DIY Singer Sewing Table

A few years ago the 'in laws' gave me an old industrial Singer sewing table that promptly went into our storage unit while we traveled overseas. On returning, I dug it out in the hopes that I could get it restored to a  point that it could be used for upholstery again... but unfortunately it was a bit beyond repair. The mechanism had rusted so badly that the costs to have it repaired were a little ridiculous. I couldn't bare to part with the table altogether, so the cogs got turning, and with a bit of sweet talking to the boy, we set about turning it into an awesome table for our entryway.

As we pulled the sewing machine apart, I selvedged all the nick-nacks that I found in the table drawer; thimbles, needles and spools of old thread.

 

The sewing machine itself went to the scrap metal recycler's, and we set about finding some timber to make a new table top from.

Corey managed to grab a van load of Rimu joists that were being ripped out of an old building he was working on (and about to be thrown out!). We laminated them together, and gradually planed the new top down to a nice smooth surface, then sealed it with clear polyurethane.

The table base, though not the most intricate Singer base that I've seen, was really cool none-the-less, but was in need of a really good wire brush and powder-coating. The cost to powder-coat was a little insane, so we grabbed a few cans of black gloss spray paint and applied coat after coat to the steel base until it looked just like new.

I'd love to say that we managed this little DIY over this Easter weekend, but in all honestly we've been chipping away at it for over 12 months! But this weekend I finally got it installed in our entryway. Success!