part 2

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I haven't posted in a awhile on the apartment update. I've been busy doing it!

Things are coming along slowly but surely. In a small space, you really need to think the problems through thoroughly before you move forward, otherwise one ends up doing things twice. And I'm a bit anal when it comes to this sort of thing. If it doesn't come out perfectly the way I envisioned it, I'm not happy...and I won't be happy with it until I fix it!

Which brings me to the paint. Now I'm a designer - and I know better than this- which is to make design decisions based on those tiny little paint swatches that they have in the store. And DEFINITELY, don't go by what it looks like under the store's florescent lights. When picking wall paint colors for a client, I always order a large swatch from the manufacturer. (Did you know most upscale paint purveyors offer 8 x 10 inch swatches that you can order online? - for Free!) It's near impossible to get an accurate read of what the color will truly look like off those small paint chips and it will look totally different once you get it home - based on the type and amount of light your space specifically gets.

Ugh! It's freaking PINK!

But I was impatient. I wanted to get down to it and get the place painted so I could move in - instead of waiting for the larger sample to arrive in the mail. And I paid the price for it. What was supposed to be a warm medium beige came out beige with some serious Pepto Bismal pink undertones. I hated it. Knowing I wouldn't be able to tolerate it,  needless to say, I had to paint it out twice. Not necessarily a bad thing in as much as the original drywall was so badly taped and with next to no plaster, it needed all the layers it could get. But under the category of just 'git 'er done' - it was time and money spent that I wouldn't have wasted if I had cooled my jets and done it right in the first place.

Lesson Learned...
Problem fixed.

Moving on...

I had drawn up a plan and showed it to the landlord so that I could somehow fix the existing mess of a kitchen to make it functional (see Diary of a dive- Part 1) , and he, being a kind and generous soul, graciously moved the 3 cabinets for me to fit the design so I would have more storage that I could actually reach. Note the original plan had the bottom shelf going all the way across to create a place for the microwave. I ditched this idea for several reasons.

1) There was no electrical there and I'd have to hire an electrician to pull the line - or have a  r-e-a-l-l-y long extension cord from the existing socket that is to the right of the sink. The former expensive and the latter too ugly and a nuisance.
2) Code states there must be 30" minimum from the range top to anything combustible, so I'd either have to tile the shelf or sheath it in metal.
3) The microwave was too tall to fit.
4) ...and this is a biggie - the 12" wide cabinets are so narrow I couldn't actually fit any pots or pans of any size in them. So I elected to keep this area over the range open for a pot rack.

The existing 30 inch wide cabinet was moved over the range and the two 12" wide cabinets were split up and hung on either side of the opening and dropped down to the standard 18" off the countertop- where they're supposed to be. Normally a  cabinet directly over the sink would be set a little higher so that one wouldn't as easily smack their head on an open door, (and even a smurf like me has done this, and I have the divots in my head to prove it...) but as there are only going to be open shelves there, I set those at 18" off the countertop as well.

My purpose for using open shelving was merely a cost saving measure. They are a heck of a lot cheaper than actual cabinets - and I could install them all by me one-sie. (To quote Capt. Jack Sparrow)  In addition, the open shelving gives the tiny area a more open feeling of spaciousness. The doors would have really closed the space down.

Note the drywall behind the cabinets is in pretty bad shape. One of the many surprises one finds when one decides to move things - even in the smallest of remodels.

Now this was a little tricky, but the landlord key-holed around the plumbing pipes and set the cabinet in. (See Diary of a Dive - Part 1 for photo of plumbing)  Not only did it hide this super ugly situation, it added some extra storage that I didn't have before. I forgot to have him keyhole the shelves, which still need to be done, but as I can't reach it without getting on a ladder anyway, it's not particularly high on my list of priorities at the moment.

Back of cabinet keyholed around existing plumbing.

What is high on the priorities is finding a pot rack! This is way too tiny a cabinet to fit anything but a small saucepan!

A 12" wide cabinet will be even narrower on the interior. And those half shelves are just a complete waste of space. I may eventually add a roll out...but that's an expense to add later.

Cabinets re-hung and a fresh coat of paint completed - and in the right color this time, I was ready to add the shelves.

Kelly Moore 'Mission Tan' with 'Frank Lloyd White' Trim

And voila! I have a place to put my dinner plates-  which wouldn't even fit inside a 12" wide cabinet. I put up a bracer bar under the shelf to help support the entire fixture, as I was literally asking two 12" wide cabinets to carry the full weight of everything I put on the shelves as well as what was in the cabinets. I then added some hooks on the bracer bar for my coffee cups - for which I could only find one so far from the storage unit.
HORRORS! I can't live with just one!!!
Still digging...

Note the pictures to the left of the cabinet. The drywall was a huge mess here from a previously done very bad repair job. They covered the offending area quite nicely!
Like I said, I don't own this place, so there is a limit to the repair work I'm willing to do.  I still need to find a pot rack for the wall behind the range and I will need to order a white decorative arch for the top of the cabinets yet...or cultivate a very steady hand with a jig saw and do it myself. Maybe I'll add a small crown molding too. We'll see...

Now these cabinets are full overlay, which means they cover the entire face frame of the cabinet. Without hardware on them, you can't get your fingers in to open them. Quite the nuisance. I found some very reasonably priced nickel knobs at a home center. The drawers however posed a bit of a dilemma.

2 holes? Why???

Obviously, the cheapo plastic knob had to go. But even if I replaced it, I'd never be able to patch the second hole so it wasn't noticeable. These are thermofoil doors, which means the finish is essentially melted PVC pipe. Much more durable and easier to keep clean than paint, the finish is nearly indestructible....that is until someone decides to drill needless holes in them. Patching and paint would never adhere to the finish, so that was out. So once again, I just covered it up. Not a bad solutions really, I adore cup pulls anyway.  These Martha Stewart Collection polished nickel Bedford cup pulls are really quite reasonable at $4.98 each (Home Depot, online store). The exterior screw is deceiving and merely decorative, as it actually screws in from the back of the drawer head. Note though, the screws are never long enough for most framed cabinet drawer heads. I had to go buy longer screws.  Note to manufacturers: Include multiple size breakaway screws people! Hardware companies really should get with the program on this.

Polished Nickel Cup Pulls - Martha Stewart Bedford Collection

So I at least now have a place to store basic plates and glasses, although in open shelving. Not a lot of folks cup of tea, as it requires more neatness than most people want to deal with. The same applies to glass door cabinets. The trick is to not just shove everything on them in a jumble and try to occupy every square inch with 'stuff'.  If you want this option to look nice, one really needs to adapt the 'A place for everything and everything in its place' mentality. Really not all that hard when you have enough storage area to do it in. I also find that I'm not constantly battling the scenario where I have to drag a plate out from under some bowls I stacked on top of them, which is something else most people do in closed cabinets. Also a nuisance, as I tend to break a lot of dishware that way.

Left side of kitchen nearly complete - or at least functional. Now where are the rest of my coffee cups?!

 Next installment: The other side of the kitchen. I have storage for my dishware now, but no decent sized prep areas! Check in next time for how I fixed that problem.

Cheers!