Have you ever been dumpster diving? Admit it. You probably have dug thru trash in some form or other to claim it as your treasure. I have seen things laying alongside the curb before and snatched them up quickly. I've even put things on the curb and had them gone within five minutes of placing them. Sometimes you have to be at the right place at the right time to stumble across a great find, other times you get a tip. I prefer tips. It saves gas.
This time I got a tip. A dear friend of mine sent me a message alerting me to a dumpster full of treasures near her house. I grabbed my daughter and the two of us went to check it out.
My daughter is a young adult. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I am boosting a child into a dumpster to dig around for drawers to a dresser. I did boost her up there, but she's tiny and without fear. Me? I am a huge chicken. I've always had a fear of falling which is precisely the reason I don't know how to roller skate or ice skate or skateboard. I think it all goes back to the time. . .oh, sorry. I also get off track easy. Anyway, I really really didn't want my obit to read "died climbing out of a dumpster and falling onto her head." Can ya blame me?
Back to Dumpster Diving 101. This was a clean dumpster dive. Even cleaner since it had rained a lot the night before we searched it. The stuff they were throwing out made me wish I had a trailer attached to my SUV so I could haul it all away.
There were two dressers in there. We were only able to fit one into my vehicle. The other was larger and we needed a strong guy to help us lift that one. My strong guy was at work. Our plan was to go back later with him.
Here is the one we took home.
It is solid wood. It is missing a drawer. We dug around for that drawer, but, we couldn't find it. It may have been in there and we missed it. No worries because I don't need it.
We were all set to go back for the other dresser when another friend of mine, I call her my "Mini-Me" because she's just like me but 10 years younger, went to check the contents of the dumpster herself and sadly reported the dumpster was empty. Darn on-time dumpster dumping company and darn Mini Me for not going earlier when I told her to go. (She's forgiven though because she is super busy with school, kids, husband, volunteering, etc. Plus, we needed a truck and a strong man to help carry.) Hearing that it was emptied by the company broke my heart. The thought of all of it possibly ending up in a landfill made me extremely sad.
Back to the one we did rescue. I had thought of turning it into an entertainment center (like the one I showed you back in December) and selling it. Remember that one?
Click here to see the tutorial for that totally awesome entertainment console.
I still might do that. I have a line on a buyer, too. Part of me wants to do something totally different though. Well, not totally, because I'd still turn it into an entertainment center. I'm thinking of something industrial looking though. It's still a toss-up. What to do? What to do? That is the question. Any thoughts? Color suggestions? Opinions? I would honestly love your input.
In the meantime, I DO know what I am going to do with my piano roll cabinet I acquired a few weeks ago. Here she is in all her beauty.
Again, excuse my photos. Remember the Robin? A robin tried to kill me but got my camera instead. Remember that?
Since I don't have a player piano or know anybody who owns one and needs a place to store their music rolls, I don't feel bad at all about taking this old cabinet, dismantling it a tad, and re-purposing it.
The outside will pretty much look just like it does in the above photo. I feel good about that. The only difference is I plan on touching up the scratches on the finish, re-staining the top and adding a key pull knob. The original lock is still there but the key for it is gone. The inside is where it is going to change. Here's a look at that.
I fell in love with all of the shelves. I immediately thought, "Baking sheet storage!". I often think and speak in exclamation. No exaggeration. I do. However, I may have 5 baking sheets but not 13. Then my mind went to, "Microwave storage!" There it stayed.
My Triple H (Handsome Handy Husband) confirmed that he was on board for a little more DIY Re-hab. Whew! Because I am fearful of a saw in my hand, too. My husband, too, is afraid of a saw in MY hand. (That's why any sawing falls in his to-do category.) If there is anything worse than breaking a hand in a fall, it would be cutting one off in a saw accident. Can you believe I'm a glass half-full kind of gal? Well, I AM!! Just not when it comes to falling or cutting off a limb.
I am going to have him remove some of the upper shelves. Enough to accommodate a small microwave. The back needs replacing, too. It is just a thin piece of damaged veneer. We need to make sure there is plenty of ventilation for the microwave.
I am going to move baking sheets/pans onto the lower shelves. That should free up my baking sheet storage area that is in a kitchen cupboard and my electric griddle can go there. Which means less trips to the garage to retrieve it and more grilled cheese sandwiches. Did you know that tomorrow, April 12th, is National Grilled Cheese Day? I didn't either until I looked at my son's school calendar.
There you have it. You are all caught up with what we are currently working on. Go make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich but before you do, let me know what to do with that green dresser and if you have irrational fears, too.
Oh, one last thing. Remember the list I had made of projects a few weeks ago? This list? Well, scratch #2 off the list because I think that project would work better with chairs than counter height stools. Those stools were set out on our curb and snatched up by a new family practically the second Triple H set them out there.
#5 is still in the works but I'm waffling on the color choice I had started to use. I can't commit to applying it to the buffet yet. I'm rethinking the whole darn color scheme. I'm thinking of using yellow ochre with a walnut stain instead of the dried fern with espresso stain I have on the hutch. Which means I'll have to repaint the hutch. Or finish it depending on which color I do choose. Give me your input on that one, too, while you are at it.
And #6, well, I have everything to begin it but haven't quite configured the layout.
Now, how 'bout that grilled cheese?
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Oh, we've been so busy here at The Hardscrabble Home and I can't wait to show you what we have been working on!
There is a bank of cabinets on one wall of our house. This particular section is not used for food prep. So, one day I was looking at it and thought why not change it, make it look more custom.
Here it was just a few months ago...
Now, three years ago my friend Katalin and I painted the kitchen cabinets. They had been oak. Actually, the front of them had been oak, the sides were covered with some paper that looks like oak. (Read: NOT OAK.) At that time we added beadboard to the ends of the cabinets, then painted the whole thing black, sanded it for an aged worn look, then applied a stain over the whole thing. We swapped out the circa 1990 knobs and pulls with new ones bought on Ebay. It turned out beautifully.
Here's the before picture from that project. Don't judge me too harshly with decor...it was over 20 years ago.
Fast forward to last week. I'm eyeing that cabinet and the makeover idea was born. I remembered that I had two 100 year old cabinets in the garage that I had last used when my friend Julie and I had a shop...named....The Hardscrabble Home, of course! I miss that little shop.
The cabinets had seen better days. They were missing their glass doors. One of the cabinets was missing it's bottom doors, too. I chose to use that one in this makeover. My goal was to reuse the wood from this cabinet to make my formerly stock cabinets look custom.
My handsome carpenter (Read: Husband) was more than willing to help me with this undertaking. I promised to do the demo. He would do the sawing. I would do the application of the beadboard. He would install the counter top. He would putty. I would sand and stain. Fair deal! We work well together.
Remember, this project didn't cost us a single penny. We are repurposing and using what we have on hand. Love that!
We dragged the cabinet outside and set to work, hoping to not get caught in the rain last weekend. I snapped this pic as it was laying on its side. That explains the screwdriver on the side of the cabinet, it's not a magic one, it's a regular screwdriver.
Oops, I'm jumping ahead. The demo. That tile was harder to get off than I thought. I went to work on it with a hammer, a wonder bar, and a flat screwdriver. I was sore for two days afterward.
Back to work on the old cupboard.
Dear husband measured and cut the beadboard to size.
Then I carried them inside and laid them out. There were variations in the finish so we wanted to lay them out and pick the best boards to use. This was just a few days after Valentine's Day and you can see a little glimpse of the roses I received from my honey. They are still looking good today, ten days later. Amazing. Remember last year's vase I used to make a candle centerpiece at a cost of ZERO. Here's that little project, lest you forget. Valentine's Vase to Candle Centerpiece
Whenever a project is done at home, as is customary with our family, we write a message to the future owners of our house. Our house has quite a history to it. It once was used as a speak easy during prohibition. We like to add our chapter to its history by leaving our story within its walls. Here you can see part of the message on the wall as I am figuring out what way I want the boards to go up. In this case, the message pretty much just says that we took an old 100 year old cabinet, used the wood from it for this project and the date.
I applied the beadboard with construction adhesive that we had on hand.
Then my better half cut down the side of the cabinet to make the counter top. Here it is, waiting to be puttied, sanded and for the trim (also coming from that cabinet) to be installed.
For the next few days I was busy adding more putty and sanding it. Then the weekend arrived and we tag-teamed it again. Love of my life applied the trim he had saved from the old cupboard. Then he puttied it some more and we left it to dry overnight.
Our final day on it...well, it didn't go as planned. The putty would not take stain. Then we tried a different wood filler we had on hand. That stuff was horrible. We ended up sanding it all back down to the old putty. I was determined not to let that putty win. I grabbed some paint from my stash and a brush. I went to work blending in that putty. By the time I was finished you couldn't even see it. Which is what you want, right? After that, I added my stain to it. I was going to use a mahogany gel stain but it turned out much too red. The beadboard and wood has a red tint to it, but the mahogany did not match it. I then turned to my aged oak gel stain. That was it. It matched perfectly. I completed the counter top and it is beautiful.
We had thought about adding a corbel to the left side under the upper cabinet. We even cut the top of the cabinet off to use that piece as the corbel. It was the perfect shape already. It looked terrible. So, we scrapped that idea.
Want to see the finished product?
...and her close-up.
Isn't she pretty?? See the different variations in the color? The old cabinet had belonged to my stepdad Kevin's aunt. It had been in her house. Kevin ended up with it. Then when we bought my mom and Kevin's house from them, the cabinet stayed behind. I like that it has a history to it. Kevin would have loved this project. He was a wonderful furniture maker. He would be proud of us.
Here is the before and after view.
We love it! It definitely doesn't look stock anymore! It's so much fun to work on projects like this together. I come up with the ideas and my handsome carpenter has the know how. Teamwork.
We hope that we have inspired you with this project and that you can find a new use for an old object like we did.
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