4 the love of wood: BUILDING A SMALL SPACE WORKSTATION

Do you need a dedicated work place but live in a small space with little extra room? I have built a convertible workstation for exactly that, small space living. I used thrifted items and transformed them into beautiful decor.

This is the next project I did for Janome Canada in their

MAKER's SPACE series. This is a two part "HOW TO",

with this first article showing you how it works and how I

started by building and painting the base cabinets.

Whether you are a sign painter, jewelry maker, craft junky,

or seamstress having a work table with storage is great. But

having that same table convert into beautiful decor when you

are not working or for when company is visiting is a treat we

can all have. Look at all the storage there is built into this project.

When it is time to set up this workstation the two cabinets
move away from the wall to create two pedestal bases for the
work surface to sit on. I made the decorative wall map to be
the work surface. It simple hangs on the wall with 2 "D" rings.

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I started with 2 used kitchen cabinets and some scrap lumber
to build a box on the bottom of each cabinet. The box was to
make them the right height, create a toe kick for your feet,
and make a smooth but strong edge for the cabinets to slide
around on. I used a compound mitre saw to cut my angles
and a power driver with 3 inch screws to attached the boards
together and to the cabinet.

TIP:

Castors could be used on the bottoms if
you have a hard surface floor.

With the cabinets now lifted up to the right height I figured
out where the shelves were needed. Then came a super good
cleaning with warm soapy water because the next step was to
paint them.

I picked a playful coral color for the interior, a turquoise blue

for the exterior, and a gold dipped effect on the bottom. The

coral and blue were mixed colors using Annie Sloan chalk paint.

Yellow FROGTAPE worked marvelous for the gold dipped

effect because it was gentle on the newly painted surface but

stopped any bleeding of the gold paint. The gold dipped

effect is done by taping off the complete bottom of an

item and painting it in gold to simulate the look of the

item having been lifted and dipped directly into gold.

TIPS:

#1. Plastic grocery bags can be used when taping off paint jobs.

#2. When comparing gold spray paint RUST-OLEUM looks most authentic

We don't get newspapers to our house so I had to come up

with something else for paint projects. I have bought and

tried other brands of gold spray paint, this is my favorite and

works the best.

After enjoying the sun outside I brought the cabinets in and

started to play with the finished look of the paint. I did the

inset detail on the doors in white using a small artist brush.

But my style is more vintage and I love aged finishes so I

went and got the dark wax and 2 pewter

colored ring pull for the doors.

I have a great video you can watch to see

how I use dark waxing to achieve this aged look.

Watch for the link at the end.

BEFORE DARK WAX AFTER DARK WAX

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For the top of each cabinet I used a rough cut board that was
the same depth. I cut it into two lengths for each cabinet,
nailed them on with finishing nails, and used more dark wax
to stain and finish the surface of them. To see another
project where I used dark wax directly on raw wood, watch
for the link at the bottom.