SunflowerHugs: 2014

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Eight Table Makeovers

Here are eight table makeovers I have done over the past year that I thought would be fun to put together in one post.

::Tables 1 & 2::

Both tables were painted with Safe Paint (milk paint for walls) from The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co in their Federal Blue color. The bottom table's grain sack (or racing?) stripes were done in Valspar Churchill Hotel Vanilla.

::Tables 3 & 4::

Two more tables painted with Safe Paint (milk paint for walls) from The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co. This time in their Buttermilk color.

::Table 5::

This table was done in Valspar Churchill Hotel Vanilla.

::Table 6::

I freshened up this metal and glass table with gold Rub 'n Buff.

::Table 7::

Three coats of an oops paint color in red gave this table a nice country look.

::Table 8::

Valspar Midnight Fog is this table's modern color.

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Sunday, October 19, 2014

French Provincial Bedroom Set

The consignment store, where I sell my furniture, sometimes gives me pieces to paint. It's usually a dresser or table or some chairs. This time it was a whole bedroom set.

An entire French Provincial bedroom set! These pieces are big and heavy but interestingly enough, not actually solid wood.

Above is a view from the back of one of the nightstands. You can see the top is an extremely thin layer of veneer over pressboard and just the edge is wood.

Above is a photo of the underside of one of the drawers. It is molded plastic over pressboard. The head board is also a mix of wood and molded plastic.

The beauty of the homemade chalk paint is that it will stick to anything! So I knew it would be no problem to paint it.

Because of the thin veneer on the tops, I ruled out refinishing them and chose to paint them black. I painted the body of the pieces Valspar Classic Teal.

Everything got two coats of paint, distressed, glazed with Martha Stewart Metallic glaze in Black Coffee and then finished with wipe on poly.

Because of the incredible detail in this set, I had to use an artist brush to get the glaze in all the details. It was definitely a labor of love, but totally worth it!

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Monday, September 15, 2014

MCM Dresser Makeover

My husband found this dresser on the side of the road for me.

What a dirty beast! I really don't understand this yellow color that was popular back in the day. It is not a good look.

Being that it is a mid century modern piece, I chose to do what everyone else does--paint it white with contrasting wood tones. I've done it before on this table. Funny enough, I also got it for free.

I sanded down all the drawers and stained them with AS dark wax. I painted the rest of the piece with three coats of white homemade chalk paint, distressed slightly and waxed with Minwax Finishing Paste.

I almost didn't get the knobs off--the screws were stripping as I tried to remove them. I used some kind of grease in a can that my husband had in the garage and banged on them with the end of my screw driver to loosen them up.

Each knob had two screws so it took a little while, but I got them off and replaced them with brand new screws. They were $.11 each at True Value. I am lucky I have a True Value that is pretty close to my house because they have a huge selection of screws there. I naturally assume Home Depot or Lowes will have everything I need, but they actually don't.

I gave the knobs and the metal strips on the bottom sides a covering of antique gold Rub 'n Buff to have them match. I didn't even notice those strips at first.

I had to take a few quick pictures before we loaded it up as it was threatening to rain and the consignment store was about to close.

I am very happy to have it out of my garage as it was a very large piece, but I was worried it was going to get marked up. My husband was staining a dresser red right next to it. Thankfully he didn't splatter on it.

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Sunday, August 17, 2014

Nautical Dresser

Can you believe I was the only one who bid on this dresser at an auction? I got it for one whole dollar! I guess people just can't see past the ugly.

But guess what? Underneath all that ugly, It is made of solid wood with dovetail drawers and everything. It started out as that awful yellow color from the 60's and then someone gave it this paint job--woof!

The top had a huge piece of veneer missing and I was able to pull another piece off easily so I figured I would take it all off. Easier said than done. I removed as much as I could with just a scraper and then had to use a wet towel and iron to get off the rest. It took longer to remove the veneer than paint the entire dresser.

I painted with two coats of SW Seaworthy blue in homemade chalk paint and stained the top with a vinegar/steel wool/tea mixture.

Ahoy matey! I used larger knobs on the top drawer and covered them with jute string. I used Aleene's Tacky Glue to attach the string to the knobs and once it dried, I covered it with a layer of Mod Podge to make it permanent.

The knobs I used had a white center, so I painted them with some brown in case you could see through the spaces of the string. I then just added the string in circles until I got to the center of the knob. This picture was taken while the glue was still drying. Aleene's Tacky Glue holds great, but takes forever to dry (it does dry clear).

I just knew this dresser had beauty in it!

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Sunday, August 3, 2014

Chandelier Table

Once again I am back with a table with a large image transfer to the top. The table started out boring and scratched.

I painted the whole thing with two coats of white in homemade chalk paint. Then painted just the legs with one coat of SW Essentials Grey. I distressed to let some of the white come through and waxed with Minwax Finishing Paste.

I follow The Graphics Fairy on Bloglovin and whenever she posts new graphics that I think one day I may use, I am sure to save them. This chandelier image was tucked away in a folder that I refer to when I want to use graphics and inspiration hit.

The Graphics Fairy

I wanted the image to fill the table top, so it needed to be 18" wide by 27" tall. To get this big image, I planned to have it printed at Staples on their engineer prints. They can only print black ink, but that is perfect since that is what the image is.

Staples offers three different size engineer prints and I needed to use the 24"x36" size, which is $3.59.

I opened a new document in PowerPoint and sized my paper to 24"x36". I then inserted the image on the page and sized it to 18"x27" and fit it in the middle of the page.

*What I should have done was move the image down to the bottom of the page and added another image at the top to utilize the large print, but I didn't remember to do this. So I ended up with a lot of wasted paper that I could have put another large image on for a future project.

I went by Creative Carmella's tutorial to add the graphic with Mod Podge. I left it to dry overnight and the next day started to rub off the top layer of the paper.

I did it while my daughter was watching Sofia the First and it took longer than one episode. That show is a half hour long, so I think it took about 45 minutes total. It is mindless work, but obviously time consuming.

And here it is! The paper is pretty wet after you remove the top layer, so I let it dry for a day and then came back and sanded it to get off all the little bits of paper pulp and distress.

The top layer of paper never comes off perfectly, so the image will not be dark black and there will be some hazing and even spots that rub completely off. But it has a distressed look to match the paint on the rest of the piece.

On one side of the table, there was a shell applique. I was able to remove it and I was going to leave it blank, but I came across this laser cut chandelier wood applique, I just had to add it. I painted it black and glued it on with Aleene's Tacky Glue.

It's so fancy.

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Sunday, July 27, 2014

Easiest Makeover Ever!

When I saw this shelf, I thought, oh great--spindles. Not my favorite thing to paint.

But I realized the spindles were just screwed together and so it was a cinch to separate them from the shelves. They were also in great condition and I thought--why paint them? I could just paint the shelves and call it a day.

I won some samples of American Paint Company paint from a blog giveaway and one of the colors I had was National Forest.

americanpaintcompany.com

It is a deep green that pairs with the wood tone so well.

I just slapped two coats of paint and then waxed it with the dark wax "glaze" technique. It is Annie Sloan dark wax mixed with paint thinner to give it a glaze like consistency so it is easy to move around on the paint. It gives so much dimension to the paint as it was so flat before I added it.

I normally use it with homemade chalk paint, but with the American Paint Company paint, it also takes the paint off while I rub it in, so I basically get to distress and wax at the same time. It doesn't get any easier than that!

To finish up I just had to screw the spindles back on and I was done. It is officially the easiest makeover ever!

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Sunday, July 20, 2014

Random Chair

I found this chair in the garbage. I think you could tell--right?

Besides the shredded fabric, it was a little wobbly. To fix that, I jammed a popsicle stick between the leg and the base of the chair from underneath. Once I got it in far enough to stop the wobble, I broke it off--you can't even see it.

I always have some fabric scraps laying around that I pick up at garage sales for cheap and I had this awesome ticking fabric that was heavy weight. I matched the paint color to it and this is what I came up with:

I couldn't believe I knew the fabric was called ticking. The word came into my head and I Googled it to make sure I was right. I guess some of the 1,795,048,631 things my mom told me in my life actually stuck in my head!

She would be proud.

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Sunday, July 13, 2014

Two In A Row

This table was the coffee table version of the table I did here.

I painted it with one coat of the same blue/grey oops paint mixed into homemade chalk paint, distressed and waxed with the dark wax "glaze" technique.

I sanded down the top and stained it with Minwax Dark Walnut and finished with a coat of wipe on poly.

I just noticed the swirl detail looks like a handlebar mustache!

When I am working on smaller pieces, I like to work on multiple pieces so while one is drying, I start on the next. By the time I am done painting the second piece, the first one is dry and ready for their second coat.

I used the same paint on this table (two coats) and distressed. You could see a little bleed through on the top so I finished with the dark wax "glaze" technique so it would blend in.

I like to be able to get so much accomplished. I was able to get both these tables done in one day!

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Pages

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Monday, September 15, 2014

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Sunday, July 13, 2014