The Interior DIYer
Dining room

New [to me] French Provincial dresser!

Two years. That’s how long I’ve been looking for a proper storage unit for our dining room. A few times a week [usually to break up my newfound hobby of doom-scrolling], I’d open my Kijiji app and search for dressers. I waded through so many ads and honestly it wasn’t until two weeks ago that I saw a dresser that I loved so much that it made me panic that someone else was going to get it before me.

It was a 9-drawer French provincial dresser that was in really good shape and wasn’t priced at $300 by someone who has never sold anything online before in their life. I feel I had an advantage as this is the photo that was advertised online, which didn’t deter me at all:

I am willing to guarantee only 5 people viewed that ad because of the photo; it had a drawer missing, but if you took a moment to read the caption it said all drawers were included and functioning [“I’m not dealing with a dresser with only 8 drawers!“]. Their loss!

After a few messages with the seller, we were due to collect the dresser the following weekend. We rented a tiny U-Haul [$14.95 + tax] and collected the dresser [$95] in Ottawa. It was advertised at $110 and managed to get the price down enough to cover the U-Haul.

It’s SO PERFECT for our living room. Our previous dresser, which was 120% a placeholder until I got a much more appropriate piece of furniture [read all about it here!], was so much smaller and flimsier than this piece.

It won’t be a popular opinion, but I will be painting this piece black. It has such a similar shape to our dining room hutch, which I painted black four years ago [and is in perfect condition still!]. I’ll also be distressing the edges like I did with our hutch, which I’m hoping will further tie to two pieces together and make them look like a set. At the moment with the dresser in its original wooden finish, it’s too much brown / orange / yellow in the room. Especially with the gold mirror hanging above it and the ‘kitten white’ beige walls, I do feel the dresser being black will anchor this side of the room.

I’m quite excited to paint it and maybe this week I’ll be able to cross it off my [seemingly never-ending] to-d-o list.

This is a perfect opportunity for some self-promotion as I used my four tips for buying secondhand items online when buying this dresser! To read about my tips in detail, check out my blogpost here.

Front Room

Choosing New Seating for our Front Room

I’ve been making slow changes to our front room over the past 6 months. I sold our secondhand tufted Victorian-style couch [the Victorian’s were not known for comfort. This couch really just served as comfort for the cats. I never sat in it] and was soon on the lookout for a replacement sofa or set of armchairs.

I searched secondhand websites [Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace] for a month or two and anything I suggested, Robert vetoed. Hunting secondhand online can be hit or miss, and I was finding a lot of misses. I then turned to mainstream big box stores for an armchair [or two].

When I found the REVO velvet swivel armchairs by Structube I was in love. I loved the modern shape, the velvet and that mossy olive colour. I showed Robert, he equally loved them and before I knew it we had two in our virtual shopping carts. This was late January 2022. It took them 4 months to arrive [which I know is not bad at all when it comes to pandemic online orders]. I tore open the boxes when they arrived, but my excitement fell short; what was olive-mossy green online was in reality a much colder winter green set of chairs.

Womp, womp. It was not what we [I] was hoping for at all. Why didn’t you check the fabric in-store or order a sample online?, I hear you say. Well, I ordered the chairs during the peak of the Omicron wave, and Structube don’t sell swatches of their fabric. It was a risk I was willing to take, and as it turns out, was too risky for me. I put the chairs in place and thought about it for a few days, but knew deep down I couldn’t keep them. The colour was too cold. I went through the return procedure and packed them up to be collected.

I’m back to square one, but I’m not upset about that. I’d have been more upset forcing myself to like them. I do know that thanks to having them in our front room, even if for a few days, I realized I want bigger, comfier chairs. Think 90’s huge, overstuffed, patterned armchairs. You’ve Got Mail levels of comfort, emotionally and physically.

DIY

One Room Challenge Spring 2022 – Week Seven!

For Week Seven of the One Room Challenge my main focus was to custom build a desk for our home office. I had an idea of what the desk was going to look like, but I was quite nervous about starting it so in typical fashion, I kept putting off starting it until this week.

I started by dismantling our old dining room table, which I had been using as a desk in our office for the past two years. I wanted to use a lot from the existing table, but I wanted to customise it to better suit the room. So I took it apart. I first took off all four legs, then the apron [and supporting hardware] along each side. I’ve always loved the shape of the legs and the apron detail, and I love reusing things I already have at hand, so this was the perfect project.

Hello, internet! Here’s a wildly unflattering photo of me hunched over our dining table. Enjoy!

I also had ordered two EKBACKEN white marble effect laminate countertops from IKEA [to be delivered! Did you know you can save your marriage by ordering IKEA to be delivered? It can cost between $39 – $49 depending on the items, but if you know exactly what you need and you value your sanity, you can easily order them for delivery]. These were going to be the desk tops to my Franken-desk.

I measured the right section of desk to 7 feet long, square it off and cut it at a 45 degree angle.

At the same time, I measured the height of the table legs and added wooden supports at the same height along the walls to rest the desk tops along as well as to secure the desk to the wall [I’ve included a photo at the end to show from underneath what the desk looks like secured to these].

I painted the legs and apron pieces in 2 – 3 coats of Coal Black paint by Fusion Mineral Paint. I love this paint so much and have used it on countless projects. I immediately knew I’d be painted the legs in this favourite paint of mine.

Once they were dry, I attached the legs and aprons to the underside of the desk top using a mix of brackets and existing hardware from the old dining table [seen below].

I then flipped the desk over and with help from Robert, got the desk in place. He held the desk still while I secured it to the wall using more of those metal brackets [while I was drilling in the screws the desk would resist and move up and down, so I definitely needed a second pair of hands holding the desk still and making sure it didn’t jump too much].

I’m ridiculously pleased with how it turned out. It doesn’t look too Frankenstein-ed and looks quite professional if I may say!

The Week-Seven-panic has set in and I’m in a mad dash to make it to the finish line. Luckily, I’m not alone as my fellow ORC Guest Participants get the last few projects done this week. I’ve chipped away at my to-do list, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that some aspects of my home office won’t be finished on time for the big reveal next week, and after a lot of panic, I’ve come to terms with the room not being completely ready and I’m okay with that.

What I did manage to achieve this week was pretty good, meaning I don’t have too much left:

ORC SPRING 2022 TO-DO LIST:
– Skim coat / patch ceiling
– Skim coat / patch walls
– Paint ceiling
– Paint walls
– Replace / upgrade banister at top of servants stairs
– Update and reinstall handrails
– Repaint stairs [not super necessary, but I might as well]
– Install desk system
– Update secondhand tufted office chair
– Source chandelier / remove the boob light
– Source storage cabinet[s] for office items
– Possibly source and hang curtains [not sure though for either window]
– Decorate / hang artwork / overkill the space

Week One – Week Two – Week Three – Week Four – Week Five
Week Six – Week Seven – Week Eight