Let's Redecorate

I absolutely love doing small home improvements and renovations, my husband, does not!

I recently had the grand total of 10 beautiful days off work over Christmas. I was in desperate need of a few mornings where I didn't wake up to an alarm at 5:30am. This was to be my first break from work in over 18 months and since returning from maternity leave after my second child. I decided that although these 10 days were to be spent mainly bonding with the kids, going to the beach and drinking margaritas, that there were some things that I would like to get on top of in the house, much to my husbands dismay.

I came home from work one day flapping some cuttings from a Real Living magazine that I had knocked off from the tea room at work. I pinned them to the fridge so that I could stare at their wonder with great hopes of having my lounge and dining room looking something a little similar to my new inspirational cuttings on the fridge. The first was of a bed room with filing cabinet-esque side tables and a gorgeous low bed with a brilliant orange quilt cover. The second was of a period style dining room modernised up with a royal blue table. I loved the table, I wanted the table, I had to have a blue table!

I had been thinking of rejuvenating our old oversized Japan Black stained dining table with matching bench seats and chocolate leather high back chairs for quite a while. The style is still popular, it is still quite common but I had grown sick of looking at it and started to hate it. Once I get an idea in my mind its very hard to erase it. I stopped putting table cloths down to protect the tables dark polish and started leaving hot cups of coffee on its surface. It was a sure sign I no longer liked it. My husband wasn't too sure about the royal blue. He asked a lot of questions about what I wanted to do to the table, it's his way of trying to talk/question me out of something in part because he knows that whatever really needs to be done to the table is most likely going to end up his job. Bingo!

My husband works for a very large tool company so I asked him to bring home the necessary equipment to strip the table. I asked and I asked and then I asked some more. 400 requests and a few months later he caved and bought home the tools. Stripping the table was actually a pretty quick job and he got most of it done in a very short period of time. What started out a little like this- see pic below (this is not actually my table, well it is my table, but its the same table in someone else's house. This is a cut and pasted picture from eBay of someone selling the same table as mine. My floor isn't that dirty, seriously, if you saw this pic blown up these people have a really seriously dirty floor and their dining room set up looks a lot like ours, freaky almost) I really should have taken before-and-after photos but foresight isn't my forte.

Turned into this...

What was underneath the Japan Black stain is this amazing timber with major character. Now, I understand that this isn't everyone's taste but I really am in love with it. My husband tells me it is cheap wood, I don't believe him, I think its some sort of treasure, some amazing type of wood that is more expensive than Walnut and all those other fancy woods. I really love it and although it looks a little like cow hide with the browns and neutrals, it is definitely very "now" and has worked to brighten up our dining room. I no longer want to paint it royal blue.


To finish off the table, despite the fact that I didn't want to coat it with anything, just admire it's raw natural beauty to which my husband quickly assured me wouldn't last long with small children, food and drink around, we used Cabots Cabothane Clear in a Matt finish.

I loved the table but...and a big but...when I bought the table I also bought a matching side board/hutch, matching smaller entry way side board, two bed side tables AND a tall boy. Our house was filled with oversized Japan Black stained furniture and as a result of the distaste I felt towards the dining table, I now wanted everything stripped so I could see what treasure hide below the varnish and so it all went a little like this....

With every new item from the house that was dragged out to the front grass I wondered in anticipation as to what timber hid beneath. At the end of the day, if it went all pear shaped and we hated the final finish we were prepared to paint everything white or even just re-stain it again.
The side boards have a unique appearance, almost as if the wood has been stained permanently by the once heavy Japan Black stain and I absolutely love them. They are really on-trend with interior home design and they have once again bought life back to our house. I am in love.


My husband used a large electric hand planer and an orbital and mouse sander to remove the thick layer of stain and varnish. We finished everything off with the Cabots Cabothane Clear Matt finish.
I didn't want any shine and really wanted each item to speak for itself. I much preferred the raw look of the timber but had enough people scare me into protecting the tables with something that I decided to go with just the Cabothane as it was the lightest application of all the oils and stains available.



My second inspiration fridge piece was the small filing cabinet-esque style bedside tables I wanted for next to the bed. They were a little smaller, more sleek and something that didn't have these huge cavernous draws that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fill with anything more than some half used jars of hand cream. The alternative was the Helmer Drawer unit from Ikea and I'll give you one word to describe them- CRAPPY!


I went to Ikea to inspect, I love that there were 6 draws that I could fill with half used hand creams rather than two large oversized draws and that they were a lot more narrow than what I currently had but up close, they were shonky and the draws had no stoppers so when you opened them the entire draw just falls right out. Design flaw? I think so! For $129, they were really small (the above picture is deceiving) and just so rickety and crappy. I decided we'd stick with the current, strip and paint them and see how they went.
The result is this...

I don't love them, but I don't hate them. They were better than what we had. I painted the front of the draw white.















For a small pop of colour I bought a few embroidery hoops and filled them with brightly coloured materials in current patterns of polka dots, chevron and scallops. For $2.99 for the hoop and next to nothing for a fat quarter of material they are my most favourite things in the house at the moment. I had wanted to keep the idea of the embroidery hoops secret and then start my own Etsy business selling them, I was certain this was a new and creative idea and that I would make a fortune from but my dreams were shattered when I jumped on Etsy, searched for "Embroidery Hoop Wall Art" only to find about 3 million listings for something similar and so I share with you all, a super cheap and insanely easy way to inject fun and colour to a little nook in your house.

Hoops (all sizes) $2.99 Spotlight
Chevron & polka dots available in fat quarters from Spotlight for about $4
All other fabrics available on the roll bought as quarter meter.

Happy redecorating!