UFO No More...

At long last my UFO (UnFinished Overhead cabinet) project is completed, hallelujah, pour the champagne! John and I are both quite happy with the results. Our UFO is now officially a coffee table.

photo below - No this isn't the finished piece ! This is what it started out as. Note the UFO scrawled on the cabinet's side? Never fully understood just what it meant, perhaps Upper Fridge Overhead cabinet ?



Some of you may recall the initial project; an overhead wall cabinet that had been salvaged from a kitchen remodeling job. Of the 6 sides, only 2 were finished, the front with its 2 doors and the bottom, with a plain white melamine finish.

photo below shows unit after 4 sides were covered with a plywood skin. The original doors are attractive but very Red Oak with its heavy pronounced grain.



I've taken a number of photos along the way and am posting a few recaps of the procedure so any interested party can get up to speed on what has been accomplished.

Photo below - We chose chubby apple feet to support the cabinet off the floor.



Photo below - Gee they look pretty good on the soon-to-be coffee table.


below - Feet in place. Now measuring the top plywood skin.



below - Painting begins.


below - One of the faux finishes being applied.


below - Oops or "Oh S_ _ t!" 2nd faux finish was a disaster. Top looks like it has some type of contagious disease. Not pretty. No, not pretty at all. The funny thing is it actually looks better in the photo than in reality !

below - What to do ? How about peel-and-stick, slate look vinyl floor tiles ?


below - I'm pleased with the faux finish on the doors.




below - Just one small piece to cut and stick, then the top will be complete.


below - Yea it's down! Now to put the doors back on...where did we put those hinges ?



below - Uh, honey, do you remember how these things went on ?

below - Hinges on and doors in place.


Below - Simple black knobs, like that little black dress...a classic.


Below - Complete...completo...finished...finito...done...terminado !

below - And lots of storage room for stuff !

Now that the project is complete we've been able to put the saw horses, tools, paint cans, brushes, sand paper etc. back in the garage where they belong.

Ciao Bello Italo, one of Italy's 349 most handsome men. We have a garage that you could help us clean up...maybe a small lizard or two but no mice.

Jenn of Random Lunacy - should have taken your advice regarding the faux finish, instead I tried what Valspar's representative suggested. What a mess ! John brought out the electric sander and sanded the top for me, to be honest it looked much better once it was sanded smooth but it still was not the look I was striving for. Somehow I didn't envision a coffee table with acute eczema. Oh well that disease has now been cured.

In One Word....YUCK !

Photo above : UFO-coffee table-to-be is getting its base coat of latex paint. Unfortunately I used eggshell finish instead of satin finish. Now I know there is a difference and that difference, well it really makes a difference.

Does anybody know of a Voodoo witchdoctor that can remove a curse ? Not sure when it happened but suddenly I realized that everything I do turns out wrong. Now if this was just something that began recently I would tend to let it slide, but this has been plaguing me for awhile...oh like the past ten years or so.

At this stage I'm truly contemplating a curse removal or ritual cleansing. Have someone adept at the mumbo jumbo arts, rattle some snake fangs and dog's teeth over my head, blow smoke in my face and chase the bugaboos right out of my life.

above photo: base coat down on sides and have streaked a glaze to resemble a wood grain, of sorts, kind of, maybe, perhaps !
Photo below: more of the same but pretty blue tape has been removed.

Have been fighting with the faux finish that I wanted to put on the top of my coffee table project(aka UFO). When I first applied the crackle finish nothing happened. Twenty-four hours later it still hadn't crackled so I emailed Valspar paints to find out what to do. Seems I used the wrong paint finish, bought eggshell and should have purchased satin paint. Valspar said to go ahead and lightly sand the glaze and then apply a coat of latex satin paint and once dry go ahead with the glazing technique. Wasn't exactly what I wanted to do for the next couple of days but, okay I'd give it shot...after all it's only time.

Well, I won't go into long drawn out details, just suffice it to say I followed their recommendation but didn't get the results I had envisioned. In a nutshell...it's a mess. John, my hubby, was being very diplomatic. "Ah, yes, it's cracking this time. That's good." But once I had rubbed the darker glaze into the crackled surface I told John; "I'm not loving it !"
Photo above: the type of crackle I had anticipated and desired.

Photo below: Uneven crackling, some very tiny.


Photo below: Don't worry it's not contagious ! This is not at all the look I was striving for.
The pattern of the crackling is very sporadic, and I made every effort to apply it evenly and thickly. At this moment it looks more like it is suffering from a bad case of mange than sporting a fine faux finish.
Guess I'll go ahead and apply the clear protector coat and then go look for some nice ceramic tiles to cover the top with !

Faux Paint or Faux Pas ?

At the moment nothing is transpiring with my UFO project, it’s on hiatus as I await the arrival of a couple of how-to-do books on faux finishes. Faux painting is alien to me, never attempted it.
Back in the late 60's and early 70's I was put off by faux finishes, I had witnessed some truly bad cases of faux paint gone faux pas. Of course this was long ago in the days of television’s great home improvement gurus such as Bob Vila. Christopher Lowell came later, along with a veritable litany of TV home improvement hosts, many whose names I’ve long forgotten. I'm sure that over the years both the techniques and the products to do them have been refined considerably.
Now I stand on the cusp of embarkation into a world I’ve never before ventured, anxiously looking forward to the text that will take my hand and lead me through the fog of faux. When I ordered these books I knew I was not now, nor would ever be, a professional painter and decided it senseless to invest in pristine new editions of these instruction manuals. Since Amazon.com listed sources for used books at a fraction of the cost of new, I had to decide; could I live with a book with dog eared pages, bumped corners, scuffed covers, missing dust jackets...oh no not a missing dust jacket ! Could books that bore reminders of their past lives find a place on my book shelves ? Reminders such as library stamps, stickers, some one’s highlighting and pen notes, would these distract me from my purpose ?
Well let’s see, "The Paint Effects Bible" retails at $29.95. Amazon.com price is $26.95 (free shipping for orders over $20) whereas the used book source, condition: like new, slight shelf wear, is priced at $9.00 with additional $3.99 shipping, total $12.99. A saving of $13. 96, not bad. Yes there was a cheaper used copy at slightly over $6 and though the description states that the spiral binding was intact, the actual book cover is said to have a 3 inch tear at the back spine. Somehow I felt this could affect the over all integrity of the book, perhaps not, but to be safe I opted for a more expensive pre-used copy that stated the book was in "like new condition". I also took note of the seller's rating and just how many sales they had. For instance, there was a seller with a 100% satisfaction rating but had only 6 sales in the 12 month rating period, while another had 94% but had well over 10,000 sales during the same period of time. I'm afraid I would be swayed to go with the seller whose rating was slightly lower but whose sales where significantly higher.
The second book, "Paint Effects Masterclass", was not available directly through Amazon.com but prices ranged from as low as $3.93 plus $3.99 shipping, to as high as $87.64 plus $3.99 S&H. Can anyone explain to me who's going to be foolish enough to purchase a book for $87 that retails for less than $7.00 new ? Is an additional 80 bucks going to make it better ? Another interesting note, found a used copy, in "acceptable" condition, of "The Paint Effects Bible" listed for $256.00 plus $3.99 S&H. Could that have been a typo ? If not then what makes this volume more precious than all others, 14 kt gold spiral binding ? Does it comes with an expert faux painter to do your project for you ? In that case it would be a real bargain ! But I seriously doubt that the two versions are any different, other than in price. So I'll take my bargain used books and let you know if their discount prices hamper their effectiveness or if their bargain basement prices cause a revolt amongst my higher priced volumes of literature, will there be peace amongst the tomes?

Footnote : I wish to acknowledge and thank Jenn of Chuck A Stone Design for her recommendations of the technique books ; "The Paint Effects Bible" and "Paint Effects Masterclass".

Pygmalion UFO in Transformation

More progress on the UFO. Of course now it is starting to look like the table I had envisioned so I suppose I should begin calling it a coffee table.


Here the top plywood skin is being measured. Appears big enough.










Below : John was judging if his cut had been precise enough.
I apologize for the blurry photo, it's totally my bad. John was very still as he was deep in calibrations. I, on the other hand, must have been moving the camera like a flag in the breeze !
I probably won't be able to get another chance to snap a shot of my man as it seems he is always moving.




Because the top skin is larger than the others it is going to require a complex combination of weights and pressure points.

Hope we can find enough !




John's used most of his smaller clamps and also has brought out the paint section again. After the last fiasco he isn't going to chance an adhesion unhesion problem. I'm sure you know that a gallon can of thick paint has a bit of heft to it.



Below : Another view. Here you can see that John's using one of the big guns, a steel latching case that houses one bad boy of a drill. Even though the drill and its case weight several pounds it wasn't sufficient to hold the plywood skin down correctly. In order to achieve proper contact more weight was needed...a jar of spaghetti sauce, my hermetic jar of river pebbles and a container of vintage marbles (from John's boyhood).




At the other side of the table top we used yet another jar of vintage marbles and our ever trusty boxes of ice cream salt.
Really need to make some ice cream when this project is complete !






Once this last skin is tacked down and its edges sanded then we're faced with the dilemma of how to finish it. The plywood skin is decidedly different in wood grain and tone from the cabinet doors. Jenn of RANDOM LUNACY and Chuck a Stone Design has graciously offered to give me some tips on faux finishes. I thank her profusely as I’ve never done any faux painting. Yes I know, that must be a real shock what with all the home improvement shows on TV (from the Christopher Lowell show to trading spaces to countless shows on TLC and HGTV) everybody must have fauxed something at sometime in their life! Anyway Jenn, I thank you and you’ll probably be hearing from me soon.