June Waste-less Sale

June is Waste Reduction Month.  There are loads of ways to cut back on the garbage and leftovers that your household produces.  But one of the best is to shop local and buy items that have already had a life before you.  Hey!  That's what Funky Junk is all about!  In conjunction with Get Your GreenBack Tompkins, Funky Junk is offering a sale. 

Come by for the rest of this month, take one step towards a more Earth-friendly home by buying something reused, register your purchase by signing a card, and get 10% off. Who knew saving money and saving the planet could be so easy!





Welcome!

Welcome to the New Blog for Funky Junk- Your Ithaca resource for the best Recycled, Upcycled and Do-It-Yourself home furnishings. Check back regularly to see great junk pile finds, transformations of junk into treasure, and the latest in local artist talent- all available on the Commons in downtown Ithaca (between Alphabet Soup and Trader K's).






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Chalk Board Coffee Table

This coffee table means business! It is so solid it just refused to die when the ‘80s passes and it’s dark carved wood went hopelessly out of style it just hung in there. I’m really glad it did to, because with a little creative paint refreshing it came back big time! I love the chalkboard top as well, it will be great fun for kids of all ages who want to get artistic, keeping score for games, or leaving messages for you housemates!

It’s been painted up with Annie Sloan Pure White for the base and Graphite for the top. For the DIYers out there, don’t expect to get the same coverage with white as you do from most of the other ASCP colors, this baby took coat after coat after coat to cover up the f-uglly 80s wood. To finish him off I painted the hardware a nice grey, and distressed and waxed the piece with several coats of clear. Alot of elbow grease went into making this guy stylish again, but it was certainly worth the effort!

French Dresser

I can’t believe I didn’t get any before shots of this one. It was such a wreck and it’s so fantastic now! We put it right in the window display of the store while we’re prepping everything else to show it off and apparently it get’s lots of attention! This dresser got the full treatment. It had veneer falling off, carvings missing, hardware missing and not a single drawer would slide in and out smoothly. I knew it was a diamond in the rough though. The drawers are so elegantly detailed inside with dovetail corners and nice routed edges along the tops. I think they are even cedar lined (not that I’m a wood expert, but that’s my guess).

The hardware that was still there was beautiful, I’m guessing it’s sterling silver, and I couldn’t stand to replace it with something new, but one drawer was missing the pulls. By moving the knobs from the doors to the drawer I was able to keep what was left of the set together and really set the piece off with those awesome new green handles on the doors.

I pulled off the veneer that was flaking off the middle drawer and sanded down the wood underneath. To fix up the rest of the veneer was salvageable with a little wood glue and clamps. The drawers were shaved down and waxed and now all slide nice and easy as they should. Once she was in working order I painted her up with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Antibes Green and then a second layer in Aubusson Blue (one of my favorite ASCP colors!). I distressed the blue pretty thoroughly letting the green show through for a fantastic french look. Finally I waxed with both clear and dark wax to bring out the richness of the paint and show off the great carvings.

I’m thrilled with how it turned out! It’s the first multi-color french style piece I’ve tackled and it got the look perfectly!

Mushroom Table

Unfortunately I forgot to snap any before pictures of this little beauty. We found the table at our local Salvation Army. We rarely find good deals there, because Ithacan’s love used stuff so much they can afford to charge alot! However, we lucked out on this one. It was in need of some love, repair, paint and flair. The top was previously a mirror, but the mirror stuff on the back of the glass had completely degraded to mush. The rest of the piece was well worn dark wood with plenty of bumps and bruises. All the joints needed tightening and gluing as well.

We happened to have some awesome paper from Ithaca Cards with this great mushroom print on it and a little sample of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Versailles that went together really well. To get the paper behind the glass I used a razor blade to scrape all the nasty backing off the mirror, cleaned it up real well and traced the circle onto the paper. Then I just cut it out and reassembled everything once the frame had been painted, waxed, distressed and waxed again.

If you have not tried Annie Sloan Chalk Paint yet you are missing out. It’s so easy to use, no pre-sanding or priming required, and it distressed wonderfully as you can see here. I love the way the table turned out, so much so that we used it by our bed for a while even though it really doesn’t go with the room, it’s just so cute and fun with the vintage ‘shrooms!