Painting The Infamous Bass Boat Green Front Door RED!

When we moved  into our house much improvement was needed. I so desperately wish I had taken pictures of the house before I got to it... Our bedroom has four walls, two of which were a DARK hunter green color and the other two were a sage green. I don't know if they just couldn't agree on a color so they painted both of them... hmm... Then our master bath(barf)room was painted a really BRIGHT indigo green color- like so bright it hurt your eyes- especially when the sun was coming through the window. It was just HIDEOUS! 

I digress. 

Our front door was the same story. It was what Trevor and I liked to call "Bass boat green" it had a glittery finish and everything. Whenever I would be talking to someone at church and they would ask where we lived, I would try to tell them, when they would cut me off and say "Oh, the house with the green door!" true story. It was at that moment that I KNEW it had to go. How embarrassing. 

So a couple months ago I got so DARN tired of it that I took it off it's hinges and carried it out to the yard and tackled it with 4 cans of Rustoleum's Colonial Red spray paint. No primer. Sanding that thing would have been a joke- it was the type of surface that would just laugh at me if I even attempted to. When Trevor came home from work the deed had already been done and I was just in the finishing stages of trying to put the hinges and fixtures back on it. He couldn't believe I had done it by myself. Psh... Please, I've got some serious muscle on this 5'3" body no one should ever underestimate. 

Here's the infamous door...

 Can you see the "Glittery" finish?? Well it was there, I'm not pulling your leg.

I chose red because, according to Feng Shui it brings "Money" ;) A girl can dream can't she??

After the red had dried I sprayed over it with a clear coat polyurethane (it was still drying-thats why it looks uneven). 

Ahhhhhh..... So much better.

Dresser For James

James' room is rather small. He had a large tall chest of drawers and a nightstand that were taking up too much space and I wanted something more accessible for him- he's become rather helpful these days in cleaning up and getting clothes out to wear. So I found a dresser on KSL for $50, it was PERFECT! Solid wood, all of the drawers worked great and it had lovely lines to go with it! It was however missing a lot of the hardware, so I got the lady to go down to $40 for me. Here's the before:

I spray painted all the pulls Rust-Oleum's Warm Yellow (leftover from another project)

I bought these ones at Home Depot- they matched the old pulls style perfectly.

    In case you were wondering what color I used this is it:

After: 

 By the way-- the center drawer is missing a pull because it doesn't fit the standard size, so until I find one that fits it, it's just going to stay like this...

                                                            

           

Calendar Board Made Into A Sign

Remember my post about my $1 junk find turned into treasure? Well, I decided to make that calendar board into a sign for my kitchen. I found a vinyl sticker at Target, and the moment I saw it I knew I HAD to have it! It came with a pretty expensive price so I held off on buying it... for a couple of weeks anyway... I finally caved in and bought it today and I knew JUST where it was going to go!

Oh, and by the way- I almost NEVER use a ruler or a measuring tape in my projects, I just "eye" everything, it drives my husband insane- once I even used a cup of water to see if a shelf I was hanging was level enough---  I really am a lazy person... This was the same story- no ruler no measuring tape- I think it looks just fine (don't ask my husband though)

And there you have it. I have some BIG plans for the space above my cabinets so don't think it's going to stay ugly like that for long. It will be a fun project when I get to it! ;)

Antique Buffet!

So I'm sure you all remember this:

Well, sadly it had to go... My husband was convinced that it was too close to the thermostat so it was preventing the thermostat from an accurate reading--- so basically we would wake up in the morning chattering our teeth because it was so cold! I put my Microwave stand/Junk collector on KSL and it sold the very next day. The lady that bought it was SOO excited to get it- she just kept saying "This thing is just SO cute!" I felt good knowing that it was going to a home where it would be appreciated.

That very same day I was browsing through my KSL classifieds and an old beat up antique buffet caught my eye. It was listed for $180--- I thought to myself "It will NEVER sell with a price like that" It had been online for 8 days and it certainly wasn't going anywhere. So I texted the seller and asked them if they were willing to come down to a MUCH more reasonable price. They responded with "Yes... what were you thinking?" to that I replied "The very best I can do is $65" They were probably a little frustrated so they didn't respond for several hours. I sent a follow-up text asking if they had thought about it and their response was "$85 and it's yours" I knew I wasn't going to pay $85 for it but I arranged a time to come look at it/pick it up. We got to the house and it was a lady who had inherited a bunch of old furniture from her Great-Grandma and she was hocking all of it for ridiculous prices on KSL. So I gave the Buffet a thorough looking and I simply said: "I'm going to be honest with you- this thing is extremely beat up. If it was in better condition MAYBE you could get $100 out of it, but I wouldn't feel good about even $85. I have $60 cash out in the truck- that's all I'm willing to do." she thought about it for a minute and hesitantly said "Okay."

I don't feel like I got a fantastic deal at $60 but it had a lot of potential and character and I was willing to put in the work to make it beautiful again. But what I learned is that I'm a dang good haggler!!! :D

Here's my beautiful buffet:

I'm 99% sure it was out in the weather for a good part of it's life- this thing has taken a serious beating.

 I love the curves!

So, lets just get this out here in the open. I'm lazy. I don't like sanding or priming or anything that should probably be done when restoring furniture... with that said, I am actually glad that I didn't get all crazy on this piece- I like that it has character and I wanted to leave some of that intact. I didn't want to paint over ALL of the wood so I left the top alone and went over it with some Minwax polyshades antique walnut- it's stain and polyurathane all in one and I loved how it turned out, the pictures are very difficult to see the wood-  but really, it's beautiful.

Here's the buffet after:

Before:

After:

IT'S DONE!!

I just finished painting up an antique buffet I bought last week--- here's the catch, I can't find my camera cord!!! So no pictures but as soon as I find it I will post them!!

A Headboard For The Cozy Guest Bedroom

I did this project a few weeks ago when we had family in town. We have an extremely SMALL cozy guest bedroom so I was trying to think of ways to best use my limited amount of space. I had the idea of getting a headboard for the bed that had a shelf on it so we wouldn't have to take up any floor space with a nightstand. I found this on KSL for $30.

 I painted it white with Kilz and distressed it (this seems to be my standard for everything these days!)

Don't judge me. I have SOOO much more work to do on this bedroom- it's a work in progress. I will show you the before and after pictures when I finally tackle it.

{From junk to treasure}

Remember this?

I picked it up at a yard sale for a $1.00. I took some spray paint and a hand sander to it and look what happened!

I think it turned out nicely, and I love the blue color that came out with the sanding!