Havelock North

Reclaimed french oak wine barrel furniture and homeware New Zealand…

Reclaimed wine barrel furniture and homeware in Havelock North, New Zealand….

For a month my son, Thaddeus and his friend has been busy working on reclaimed french oak wine barrel furniture and homeware products. This was a part of their business course at the High School to create a business, make and sell a product.

Fortunately, his friend’s dad had a massive wood workshop. My son was in seventh heaven, spending hours in there.

They brought beautiful old French oak wine barrels and created amazing crafted tables, platters, candle holders, fruit bowls, and lazy susans.

In the workshop

In the workshop

Trade Fair

Last week the boys had a Trade Fair at school to display and sell what they had made. It was amazing to see the end product of all their hard work. Beautifully crafted, we were so impressed at the standard of their work.

Beautifully red wine stained fruit bowl and candle holders

Wine barrel platters

Wine barrel platters

I loved how some of the wood had writing on them and also the red wine stain still remaining.

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Metal from the wine barrel placed around the side of table

The beautiful reclaimed wood products were stained carefully with natural oils as preservative. The items to be used for food were stained with pure olive oil the others in linseed oil.

Single candle holders

Single candle holders

The boys are now hoping to continue their business, selling their products through markets and online.

Candle holder

Candle holder

Thanks for reading my post!

   Andi

 

 

 

 

Simple steps to repaint wrought iron furniture…

Spring is here and it is time to repaint the deck furniture. I was excited to purchase this old table and chairs set for only $25 on Trademe earlier this year. Now that the weather is sunny outside it was time to work on getting rid of the rust and repaint it. These simple steps to repaint the wrought iron furniture is something that can be done in a couple of hours.

Repaint wrought iron furniture

My son Elisha and Rodeo enjoying the sunshine

My son Elisha and Rodeo enjoying the sunshine

First it is necessary to wash it all down with water and dish detergent to get rid of dust and dirt.  Then I used steel wool and a wire brush scraping and rubbing off the rust. This is quite a messy job, but it does come off easily. Next I washed it clean again. Time to paint!

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I just brought green gloss enamel spray paint from Mitre 10, (under $20 a can), but I did need 4 cans. It was already painted green, so to make it easier, I kept to the same colour. I made sure it contained zinc for rust protection. This paint dries quickly within 15-20 minutes, but needs 24 hours to cure. It is important to always follow the instructions on the can to get the best results and safety.

Spray Paint

Spray Paint

Our wrought iron table and chairs looks great now – ready for sunny spring days!

New World Little Garden Seedling Kit Collectables

I just want to tell you about the New World Supermarket Little Garden promotion recently – we so loved them. They were little seedling kits given out with every $40 spent in their stores. They were just so cute and such a great idea!

New World Little Garden

New World Little Garden

My daughter Serah just loved collecting these vegetables and herbs. They were exciting to open, plant the seeds, then watch them germinate and grow.

Seedling Kits

Seedling Kits

The kits contained a little pot made of wood pulp and peat, bio-degradable, made in Denmark. The seeds came from a Dutch company and the soil tablets are made of coconut husks from Sri Lanka, but produced in the Netherlands. All organic!

Seedling Kit

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It was wonderful to see Serah so excited about growing vegetables.

Little Garden plants in the vegetable garden

Little Garden plants in the vegetable garden

Thanks for reading my post!

  Andi

 

 

EASY STEPS TO SHABBY CHIC A HEADBOARD

Shabby Chic Headboard…

My daughter and I are working on redecorating her bedroom. Our next project was to shabby chic a headboard for her bed. I want to show you the easy steps to shabby chic a headboard with everyday interior house paints. We were looking at a Thrift Store on Saturday and found a great headboard and baseboard for free.

They were in reasonable condition and made of solid wood. Because headboard and base had been painted white previously we decided to use paint from our local Resene paint shop. The colour picked was, Wild Thing, which was really quite a bright yellow, but  we decided to give it a go. I just brought four test pots (60 ml each) and used two coupons (buy one get one free) off the back of grocery store receipts. The cost was $9.00.

This was a great project for my daughter, Serah, as it was easy to do. Also, a good chance to practice her painting on something where mistakes where easy to fix.

Serah painting a headboard

Serah painting a headboard

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Once the first coat was done Serah found the colour too bright or too “perky yellow” as she called it. So I mixed one test pot I had brought previously of Half Bianca (60 ml) with one pot of Wild Thing.Serah much preferred the lighter yellow.

Distressing

Once the paint had dried overnight I lightly sanded down areas of the paint. The thing I love about shabby chicing a piece of furniture is it is wonderful for getting rid of mistakes, drips etc. So I just sanded off areas at random, places where in time it might get worn away anyway. The underneath layer of white paint came through in places to make it a bit more interesting.

Clear Wax and Dark Wax

Finally after sanding I used Annie Sloan Clear Wax and Dark Wax over the sanded areas. I just like this look, but you can leave it without wax if you like.

Distressed Headboard

Distressed Headboard

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Shabby Chic Headboard and Baseboard

Shabby Chic Headboard and Baseboard

Thanks for reading my post! Serah’s bedroom reveal coming soon!

  Andi

 

 

 

 

 

EASY UPCYCLE FOR AN OLD TV CONSOLE

This old TV Console I brought for $10.00 on Trademe.

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Simple repairs needed

One cabinet door was broken and a shelf was missing, it was just not looking so good. But sometimes you can see the potential in a piece. Especially if it is made of mahogany wood and you have two cans of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Old Ochre and Coco.

I started by removing the glass doors, which was easy to do. Then unscrewed the plastic door tracks and filled in the screw holes with wood filler.  I took off the broken door and cut it down to replace the shelf that was missing.

Finally, I removed all the hardware and place it aside to paint.

As this was such a large piece I used a paint roller to do the first coat. I mixed together both paint colours in the paint tray. They went on easily and if any drips I lightly sanded down when it had dried.

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It was such a beautiful day to be painting outside!

For the second coat I used a brush and still using the paint tray I poured the two different colours in side by side. I painted one colour then the next, combining the colours, painting it smoothly over the surfaces. After paint had dried I again light sanded any drips and made sure it was really smooth.

I decided to use Annie Sloan Clear Wax on all the surfaces and Dark Wax only on the front trim.

Using the same hardware, but I painted and sanded it down.  In New Zealand hardware is really expensive compare to America, so I try to use the same hardware when possible.

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What a transformation, it came out far better than I expected.

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Thanks for reading my post! Hope you have enjoyed it!

   Andi

 

 

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