Upcycling a Trashed Sewing Machine Table
NATURE OBSERVATION
You can now buy printed reproductions of my hand-painted watercolor and ink Nature Observation Journals on Amazon!
A couple of weeks before Hurricane Helene, I found this very cool, but very trashed antique sewing machine for free on the side of the road.
I’d been wanting one of these things for a long time now, but they’re pretty expensive if you try and buy one, so if you can imagine, I was out of my mind excited when I saw one for free on the side of the road.
It was insanely heavy and I didn't know if I'd be able to get it into my car by myself, but I managed.
I couldn't, however, get it up onto my deck, so I pulled it apart in the yard.
Most of the wood was rotted and bug eaten, so the entire piece itself was not salvageable, but I was able to pull it apart and use the base to create a table with, and I will later be restoring the sewing machine portion, and building a display base for it with some of the wood I managed to clean up and properly dry out in the oven.
I've never made a table before, but it didn't really seem like a hard thing to do, so I just got creative.
I went to a really cool store that sells specialty lumber, and I found some beautiful walnut planks that I decided to use for the table top.
I already had most of the tools on hand, but I bought some wide wood working clamps to hold the planks in place while I bracketed them together.
After I had the table top built and varnished, I took apart, scrubbed, repainted and reassembled the base.
And when that was done, I installed the table top.
The whole thing was crazy wobbly, so I had to get creative and build a little shelf, to be able to install the back support, which made it very solid.
And as this is my new painting table, stability is very important. I’m super excited about my new table!
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.