Hello friends welcome to salvaged by K Scott I am Katie and today I'm going to be showing
you how I deconstructed this totally trashed Art Deco vanity and recycled it and restyled
it into a pair of tall narrow nightstands that can fit into the Modern Vintage and dark
and Moody design trends that are so hot for 2023.
[Music] I picked this thing up at my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for 50 bucks
a few weeks ago and since it's in such awful condition already and not too many people
are making use of vanity tables like this anymore I thought this would be the perfect
piece for this type of upcycling project I love the beautiful curves on these Art Deco
waterfall style pieces the veneer on the drawers is stunning although it's a little hidden
under this grimy old finish the handles are beautiful solid brass and the massive round
mirror on this is going to be a great statement piece to hang on the wall all on its own but
that's going to be a project for another day so I'm definitely going to hang on to it let's
start pulling this thing apart foreign
I've done a few of these here on the channel over the years and the one thing that I've
learned is that they are all assembled a little bit differently so my best advice for breaking
something down like this is just to follow the nails and screws around undo things a
little bit at a time and see how everything is held together
[Music] foreign
[Music] there used to be a mirrored shelf that sat on these brackets they've each got
a little screw and a nail holding them in place so once I removed the screws I just
grabbed them with my pliers and pulled out the nails as well after taking a look at the
back I decided that I needed to remove the backer boards to get access to the large board
that's basically holding everything together and I just used the claw of my hammer and
a flathead screwdriver to pry those off they were pretty gross and I ended up cutting some
new ones later on foreign
[Music]
this board was held on with a few nails and then it was sitting in this slot I thought
the easiest way to get this out was going to be to cut it in half so I could get a little
bit of Leverage and pull the nails out so I grabbed my circular saw and made one cut
right through it I was able to get in behind one side to pry those Nails out but the other
side just wasn't cooperating so next I found the screws on the inside of each drawer tower
that were holding the center shelf in place and I undid those foreign [Music] I was expecting
to have a little wood glue or hidden nails to deal with in there but as soon as I had
the last screw out everything just fell right apart nice and clean
[Music]
I flipped them over and pulled out the old casters they were super crusty they only had
three on each table and I just don't think they're necessary now for nightstands so I
wasn't worried about replacing them here are my two separate nightstands I am gonna need
to fill in where the shelf's at and also fill in the gap on the back where they were connected
together but before I start on that I wanted to try and tackle the wrecked veneer on the
tops I grabbed a scraper and worked off whatever was already loose and then I noticed this
nice fresh split down the back leg on one of the units this was definitely my own handiwork
from smashing on this so I put some wood glue on the inside of that clamped everything back
in place and left it to dry overnight
foreign [Music] the next morning I was ready to really have at it with the rest of the
veneer on these tops I soaked an old towel in some hot water and then plugged in my garage
iron while that was warming up I busted out some varnish strippers so that I could start
working on the old finish on the drawer fronts at the same time this veneer is really thin
and I don't want to accidentally sand through it by trying to sand off the old finish so
I'm going to use this chemical stripper instead smart strip is water-based low VOC and much
more eco-friendly than a lot of other chemical strippers on the market but you do still want
to wear gloves eye protection and a respirator while you're using it basically you just glob
on a really thick coating and let it sit anywhere between three and 24 hours to do its thing
it does say it's formulated to stay wet on its own but I found that it works a little
bit better if it's covered with some plastic just to keep it from drying out by the time
I had the drawers all tucked in my iron was nice and hot and I went back to steaming off
the rest of the veneer I just worked section by section letting the iron warm up and melt
the glue that's holding it on and then used my scraper to peel up that wood
foreign
while I was working away at that I asked Doug if he could help me cut down a piece of wood
from another project I think this was actually a mirror support on another dresser but I
wanted to fit that into the big gaps on the backs of these nightstands so he cut that
to length on the miter saw and then shaved a tiny bit of the width off on the table saw
to get as close of a fit as we could and then used some glue and a few screws to attach
them and I also had him cut me the new backer boards while he had the saws out [Music]
[Music]
it ended up taking me about two hours to get all of the veneer off of these table tops
and then I was more than ready to move on to making the rest of these repairs since
I didn't clean anything before I started my demolition I gave the stands a really good
scrub down with some simple green to remove any surface Grime and especially old furniture
polish residue that I don't want to grind down into the surface when I'm sanding and
then I mixed up some Bondo to fill in the tracks from the Shelf Bondo is a two-part
epoxy so you need to mix the base putty with a separate cream hardener to create a chemical
reaction that solidifies it and it tends to start setting up pretty quickly once it's
mixed so I like to work it in smaller batches especially when I'm filling in something big
and deep like this I also used it to fill in the seam between the frame and the new
piece of wood that we added and the little screw holes from where the shelf brackets
were removed [Music]
foreign I knew I wasn't going to be able to get a good fill in one shot on these really
deep spots so after my first pass had dried I sanded away the excess and then mixed up
some more Bondo to fill in the trough and get it perfectly flush while that was setting
up I took a look at the drawer fronts again it looked like the stripper had done its thing
at this point so I peeled up the plastic and carefully scraped up all the gunk once I had
most of the finish off I used some four odd steel wool to scrub off the rest and then
wiped everything down with some water and set those aside to dry [Music] foreign
[Music]
after smoothing out my second round of filler I went on and scuffed sanded the other sides
of both units while I was working on that I noticed that there were a few spots where
the sub veneer on the tops was starting to lift again I've created my own problem here
and this is a result of all of the steam that I used to get the top layer of veneer off
but this is an easy fix I just pushed a little bit of wood glue under those spots with a
syringe and a box cutter and then clamped them up to dry foreign [Music]
[Music]
I stand at the tops as smooth as I could but because this is a rougher substrate that was
never meant to be seen it needed some more filler to get it smooth enough for paint I
used some of bondo's spot glaze on an old gift card to smear on a really thin layer
over this and just kind of fill in the deeper wood grain areas drywall spackle is another
great thing for this kind of shallow filling it's never going to be perfect but it definitely
made it better and it's going to give it a more professional look well that dried I got
started on hand sanding the rest of the wood details on the fronts of these luckily the
old lacquered finish was really flaky to start with so it came off exceptionally easy with
some 120 grit sandpaper foreign
I also went over all of the drawer fronts really lightly with some 180 grit to smooth
them out once they were fully dry and then the last bit of sanding was just to smooth
out the tops and then I cleaned up all of my dust with a microfiber cloth and started
masking off the front parts of these nightstands that I wanted to keep wood [Music] foreign
[Music] I laid out a drop cloth and then propped up the tables on my painters pyramid then
I loaded up my gravity-fed HVLP pneumatic spray gun with some of this Luxe chocolate
brown color by Fusion mineral paint I've never used this color on its own before but I think
it's going to be the perfect fit for these it's really dark but it should give me a much
warmer feel than a straight up black I did decide to skip primer on these and my reasoning
for that was because I was using a dark color so although I could technically still get
some wood tan and bleed through it's highly unlikely and also because Fusion is an acrylic
resin paint with a built-in top coat that should lay nicely across the wood and the
wood filler and after a few coats camouflage the difference in texture there pretty well
it could have been a huge mistake I may have needed to go back and Prime and repaint but
I was willing to trust the paint on this one my first coat of paint dried really nicely
I could still see the repairs very slightly through it but since they were all sealed
now with that first coat of paint my next coats should hide that completely there was
a little more texture on the tops than I was really happy with so I did another thin layer
of my spot glaze left that to dry came back and sanded it smooth again and then sprayed
on another two light coats to get full chocolatey coverage foreign
was nice and dry I pulled off the masking and I knew I was going to need to make the
lighter wood on the front frame match the darker redder veneered sections a little bit
better so I grabbed some of this water-based wood stain by bear in the color English Chestnut
it's got a really strong red tone and I painted that over the lighter bits of wood with a
foam brush and then immediately wiped up the excess [Music] thank you
hopefully by now the design idea in my head is starting to come together in a way that
it makes sense to you but now that I had all of the wood in a closer match to each other
I decided to stain everything the frame and the drawers in this water-based stain in the
Color Walnut foreign [Music] and while that dried I brought the poles inside and soaked
them in a mixture of vinegar and hot water to start cutting through the Grime on them
and then I scrubbed Everything clean with some more of my steel wool and a little bit
of Bar Keeper's Friend these are solid brass and Polished up so nicely [Music]
thank you [Music]
to seal and protect all of the surfaces I decided on this finishing oil from Fusion
this is the natural or uncolored color but they also have a few other Shades that you
can use to stain and finish all in one step but it's a blend of tung oil linseed oil vegetable
wax and a solvent that actually soaks into the surface and becomes part of it it creates
a super strong durable coating that's resistant to scratches it's fully washable and it's
even rated for floors and table tops you can use it over paints but it will Amber or yellow
a little bit so it's not something to use over lighter colors it's going to be fine
over this chocolate brown though again very easy to use you brush it on Let It soak into
the surface for 15 or 20 minutes and then wipe away the excess you can apply multiple
coats to build up more of a Sheen if you want but I'm just going to do one on here
foreign
[Music] this oil does need nine hours to dry and then takes about a week to 10 days to
fully cure so the next morning I used a few little finishing nails to attach my fresh
backer pieces and reinstalled my shined up handles foreign [Music]
and here we have it a totally wrecked and unusable vintage vanity turned into an incredible
pair of nightstands that can easily fit into today's design Styles and be functional pieces
of furniture again these are going right back to the restore and hopefully they can make
a little bit more than fifty dollars on them this time please make sure that you are subscribed
for tons more furniture makeover inspiration and let me know what you'd like to see me
work on coming up I'm always looking for new ideas thank you so much for hanging out with
me through this project today I very much appreciate you and I will catch you all next
time
[Music] thank you [Music]