Round Table

At this point I'm just on the hunt for cheap old furniture to practice on.  I found this round table at the Goodwill.  I knew it wouldn't fit anywhere in the house, but figured it was a good practice piece.

 

I used the same batch of homemade chalk paint that I had used on the night table. I think this one just had too many smooth surfaces, and was needing more coats as some of the old finish kept bleeding through, that it was ending up to be very gloopy. It ended up sitting on my back porch for a few weeks. Enter Annie Sloan. :o)

 

I found that there was a stockist about 30 minutes from me so I stopped in and bought some Old White and Duck Egg Blue. I mixed them, 3 parts Old White and 1 part Duck Egg Blue for a lighter grey-green color. After distressing I protected it with a few coats of Minwax Wipe-on Poly. I love how it turned out!

 

 

 

 

 

This baby was my first furniture sale on Craigslist. I profited enough for a can of ASCP. :o) Also the gal that came and picked them up ended up leaving two end tables that she wanted done in the same color. That post coming soon!

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Night table - small shelf

I came across this little table at a thrift store. The photo was taken when I was texting my daughter to see if she liked it. She did.

 

Being so new to the furniture painting thing, I couldn't see spending the money on Annie Sloan just yet. So I looked around and came upon Alchemy Fine Living's video on making your own chalk paint.  She has great instructional videos so be sure to take a look at all of them.

My experimenting with making my own chalk paint went ok, not great. I think my mistake may have been using a cheaper flat paint that I had on hand instead of looking for something with a satin finish. It seemed like the paint kept getting thicker and thicker until it was really gloopy.  I added more paint but it didn't seem to matter.

Overall, it turned out pretty well and was cute enough for my daughter to put in her room.   I sealed it with Minwax Wipe-on Poly to protect the finish.

 

 

 

 

Craigslist Mirror

 

I found this mirror on Craigslist and used it to replace the plain builder grade mirror that was in the kids' bathroom.  I used spray primer and a generic flat black spray paint. I then distressed it.  All in all a pretty simple update for a $10 mirror and spray paint I had on hand.

Waterfall Buffet

I was on the hunt for a dining room table.  I made an appointment with someone on craigslist but after seeing the condition of the table knew it was too much work for me.  I spied this buffet in the storage unit and asked about it.  At the time I was unsure of the price, but now I see I got a pretty good deal.

 

It was missing some of the handles so I was going to need to do something different.  I puddied up the holes I no longer wanted.

 

The sides were also in pretty bad shape.  So I glued and puddied them. 

 

During the painting process I knocked over the top drawer and it broke.  Repairable?  Maybe.  But it gave me the push to do what I had seen others do and put a shelf in that spot.  We also replaced the bottoms of the side cabinets so they would be stronger.

 

Then I began painting.  At this point I was beginning to feel like I'd made a mistake.  It looked so blah and boring compared to the beautiful character the wood had before.  My only consolation is that it was in bad shape and it would have been much harder, if not impossible, to get it up to speed without a little paint.  Maybe in 50 years someone will strip it down and be thrilled to find what's underneath.

 

I used Wal-mart's off the shelf antique white paint.  After distressing, I applied Minwax wipe on poly in satin.  I'm pretty pleased with the results!

 

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Welcome

Welcome to my new blog!  We recently made an international move and I found myself back in the States with a house to furnish.  Almost everything we purchased for the house was found on craigslist or thrift stores.  Thanks to pinterest and the world wide web I have found a way to make older pieces of furniture prettier (hopefully!) and more personal.  Here I am just planning to document my progress and before and afters.  Thanks for stopping by!