Rehabber’s Rehab

About a month ago I found an awsome salad bowl at a garage sale for $1 that looked just like one a friend had that I had long admired.  It was a little rough looking, a couple of stains and scratched up, it wasn’t bad looking, and I figured those could easily be sanded out.  As with most things that you buy with the intention of making it a project, the salad bowl has now sat in the basement for 2 months waiting for me to get around to refinishing it.

The friend whose salad bowl I originally envied has since broken hers, and has been desperately looking for another one like it since.  It’s her birthday today, so I am going to refinish the bowl and give it to her.  Although I am giving up the best salad bowl ever, for very little money and 20 minutes of effort I know I am giving her a gift she will absolutely love, and will have no idea I didn’t buy it new.

How to refinish a wooden salad bowl:

1. Sanding. The bowl is a little nicked up and has some spots on it, so with a medium grade sanding block (Love these.  So much easier to hold that just plain sand paper), sand with the wood grain to get the scratches and stains off.  Then sand again with fine grain sand paper.
2. Clean off the sawdust. With a slightly damp rag, clean the sawdust off the bowl.  By wetting it, you will also see if there are any spots you missed or that might need to be sanded more.  This will also begin to open the wood’s pores. Repeat step one and then do step two again.
3. Rub with mineral oil. Rub the bowl with mineral oil.  Some people use olive oil, but it is believed food based oil will go rancid over time.  Best to stick with odorless mineral oil that you can buy at any drug store.
4. Heat the oven to 150. Turn on oven to 150 degrees and then turned it off.  Place the bowl in the oven and allow to cool.  The heat will open the pores and allow the mineral oil to be absorbed.  As the bowl cools, the pores will close sealing the bowl.  Wipe off excess oil when you’re done
5. Admire.

Caring for your wooden salad bowls is the same as with a new cutting board, apply oil once a day for a week, once a week for a month, and then about once a month as long as you own it. Wipe the oil down well immediately after applying, every time.

Don’t stain or polyurethane your salad bowl.  If you want something a little heartier than just oil, Behlan’s makes a finish listed as food safe called ‘Salad bowl finish’.

After the cleaning spree of the past few days and with a friend coming into town this weekend, we are considering spending our first night in the house in the next couple of days. But first, we needed to set the furniture up, leading us on the first steps of layout and deciding how we want the rooms to look.

living room with couches and a bed thrown in

back bedroom with guest bed and room for side tables

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Courtesy of De-victorianization on Division we found a fun design quiz to help your put a name to your style. I filled mine out and then had fun watching Thor take the test. I got to see what things we had in common, and where we were different. Thor told me half way through “I hate this.” I guess he wasn’t having as much fun. Final results?

Liz: World Traveler

Global influences abound in the way you’ve decorated and furnished our home. It’s a look that works well on a budget, and at the same time it says something about you and your interests: you particularly love collecting things that tell a story or trigger a memory and help make your place relaxing and inviting.

Describes me pretty well. I love displaying things that we’ve picked up in our travels around our home.

Thor: International Chic

Not so long ago the craze for ethnic-style was ubiquitous. Maybe you embraced it or eschewed it, but anyway, you’ve moved on since then. Your home still reflects a passion for travel and an appreciation for other cultures without seeking to mimic or patronize. Classic, or even quite anonymous, pieces of furniture sit among pieces from far flung parts of the globe.

An alright description, but the furniture pictured doesn’t describe him at all. Still, sounds like we’re similar enough that we’ll both be pretty happy with however our home turns out. Take the quiz and let us know what you are.

Last night was spent slaving over a bucket to clean up this:

Drywall dust from patching the plaster covers every surface

And hours later, I ended up with floors that look like this:

Living room after one mopping

I felt like I was completing a sisyphean task, with every moping merely spreading the dust about in slightly thinner and more even layers, and the living/dining room and back bedroom looking no better after each effort.

After that, tonight I was done.  I mopped again, only be faced with the same slightly lighter thin film, add this onto my already bad mood, and I had had it.  I retreated to the garage and my trim stripping and left the cleaning to the men.  Like it should be.

An hour later, they had done a brilliant job cleaning, and i was in a calmer and more zen like state after methodically peeling paint.  We took a dinner break to build an impromptu fire pit (not sure how legal that is…) and burned at least 6 inches off the wood lathe pile.  Thor and Matt returned to clean up the supreme dirtiness of the kitchen and I got another board done.  In the end, my mood was lifted and it turned out to be a good night.

Rehabbing as therapy.

I have two words for you: Heat Gun.

I fell in love with this device about 5 seconds after using it when the paint began to bubble and peel off immediately.  My previous experiences working with chemical strippers left me frustrated and with unattractive results. 

Perhaps they are more effective if you are not attempting to remove 10 layers of paint at once. After a couple of hours of layering on the stripper, waiting for it to work, scraping off some of the paint and then repeating this process again and again, only to be left with wood that looked uneven and splotchy, I was considering giving up and giving in and just paint it all.  I decided to try another chemical that is supposed to remove 7 layers of paint (right up my alley) and be stronger than the others.  I would say it was even less effective than the others.

I thought I’d give it one last try with the heat gun, and after about 5 minutes of fiddling with it to get the hang of it, I was removing paint in long strips leaving a clean board behind. So, here is my how to strip paint with the heat gun: (more…)