Furniture Transformation: A Side Table To Love

Today I have quite the transformation to show you - but it took some of the least amount of work I've done in a long time, lol. My friend Liz moved to Las Vegas last month, and gave me this little side table that she couldn't take with her.

No need to adjust your monitors - it is, indeed, neon pink, lol. At first I was unsure if I could help it out, but never one to turn down free furniture, I was happy to take it from her. It's a good height, which I have discovered is hard to come by in thrift store/used furniture. I'm guessing it's because they are so useful that no one gets rid of them. Anyway, this particular table seems to have belonged to a little girl before going to Liz. Not only was the table a terribly spray painted pink (the top was very splotchy), it was really beat up and even had the message, "If you can read this this table is cursed!" written is shaky, little girl handwriting under the lip along the edge, lol. Thanks for the warning.

When I first received the table, I planned to strip the old paint off and stain it a dark brown to match my living room furniture. This means that it sat in my garage for about a month as I put off doing so much work in the midst of my larger house projects. This past weekend though I was struck with an idea - what if I just spray paint over the pink with a deep brown color? The table is small, and since I was planning on stripping the paint to begin with I figured it couldn't hurt to try the spray paint first and I could just strip it later if I hated how it came out. I just gave a few gooby spots a nice sanding (there was some wax dribbled on the side), and sprayed it with a can of Rustoleum American Accents 2X Ultra Cover in Espresso Satin. It absorbed wonderfully (bless you, real wood), and after 2 coats and maybe 20 minutes, I had a wonderful transformation!

It came out great! Sure, I could have given it a bit more TLC and filled in the pits on the top and edges, but at the time I just wanted a quick and satisfying project to keep me in the DIY spirit. The color looks great in my living room - it's close enough to the dark stain of my furniture to pass, plus it's in a corner by itself so it has nothing else right next to it to give a side by side comparison. Also the satin finish makes it shine like it was recently sprayed with Pledge :) I still didn't want the pits on the top to show so much, and I recently came across this thrifted hand-crocheted doily I picked up for 25¢ who knows when (it was in the abyss of my sewing room and I found it amongst the fabric I put on my new shelving unit, and it still had the price tag on it). It's the perfect size for this table and just enough of a distraction from the blemishes on the table top. It doesn't cover them all, but is makes you not notice them unless you're really scrutinizing.

Now my little corner has an appropriate sized table that is just enough to add light and interest. Added bonus - the table top has a little cubby underneath where it attaches to the base, so I was able to twist tie my lamp cord and tuck it inside the table - no more unsightly cord hanging down! Now nothing can distract you eye from that beautiful new light socket down there, lol, it's the little things, folks.

This project was just enough to really kick my spray-painting-butt into full gear. I love how a quick and successful project can just make you want to do more and more. I've got another huge transformation that just has to be coated in poly-acrylic (*hint hint* I posted about starting this project 2 years ago! That's so sad!) I am beyond thrilled to have this next one done and 1) out of my garage and 2) holding things in my sewing room. I can't wait!

Cost Breakdown:

• Cursed Side Table - Free (Thanks, Liz!)
• 1 can Rustoleum American Accents 2X Ultra Cover Spray Paint in Espresso Satin - $3.77
• Antique Handmade Crocheted Doily - 25¢

Total Cost: $4.02 (pretty awesome, right?!)

Weekend Update: Spray Painting

I mentioned in the previous post that I got some painting done this weekend. Thanks to the lovely weather lately, I wasn't able to accomplish as much as I wanted to on my dresser. I would pull it out and prep for painting only to have it start sprinkling, so I would rush it back into the garage. It would then rain for 10 minutes and stop, but the sky taunted me for the rest of the day. I was afraid that it would start pouring as soon as I set up again, so I spent my time on other things. I did paint the drawer fronts with Kilz, but the humidity was fighting against me too:

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere! No joke there is at least 1 patch of bubbles on every single drawer front, not to mention the sides. I don't mind the sides so much since they will mostly be inside the dresser, but the fronts will be heavily sanded and redone. I also decided to tackle a few random plastic pieces that have been hanging around.

I got this plastic drawer unit thing at an estate sale - I paid $5 for the unit and everything in it :) It's a very handy organizing tool for all the little bits and pieces that go along with sewing and needlework, but it's been sitting in my sewing room for weeks depressing me every time I look at it. It's so yicky looking! It's a drab gray to begin with, but it's old and has yellowed slightly with age. You can see it a little here:

So, I decided to give it a face lift. With this:

Oh yeah - bonds to plastic action! Since I wanted a good, strong hold, I started off with 2 coats of Valspar's clear plastic primer - this is some hard plastic so I wanted to make sure it wouldn't flake off as soon as I used it. I followed the primer with 2-ish coats of the Krylon Fusion in White. I say 2-ish because I didn't even get a full 2 coats on before the can ran out! I've never used Krylon before and I was really not impressed. The nozzle is weird and is more of a line of spray than a directional beam, so it was very difficult to control where the paint went and a lot of it blew away. I'll be going back to my trusty Rustoleum next time. Even though it didn't go very far, it covered well enough - check out the storage thing now!

Ah, so much better :) Now it goes with my sewing room and doesn't look like some old man's nail organizer.

While I had the plastic spray out, O decided to give this guy a whirl.

Before you ask, yes ... this is an old Always Wipes container. I've had this for a while (I don't think they even make the product anymore) and have used it for various small pieces. It was between uses, so I decided to jazz it up and put it in the sewing room. I painted it first with 2 coats of the Valspar Clear Plastic Primer and then 2 coats of Valspar Color Radiance Spray Paint in Coral (same color as my desk top).

It's still a wipes-shaped container, but certainly doesn't scream "I once held something for the bathroom" anymore :) I figure it will come in handy for sewing related stuff, though I haven't figured out what yet. At least it looks nice in the room now.

I also got the bulk of the work done on my wall initial. I mentioned it a few weeks ago when I did the primer coat. I have learned something about metal and spray paint - it doesn't like to dry fast! It makes sense now that I think about it, but I kept getting frustrated with this because it takes so dang long to dry that I end up having to just do 1 coat and then leave it for another day. Sunday I painted a nice coat of white in Valspar's regular old spray paint. I let it dry and then Monday evening I masked it off like so:

Which definitely looked cool, but I'm not a fan of leaving tape on things :) I masked it off so I could spray it like this:

The light was awful, so it's hard to tell, but this is also the same Valspar Color Radiance in Coral to match my desk. I did 2 coats of the coral, let it dry, then removed the tape to reveal this:

I didn't poly-coat this and I'm hoping I don't live to regret it. I'm a little obsessed with poly as I'm afraid things will get beat up without it. Since this is just going to hang on the wall though, I'm thinking it will be ok once the paint has fully cured. I'm excited to put this baby on the wall and make it official :)

So that was my weekend of painting. I seriously cannot wait until I can actually finish the dresser - it's going to be so great!

Recent Adventures in Spray Paint

So, I am now a spray paint addict in case you didn't know yet :) I have a pile of things to paint and a rack full of cans with which to paint them. So, this weekend when I found myself without a project, I got to spraying.

I finally sprayed the air vent for my sewing room. This has been off the ceiling since I painted it back in February - you can't rush these things. I decided it would be good to get it back in its place, so I just sprayed it with Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer in White. I did 1 coat from each angle so I could be sure to get inside the curved vent pieces. It is now back in its place and looking so much better than it did!

The next two piece were yard sale finds. I forgot to take pictures before I painted them, but both of them were made of Rubber Wood, which looks like this:

It's very smooth and slightly porous, so the paint doesn't soak completely in. It leaves a lined texture on it, which actually came out pretty neat.

I grabbed both the napkin holder and the mug tree for $1, and I sprayed them both with Rustoleum High Gloss Enamel in White.

They will help organize things in my sewing room quite nicely. The napkin holder has already become a fixture on my desk - it holds papers for me :) The mug tree will either hold scissors or ribbon or something else entirely. I'll let you know once it's found its calling. If you enlarge the pic you can kind of see the lined texture!

I bought this letter M with a parrot at the Salvation Army at least a year or two ago. It's the heavy duty metal kind with holes on the back to hang it and everything. It even had the original tag from whoever bought it - it was from a place called Costwork and it's price was $32.99. I grabbed it for $2 and originally planned to give it to my sister Marisa. Now that I have my own place to put it, I'm reclaiming for myself and putting it in my sewing room :)

Since it's a metal letter, I wanted to do it justice and I first gave it a coat of Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer in White. Sadly I made the first coat a little too thick, so it took forever to dry. Also, it decided to rain, so I had to pack up my painting forays for another day. At the moment it is just white and boring, but it will soon become more exciting :)

Check My New Étagère

This is a project that has been a while in the making. I started working on this before we moved in, but it quickly got put aside (and completely blocked in by other furniture) when we moved in as I had to make our moving mess livable. After things got a bit more settled, I pulled this out and started up again. I am so thrilled with the results! You'll see why...

I got this étagère on Craig's List months ago for $35. It's solid wood and the shelves are removable. I liked it for its spindly legs and knew it would be perfect in my sewing room ... with the right makeover. Nice as it was, it was just big and dark and opressive - certainly not the vibe I have going in my "zen room" (which is what my husband calls it). So, I decided to make it white.

Look how dinged up it was!

The first step was filling in all the holes and crevaces. It looked great when I bought it, but that was just because the stain was so dark you couldn't see all the imperfections. On a stained piece, the natural nicks and weird spots added to the texture and looked nice, but I knew as soon as I painted it white they would all show up and I didn't want that. If I'm going through all this trouble, I at least want it to look smooth like it was supposed to be that way. So, I brought out the wood putty and started filling.

I seriously spent hours filling, sanding, filling again. Once I thought I had them all filled, I primed it with Kilz Original spray paint. I knew I needed something that would block the stain, especially since it was going to be white and I didn't want it to yellow over time. So, I sprayed. And sprayed, and sprayed. I went through 4 cans of Kilz just on the body of the piece! After the Kilz, I could see a few more imperfections that needed filling, so I just used DryDex spackle and it worked great. I primed over all the spackle spots again when they dried. Kilz spray paint leaves a gritty texture, so I lightly sanded it as best I could - it was really difficult to get around all those spindle pieces.

Next I repeated the filling and priming steps on the shelves. This shelf was the worst - those scratches you see were really deep and much more noticable in person. But they filled in pretty well.

After everything was filled and primed and sanded, I started to spray the actual paint. On my desk I recently did for the same room, I just left it the Kilz white color. I've kind of regretted that choice now that I've used the desk since it tends to look gray-ish sometimes, so with this piece I wanted to use actual paint. I used Rustoleum Ultra Cover 2X spray paint in Flat White on the whole thing. No joke, it took about 6 cans to do the body and the shelves of this piece. I was starting to worry about the cost, but I was so far into it at that point that I had no choice but to keep buying more cans and go with it.

After the paint, I did another light sanding to get it more smooth feeling (again - those rounded pieces are really hard to do that to), and then I coated the whole thing in 2 coats of Minwax Poly-Acrylic spray in Satin finish. I used a whole can of the Minwax, which wasn't cheap, but it's so worth it to have a piece that will hold up to daily use. I would rather spend a little more now than have it get all chipped up and look awful after a few months, you know? Also, the poly-acrylic is water based, so it won't yellow over time.

So, after waiting the full 24 hours so the poly coating could fully adhere, we moved it upstairs (no easy feat!) and put it in its new spot.

I absolutely LOVE how it came out! Sure, there are a few places I wish I had filled better, but you don't notice them unless you are really looking it over and I am ok with that. I do realize that there are no doors on the bottom - I had a hardware removal issue with them so I haven't gotten them painted yet. Those are next on my to-paint list. In the meantime, I didn't wait to fill it up and help house some of my stuff.

Those purple bins aren't staying - they are just what I've used until I find something better. Just for the record. It holds the tv perfectly (it just barely fits and only on that particular shelf) and I love to watch movies while I make things, so I was pleased it worked out so well.

So, how much did this beast cost?

• Étagère - $35
• Wood Putty - I'm calling it free (I bought a tub and have used it on many things around the house)
• DryDex - Again, I'm calling it free
• 6 cans Kilz Original Spray Paint - $34.68
• 6 cans Rustoleum Ultra Cover 2X - $22.62
• 1 can Minwax Poly-Acrylic - $11.97

 Total: $ 104.27

So, it certainly wasn't as cheap as my desk I just did, but it certainly is cheaper than if I went to a furniture store to buy a solid wood étagère (google search if you don't believe me), so I'm happy with the price. I now can't wait to finish not only the doors, but also the rest of the furniture for the room. It's really starting to come together now and I can't wait!

I've Been A Busy, Busy Girl ...

I have had a very productive few weeks as far as my house goes. I'm getting to be quite good at fixing things too :) Case and point - when we moved in, we knew there was some kind of leak in the kitchen sink. The cabinet was all mildewed and nasty and everything was damp. In an effort to find the leak and fix it, we turn on the faucet to full blast and even ran the dish washer - nothing made it leak! We finally just decided they had fixed the leak but not repaired the cabinet (or even cleaned it out at all - so gross). Then last week I heard my husband yell for me in the kitchen while he was rinsing some paint brushes. All of the water from the sink had poured directly in to the cabinet below. It was a paint covered mess, but after I wiped everything up I quickly identified the problem:

Yep - the pipe was completely undone. No matter what I did with pushing it, it would just come right back undone, so apparently the previous owners had tried to defy gravity and hope for the best on this one. Obviously that  didn't work out so well. I sent a picture to my dad and he explained to me how to fix it. Apparently there is a clear, angled, gasket-type piece inside that needs to have the flat side facing the receiving pipe before you screw the connector down. If it isn't facing the right direction, it won't hold onto anything. Such a simple thing that apparently the former owners never bothered to look into. It seriously took me a few minutes, but I felt so accomplished :)

Also, I had taken down the beige colored mini blinds in our office when we painted and I hadn't put anything back in their place yet. It sounds silly, but it kind of freaked me out to work in that room at night because there could be someone standing right at my window watching me and I couldn't see them. Ridiculous, yes; easy problem to solve? Yes :) I went to Target and grabbed a new set of white mini blinds for $3.99 (I knew they were cheap, but who knew they were THAT cheap!) and installing them took literally 2 minutes because the pieces that screw into the wall to hold the blinds up were exactly the same as the previous ones = no hole drilling! Yay :) I just screwed the new piece to the wall, slid the blinds in place and we were good to go. No more feeling like I'm being watched in there, lol. Also, I left the previous anchors in the wall as well because I knew I would put up a curtain. I had already brought all my curtains and rods from my condo over to the house, so I decided to put one up while I was working on the window. Another 2 minutes later et voilà!

Obviously this picture wasn't finessed - I actually just took a quick shot to show my husband what I did that night. I still have to get tie backs up and I don't keep the curtains apart like that at the top, but at least it's an improvement :)

I also finished a painting project about a month ago, but I've been so unenthused with it that I haven't remembered to take pictures until now. I finished this the same week as my desk, lol. Remember this guy?

I blogged about this trash can back here with other items I had thrifted around then. It was originally a very 70s green (as evidenced from the inside of the can) and the previous owner had painted it this tan color. I knew I wanted it for my sewing room. First I removed the handle piece and cleaned it well, then painted both handle pieces black with Rustoleum Gloss Protective Enamel Spray Paint. Then, I primed and painted the can and lid white with Rustoleum Semi-Gloss Protective Enamel spray paint. I made sure to do several coats of primer and then several coats of paint until it was nice and even. I also did inside the lid and inside the top edge of the can and the bottom. Since a trash can tends to get pretty banged around, I topped it off with 3 coats of Minwax Polycrylic Protective Spray Finish in Clear Satin. This is the same poly I used for my desk and it's worked very well so far :)

Once I had it painted, I decided it needed a little something to fancy it up. Originally I wanted to do the same stencils from my desk in black, but I didn't have any black paint on hand that matched the black of the hardware - and frankly, I was impatient. I wanted to get it done and in the room, so I just used the leftover paint from the sewing room - Valspar's Signature in Icy Mint. This was my big mistake, as you can see here"

Oh, wait. You mean you can't see anything? Yeah, neither can I or anyone else who looks at it. Here is a contrast adjustment to show you what I actually did:

So, the scrolly stencils are definitely on there, but they completely disappear from the light color. It's even worse in my sewing room with the walls all that same color mint - you really can't see anything.

This project was a bit of a bummer - at least the can was only $6. One of these days I will redo the stencils in black, but at the moment it's at least done and usable. I've got plenty of other things i need to work on first :)

I have two other much bigger completions from the past week, but they deserve a post to themselves, so check in a little later to see what else I finished up!

My New Desk - The Big Reveal!

I am seriously so excited about this post! It took a lot of willpower to not show you what I was up to last week, but the anticipation will be worth it :) P.S. This post has a lot of pictures - sorry, bu tI'm so excited to show it off!

So, last I posted about this baby, it looked like this:

I decided to just use the primed white color instead of painting a different white paint on top - you know, I'm cheap and white is white people. So last Thursday, I got my desk to the above point by around 7 pm. I went home for dinner and came back to work on it around 9:30 because I just had to get it done. I consulted Tara to make sure it had had enough time to dry before taping it off and then got to work masking.

This was seriously quite the process. I think it took me about 40 minutes to cut pieces of newspaper and mask off the areas to remain white.

Inside that little raised area was the worst. You can't see it in the photo, but it also has a piece on the top of the inside.

After all the masking, this is what it looked like. I had to take a photo just since it took me so long :) Then came the fun part - I sprayed the top and the top of the little raised piece with Valspar's Color Radiance in Coral.

I ended up doing 3 coats to get it totally even, sanding off the high spots in between each layer (those splotchy spots in the photo are where it's still wet - just so you know). The other side looked pretty cool too:

I know it doesn't seem like such a revolutionary thing, but I'm seriously proud of it. I mean, think about what it looked like before!

That's a pretty big transformation! Even with all the progress I had made, it still felt like the desk needed something to make it a little more "me". My lovely friend, Tara, happens to have lots of stencils that she graciously let me borrow from her this weekend. After making my selections, I set to work on Friday night and had it coated with poly-acrylic by the end of the night. Here is my creation ...

This isn't its actual place in the room - I'm putting it under the window. I had to move it so the pictures would come out ok. Check out my first ever stenciling job:

I used the same flourish in all the corners and then a larger scrolly design in the center. I actually ended up using house paint! I had grabbed some white acrylic paint, but since I used just Kilz white color for the rest of the desk, the acrylic didn't look white enough. Luckily I had some Valspar Ultra White latex paint on hand and it fit the bill.

Just for kicks, this is the side view again :) And to prove that my masking off worked ...

This shelf thing was the hardest area to get covered, and it seems like it wouldn't really matter much; but if I'm going through all the trouble to paint this thing, I was going all the way!

I seriously can't tell you how completely thrilled I am with this piece. It's the first piece of furniture I've put in my sewing room and it has me so excited to get everything else in there. This desk went from just a run of the mill laminate computer desk to something I really feel reflects me and I look forward to putting my sewing machine on it and getting to work :)

Here is the cost breakdown -

• Laminate computer desk - Free from Brenna (thanks!)
• 1 can Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer - $4.24
• 1 can Valspar Plastic Primer - $5.44
• 1 can Kilz Original spray primer - $5.98
• 1 can Valspar Color Radiance in Coral - $4.98
• 1 can Minwax Poly-Acrylic - $11.97

Total Cost: $32.61
Honestly, I don't can't really count that full amount for this because I have paint left over in several of the cans (which I plan on using on other pieces for the room), so I'm thinking let's call it $25 :) Not bad for a custom made desk, I must say. My personal recommendation - I know the poly acrylic sounds crazy expensive, but this is the best poly for furniture if you don't want it to yellow overtime. It didn't sputter - it sprayed great - even in a few spots where I thought it had little dots of build up, they evened out as it dried and has a perfectly smooth finish. So worth it!

So if you are thinking you need some new furniture - don't be afraid to revamp an old piece! I took something that wasn't so thrilling and turned it into my favorite piece :) I now am completely addicted and have a garage full of nasty looking old furniture that I have big plans for. I can't wait to fix up another one!

Just A Little Spray Paint...

I've been so bogged down with all the random repairs we've had to do on our house lately that my enthusiasm was really beginning to wane. I decided I needed to switch things up (much to the dismay of my mom), plus my garage was starting to look like a thrift store with all the furniture in there; so I thought I would try my hand at spray painting a few items I had acquired that needed some sprucing. Here are the items before:

I got these two thread holders from my sister-in-law's husband's grandmother when she had to move. The serger cone holder was even full of thread! I just had to take it all off for painting. These have been hanging out in my junk room closet for, oh, 3 years or so? You can't rush these things, you know...

The little orange basket was a thrift store find a few months ago and it has been holding my pressing hams :) The green baskets were from the Target dollar spot and I snagged them for $1.25 each.

This baby was given to me by my friend Brenna when she left the country. It's just a basic laminate computer desk, but I have plans to use it for my sewing machine, so it needs a makeover.

So, last Sunday I started priming everything. I wanted to be very thorough so I used different types of paint for different materials. The thread holders I sprayed with Valspar Paint & Primer in White. The metal baskets and metal legs of the desk I sprayed with Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer in White. The desk also had plastic caps on the legs and a black plastic edging around the top and little raised section so I lightly sanded the plastic parts and then sprayed them with Valspar's Plastic Primer in Clear. 

This is what everything looked like last Sunday when I had to leave. I didn't have another chance to work on them more until yesterday.

Yesterday was officially "The Day of the Desk" and I made sure to get it as far as I could in between my other projects inside the house. I did 3 more coats of Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer on the legs (I coated until it looked even and 4 coats total seemed to do the job). Following the recommendation of my lovely friend Tara (my spray paint guru), I lightly sanded the laminate parts next. Then I covered all the laminate and plastic with 3 coats of Kilz Spray Primer. I went with the Kilz because I was told to get something that gave a sandy finish so the other paint would be able to grab hold better. By the time I had finished all my priming, the desk looked like this:

Ah, lovely and clean white :) I'm really happy with how all the finishes came out. I had heard others complain about the Kilz leaving a rough texture afterwards, but I just took a medium grit sanding block and lightly rubbed off the gritty pieces - worked like a charm! I really wanted to go the extra mile on this desk because I know it will get a beating with my sewing machine on top of it. I did get a smidge further on it last night, but I want to save the rest of the progress for a big reveal :) I should finish it in the next few days and have it up in my sewing room (and have a desk sized space cleared in the garage)! I can't wait!