Hutch Makeover

It's been a long time since I've posted a furniture makeover -- but I finally have one to share! It's a very simple project, but it took me almost a decade to complete it. :)

We inherited this hutch (it has a top too) from my mother-in-law when my husband's dear grandmother passed away. While we lived in Kansas City, we didn't have the room to use it in our home, so we kept it in our basement in storage. Once we moved into a larger space, I always had visions of transforming the bottom half into a TV stand/storage cabinet. After a few stops and starts over the last few years, I finally got it finished.

Isn't it lovely? And it was so easy to do. I took the doors off the front and filled in the holes with wood putty -- then sanded those down smooth. I took the hardware off the drawers and cleaned them and spray-painted them in my favorite color -- Oil-Rubbed Bronze!

Then it was time to paint. Again, it couldn't be easier. I was so afraid of this project initially because I thought I would have to strip and sand the finish off the hutch. Instead -- chalk paint to the rescue! It is the best, best paint to use for furniture makeovers. I just cleaned the hutch with a damp cloth, let it dry and started painting. No priming or anything -- just painting with the chalk paint. It covers everything.

I used Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Graphite. I LOVE this color. It's a dark, cool grey with a touch of blue. That first coat is a tough one -- it kind of looks terrible at first, to be honest. Very streaky and kind of makes you panic.

 

(I had painted that first drawer white a long time ago to see how it would look -- after three coats of chalk paint, you can't tell the difference between any of the drawers. It covers awesome!)

After three coats of chalk paint, I rubbed the entire piece and the drawer fronts with furniture wax to seal it. The wax gives the chalk paint a beautiful soft finish that I just love. 24 hours later, and I had a beautiful TV cabinet, ready to go in our family room.

 Before waxing, I used a bit of sandpaper to distress the edges a bit. I love how it turned out.

I also love that I was able to reuse the original hardware. A few coats of the oil-rubbed bronze spray paint and they looked brand new and lovely.

We love how it turned out! I can't wait to get started on my next furniture makeover...

Until next time,
Stay crafty!
Lissa :)

Hope Chest Makeover

When I graduated from college, my parents gave me a beautiful hope chest. I loved it. It has been in our bedroom since then, for more than 15 years, and has worked wonderfully.

In our new house, however, hubby and I have decided to finally decorate our bedroom. With that, we want to get an actual headboard (we've never had one) and update everything to look like a cohesive space - something about being grown-ups now and we should maybe have a master bedroom that looks nice.

The first project - updating the hope chest.

This was a one-day project, very easy and quick. I used two coats of chalk paint (Paloma by Annie Sloan) to paint the chest - no sanding required. Love the color. After the paint dried, I waxed the entire thing with a finishing wax from Minwax. I spray-painted the hardware with oil-rubbed bronze (my favorite). And I stapled on the new fabric to the top with hubby's heavy-duty staple gun.

Such a beautiful transformation - it makes me happy every time I walk in my bedroom.

More projects to come...Sharing at The Power of Paint Party at Domestically Speaking. :)

Boys Room Decor with Maps and Globes

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! Today, I'm sharing a little update for the boys' room. We moved in just 3 months ago, and with all the fall and Christmas decorating, I haven't gotten much else "arranged," decorating-wise. With my mom's visit earlier in December, we were inspired by a little shopping trip to do some decorating for the boys.

We found this beautiful booth at The Barn - an amazing store in downtown Castle Rock, Colorado. If you get the chance the visit, you must stop here. We got lost for hours in this store. Each booth is fabulously decorated in every style you can imagine. I wanted to take everything home with me. But this particular booth full of maps and globes really struck us as a great inspiration for the boys room.

Our boys are big readers but didn't have true nightstands for their beds. So, the stacks of books ended up on the floor. We finally put a small table next to one guy's bed, and the other guy was relegated to using a large gallon bucket (hey - I was just using what I had on hand). Not an ideal solution.

The nightstand in the bottom left corner of the photo above is now resting proudly next to the original-bucket-side of the bed. A much better solution. It's a repainted piece with maps decoupaged on the drawer fronts and inside the drawers. The boys both loved it.

They both loved it so much, in fact, that my mom and I quickly realized we needed to find another nightstand to appease the other boy. Luckily, mom's weekend visit involved not one, but two trips to IKEA - our new favorite store. There, we found another nightstand, which my mom decoupaged with maps to create a coordinating but unique nightstand for the second boy.

The boys' room was already painted a nice shade of blue when we moved in. So, to finish up the decor for now, we added in a few globes and a map clock. It's not a completely finished space, but the boys love their Super Mario Bros. bedding too much right now to be forced to change.

The boys love their updated room - functional and comfortable enough for them and just fancy enough to make me happy.

Until next time...

   

DIY Recovered Ottoman

Today, I'm sharing a little re-upholstery project to update an much-abused ottoman.

I've had this one finished for quite awhile but haven't shared it because I was hoping to find a good "before" image - but this is the only one I could come up with...

It doesn't look so bad here, but fast forward a few years, and the brown microfiber fabric was stained and worn. Not pretty. I'm still kicking myself for not taking a "before" photo, but this is one of those projects that just took over and before I knew it, I was done.

The ottoman matches the little brown couch in the photo and lifts up for storage. We love having it, but after we got a new grey couch and loveseat for the family room, the ottoman didn't quite match - and it was extremely ugly. I had a chunk of blue corduroy fabric in my stash that was sturdy and practical - and I had a matching blue polka-dot fabric to recover the new pillows to build a grey / blue theme. (And I have yet to start that last part to date - oh well...)

So, staple gun in hand, I went to work recovering the ottoman. I unscrewed the top lid and recovered it first, folding and stapling the fabric in place, making sure to punch holes where the screws needed to put back in.

I didn't even bother taking the old fabric off - I think it would have been almost impossible (and maybe I've mentioned this before, but I'm a little impatient).

I stapled the fabric around the bottom sides of the ottoman next.

And before I knew it - I was ready to attach the top back to the base.

It looked so much better...

...as long as you ignore the un-recovered pillows (not a fan of that purple fabric that originally came on the pillows - I'm hoping to get those recovered soon).

We are super happy with the change - we've extended the lift of our tired little ottoman. I think it's a lot happier now too...

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Painted Bench

When I picked up this bench for $5 at a garage sale this past fall, it was not pretty. It had no seat and was covered in this textured flecked-stone spray paint.

But I saw the potential and brought it home anyway. Hubby added a seat, and the boys helped me sand (almost) all that flecked-stone paint off. It was a lot better.

But it wasn't quite finished yet. I painted it a light gray to start.

I then distressed the edges and stained it with a dark espresso stain (my first staining experience). It was lovely and perfect.

The dark stain changed the gray to a deeper, shadowy color that I just love.

The distressed dark edges really show up against the lighter gray.

It now sits on my front porch with the shabby blue chair, looking lovely.

I love how it turned out. My front porch is really coming together. Thanks for looking!

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Shabby Blue Chair

I'm so in love with this project. This started out as an old wooden chair I picked up at a garage sale last fall for $5. It was wobbly and dirty and not pretty at all, but I saw the potential. I've seen lots of chair makeovers on Pinterest, and I knew I could make this one adorable.

Here's the original chair - you can see it's a pretty plain little chair under all that Halloween stuff.

It sat on my front porch all winter until the weather was finally warm enough in late March to tackle this project.

To paint the chair, I followed the process outlined in The Everygirl Handbook: Repainting Furniture by Kate Riley and in Creating Your Masterpiece by Shaunna West. Both are incredible resources for convincing me that I could do this. You should definitely pick up those e-books if you want to paint some furniture.

So, to start with, I sanded the chair down a bit, just to clean it up and get the rough spots off. The seat was cracked across the middle and one of the cross-pieces in the legs was out of line. So we filled in the crack with glue (just plain old Elmer's) and used a hammer to gently tap the legs back into place.

Hubby used his clamps to hold the seat together while the glue dried.

Now it was time for the fun part - painting. I picked out a nice robin's egg blue from Home Depot - Blue Feather by Behr. It went on very pastel-ish but dried a bit brighter, just what I was hoping for. I gave it 2 coats of paints. I let it dry overnight between coats.

Then it was time to distress it. I used a little square of sandpaper to knock the paint off the edges in strategic places. Shaunna's ebook really explains this well - and she has a few videos to go along with the written process. Very, very helpful. I had fun with the distressing part - I think it looks just right for what I wanted.

I didn't stain or glaze this chair after distressing. I just loved how it looked with the blue paint and the wood showing through a bit. So I rubbed a wax sealant on top to finish it off and put it out on the porch. When my boys saw the finished chair, Jack sorrowfully told me, "Um, Mom, I'm sorry to tell you that the paint is already coming off." I had to laugh and explain that's how I wanted it to be.

It looks super cute on my porch - it adds just a little touch color for spring. And it makes me happy every time I look at it. :)

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