I mentioned in the last post that one poor little table was having an identity crisis because it was supposed to be one thing, but then I changed my mind.

I loved the curved legs and thought it would be perfect for a top that Gus gave me.  But as I progressed, I decided proportionally it wasn’t ideal.

Here’s the top:

What a mess!!  This Moorish looking table top has silver filigree apron that is beautiful and so delicate.  I’m pretty sure at one point in time there were some sort of plaques or inserts in the oval openings.  I thought about trying to put something back in, but decided to let it be. It keeps it looking lighter. As you can see the metal was rusty and corroded. I attempted to polish it up, but after a while, I realized it was an uphill battle.  I was going to break down and just spray paint it silver. Done.

The top was another problem.

It was really just a big piece of 1 inch thick particle board with lots of missing chunks and chips all over the top along with what looked like a little bit of water damage.  All that gray you see around the edge is wood fill, lots of wood fill!  Oh, and don’t miss the two large holes in the center.  They were filled too. Obviously something thick and heavy probably topped it originally, but what was I going to do with it?

I hoped with all the wood fill I could get a relatively smooth surface and not have to put anything else on top.  It wouldn’t be perfectly smooth, but smooth enough.

I found another small table that was a little bigger and studier for this top and voila!!

I love my Moorish table!

Lots of paint on the table, more sanding, and lots of polyeurothane (no I can’t remember how to spell it) to help smooth it out and give it a glossy top.

It was a LOT of work, but some lucky person is going to have this one of a kind piece!  Will it be you???

The snow if finally melting and spring is in the air even if is 23 degrees outside!!  I guess I’ll be working on furniture INSIDE for a while!!   I’ve been busy.   I’m trying to get as much finished now while I have a little time before my job starts to take over my time and energy.

Here are the latest pieces I’ve finished.

I’m the first to admit that the photo doesn’t due justice to this pair of tables.  The color looks wonky, and they’re much cuter in “person.”   The orange isn’t as sherbert looking when you see them its more of a peach.  You can put them side by side or stack them; they’re great for small spaces as most of my pieces are.

The next piece is another from the “Sousa Collection” as I’m now calling pieces given to me by my friends Gus and Ann.  It’s a great table, but was just sort of …blah.  Inspired by the shell carving, I tried to give it a little “beachy” feel to it.  The top actually looked pretty good so I left it as it was.

Moving onto upholstery:  Okay so you may remember that I took an upholstery class a couple of years ago.  I learned how to redo an ottoman.  Not hard, but frankly, most of the steps I’ve forgotten.  But I found this horrendous ottoman in a thrift shop and thought I might be able to manage re-doing this one.  I did!

I told myself when the day came that I could move some things around in my work room and get to my mom’s old sewing machine I was going to TRY and start doing more upholstery.  Well, the time came and I was able to open it up.  I’ll skip the long story, but let’s just say I decided not to try and use it.  Instead I went out and bought myself a new sewing machine.  I figured why not, it’s never a bad thing to have and it will allow me to try and do more things.  So now here’s my very first attempt at sewing to do some upholstery work…oh and keep in mind, I haven’t used a sewing machine in about 35 years!!  So my skills are pretty bad and the results aren’t great.  But…

I found these God-awful stools on the left several years ago in an antique mall long before I ever thought about flipping furniture.  I just thought they’d be good things to have.  They’ve been waiting for several years to have a make over and now that I had sewing machine, their time had come.  What a difference!  I think it’s really weird that the proportions even look different.  I didn’t replace the cushions, just recovered.  Over all I like them, but up close my novice sewing skills are obvious.  I just hope someone will still appreciate and want them.   A lot of work went into these little stools, much to my surprise!

One last piece for this post is this little table.  Poor thing was suffering and identity crisis, it couldn’t tell me what it wanted to be.  That was partly my fault.  It was slated to be the base for another table top I was working on, but I decided it’s just little too small for what I had planned.  So it got put aside for another.  It just sat there for a week not being able to tell me what color it wanted to be, or if it wanted to be painted, or decoupaged. Finally we came to an agreement, he got a little bit of both.

I have more to show you but I’ll leave you for now.  The next post…maybe later today will show you that table top this little table was supposed to go with.  I think the final result is pretty nice.  Stay tuned!