Hi Fellow Creators!
My name is Jen and in addition to being a DIYer and diehard Rust-Oleum fan (and employee!), I’m also a lifestyle blogger at DearRosalie.com! I’m lucky enough to work somewhere where they encourage creativity and they’ve asked me to share some of my creativity with you - I hope this project will inspire you to tackle new things!
For my latest project, I decided to tackle a HUGE problem area in my house – the entryway. It had become a major DROPZONE – shoes, coats, keys & CLUTTER! Look at this before picture:
Pretty terrible, huh?
So I set out to create a custom piece that would transform my entryway from dark & messy to light, bright and CLUTTER FREE!
I started with a sketch of what I wanted to create, then headed to the store for my materials. Admittedly, some of this I had at home already, but the bare necessities for this build are:
- 9 ft of 8.5″ Red Oak
- 2 – 2″x2″x8′ Select Pine
- 4 – 1″x2″x8′ Select Pine
- 4 – Drawer Pulls
- 1 pocket hole jig
- 1 package - 2” Kreg Jig Screws
- 1 package - 1.5” finishing nails
- 1 qt Fast Dry Stain
- Whitewashing/liming wax medium
- Wood glue
Once I had my drawing and my supplies, I made some quick measurements and got to cutting out all of the pieces and pre-drilling the pocket holes. And WOW – there were a lot of pieces!
But, no worries, once you lay it out it starts to come together pretty easily, and I quickly fastened it all together using a combination of pocket holes & wood screws, 1.5″ finishing nails, and wood glue.
Now, two tips to making your furniture look less homemade and more store-bought:
- Buy nice pieces of wood for areas you plan to stain. I bought 9 feet of red oak and cut it in half to make a 4.5 ft tabletop and matching bottom shelf. Since I knew I wanted to paint the body of the table, I was able to save money by using inexpensive pine for the rest of the build.
- Invest in a palm router and use it to make decorative edges – for this one I used a cove edge bit on the tabletop, and it made a huge visual impact towards the overall look and perceived quality of the table.
Once I got it all set up and had all the drawers sliding correctly (admittedly that took a couple tries), it was ready for staining!
I used my favorite stain color of the moment – Varathane Fast Dry in Provincial – and got to work!
I just love the richness of this color!
To get a distressed, white-washed look I used a light colored wax over the top of the stain color. I applied it with an old paint brush – sometimes going with and sometimes going against the grain. Once it was dry, I buffed it with a clean cloth. Another way to get this look is to layer on the Varathane Antique White stain with a clean cloth (but I was all out!!).
The end result was just the right amount of distressed – and it really brightened up the space!
I think the best thing about learning how to build furniture is the ability to build exactly what you want, and to the size you need to fit your space. With this build I created a custom piece, that’s well made and is exactly what I wanted – no sacrifices on size or style!
What do you think? Do you have any spaces in your home that could use a custom solution?