Get Lifted - Upcycling Furniture Heights

First off, I apologize for not having blogged in awhile. I was super busy with work and coordinating my first wedding, which you'll hear about in my next post =)

Anyway, my last 2 pieces of furniture turned out to be too low to the ground so I needed to find a way to raise them up, but still keep it cohesive with the rest of my pieces, and stylish of course.

First off, I got this fabulous TV stand from www.vivedecor.com

I've seen this same Braxton Studio brand TV stand on sites like Amazon and Wayfair, but I found it for the best price on www.vivedecor.com for $250, shipped! Such a great deal, not even Ikea could give me something for this price at a comparable style. Anyway, I was stoked on the price, but of course with something that cheap, there's something bound to be wrong. When I got it, it was in a million pieces! With all cheap furniture, that's not really made of solid wood (mostly wood particle), you usually have to assemble it yourself and it doesn't come in one sturdy, ready-made piece, like the good old wood furniture pieces from back in the day. At first the assembly was going ok,, but when I went to drill in the very bottom piece, the holes weren't lining up and the directions didn't label some of the parts correctly. It took about 4 hours to put it together, and I ended up having to drill some of my own holes to make it fit. Thank goodness I'm a bit handy and knew that I could drill my own holes, because if you rely on directions, this would've been impossible! Anyway, I finally got it assembled and realized it was a bit too low for my  taste, especially since my sofa has 6" tapered legs which lifts it off the ground.

The solution? I found these mid-century style hairpin legs off of Furious Endeavors from Etsy . I worked with the shop owner Lou who was fabulous to work with! He made me a custom listing for 6" hairpin legs so they were lifted the same height as my sofa. I forgot I needed a leg for the very center of the TV stand to support the weight of the TV so it won't sag, so he is even making me a custom leg for that as well. His legs are the best price around and are already coated, while most other sellers sell these metal legs un-coated, which means they'll rust if you don't coat them yourselves.

The old legs were these cheap plastic silver squares that were about 1.5" high which I hated and were too low. I replaced them with the Furious Endeavors from Etsy metal hairpin legs. All you have to do is drill them with your own screws. I used 1.5" drywall screws and a basic drill. See the finished project below! I love how the legs made a super modern and plain TV stand into a mid-century style which i loved, and gave it the height I needed!

 

Now for my 2nd piece of furniture that needed some added height. You may remember my vanity below from a previous post. I ended up painting the frame grey, because I didn't like the contrast of brown and mint. I also ended up purchasing an Eames style Eiffel Chair like this at a furniture store for $40 because it was a floor model. That was such a steal in itself as this chair retails for about $100. The chair looked almost brand new, except for a few scuffs, all of which I removed with a Mr. Clean Eraser , which by the way is awesome for removing scuffs off walls, shoes, furniture, etc. Anyway, the chair barely fit under my vanity would scratch up against the lowest point, so I needed a way to raise the vanity.

My first thought was to get some circle wood pieces cut at Lowe's or Hope Depot to glue or drill to the bottom of the legs. Then it dawned on me! I remembered Michael's has a bunch of pre-made wood pieces so I took a trip there to see if I could find anything. I found these little wood pieces in the wood section for about $2.50 (with the Michael's 40% off coupons they always have). I knew the width and round, traditional style would go perfectly with the curved legs of my vintage vanity. I also got some E6000 glue, but you can use wood glue or drill them straight to the legs since these little wood pieces had a whole at the bottom and was hollow. I just worried since the legs were thin, that it might crack the wood, especially since it's a vintage piece, so I decided on the glue method for now.

I painted the wood pieces grey first to match the vanity, and then glued them on. Read the glue directions as this one requires 24 hours to dry. This type of glue is also a bit toxic, so make sure to have the windows open or apply in an open area.

I love how it turned out, and not my chair fits perfectly under, without touching the vanity. I feel like the addition goes perfectly with the existing style, and doesn't look like I added it. What do you think?

Even, Rambo approves!

Project Vanity

I've been on the hunt for the perfect vanity for a couple months now. I wanted something vintage and classic that wouldn't go out of style, but still had some whimsy. Another important feature was that it needed to have storage for all my makeup and hair necessities. Lastly, and the hardest part, was that it needed to be 42 inches wide or less because it would be going into a niche 42" wide. Well low and behold, Craigslist brought me this beauty. It's actually a desk that I'll be repurposing as a vanity. I love the shape of the legs and all the drawers!

You probably can't tell from the picture, but the person who had this before put a cream wallpaper on each drawer. They were a bit beat up, so I decided I was going to paint it and change out the rusty knobs. Below are my supplies: Valspar mint green paint, foam brush and sandpaper. 

I haven't moved into my new place yet, but I was planning to have some mint green accents, so I thought I'd paint just the drawers green. I peeled off the wallpaper off of one drawer and I found that there was a keyhole that was covered. I painted it to see what it would look like, and the wood wasn't taking the paint well, plus I didn't like the extra hole. I wasn't sure how I was going to fix this. I thought about putting a sticker over the hole, but then i knew the shape of the sticker would show through the paint. Finally, I found some electrical tape and covered the entire drawer with it. If you have to do something like this, you have to line up the tape perfectly so that they don't overlap, otherwise you'll see the lines after you paint over it.

After my first drawer, I decided to just paint over the wallpaper, and it came out better than painting directly on the wood. I changed out the tarnished knobs for these cute crystal diamond shaped ones I found at Lowes.

Here's the finished product! I'm still not sure about the color. I'm going to have to see how it looks like with the rest of the room once I move into my new place. If it doesn't fit in with the rest of my decor, it's an easy fix with a new  color of paint. For now, I love the pop of color and how it turned out! Now I just need to find a chair or stool and a mirror to complete my perfect vanity.