My Marie Antoinette Inspired Chair Makeover

For months I have used this chair at my desk...

I bought it for $5 off of Craigslist with the intention of painting it. Finally, one night, I decided to dive into the project. First, I mixed my own shade of pink with acrylic paints I had laying around the house. Then I watered it down and dry brushed it on. (For those who aren't familiar, dry brushing means wiping most of the paint off of the brush. Once I was done it looked like this....

Next, I did another layer of dry brushing with a watered down version Martha's Rainwater paint that I am using for kitchen redo.

At this point, I was frightened. I had this picture in my head but this wasn't it. I knew I wasn't done but I couldn't stop thinking of cotton candy, mermaids, and the movie Marie Antoinette. I wasn't sure I liked that. When I went to bed that night I planned on starting over the next day but in the morning I decided to finish what I had started since I wouldn't be wasting anything other than my time if I didn't like it.

So the next day I carried on with Plan A by applying yet another layer of dry brushed, watered down paint. This time I used Glidden's paint right off the shelf with no tint added.  

By this point I think my hubby thought I was crazy (I know, what else is knew!) but I continued on with glazing. I rubbed on Minwax's Dark Walnut stain and wiped most of it off. Then I sanded it lightly to give it a distressed finish.

After, I was done painting the wood I moved onto the caning. For this I used a sample of Valspar's Lincoln Black that I had laying around. By this point I was clinging to the idea of Marie Antoinette. I always loved the decor and fashion in that movie so why not stick with it.

Once I was done painting, glazing, and sanding I had one more step. I needed to cover the bottom of the legs where they had been chewed by the previous owner's puppy. This wasn't something that wood putty was going to fix so I decided to cover them with fabric. The fabric I used was a soft pink corduroy that I hot glued to the chair and then reinforced with black upholstery tacks. My tacks are FAR from perfect but I did it last night at 11:30 and was frustrated by the whole process. Normally I would have used needle nose plies to hold the tack while I used the mallet it to hammer it in but I couldn't find needle nose pliers. Typical. I did my best and here is the end result.

Overall, it's good enough for me. It's not perfect but neither am I. We'll make great friends. Maybe someday I'll fix the tacks or maybe I won't. Who knows!

I'm linking this over to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday. Have a great weekend!

Crafty Spring Cleaning

When I say Crafty Spring Cleaning I'm not sure if I mean crafty as creative, or crafty as in cleaning my craft box. Maybe it's both. When I visited Centsational Girl today and saw that she was hosting the Fair Weather Forum I knew I wanted to participate but didn't have anything "Spring" in mind for today. All day long I kept trying to come up with something and couldn't. Perhaps I was too distracted by the complete and utter disaster that is my dining room turned cabinet painting room. Yes, I am still painting cabinets. Anyways, after racking my brain all day I pulled out my craft bin hoping that I had supplies to make something spring like.

My craft box has been nagging me for months. Every time I would go to work on something I would buy new supplies because I wasn't sure what I actually had and didn't have the time to sort through my bin. Honestly, it was atrocious but Charlotte was asleep and I couldn't go to the store so I had to pull it out. After one glance it hit me. Spring Cleaning my craft bin was the perfect idea. I had a post to link the the Fair Weather Forum and I got to organize my bin so I no longer have to ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist.

Within five minutes of starting I found things that I didn't even know were in there. I'm pretty sure this fusible webbing and Heat 'n' Bond are my Mothers but I may have to find a use for them. I'm actually interested to see if they still work because they look pretty dated. Time will tell.

Any who, after digging everything out and sorting, I had a dining room table (in my living room) that looked like this. Oh and you even get to see the dining room disaster that I mentioned. My house is seriously chaos at the moment. I'm not sure how much longer I can take it. The plus side of me feeling annoyed with the clutter is that I'm picking up speed with painting because I just want to be done with the cabinets.

Now you may be wondering why I would think that this may be crafty as in creative. Well, once I had emptied the contents of the bin I realized that I needed to organize the junk supplies somehow before dumping them back in. While redoing the kitchen I have come to realize that I have too many plastic containers for leftovers. I needed to get them out of the kitchen but didn't want to get rid of them because I find them to be rather useful. I kept my good Rubbermaids in the kitchen and re-purposed our saved take-out containers for craft organizers. Perfecto! As you can see I feel rather clever that I used take out containers for organizing. I'm sure I'm not the first one to do it but let's not burst my bubble.

I'm feeling much better about getting this bin organized. Now I just need to finish this darn kitchen so I can move on the spare bedroom (soon-to-be project room). Once that's complete my supplies won't even need to live in this bin! I swear, there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done!

If you haven't noticed already I'm linking this post to CG's Fair Weather Forum. Stop over and check out all the wonderful entries!

How's your spring cleaning coming along?

DIY Memo Board

Hello, hello! I am finally able to share with you all, my DIY memo board. I had mentioned in my post on Monday night that I wanted to share a Before & After with you yesterday. Unfortunately, I didn't pull through. I decided to embellish the board a bit more than I had originally intended to do which required more time. Sometimes I'm not sure whether my plethora of ideas is a blessing or a curse. I get so many thoughts running through my mind I'm not sure what to choose. In the end I went with something much brighter and more playful than my original plan.

For a while now, I have found myself looking for somewhere to stick ideas, paint swatches, and other pieces of inspiration. The perfect solution for this was the not-so-original idea of a memo or bulletin board. I didn't want to go out and purchase one but rather decided that I should just make one from an old framed picture we had laying around the house. Someone had given it to us and it was just collecting dust in the spare bedroom.

This first thing I did was remove the paper backing. Once that was done I began removing the staples that held the picture in place. To remove the staples I just wedged a Flathead screwdriver in between the staple and the frame and lifted the staple out.

I worked my way all around the perimeter and ended up with a mess that looked something like this...

Neat is something that I most definitely am not when I get working on a project. Things are more fun when they're messy! After I was able to separate the frame from the picture and glass I lightly sanded the entire piece. Once I was done sanding I wiped it down with soapy water and allowed it time to dry. Once it was dry I coated it with two coats of Claret Wine in a Satin Finish. I didn't bother to prime the piece because I don't expect it to endure that much wear and tear. Also, I like when things look a little bit beat up. Gives them character.  After spraying the frame I move to make the actual bulletin board. Now I had contemplated buying real cork board to cover with fabric but because I am cheap  frugal I stuck with my original plan and just used cardboard.

The frame already had one piece of cardboard that was used for the backing but I wanted to reinforce it with another layer to ensure that any tacks stick. I had a empty cardboard box laying around so I cut it down to pieces that would fit the original piece. Once I had all of my pieces cut I used tape to attach the pieces to the front piece and moved onto attaching my fabric. I used a hot glue gun and worked my way around the edges.

For the fabric I used two layers of cotton that I got at Joann's for around $4 a yard. I tried to find a pattern to use but wasn't able to find something I loved. I think I'm glad I used a neutral fabric because it will give a better backdrop to my other pieces of inspiration.

When I reached the corners I simply folded the fabric flat and glued it down flat with hot glue. Once both pieces of fabric were secure I cut 4 pieces of white grosgrain ribbon to place 3 inches from all the edges and attached with hot glue on the back of the cardboard. I did not flip the piece over for this because I wanted to ensure that the ribbon stayed straight. I simply placed a dot of hot glue on the end and lift the board to flip the glued edge under and held it for a minute until it was secure.

I hadn't planned on adding any further details to the board but looking at it almost put me to sleep! It was so boring. That is when I decided it need something else. This is going to be placed in my office/crafting area so it needed to be more creative and inspiring, not boring! I made a trip to Walmart and picked up more grosgrain ribbon and some colorful flowers meant for scrapbooks.

Now that is more like it! The last step was to just place the board inside the frame and secure it with either staples or tape. I'm not going to lie to you. I have yet to actually secure the board in place but I am going to be out of tonight tomorrow night and I was too anxious to share my end result.

I can't wait to hang this up above my desk and place some pieces of inspiration up there along with pictures and whatever else pops into my head! It will definitely be put to good use!

What do you think? Do you use a bulletin board or do you have other ways for keeping track of things?

Before & After: Timber!

Happy Monday Everyone! I'm so excited to share pictures of some of the happenings around my house over the weekend! On Saturday, my parents stopped by on there way to Lowe's and I couldn't resist tagging along to pick up some supplies for a refinishing job I plan to start this week. On my way home I called Hubby to see what he was up to. Our conversation went something like this...

Me - "Hey, what are you doing?"

Hubby - "Just getting some stuff done outside."

Me - "Alright, I'll be home in a few minutes."

I was thrilled that some outside work was getting done. Boy was I in for a surprise! I came home to this...



What are they looking at?

That would be my Hubby up in a tree!

Our front yard has been the home to two very old and ugly, dead pine trees but while I was out Jeff recruited two of his friends to help take them down. (Don't worry they have experience!). These trees were old, tall, and completely scary on windy days. I am loving this "Before & After" because we no longer have to worry about these trees crushing our Home Sweet Home!

Eek!

Yay!

That is much better if you ask me! And now, because I couldn't resist, here are a few snapshots of my babies from this weekend!



Aren't they cute?! I think so! :)

Check back in tomorrow for an update on my kitchen! :)

Updated Laminate Countertops

The progress in the kitchen has been slow but steady. However, I'm excited to say that the countertops are officially painted. I have been dreaming of Ikea's butcher block countertops but, at this point, I would rather spend the money on other things for our home. I've gotta prioritize, ya know! So what's a girl to do with ugly laminate countertops and a very tight budget? Paint! Rustoleum sells a specialty paint specific for laminate countertops. I have been pondering this thought for almost a year now but was too scared to try it. However, now that the hub and I have been discussing butcher block countertops as a possible option (we could splurge and get them if we really wanted to but why not save a few bucks!) I figure I didn't have much to lose. In all actuality if it panned out for us we could save money!

After making the final decision to go through with the project I went out to the Lowe's by my work and purchased Rustoleum's Specialty Countertop Coating. As you can see on the box, the coat may be tinted to 16 different colors. I wanted to keep the countertops relatively neutral but also complimentary to the soon-to-be white cabinets. With that being said we went with "Light Ash" which is a soft gray color. After reading up on the product I grabbed all of my other necessities. For application you will need a foam roller for a smooth finish, painter's tape for painting of your work space, and a brush with flagged ends.

Because I am a total dip, I did not buy a brush with flagged ends. Instead I used a foam "Poly-Brush" that I had on hand. It worked out for me because I didn't have many areas where brush application was needed, however, I would recommend using a proper brush for your application. I would also recommend wearing gloves, which I did not because as I said, I am a dip. The coating is extremely sticky and hard to get off. It is recommended that clean up be done with Xylene. I personally discarded my rollers and brush after use.

This is what my counters looked like prior to applying the Countertop Coating. They were a light tan color with a speckled appearance. They didn't really fit my particular taste. Here is a close up to give you a better idea of what I was working with...

It's not the most terrible thing I've ever seen but with painting the cabinets I wanted to change up the counter as well. 

As I began applying there were a few things that I noticed. 1) It was important to keep the roller moving all the way from the front to the back of the counter in a fluid motion. (This will help to reduce roller marks.) 2)Keeping the brush relatively wet seemed to help as well. If my roller got too dry it seemed to make the finish appear more spongy. 3) I should roll out the top of the counter then move to my edge to catch any drips.



I wasn't sure what to expect as far as how many coats I would need. I didn't want the surface to appear too goopy (so what if it isn't a technical term!) so I made sure my coats were on the thin side. I ended up doing three total coats and still had paint to spare. The package says 1 quart covers 25 linear feet of average sized counterspace. It doesn't mention how many coats that is for but I was able to apply three even coats and only use 3/4 of the can but we also only have approximately 12 linear feet of counter space (small kitchen!)

I did this last night and the counters can not be used for 3 days so I can't say how well they will hold up but for now I'm loving the change.

Our laminate countertops have gone from yucky speckled tan to a nice clean, chic looking gray. Here is a close up of one of the edges...

While these aren't the butcher block countertops I have been dreaming about I will say they are an improvement. Are they perfect? No. Do they work for me? Yes! Overall this project cost me 30 buckaroos. For 30 bucks I can not complain. After I have had a chance to give these babies a test drive I'll let you know how durable they truly are. I'll also have to break my habit of not using a cutting board! I know, I know. I'm bold.

All in all I'm calling this project a success. And now for good measure here is Before & After shot...

I am one satisfied girl right now! What do you think? Do you have ugly laminate counters you'd like to paint or have already painted?

Oh and I forgot to mention - Make sure you've got some windows open and any little ones in your household aren't around. This stuff was very potent. You may also want to consider wearing a mask!

Thanks for dropping by! I hope you'll visit again soon! :)

Diy Play Kitchen

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! One of my best friend was home this past week for a visit so I had a wonderful weekend catching up with her. We've known each other since Kindergarten! It's unreal to me that even though we see eachother barely once a year that nothing ever changes. It just goes to show that true friendship will stand the test of time despite the distance.

Anyhow, today I wanted to share the Play Kitchen that I made for my daughter back at Christmas time. After seeing all of the wonderful Play Kitchens around blogland I knew this is something I wanted to do for my little peanut. I looked and looked to find an affordable used entertainment center with no such luck until one week before Christmas. That meant I had a very strict one week deadline. Oy vey! Talk about some pressure!

This is something that I had planned on taking several weeks but ended up squishing it into one week. Needless to say I pretty much dedicated every spare moment to this project to ensure that it would be ready for Christmas morning. Here is the before...

The entertainment center was generously given to me by a friend of my parents. They had purchased a new one and were looking to get rid of this one. It was absolutely perfect for what I had in mind. After a week of devoting myself to this project I ended up with this adorable little play kitchen.

The first thing I did was rearrange the bottom shelf pieces to make the sink and oven area even. Once that was done I primed the entire piece and then painted it. Most of the paint that I used was leftover from other various projects. In anticipation for the "sink" I used a jigsaw to cut a hole the would fit the size of my bowl. The bowl I used was also something that I had on hand from a set of mixing bowls that I had yet to use because I have multiple sets. I figured it would serve a better purpose as Charlotte's sink than collecting dust on a shelf.

Next, the doors were cut from an MDF board, primed and painted. After they had dried I attached them with hinges and magnetic closures. I also used simple stainless drawer pulls for the "fridge" and "stove" handles. To provide depth to the stove I glued another piece of MDF to the top of stove. The pot rack was a key rack that I purchased from Home Depot on one of my many trips.

Every kitchen needs a window so I dug out two picture frames I had in a closet to create a "double hung window". Once I glued the frames to the wood backing I inserted blue cardstock into the frames to give the illusion of a sky. The basket was one I had on hand and spray painted with Rustoleum's "Lagoon Blue" for added color.

I think the last two final touches are my favorite from the project. On the left hand side I painted it with chalkboard paint for Charlotte to draw on. The final detail is the window valance and sink skirt. I didn't want to spend money on fabric so I turned to some of Charlotte's old clothes. I found a nice colorful shirt that matched the color scheme of the kitchen and cut it in half. One half was used for the valance and the other the sink skirt.

I'm so happy with how this turned out and I'm glad I didn't run out and buy a cheapy plastic kitchen for her. This is something that will be around for not only Charlotte but also any children we have in the future.

Have any of you created your own play kitchen? How did it turn out?

In Your Face Blue

When we purchased our house there was one room that I could not wait to renovate. For the first couple of weeks that we lived here the door stayed shut and it sat unused and shut off from my home. It was our half bath. It was awful. It was blue from floor to ceiling. I'm talking blue toilet, blue sink, blue walls, blue ceiling, the whole nine yards. I could not stand it! When people would come over to the house to check it out for the first time I was constantly making comments that sounded like this, "And this is the half bath. We're going to redo the whole thing. It's really bad." I'm not sure why it irritated me so much because I surely had seen worse but now that it has been months since I have had to stare at that blue toilet I am thrilled to look at how it was before and compare it to the after. This is what I was dealing with before...

I should also mention that residing on the wall behind the toilet was this ceiling height shelving unit along with some weird metal racks hanging off of the side of the toilet. I'm not really sure what someone would hang off of the side of a toilet but perhaps it was for reading material. I can only imagine. But without further ado this is my lovely half bath now...

The color appears much more pink when photgraphed. The color is actually called "Bellegrove Rose" from Valspars paint line. I actually decided on this color after a really rash decision of wanting to paint it red. It was awful. Needless to say I made a quick trip to Lowe's to pick up this lovely shade. I think my favorite part about this color was explaining it to my husband. I was afraid to tell him that it was pink so I kept telling him it was along the lines of a dusty rose sort of color. I did not lie. That is truly what it is. I just didn't want to slip and say the word pink because I'm not sure he would have liked the idea too much. I should also mention that my husband is color blind so he does not see colors in the true light.

I'm linking this post to Thrifty Decor Chick's Before & After Party. Check it out!