Completed Brewing/Selling Stand

I know I'm not ready to start brewing coffee, but I do want to make it out to a farmer's market soon. When I do finally make it out there, I will need to have something to sell from. So, I took my cheapskate creative juices and put them to work.


My daughter is getting older and since we have a closet full of old clothes, we needed to make some room. I had an old dresser that I didn't want to get rid of because it belonged to my great grandmother. I had absolutely no place to put it in my house, but I was not willing to get rid of it. Therefore, I had to re-purpose it.

I chewed on how I wanted to design it for a while. Luckily, it was around Dia de los Muertos, so I had some crafts to work with. I knew I wanted to get some decorations with my color scheme (black and orange) as well as the burlap sack my coffee came in.

I pulled the old dresser down into my garage and went to work. The backing was all torn up so I had to pull that and toss it. Then I went to sanding. They definitely do not make furniture like they use to. I had to go buy sandpaper that was twice as course just to get through the clear coating. I went through quite a few pages before I could even feel the wood. I have a feeling this stand is going to hold up for another 100 years.

I stained the whole thing black, which didn't go in as easily as I would have liked. I thought the wood be dry and soak it right up. Instead, it took quite a bit to keep it from dripping and getting sticky. I hit the drawers and knobs with spray paint, then the whole thing with a protective clear enamel. I wanted to have something to write my offerings without having signs, so I painted the top with chalk board paint. The last piece was the backing. I cut my burlap sack to fit a piece of wood for the backing and glued it down. I added some mod-podge to help keep the burlap from shedding. I nailed it all down and viola, it was all done.

It is really heavy because it is an old dresser, so I think I may add a board to the bottom so I can install wheels. I like that I have storage in the drawers and my burlap sack says "Mexico" on it. I want to add my logo in the middle of the front there, but I haven't found a good way to paint it on there. I don't have a stencil and I'm not quite good enough to do it by hand. That will come eventually though.