Tag: Bentley

Painted Apothecary Drawer

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn FurnitureLeave a comment

I built this apothecary drawer for a cabinet my wife bought a few months ago. You can read the post here. My wife needed to paint the drawer and make it look old to match all the other ones.

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The first thing she did was take a solution of white distilled vinegar with steel wool and wiped it on the drawer so it would take on an aged look.

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She then painted the front with white milk paint. She built up the coats to give the front some depth since the original drawers had multiple layers of paint on them. After the paint dried, she applied some green paint to front and quickly wiped it away as there was also some green highlights showing through the white paint on the original drawers.

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The drawer was a little too white, so she gently applied dark wax and rubbed it in. Getting a perfect match with the colors from old drawers is really hard, but she did a really good job making the new drawer blend with the others..

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Here’s the drawer with the rest of the them back in the cabinet. She got lucky with the hardware as she found matching pulls from a seller on eBay. She had to replace nine of the handles because when she bought the cabinet, it came with handles of two different designs.

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Bentley came to see which drawer was the new one, but couldn’t figure it out. Can you?

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The Dog Ate my Wife’s Christmas Present

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop3 Comments

My wife Anita called me this morning while I was at work. She was fuming. Apparently, while she was taking a shower our dog Bentley decided to check out the Christmas presents under our tree. He grabbed a gift I was giving to Anita and tore it to shreds like a wolf, throwing wrapping paper all over the dining room.

Like most dogs, Bentley loves tearing up paper so it made sense that the gift he decided to chew up was the transfer paper. Anita was planning on using the paper to transfer artwork or patterns onto fabric to make seat cushions and pillows out of it.

It’s not Bentley’s fault that he doesn’t know the difference between thirty dollar transfer paper and thirty-five cent newspaper. To him paper is a delicious snack. Unfortunately, all of the sheets are torn and we’re not sure if they will still work through our printer. Another problem is that most of the instructions are shredded. Anita has never used the paper before so she’ll have to get another paper pack for the instructions or find similar instructions on the internet.

The big problem for me is that I’m a cheap skate so I keep thinking of all the things I could have bought with the thirty bucks; like a half tank of gas; a salad and appetizer at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse; two beers at a Bengals game…… Okay so maybe $30.00 isn’t all that much money, but it still burns me that he chewed it up. What a Grinch!

My Shop Assistant Isn’t Very Helpful

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop1 Comment

Yesterday while changing the blade on my band saw, one of the little knobs that hold the top and bottom doors closed, fell out of my hand onto the floor.

I’ve never been a big fan of these knobs because they are so small, they slip out of my hands every time I hold them, but they do work. Just my luck when the knob hit the floor, my dog Bentley ran over to it like it was a toy and started playing with it, sticking it in and out his mouth like a ball. After I was finished changing the blade, I asked Bentley were the knob went. He just looked up at me like “what knob?” I spent a half an hour looking for that stupid knob all over my shop, underneath all my benches, tools and everywhere else in the basement. I keep my shop floor pretty clean so it shouldn’t have been too hard to find a piece of black plastic.

Without that knob, It’s hard for me to keep my top door of my band saw closed. I had to settle with some crappy little nut until the knob reappears (hopefully soon). All I know is if Bentley poops out a little black triangle in the next couple of days, I’ll know where the knob went.