My newest project

Over the weekend my mother-in-law and I went to thrift stores looking for a good deal on furniture because she was going to teach me how to refinish it. She's been finding these old school sewing cabinets with machines still inside and fixing them up. They look awesome.

Less than 5 minutes in our first store we find a sewing cabinet with a machine in it. Priced at $19.99. I was sold. Walked out of the store spending $30 because she also got a cutting table for me. She has one that she got at Joann Fabrics for over $100 and found the exact same one at Value Village for ten bucks. Couldn't leave it!

I have one more coat of polyurethane to put on it and then this bad boy is coming home. I was so excited about it last night I moved the current computer desk my sewing machine was sitting on in my craft room into the office. So it is now holding my Silhouette Portrait which will get used tonight when my sister in law comes over to work with vinyl for a home decor project for her dining room. I'm excited to see it work with vinyl, I haven't used anything other than paper in it yet, AND I'm getting paid for it with wine and Girl Scout Thin Mints :)

Here are photos:

I was so excited when we plugged in the machine and it actually worked! All that was missing was a bobbin case. We're guessing the machine is from the '40s. It's a New Home (which is now Genome). My mother in law knows a guy that has expertise in old machines in the area so she took the machine to him to see if he could find a bobbin case for it. Just got word that he did, yay!

So here's the process of how we refinished this piece. We put Citrustrip stripping gel on it to take the varnish off. Used a palm sander to sand it down (there were cigarette burns and watermarks from drinking glasses on it so we got those off as much as we could..What we couldn't get off will be "character"), wiped it down with both a towel and this tacky cloth stuff to get all the dust. For the legs because there is so much detail into it, we thought it best to hand rub the polyurethane on it instead of using a brush, and we also did the hand rub on the front with the two toned wood just because we didn't want to have drips. The rest we brushed poly onto it. Last night I did my second coat of poly, and on the legs towards the bottom I brushed poly onto it in case I ever steam clean our carpets or anything just to protect it. In between the coats of poly we let it dry 24 hours and I rubbed it down with steel wool to get bumps out. Wiped it down with a towel and the tacky thing again, then did the next coat of poly. 

I'm already itching for my next project. It'll either be experimenting with Annie Sloan's chalk paint, or learning how to reupholster..We shall see!