Over the past few years we’ve really done quite a bit to put
together a dining room, which in one other place we lived just sat empty
because we had no dining set to put in it.
But a sweet lady in our old city, who lived just down the street from us
happened to have an extra table in her attic, given to her and her husband by
friends of theirs when they were just starting out. Her husband now passed, and the table
replaced long ago, she decided it would be a fitting fate for the table once
again. And that is the story of how we
got our first dining table, it is up to us to carry on the tradition some day too now.
It is a beautiful table, but was in need of some TLC, so one
spring we decided to completely strip and refinish the entire table. Crazy, eh?
It was hours and hours (especially for the carved legs) of striping and
sanding, until we got to the fun part of staining and the poly coats.
Then there is the cool story of the chairs…same lady (who knew
we would be on the look out for some seating) called us up and said she had
spotted a great set of 5 chairs on the curb in a nice neighborhood, and had
scooped them up for us! What a
delightful lady!!
We picked them up at a friends house, and quickly discovered
that they didn’t look at all like they would go with the table, so I took the
task upon myself to try and transform these freebies into functional.
They were structurally pretty sound, just needed tightening
and glue here and there.
Here is a picture of one before,
And one after another I stripped, stained, padded, upholstered
and corded them, and surprisingly they have held up for a couple of years now!
We no longer live in that city, but were again fortunate to
find a house with a dining room when we moved. And since I love sunset colors,
decided to go with gold and amber when decorating-with no objection from the
mister. Ever since, it’s been fun
finding deals to incorporate.
One day at a hole in the wall antique shop (the very best
kind where nothing is organized and you bargain for the price) I saw this side
table in the “work in progress” section the owner had set aside for pieces
needing repair. It was an awful gold at
the time but stuck in my head, so the next day I called and made a deal, I’ll
buy it for X and refinish it myself, and it was accepted. This table had about 6 coats of different
kinds of paint on it, dreadful! But I
love the finished product…stained legs and painted top.
 |
| So ugly! |
 |
| Much better |
Have you noticed that plate chargers are everywhere? They range from uber-expensive hand-carved
wood, to plastic. Well, I was willing to
jump on the charger trend train, but I wanted glass. Guess what?
I couldn’t find it anywhere. Not
even on the internet. Sigh.
What’s a girl to do?
Hatch a plan!
I started searching instead for oversized glass plates, and
when that didn’t work, searched for glass by common company names. Hit!
Anchor. No, I mean Anchor was the
brand, and they were available at my local Wal-Mart. Sometimes we do a lot of work just to come
full circle, don’t we? It’s only sad
when that circle ends for us at Wal-Mart (hahaha).
Hatching new plan…I’ve got the plates, now what exactly did
I want? Something unique, something that
ties in my colors and the feel of the room.
And I wanted all glass. OK, now to work.
First I cleaned them to remove oils, then I found a design
online of The Tree of Life that I shrunk down to the right size, printed it
out, taped it to the back of each plate, and then began the long process of
etching. I had received for Christmas a
year or so ago a Dremmel (woo-hoo!) and found a set of diamond tipped heads
that attached to it and found these were perfect for the job.
Here is a close-up picture of step one, completed on the glass plate:
Step two was equally time consuming, and involved three
sheets of stained glass that I picked up from Hobby Lobby for 40% off. I double bagged them and then ran a hammer
into them (while holding the top of the bags) in the air to break them up a
bit. With nippers I made piles of
different sized pieces and went to town gluing them in place with the very best
glue…E6000, it’s cheap, dries fast, flexible and clear.
Here is a picture of step two, completed:
What a great feeling it was to be done with pulling the
glass slivers out of my hands and to get that last piece nipped into shape and
fitting snug!! Next
step…grouting. After the glue had set
for a couple of days, I mixed up my sanded grout in a disposable plastic
container (clean up is overrated) and got to it. I have always enjoyed grouting. It’s great, really, I get to make a mess,
play with wet sand and end up creating something.
After this, just one more quick step…the grout sealing
process. I used a typical grout sealer
and applied it with a small (cheap, disposable-but not so cheap the bristles
fall out) art paint brush, sometimes these sealers can cloud tile and glass,
hence the brush. Two coats! Now let sit and DONE! What do you think?
Finished plate chargers:
More Etching Fun
I have learned that you can etch just about any glass, as
long as it is thick enough to be sturdy—would not recommend fancy, thin-glass
wine glasses, for instance.
Here are some candleholders that I picked up at dollar
stores for $1 each, and etched different versions of the Tree of Life for the
dining room side table. I used the diamond tips for these on the Dremmel as well, and marked the design directly onto the glass with crayon. I realize I need a different candle for the smallest one, but...waiting for a sale!
Here are some everyday (probably bought long ago as a
Wal-Mart 4-pack) wine glasses that were just calling for some decoration. Truthfully, I was inspired to do this so that
we could keep track of our wine glasses after walking all around and setting
them here and there (pretty sure there were countless times the mister took
mine!), and wine looks so pretty through the etching.
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