Reconstructing Roadkill

Mr. Charming brought this piece home for me.   He rescued it from the curb side.   Yes.. someone was throwing this away…tsk tsk.

This piece is all real wood.   I believe the previous owner was using it as a chest.  He nailed the doors shut and made the top removable.

I really liked the stain on this chest but it was very scratched, and very glossy, besides I had something else in mind for it.   Even though the appliques were not all in perfect condition, (some were broken)  I decided to leave them on as is.

So now that you get the gist of this chest, lets rework into something a little different.

First we put the removable top aside and put some wooden braces on the inside.

We already had some finished plywood and cut a piece to fit inside the existing frame and on top of those braces.   This finished plywood was glued to the braces and nailed from the inside.

The nails were removed and the doors were opened.  I primed the inside of the cabinet and the raw finished plywood with the same primer.

I gave it all a good couple of coats of Valspar’s Porcelain.  At this point I saw the very noticeable nail holes in the appliques that weren’t noticeable when the unit was darker.  I filled the holes, smoothed them out and gave it another very light spray of color.

Now it’s finally ready for glazing.

Using my own mixture of brown paint and glazing medium The entire piece gets brushed with glaze, then wiped down and dry brushed.

I also painted and glazed these three pieces of wood that were measured and cut to fit on top. You’ll see these a little further down.

Now back to the top piece we took off.  This is an amazing piece of wood, but it needed to be sanded down to remove a lot of lacquer and stain.

Armed with my tools… a power sander (a larger one would have been nice, but I work with what I have),  some good stripping sand paper and a very good face mask.

I had every intention of stripping this right down and then staining it again…

but as I got further down, I liked the little stain that remained.  It had a weathered, barn board look.  I liked it…so it stays.  I passed over it again with a finer grit sand paper just to smooth it out even better.

To keep the rustic barn board look I used a satin Polyurethane from Minwax with a foam brush.

Those three pieces of wood that were cut, painted and glazed were measured to fit underneath the stained top.   Braced with wood previously removed from this top, these pieces are screwed in at three different points…

..and the wood was placed on top of the unit.

The old discarded chest is now repurposed into a media unit.

*** Just a side note that these pictures show the unit being used with my TV that was already mounted on the wall for another cabinet.  This cabinet was made for someone else and their flat screen will be sitting on the top.***

You’ll notice that there are no handles on the doors.  I thought that handles or knobs would interfere with the appliques and I opted not to use hardware.

You can make your own media centre with any dresser simply by lifting the top or adding a great piece of wood for the top.

Remember the cabinet was made for a flat panel tv with a stand, so the ledge on top will be the perfect size.

Yes, the doors do work… and in place of hardware I decided on magnetic push latches.

I’m lovin’ it.

Thanks for stopping by!

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