Retro telephone table part II and a nice mention

I'm glad I consulted my fellow bloggers regarding Jason's family heirloom - the retro telephone table. I wasn't actually planning to do all that much with it, but seriously, your enthusiastic responses spurred me on.

Mind you, I didn't exactly follow any of your advice, but the fact you commented was enough to breathe some funkilicious life back into this sad piece of furniture.

I started by sanding down the little bugger because it was covered in a very thin layer of flat brown lacquer. Hmmm...so very fashionable in 1967.

Fortunately the base is a lovely solid teak. And the boxy top part still had the teak veneer intact minus a couple of small nicks.

After a good dust down, I applied a thin coat of oil based Estapol. After allowing it to dry for the required eight hours, I sanded it lightly and applied a second coat.

When it was dry, I sanded it very lightly and applied some natural teak oil (Scandinavian) with a soft rag to make it gleam and bring out the natural grain in the teak.

Yesterday, while the table was drying (and the rest of Australia was barbecuing) I quickly ducked into Spotlight to see if I could find a suitable fabric to cover the old cream vinyl seat. I didn't exactly want to break the bank for Jason's heirloom - something affordable would do the trick.

For $12.50, I bought half a metre of this turquoise and brown patterned material. It has a mid century vibe to it and I like the vibrant colour against the white walls.

I've just glued it down for now and will have it stapled properly when I borrow a friend's staple gun.

Retro telephone table with ruby red Whitefriars soda vase

It is a definite improvement from before. I hope you are not too disappointed that I didn't heed your advice, but it was certainly helpful in that I couldn't leave that brown paint (and lazy me would've been inclined to do so).

I will end up using Jason's Nana's telephone table as a quirky lamp table in the lounge room...when I get a lamp...

On another topic, Melbourne blogger, Helen Webberley from ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly wrote a blog post on Queenslander homes with some references and links to Fun and VJs. (Helen's blog topics are many and varied - from a 1660s cook book to the history of beach huts in Australia and Britain - making it an interesting read.)

Fun and VJs is a very small blog, so when it gets a mention elsewhere in blogland it does not go unnoticed.

It is very, very flattering and I just wanted to share the love.