Porch Chairs Refresher

One day I thought..."Hey, these chairs are kind of blah." We have had them since we got married 9 years ago. I have always thought that they were indestructible.

But on closer inspection...I noticed that they were getting rusty. So...even more reason to clean them up and give them a fresh coat of paint.

I have spray painted a lot of things in my time...but these were tough! All the holes! All the angles! The clean up from the over-spray took as long as the spray painting did! (I used Krylon Cherry Red and I loved the ease of the nozzle, but the over-spray seemed ridiculous! I sprayed in my garage with a large tarp under and behind the project, and there was red dust from corner to corner of my garage. It didn't stick, so I just had to sweep it up...but it was messy!)

I love the results! The red chairs look fresh and summery! To entice neighbors to come over and stay awhile, I whipped up some outdoor pillows. I used one yard of Waverly's Sun and Shade fabric and at 40% off of $17.00 per yard, I wanted to use ever inch of it, and I did, selvage and all!

I used the little leftovers of the fabric for some rosettes. I added some burlap alongside the blue fabric to stretch my leftovers and to incorporate the burlap ties (I didn't have enough of the blue fabric to make ties...and in the windy city of Herriman, you need to tie your pillows to your chairs). I hot glued to rosettes and some red buttons to tie the whole look together. So cute!




I thought while I was at it, I would add a rug. I couldn't find anything that I liked that went with my color scheme, so I decided to make my own after being inspired by Jen's runner. I bought 4 cheapo rugs from Target and laid them out on the floor and taped them together with duct tape. Then I carefully flipped it over and hot glued ribbon on the seams. It is pretty sturdy... I have picked it up and shook it out a few times and it has been blown back into a crumpled heap by the aforementioned winds.
My porch definitely needed a makeover when competing with the stairs that have these beauties growing on them! (my first successful containers!)

Linking up my Red, White, and blue porch to:

School House Rocks!

Several weeks ago I was browsing the 'yard' area of my local thrift shop when I spotted this beauty (the school house desk...not that uber-fabulous buffet behind it). I instantly put my hand on it and wouldn't leave it's side for a moment... not even to track a worker down. I probably waited about 5 minutes before I was able to get someone's attention to help me get a sold sign on this baby. $10.00 later... this baby was mine!

Besides being really dirty, I liked the whipped butter color of the desk top and shelves, but wasn't loving the copper? color of the legs.



I didn't love the Q99 FM sticker or it's friends either!


Or this ultra deep scratch that some punk etched while they were being bored to death in math class.
Anywho...while I was cleaning the desk up, I noticed that I wasn't the first one to refinish this piece. Someone sprayed the gold color over red. Here is a closer look at the cool legs.
It turns out that the desk is adjustable for height. Whoever refinished it last, just left the legs at the shortest setting...so above that the legs are just red.
And here is the really gross gob of gum that the last refinisher didn't bother removing. "Scrape that off...nah, I'll just spray paint it gold. I'm sure it will just blend right in. Spray paint kills creepy desk scratching kid germs, right!?!" So I scraped that off and cleaned the desk with TSP. I was really torn about how to refinish this. I new that for the present, I was going to put it in my daughter's room, which is pink and brown. But I really wasn't liking the idea of baby pink on the desk. I kind of wanted to spray it aqua...but then I would have to redecorate her room entirely... and I still love her Paris room. So I went with hot pink and cream. It doesn't really 'go' but it is so cute that I love it there anyway!

The desk is definitely a she now! I taped and papered the desktop and shelves and spray painted the metal parts of the desk. Then I painted the wood parts. I only had ultra white paint on hand, so I added some almond color to a portion of it to cream it up. I kind of hate hand mixing paint, because I'm terrified of running out and having to try to make a match.

I barely had enough paint to finish. To make clean-up easier, I kind of scraped out the remaining paint with my foam brush and put the brush in a plastic bag and threw it away in my garbage can. Several hours later I thought, what am I doing!! That desk isn't done! I really wanted to try to stencil on a design and then cover it and sand down to the stencil. So I dug through my garbage to retrieve my loaded paintbrush and hoped that it wasn't dried out and that it was enough paint.

I grabbed my stencil (from Hobby Lobby) and taped paper to all sides of it. After I measured my desk top to find the center and figure out my stencil plan, I stuck the stencil down with stencil adhesive and blasted it with spray paint. Some of the designs turned out crisper than others. But that was a-o-k! After the stencil part was dried I painted over it with my remaining white paint and waited for that to dry. Then I sanded lightly in places and harder in other places to achieve the worn down look.

I super love the way it turned out! I will definitely use this technique again. And maybe one day she will fit into her surroundings a little more... we'll just have to see what happens.

A New Entry Buffet

Here is my second attempt at furniture refinishing! I have had an entry table for years that I like a lot. It is black with some distressing straight from the factory. It is cute...but it only serves one purpose...a holder for decorative items. Since moving to our new house, I have been at a loss for a place to store my crafty projects in progress and crafty tools that are used often enough to warrant keeping them close. So I decided I needed an entry table that served as a storage facility as well as decoration. So, I searched and searched and finally found a gal with a great shape and a great price tag.

I found her at the DI for 40$. In pretty good shape, with the exception of one drawer that needed a little assistance if anything was going to be put in the drawer. Her major malfunction... she was sporting a hideous red/orange varnish look. Now, red and rust are the two main colors of my color scheme on the main floor of my home; but not like that! So I removed the finish with paint remover (the particular one boasted of a 15 minute processing time...and it delivered!). I restained her with a water-based gel stain. I really love the color...but I can see striping from my brush-strokes. If anyone has any advise on avoiding that in the future...please leave a comment about it. I'm just a wee beginner in need of a guiding hand.

I went ahead and used the original hardware. I think it is charming. I replaced the bottom wood from one of the drawers with the help of Home Depot worker to cut the wood sheet for me. That was handy! The rest of the drawers were in great condition. But I thought to add a little pazazz to this little lady, I would give her some cutesy drawer lining... which is cute scrapbook paper Modge Podeged in place. It makes me smile when I open the drawers!!

Whoever put the orangy/red varnish on her last time did a great job applying it to her body, but dripped it all over her so stylish shoes (she sports wheels on the bottom of her legs...and they were all gummed up with the stuff). I soaked the wheels in paint remover and scrubbed them with a wire brush and poked at them with toothpicks and all sorts of things as I tried to get that gunk out of the wheels. I met with modest success...but not complete success. I think I spent about as much time working on the wheels as I did removing the stuff from the whole rest of the dresser! Anyway, now she is all moved in and a bunch of my crafting gear has found a new home!

I'm sharing this beauty with:

Burlap Message Board

I have been up to my repurposing tricks again. Another ugly piece of "art" has been retired permenently and the frame given new life... This time in the form of a message board!

Inspired by blogland's obsession with burlap and chicken wire, I simply:
Removed the old art and glass from the frame.
Spray painted the frame a satin black
Using the cardboard that was in the back of the frame... I:
Cut burlap (from Hobby Lobby (Jocelyn says it is "High Quality Burlap") about an inch bigger than the cardboard
Folded it over and stapled it with a regular stapler
Used a stencil (from Hobby Lobby), a stencil brush, and black craft paint and my eyeballs to stencil the burlap... making sure that the paint was uneven. Then I:
Cut chicken wire about an inch or so bigger than the cardboard and bent it around and stapled it in place and shoved the cardboard back into the frame. Then I:
Spray painted some clothes pins black and cut some cute scrapbook paper to fit and adhered it to the pins. Then clipped them to the wire.

And here I am pinning up a picture of my daughter taken at preschool for Mother's Day. My board is temporarily hanging where it is now (on a hook that is rediculously high because it is used for seasonal decorations that are long). Please don't judge me on my ability to part my hair!!

I'm posting this to:

Farmhouse Coffee Table Upcycle

I found this smallish farmhouse table at the local thrift shop a little while ago. I loved the turned legs but not the yellowish "glaze" that was dripping down them. At a $10.00 price tag I decided to go ahead and upcycle this baby! (Still not sure how so many gals in blog land find their curbside treasures)


So, I began what turned out to be an arduous process of removing the paint and stain. The finish on this piece was like armor! it just couldn't be budged. I was using a paint remover that was "safe on antiques" and took "30 minutes" to do it's work. After 3 days of working on it for a few hours each day, I gave up. Most of the paint was removed from the legs, but not all. Luckily, all of the finish off the top came off.


After adding a bit more character to the table with my awl, hammer, and a screw, I stained the top with Minwax Provincial stain and painted the legs. I used the stain as a glaze on the paint and then two coats of sealant. The sealant is water based and I was warned that you have to use very little and move quickly so that your glaze work doesn't dissolve and move around on you. So I tried to do that...but sure enough I had stain dripping down the legs. I almost cried...but since it was one of my first projects of many that I have planned, I decided that it was ok to not be perfect. My first project was fine...but I used a different brand of stain... so I am wondering if Minwax isn't the best to use as a glaze; so if you have any experience with it, I would love to hear from you!

But after all the heartache...I ended up loving this little piece of art!

Here is a closeup of a leg. You can see where I sanded down through the teal paint to the bare wood and how this exposed the white paint that did not get removed. After all the hard work trying to get the paint off..I'm glad that some remained, because I like the way the distressing turned out.

Repurposed frame

Here is my new decor montage above my fireplace. (It is a really odd space...our fireplace is in the corner and goes up most of the wall, but then has this 'shelf' area that is like 7' up. Anyway, it is really high up on the wall.) I did my new favorite thrifty trick: finding gross art in an ornate frame and turning it into something fabulous.

Here is the tutorial. Step one: find a great deal on an ornate frame because the 'art' that it encases is so awful, no one can imagine anything good is possible. Step two: take the icky 'art' out and discard. Step three: give the frame a new coat of paint. I simply used acrylic paint and a foam brush and after dry brushed a coppery paint to accentuate the detail of the frame. Spray paint would have been oh so much faster...but they don't make the shade that I wanted. Step four: use the frame for a) an awesome message board, b) an awesome family portrait frame, c) an awesome jewelry holder, d) an awesome object d' art (my choice in this situation).

I left the hanging wire intact because I wasn't completely sure this would be the frames final landing spot and I kind of like that it has a shabby look to it. I added an iron wreath holder with a berry wreath (wildly marked down after valentine's day or Christmas, don't quite remember) and a birdcage that is caging a finial that I spray painted and two paper mache boxes that I covered in scrapbook paper that coordinates with my room. Now this strange space in my home is one of my favorite places to gaze upon!

Linking up with The Shabby Nest and I Heart Naptime!