Spicin' Things Up

What the?! Am I really caught up in my little blog-o-sphere? I'm in November and the month IS November? Nice. So, here's my Fall shelf that I plan on rotating with the seasons. I found the idea off pinterest, found HERE 

Now, on to my lengthy post on my projects of late. 

Project 1: Long ago (about a year) there was this chair. Sturdy. Good padding. Great figure. But far too 'old wood' brown for my current taste/need. So I tried out milk paint. Completely natural, no odor, great for getting that 'authentic' chippy/distressed look. 

Unless of course, it leaves more chair than it does paint. 

Which, in my case, was the case (durn SUPER non-porus material).

So I painted a couple coats of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint over top in Antique White, distressed it and mmm...I love.

Added bonus: I left the milk paint that actually adhered, and then when painted & distressed the chalk paint, those parts just fell away beautifully, looking like they were weathered from time, not my sandpaper. Chalk paint is awesome with that anyway, but I liked this even better--more chippy chunks, if you know what I mean. 

Here she is today. Four kids and one year later, she's holding up great. I want to reupholster it some day. When I learn. But that's a skill not for the now, I've decided since it's a cream color & isn't overly offensive, I'm okay with it for the time being.

Project 2 was my table from THIS post.

 Project 3: I started on my birthday...6 months ago. Since my chosen career is not as a DIY blogger :) my projects are done in bits and pieces over long periods of time. But, I digress... solid legs, drawers slightly fragile, but when she was given to me free I thought, if I messed her up more, you'd hardly notice!

Poor thing. She's been through a lot of love. 

New challenge: Veneer. I tried scraping because I was impatient and google seemed just too far away. But then I realized how crazy-impossible this method was & promptly repented.

 Here we have the official set up for the supposed 'correct' way to remove the veneer.

 

Correct it may be. Easy it is not. Wet towel between the wood & the iron, steam the heck out of it for a few seconds to loosen the glue. Then quick...

 Use the putty knife to peel up the veneer. Piece. By. Piece. I tell you what, it stunk (literally) and took more muscle than I would have guessed, but the beauty emerging from under every sliver kept me going. 

Watery mess to the extreme. I kept thinking, isn't this going to ruin the wood underneath? But shoot, it was free, and google said to, so... 

 

Worth it! After all the veneer was off, I used a Tung wood oil that is food-grade safe. I didn't want any stain color, I wanted it as natural as possible and that is exactly what I got. 

Then, the painting. I wanted to try milk paint again, but was worried it would all flake off. I decided to use the Tung oil on the drawers over top of the intact veneer (after sanding them down first, including the Goofy sticker, sorry dude, had to be done) and figured I'd go for it. This new problem then presented itself...

Apparently, Mahogany (which is what this dresser is apparently...Veneer & Mahogany, what a combo for a novice like moi) is an incredibly strong color/dye/whatever so on the sides of the dresser it bled through all layers of my paint, even before any chipping took place (milk paint goes on smoothly, but then some pieces flake away so it gives the piece a far more authentic 'old' look than if you distress it yourself).

This is the result. 

I alternated between freaking out and wondering if I could live with it. I like the chippiness, the red...not my favorite. For now, I've decided to embrace the personality and tuck this knowledge away for next time :)

 The end result, with the wood peeking through the white (thanks to Ginny for again using her fab camera since mine kept shrouding it in total shadows). 

I worried about the knobs. They weren't so cute in the 'before' state.

After getting the dresser for free, I sure didn't want to spend $30+ on knobs. But, through a tender mercy, I found a whole tub of ceramic knobs I really love at a garage sale & talked them down to $3 for all 20 of them!

Totally fit what I had in mind. Sometimes life is just awesome like that. Or maybe Heavenly Father even cares about our little temporal wants now and then.

So, for a grand total of about $20, it went from this:

To this: 

 

I like. And I learned. Mission accomplished.

In our most recent house (I just can't use the term 'new' anymore, we've moved too much!), our entry looked like this:

No coat closet (or any closet) anywhere on the bottom floor. I wanted to try my hand with a faux board & batten treatment with hooks, etc., but the landlord was like "yeah, go for it, spend your own money if you want..." So I switched gears & decided to just spruce up the current space & put a little simple creativity to the test.

I painted the shelf white and then did white stripes with the original tan paint as the other color. The baskets were too light so I used some regular wood stain on those and darkened them right up! Mucho better.

I purchased a $3 white shelf (garage sale o' course) with plenty of hooks for coats & then put a couple more sturdy, into-the-studs kind of hooks for the boys' weighty backpacks for the opposite side.

The glass window came from a garage sale and I totally fell when I saw her (can't be a 'he' or an 'it' looking like that!). I'm really digging items that have some history. It means more to me, I guess. The little white plate was going to have a 'welcome' in vinyl on it, but then it broke just barely. Good thing it was only $.50. The Ikea boxwood plant is in an antique berry basket and there are a couple of cute antique books underneath (that you totally can't see, go figure). 

It's a good start. It's all so much cheerier to me now and it sure beats having a big ol' mountain of belongings smack dab in the middle of the floor!