Transforming an art deco style sideboard - Tile Twist

Should I or shouldn't I? Of course not. Hey team, today we have this ornate art deco style sideboard. It's the gift that keeps on giving. We've got broken hinges, water damaged veneer, busted drawer railings, and last but not least, a very tired white paint job. Now this is actually part of a $2,000 before and after YouTube challenge, and it's hosted by my friends over at the Furniture Squad premium community, and that is a place where you can learn from online courses and get help from creators like me. There are some seriously awesome creators in this challenge. There's close to 20 of us, so plenty of binge-worthy content for you to view. So be sure to check out all the creators' videos and show us some support by casting your vote. But for now, we'll continue pulling this apart, and then once I've done that, we'll be able to start removing the paint and seeing what lies beneath. So I can see this top piece is oak, but it is on a ply, so it's a veneer on a ply, and it's looking quite warped in places, so I'm hoping I don't have to replace it, but there's a very high chance it came off in one piece. So out of everything on the piece, I feel like just by looking, the doors are in the best condition. So I thought I might start with the doors, just get them done, and kind of have a look at what I'm working with underneath this paint. I was hoping to scrape, but looks like we're going to have to use some paint stripper. Alrighty, I've scraped and given it a wash down. It's still drying, looking very patchy, but even once it's dry, it's probably still going to look very patchy. There is a lot of paint in the grain, so I'll give it a sand when I get to that phase a little bit later, and then we will probably have to get in with a pick of some description and get all this paint out. Might look at acetone or something, but yeah, yeah, big job. Alright, so now I'm going to start on the drawer fronts. These are solid oak, which is a relief. It just means that I can scrape, not worry too much if I scratch it, and if there's any white paint left in the grain, I will be able to sand it out, because I can go in, you know, reasonably, reasonably hard with the sander. So I'll try and get off what I can with the scraper, and then we'll see if I need to use any stripper. Yes, we do need to use some stripper. Alright, it's now time to start on this big boy. These are very fragile, and both these pieces of detail have actually already got a small crack, so I'm going to leave them in place and remove the paint off them while they're on the unit. Hopefully that will be effective, we'll soon see. But for now, it's time to get scraping. What was that you ask? Well this is the Wolfbox Megaflow 200, aka the tiny jet engine that has declared war on dust in my workshop. This thing creates a jet airflow of up to 87 meters per second. I don't even drive that fast, and for those nooks and crannies in your car that you never clean. Forget disposable cans of air, this thing has three speed settings, plenty of accessories, and super simple charging options. Charge on board, or grab yourself an extra battery so you're always fully loaded. And it even comes in a fancy box. Now if you're looking for a gift for someone this Christmas that enjoys restoring furniture, cleaning things, or just blasting things in general, then this is it. Trust me, nothing quite says Merry Christmas like a cool gadget in an awesome box. You'll find the link to these in the description below. Alright, I've scraped as much as I can. It's getting harder and harder, and I'm just going to end up damaging the wood. So I'm going to now put some more stripper onto this here. I don't know if you can tell from looking at it through the camera, it looks a bit cloudy, like a weird shadow. That's actually, um, it's been sprayed on with spray paint. So yeah, it's just, obviously it was a really rough job. But I'm hoping because this is a very patchy paint job, this stuff will come off reasonably easy. I decided to remove this because I just can't quite get this finish off, and I'm worried I'm going to damage it. So hopefully I can get it off in one piece. Yes. Yeah, you can see that there's already broken. Oh dear. Majority of the sanding is now done, but before I sand this drawer, I want to remove the felt from inside. I'm hoping I can save the drawer bottom, but I won't know until we get this stuff off. I think it's safe to say this has done its dash and we'll need to replace it. I was a little bit worried I wasn't going to be able to replace that ply, but I've just had a look online and I can get some from a local hardware store, thank goodness. So I'll move on to sanding this drawer front and hopefully we can get on to some staining today because I am really starting to feel the time pressure. Just when I thought I was done with all the paint removal, I realised I hadn't done any of the hardware or this decorative stuff, so I'll move on with this quickly. This shouldn't take too long, hopefully. Although, famous last words. It's been 84 years. So I'm now going to move on to the staining, and you're probably thinking what about the top, and that's a fair thought. I have decided I'm not going to strip it and try and bring it back to life, I'm going to do something very different. I don't want to do an oak veneer, I want to do something a little out of the box. And you're either going to like it, or you're really going to dislike it. And until it's on, I have no idea what it's going to look like. But first of all, we're going to do some dark oak, and then we'll get on to this top. So I can now move on to the top. And yes, this is a tile, and yes, I am going to tile the top. So there's a couple of reasons why I'm doing this. One is restoring and making over furniture, you know, it can be quite repetitive, so sometimes it's nice to spice things up. And I figure this is kind of spicy. And the other reason is the piece is quite dark. I did have to do two coats of dark oak, because I'd be lying if I said I got every speck of white paint out, I didn't. So that's why I had to go on with the second coat of dark oak. And I think that's kind of maybe taken something from the piece, it looks a little bit bland now because it's quite dark. And I just kind of think it might elevate the piece slightly, it could do the complete opposite, and I'm sure you'll let me know. But let's just give it a go and see what happens. So first, I'm going to prep the surface, I'll give it a light sand, and then I'll use some of this acrylic primer. And I'll do two coats of this 50% primer 50% water. And what I've done on the edge here to create a border is that piece that I took off, it was originally a lot lower, so I basically just raised it and that's just created a little lip there. So that should be a nice border for the tabletop. I just reread the instructions and it looks like undiluted is the best for this one. So I'm now just roughly laying out the tiles so I can make sure I have enough, and also so I know roughly where I need to make the cuts. So I've just whipped up a small batch of adhesive because I wasn't too sure on the consistency, but I think I've got it sorted now, so next round I'll make a little bit more. But it's now time to apply this to the back of the tile and get the tile onto the top of the piece. Let's do it. Alrighty, I've laid all the big tiles and I've had to cut a few across the top here. The backboard is going to sit on top of the tile to keep it sort of tidy. The ones that are a little bit shorter like this one, it's just because that's where the screw comes through to fit the backboard, but it will sit on top of the tile. Now I'm just cutting a few more of these now to run up the sides. We'll get those on and then we'll be able to grout a little bit later, hopefully. Okay, all the tiles are on. I don't know how I feel about it at the moment. It's still early stages. I've had to take the side trim off. I realized it was a bit too high and I want it to be flush with the top of the tile, so I'll lower those a little bit. But for the meantime, I'm just going to let this dry and move on to, I guess, waxing and getting the doors and things back on. So I'm just going to go on with a Gilboy's Pure Gold Wax. Basically, I rub it on. Don't rub it in, just rub it on. And then about 20 minutes later, I'll come and I'll buff it out. And I'm just using, this is actually an old t-shirt, to apply it. So it's now time to do the grout and I'm using this one here for anyone that's interested. Now if you're wondering why I've got all this kind of tiling stuff, it's because we recently redid our kitchen and this was the backsplash and this is all the consumables we used. I certainly didn't go out and buy it for this project. I'm just using up what I've got. Now I haven't got a float. I threw mine away because it was a little worse for wear. So I'm just using a piece of, it's like rubber, should do the same kind of job. This stuff's really easy to work with. It's very fluffy and airy, so it's very forgiving. It's not like a hard thick paste. So yeah, we'll just get in, fill all the gaps in and then wipe over, clean it down and hopefully, I mean, we're just hoping for the best here really. I think I might have made it slightly too runny actually, so I'm just going to add a little more mixture. I'm certainly no tiler, so I'm not going to give you any pointers on tiling. But this gave me a reasonably good result in the kitchen, so this is what I'm doing out here. All right, all the grouting is done. I did a rough clean up and I'm about to just give it a quick wipe down and then I will let it dry overnight before I seal it. And I'm going to seal it because I figure someone might use this as a bit of a work surface for like, you know, like arranging flowers or something. That's kind of vibe I'm getting, a sort of farmy feel. So I will seal it probably twice just to be safe. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy with how it's looking. I don't know as a whole how I feel about it yet. Once I've got it all back together with the doors and everything, I think I'll get a better feel of what where we're at. So it's now the next day and I've come out to apply the tile grout sealant. But what I've realized is I also need to take photos of this finished piece so I can show you in the reveal. Now, I don't want to do this because then the tiles are going to be wet. So I'm going to do this afterwards, but it's basically wipe on, wipe off. Super simple. Thank you very much if you're still with me. I hope you've enjoyed this one. I've actually decided I'm quite pleased with how this piece has turned out. It's always fun to try something new, especially when you're short on time and doing a YouTube challenge. On that note, in the description of this video, I will leave a link to all the videos so you can watch each and every one of them. I'll also leave a link to the voting page so you can cast your vote for your favorite piece. And if you're interested in joining an awesome community to chat all things restoration and makeovers, I highly recommend the Furniture Squad. And I'll leave a link to that in the description as well. If you have enjoyed this video, please hit the like button. You can do that on your TV by scrolling up and it will allow you to do that. And if you'd like to see more of content, I would love for you to subscribe. That would really help me out. Thank you again for watching. Please let me know what you think in the comments. Have a very safe and happy festive season. And until next time, take it easy.