Before and After Favorites

Friday, July 27, 2012

Little Bookshelf Makeover

 My cute friend Shelley was moving and gave me this little bookshelf.
I painted it white and mod-podged some cute contact paper to the back.
 I got the little bins at the Dollar Store. This is my new craft shelf. I'm working on organizing and filling up the bins with all my little crafting stuff. This has been a great and CHEAP organizing project. Yay for that!
I'm going to add labels to each basket once they're all filled. ;)

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Dresser make-under

 This little dresser has lived lots of life. I love it so much! It's solid wood, it's sturdy, it's the perfect size for a little girls room. When I found it on Craigslist a year ago, I was thrilled! I painted it watermelon pink. When I put it in Emery's room, again it was just too perfect. The only problem, I'm never re-painting this dresser because I love the color so much. So I decided to rough it up. This is the before picture. I also went to my old friend Haleys house in Utah and she has a french provincial dresser in her daughters room that's also bright pink. She had antiqued it and glazed it and it looked amazing! Thanks for the inspiration Haley!
 Man, I wish the picture below did it justice. If you haven't noticed, I have zero photography skills. ZERO. I wish! It looks so much better. My son walked in halfway through the antiquing and said "MOM, What are you doing to Emery's dresser?? You're scratching it!" After I was done he said he loved it. Sweet boy.
 I feel like an antique piece like this should have a little bit of an antique look to it. Now I feel like it looks that way..

 I went to town on this poor dresser.
 I even antiqued the hardware.
This little picture frame is my favorite frame re-do. It has a chippiness that it did on its own. Why? Because I spray painted it when it was too cold outside. Random luck, but I LOVE it!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

How to strip furniture with citistrip

 I bought this table off of KSL before we moved to Oregon and painted it an ivory color. It took me forever!
 When we got here and set it up, I hated it. The ivory looked awful with the ALL white kitchen. (no joke,  white counter tops, white cupboards, white appliances..) I liked it white, but didn't love it. It was just too much white, and the table was just too perfect. Sounds crazy, I know.
 So this week when my baby came down withe hand, foot and mouth disease, I knew I'd be home a LOT. I go crazy when I'm home too much, so I just planned on doing a bunch of projects. And that I did. I finally knew what I wanted for the table, searched for pictures and then when to work. Mind you, this table had 2 coats of ivory paint, 2 coats of white paint and at least 5 layers of polyurethane. I started sanding and quickly realized it needed stripped. I bought some citistrip, painted it on and peeled away the paint with my 5 in 1 tool. It took 2 coats of citistrip, but man, that stuff is awesome!
 I wanted a stained top, but I didn't want it dark. All the other two toned furniture in my house have dark tops. I wanted it to have a worn, lighter look. I was thrilled that some of the white paint was too deep to remove, well I could have, but I wanted it there, so I left itty bits of it. Then I mixed my walnut stain with water and painted it on. I then topped it off with 4 coats polyurethane. MUCH better!
 I love the worn look of it.
 I then scuffed up the sides and pedestal and did a glaze on it.
Seriously looks SO much better to me. Not so white, not so perfect. My kids can beat it up and I don't care. Love when projects turn out.

By the way, if anyone still reads this blog, I took some time off to take care of my always sick daughter. It's so sad. The poor baby is sick ALL THE TIME. I hope it comes to an end soon. However, in the last two weeks I've redone a little bookshelf, a pair of nightstands and a headboard (for a friend) and a dresser. Next on the list, I'm painting the green dining chairs white. I'll post about all of them. ;)