This time tomorrow, these dining chairs will be a different color – creamy white. I know, I too love the shade of blue in this photo. Looks a lot like my blue bench. However, this color is just a result of a little editing.
The chairs actually are a more dusty country blue. Like this:
Gah, it’s really more country looking than that last photo.
So, I want to paint them white. I think the white will contrast nicely with the pale maple stain of the table. Eventually, my kitchen will no longer be yellow. I’m hoping it will be a calm blue green gray someday. With white bead board all the way around.
While I was taking pictures, I shot these as well.
In case it’s not obvious, I will be making an apple pear cake later this week. Yum!
I love boxes, baskets, jars, pitchers – containers of any kind. My most favorite are jewelry boxes. All of the ones I have are wooden and are very treasured. While browsing at a local antique mall (this place was huge and took me nearly four hours to get through), I found two, TWO, absolutely, stop me in my tracks, gorgeous vintage blue green jewelry boxes. One was priced at $8 and the other at $4.
I was giddy. I felt kind of drunk and a bit silly. Is this what those die hard antiquers feel? Oh my goodness, it felt good. I’m filled to the brim with excitement to share these photos with ya’ll!
Don’t be jealous.
Wow, I am so addicted to finding cool vintage stuff. Here are some more happy finds (but not nearly as happy as the jewelry boxes). I found a great creamy white crocheted blanket for $6 and a freakishly cute owl trivet for $1.50.
Mr. Owl says “Hi.”
I barely spent $20!
Today’s Thrift Treasures at Southern Hospitality Blog
Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch
Thrifty Thursday at Tales from Bloggeritaville
***Come back next week for a BIG Announcement!
Dameian: Ashley, we just finished that table a year and a half ago.
Me: Yeah, but look at that huge scratch, scratches, gouges, that Roscoe put on the table top! How am I going to begin to fix it? I’ll just change the whole table.
Dameian: You can do whatever you want with the table. (Let’s be clear folks, he emphasized the word “You.”)
And so a table refinishing I went. It’s true, when we moved into our home two years ago, we needed a dining table. My dream was a rustic farmhouse table of sorts, but we couldn’t really find anything in our price range. After many days combing local furniture stores, we decided to go to The Unfinished Furniture Store and buy a table. We could finish a table, right? How hard could it be? I will tell you that it was really trying on our relationship. Two perfectionists working on the same project at the same time is bad news.
The second time around, I knew it would be better for this to be a one woman project. Check it.
Before, with an Espresso stain:
Beware, this is painful to look at, Cat Scratch Fever:
Step 1: I took this baby out on my deck and started to sand it with a sandpaper block. After 20 minutes, I asked Dameian for a power sander for my birthday, which is July 10th. I’m just saying. In case you’re wondering. The power sander helped immensely and I reached the natural wood grain in a few hours. There was dust every where. (I only sanded down to the grain on the table top, and just sanded the legs to dull the finish.)
Step 2: Brought said table back inside, vacuuned it, wiped it down, went over it with tack cloth. Basically eradicated every little dust particle I saw. Then I applied Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner with a cloth to the table top.
Step 3: Using a cloth, I stained the tabletop in the direction of the grain with Minwax Wood Finish Provincial color. I waited 15 minutes, wiped clean, waited 4 hours and applied a second coat.
Step 4: Following Kate’s, from Centsational Girl, recommendation, I went with Minwax Wipe-On Poly. I was not disappointed. This stuff was a zillion times easier to use than regular polyurethane. All you do is wipe it on, wait for it to dry, and wipe on more layers. No worrying about brush strokes or bubbles. Brush strokes and bubbles WILL drive you up the wall and around the corner if you use regular poly.
Step 5: I went to Benjamin Moore and had a custom creamy white mixed in Satin Impervo Enamel. (The closest color chip was Mayonnaise.) I painted the legs cream. The Satin Impervo is an oil-based paint; it went on in a really silky way and only needed two coats. Just remember, oil-based paints do not clean up with soapy water. You need mineral spirits to clean your brushes, and you probably should reserve those brushes for oil paints.
Step 6: Step back and admire my new table.
I am pleased a thousand times over. I really wanted to beat up the table top before refinishing it to make it rustic, but Dameian vetoed that idea. Next up on my list of thousand things I want to do around my house, paint dining chairs in a matching cream.
Refinishing Table Tips:
- Do this project in a well ventilated area. The fumes will make you woozy.
- Wear latex gloves when you apply wood conditioner, stain, and poly. Your hands will thank you, and you won’t have dark brown hands for days.
- For a more rustic look to your wood grain, don’t worry about sanding down with less coarse sand paper. I only used 90 grit. If you want a fine, smooth finish, then you will have to gradually go down in sand paper grit. (When refinishing wood, you will learn all about sandpaper grit.)
- Keep cats far away from your project!!
DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land
Transformation Thursday at Shabby Chic Cottage
Metamorphosis Monday
Furniture Feature Friday at Miss Mustard Seeds
I love free stuff. Even if I don’t want it of need it, if it’s free, it delights me. So imagine my glee when I saw a really nice garden bench just hanging out beside the dumpster at my neighborhood pool house. And right beside the nice garden bench was another bench! I told Dameian to pull over, stat, I needed those benches.
Is it dumpster diving if you don’t actually dive into the dumpster?
Sure, the paint was peeling off the garden bench. Yep, the wooden bench had a broken leg. But I could already see them all fixed up and shining in my house. After three cans of Krylon spray paint in Bahama Sea (Doesn’t that name make you sigh?), here is my new garden bench:
Check out those spider mums, over two weeks old! Those flowers last forever.
And here is my garden bench before the makeover:
I spent three hours scraping paint…
Dameian says my makeover projects are like a play.
Act One: Wow, look at that! That would look perfect in the house! I’ll just clean it, paint it, refinish it, fix it, rebuild it, love it, and cherish it forever.
Act Two: Oh my God. This project is never ending. My back hurts. My head hurts. My hands hurt. I hate fixing things up.
Act Three: Wow, look at that! I LOVE it! I’m so proud of myself. Lets go look at it again. Lets take pictures of it. Don’t you love it? I love it!
Metamorphosis Monday
Garden Party
Junk Party
Hooked On Houses
Ever since we moved into our home almost two years ago, I’ve wanted to paint our front door. It was a dark hunter green and looked almost black from the road. Our entryway is north-facing so it doesn’t get much natural light, so when you add the dark door, it just seemed dark and dreary. Enter my new favorite color.
My insiration photo, which I fell absolutely in love with several months ago:
The closest color I could find to match this gorgeous door was Martha Stewart “Splash” at Lowes. I’m smitten. Here’s my new front door:
I loved it so much that I decided to paint a little table with Splash too. I mixed in some white to lighten it up a little.
I secretly am so obsessed with this color that I kinda want to paint everything in my house with it…It really is a great shade of blue!
After about a month of purchasing, painting, and crying over furniture, my office is mostly done.
Yes, I said crying. That last bit happened after I spent an entire week carefully painting each piece with several layers of paint and patiently waiting 24 hours betwwn each coat. I wanted to make sure the finish was good and cured so that the paint wouldn’t be sticky; if you’ve painted furniture, you know what I mean. Well, I read a tip on a blog that said to use finishing wax as a protective coat, say, instead of polyurethane. My poly experience with the dining table was not the best (my cat promptly gashed the heck out of it), so I decided to go the route of wax.
Sanding the Desk
After a coat of primer:
I applied the wax, though I wasn’t sure just what they meant by “sparingly.” It means, apply just a little bit. I thought that’s what I did. However, after letting it sit for an hour and trying to buff it in, just like the directions said, the wax stayed orange. It was orange coming out of the can, but the can said “dries clear,” so I’m expecting a clear finish. Not ORANGE. Mind you, I painted the furniture white. Orange Wax = White furniture with an orange tint. Yes, I cried. So I closed off my office and left it as is for a week.
So, the orange mostly faded away. I guess it just needed a little time. If you look closely, there’s still some orange, but don’t bring it up to me. That’s just plain rude.
I plan on slipcovering my chair.
And this is where I keep my stuff:
I’ll post detail photos tomorrow :)
