TRANSFORMED, from broken to beautiful
Sometimes all we need is a little bit of a makeover to feel pretty. True for people and true for shabby little French chairs as well.
I thought it was about time to give you another look at some of the Old Things New projects I’ve been doing around my house.
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Yesterday I sat out on my back deck enjoying the warmth of the sun shining down upon my skin and warming me all the way to the bone. I love it when the weather is in the 70’s and all of the trees and bushes in my neighborhood are bursting into bloom. It really is the most beautiful time of the year here in South Carolina. I knew I had things to do but I couldn’t get myself up and motivated until I began to feel the burn on my fair arms. Alas, I am “pigmentally challenged” (my hubby’s name for very white) and I can only stay a short time in the sun without sunscreen.
I got a call from one of my doctors this morning and it turns out I’m Vitamin D deficient. So much so that she is starting me on prescription strength Vitamin D! Hallelujah! This might be just the excuse I need to spend more time lounging in the sun - with my sunscreen of course 🙂
So this is one of my French Country style bar stools and this is how they looked before. The wood color was kind of orangey and didn’t go with the look I’m trying to achieve in my kitchen. The wood is hard but not anything special SOOO . . . chalk paint to the rescue!
I started by painting the chairs a light color first and then trimmed them out with a darker color. I had Home Depot color match Annie Sloan Chalk Paint’s Country Grey and French Linen (I have an ASCP color card and I take that to the store whenever I want to get a color match). I purchased sample size containers and used my favorite homemade Chalk Paint Recipe.
After the base and trim were painted I used a small brush to dab darker color into the crevices of the chairs . . .
. . . and lightly dry brushed over the Country Grey with French Linen.
I wasn’t at all careful about how I applied it because I knew it would all come out just the way I wanted it to look in the end.
I used a sanding sponge to sand back back any unwanted dark color.
I finished up with my new favorite wax mixed with stain for added color (this gives it the same look as a dark wax and, like dark wax, any excess color can be removed by rubbing clear wax over it). Can you see the sheen on the chairs? They also have a very smooth feeling finish which I like better than the finish I get with soft wax.
A “real” furniture builder friend recommended Minwax Paste Finishing Wax. It contains carnuba wax which apparently creates a very hard finish.
By the way, I may have heated it just a tad to make it a little softer for mixing and applying. Shhh . . . this may be a dangerous thing to do . . . at least as dangerous as things get in my world 🙂
I did use some soft wax though, on the leather chair seats. Unfortunately, I splattered the seats with paint when I was painting the caned backs. The seat surfaces became dull when I cleaned off the paint so I decided to see what a little soft wax would do.
I waxed, let them dry for about 15 minutes, and polished. I love the sheen and even after a few months they are still shining bright!
I thought of making ruffled drop cloth seat covers but it would be a shame to hide such pretty legs. Maybe in the future.
Now - the wall color - the yellow in this room is still bothering me and I’ve been picking up paint swatches with thoughts toward a future change. I’m leaning toward Agreeable Gray by Sherwin Williams. Sigh - not until I whittle down my long list of to-do’s though. Priorities you know 🙂
Now it is on to outdoor projects. Filling planters with flowers, cleaning patio furniture, scheduling a lunchean on my deck. What Spring projects are you up to where you live? Is your weather warming too or are you still in a winter chill? Time flies so quickly and we will be feeling the heat of Summer in no time at all.
Blessings friends,
TheDIYShowoff, LifeOnLakeshoreDrive, SilverPenniesSundays, SundaysAtHome, RusticAndRefined, Spiritual Sundays, GiveMeGrace
Timeworn, aged, faded, shabby. All words to describe those well-worn flea market baskets that catch my eye and pull at my heart. So I was excited a couple of years ago to receive my mother-in-law’s old wicker laundry basket. Mr. OTN, who is no youngsta’, has memories of being pulled across the floor in this basket by his older brothers.
How sweet then, that it came home to live with us. Here is a picture of said basket as shared in our Den Reveal last Fall. It is perfect just the way it is and I wouldn’t think of touching it with a paintbrush!
However . . . some of the baskets I have around my home are neither old nor precious, so this past week I decided to touch up a few of them with paint to give them that well worn look that I love.
Ageing baskets is one of the quickest and easiest projects you’ll ever do!
First, a “before” view of the baskets I painted . . .
. . . and here they are “after” painting.
On my powder room trash can I used my Homemade Chalk Paint recipe and paint that Home Depot mixed to match Annie Sloan’s chalk paint color French Linen.
For this flower basket I used Home Depot’s match to Annie Sloan’s Country Grey.
For the rest of my baskets I layered both colors, French Linen and Country Grey, by dry brushing on alternating layers of paint. You can see the beginning of that process below.
French Linen . . .
. . . followed by Country Grey.
I simply kept layering alternating colors until I liked what I saw. My kitchen baskets were sealed with a bit of dark wax for added protection and to age them even more.
These are the Home Depot colors I used.
That’s it. A simple afternoon project that makes a big difference in how things look.
I’ve been adding a few new touches to my kitchen and my aged baskets fit right in. I’ll be back later this week to share more pictures in Adding Personality to a Kitchen. Until then, thank you dear readers for stopping by. I hope you have one fantastic week!
Blessings,
I’m feeling a bit excited today and I can hardly wait to share why, but first I want to share with you more blue touches I’ve added to my living room for summer and also update you on . . . the ongoing saga of the broken wrist.
I’m pretty much always decorating in my head, thinking of the next thing I’d like to add to my thrifted and sale shopped home. Are you like that too? I discuss these things in prayer as I go throughout my day, saying things like, “Lord, if you can find me some new lampshades for my living room, at a good price, that would be awesome.” Followed up by, “I shouldn’t say ‘if you can” Lord, because I know you can, so please will you?”
That was the kind of day it was when I walked into Home Goods last week and found these lamp shades on clearance! Why on clearance? Because who in the world would want peacock blue lampshades? Wait, that would be me!
If you read my living room reveal post, you know that peacock blue and aquamarine are the two accent colors I’m using in this mostly neutral colored room. If you saw my dining room style board you know that the wallpaper I’m using on that room across the entry from the dining room has damask medallions that will reflect the pattern of the silver medallions on my new lampshades.
Fancy that!
Thank you Lord! He does things like this for me all the time because He knows me and He knows what makes me happy.
Here are a few more touches of blue, just in time for summer.
Remember the dress I pulled out of the giveaway pile to add color to this basket? While I had my homemade chalk paint out working on another piece I couldn’t resist giving my basket’s handles a little touch of blue too.
Here is a sweet new (to me) cup and saucer for my tea cart. The handle, base and pattern are silver.
I remembered that I had this candle in the cupboard and pulled it into the room. I really love the glitz of this candle holder and candle pin that I found on clearance at Michael’s!
I picked up a pair of heavy crystal candle holders at a garage sale in my neighborhood for $2 and bought two more candles to use in my entry hall.
They are Princess House candle holders and they come apart so they can also be used with tapers. How could I resist?
Sasha is happy with the summer touches and loves to catch the afternoon sun in this room.
As for the update on the broken wrist? The occupational therapist says I have some nerve damage caused by the cast and that it will take 6 months to a year to heal completely. I still have trouble making a fist and have the feeling of pins and needles almost constantly, but I’ve seen a significant improvement in the level of pain, especially this past week. I’m anticipating a much quicker healing. Thank you Lord!
Still, preparing this post had to be done in stages because use of the mouse and keyboard is painful. I’m honestly not complaining though because I’ve learned a lot about myself during this time away from the computer. I suspect that my posts will be fewer than normal for awhile and I hope you’ll continue to be patient with me. I appreciate those of you who come and read and comment on the things I share about my home and my life. It really means so much to me.
Finally, what is that thing I’m so excited about today? You know how I said that God knows me and He knows what I like? Well, my husband is a bit like that too and he likes to do things that make me happy. We are off on a little adventure for the next couple of days and I’ll be back later this week to share the adventure with you. The picture above is a bit of a teaser!
Until later, blessings to y’all,
I’m SO excited to share this post with you tonight as it is the first furniture project I’ve completed in my new home. Please read on for all the details on how to do a Color Wash in Layered Greys.
This is the “before” picture of a buffet that we found at a great local antique/junk store. It was very dark in the store and the buffet was kind of hidden behind a lot of other stuff so I wasn’t sure of the condition of the piece until Mr. OTN brought it home. I thought the burled wood on the drawer fronts might be worth restoring but it is veneer and had a lot of hairline cracks on the surface so I decided to just paint over it.
The top had some surface scratches but they didn’t look too deep so I decided to see if I could sand back and re-stain the wood.
Here is the “after” of my gorgeous new buffet. I used two tones of grey, painting on the darker color first and then adding a color wash of the lighter grey. I then used white wax as a finish. I have a ton of “how to” pictures and also some other shots of the piece so read on please . . .
I began with a color I had custom mixed at Home Depot to match the Annie Sloan chalk paint color French Linen. I buy the sample sizes and make my own chalk paint. I’ve tested and reviewed several home made chalk paint recipes and my favorite can be found HERE
After the first color was dry I painted on a wash of Home Depot’s version of ASCP Country Grey. This was also made with my home made chalk paint recipe and watered down quite a bit so it would wipe off easily.
Here I’ve wiped it off using one swipe of a crunched up paper towel. The important thing here is to use a new surface of the paper towel for each swipe. Otherwise you’ll be putting paint from the paper towel back onto your piece of furniture and it sort of ruins the look you’re going for in a wash.
After everything was dry I used some Miss Mustard Seed white wax to seal the paint. It is a different look completely than some of the pieces I’ve done with dark or clear wax and I really like it on this piece. According to the ASCP website you can add white chalk paint to clear wax to get the same effect.
I sanded the old finish off the top of the piece and, luckily, there weren’t any deep scratches that couldn’t be removed.
I used a Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner by MinWax to prepare the wood to receive a smooth stain, then stained the top with MinWax Wood Finish in the color Cherry.
Finally, I sealed the wood with three coats of a water based Polycrylic, also by MinWax. I used a clear satin finish for this piece.
So this is my new buffet standing all alone in my new dining room.
The wallpaper is in the process of being stripped behind her but that job has become bigger than I ever imagined . . . and I’ve removed a lot of wallpaper in my day!
So far I’ve removed the second layer of wallpaper and in doing so found that the first layer was glued directly to the sheetrock, without the use of any sizing to prepare the surface . . . Ugh!
So I’m working on tearing it off one little piece at a time with my steamer in one hand and my scraper in the other.
I’ll be moving a Craigslist dining room table and chairs into the dining room for our Thanksgiving dinner. They too are in need a lot of work but just a good cleaning will have to do for now. Chairs take hours and hours to paint and, as my sister said, “Don’t worry about the house. FOOD is all that is important!” Haha! Food AND family. I’m so happy that my sister and her hubby are coming out from SoCal for the holiday and also that we’ll have our dear college friend Holly here with us as well.
By the way, remember the old tarnished brass hardware? I rubbed just a touch of Martha Stewart’s Metallic Craft Paint in Silver over the metal. Not too much as I wanted the dark color to still show through.
I’m pretty happy with this piece and I’m excited about my vision for this room. I’m not sure what colors I’ll use on the dining room set. Maybe the same colors but in the reverse order for a completely different look with the same color base. I’ll have to do some experimenting to see what feels right.
I do have a color scheme in mind for this room by the way and my grey buffet with the bluish undertones fits right in.
Here’s a sneak peek at my inspiration piece. Curious? If you’d like to see more pictures of this piece and hear the story behind it, please join me tomorrow for Freedom Friday - On Becoming The Person You Were Created to Be.
Blessings,
