Floating Petals Dresser

I am so excited with how this project turned out! Just to refresh your memory, this is an antique dresser that I bought off of Craigslist for $35.00. 

I loved the style and the charming wood  casters on the bottom.  However, the veneer was bubbling and peeling and needed to come off.

I took a heat gun and a putty scraper and removed the veneer from the bottom three drawers and the top of the dresser. It came off quite quickly on two of the drawers, rather it just snapped, and broke off. It was the same situation with the top of the dresser. The third drawer required more work. After removing the veneer, I had to use the heat gun and putty knife once again to scrape and remove the Hyde glue. I neglected to take a picture of this process.

The veneer was fine on the sides of the dresser. I opted to give it a good sanding all over, then primed it with some primer I had on hand. I also went over individual areas with  Kilz Oil Based Spray Primer which always provides great coverage!

I decided that I would decoupage some fabric to the front of the drawers, but was undecided as to what color to use and what style. After weeks of searching, I was drawn to the home decor fabric, Waverly Floating Petals in Blue, that I spotted at my local JoAnn's. Lucky for me, it was 40% off that day and I bought a yard. 

I measured and cut  the fabric  all the way around, so that it was about 1/2" larger than the front of the drawer. I then placed the fabric on some wax paper, and applied Mod Podge to the entire front side of the fabric and allowed it to dry.

 This was so that it would be easier to cut, and not fray when I went to resize it. This was a tip that I picked up from the blog, Mod Podge Rocks!  One thing that I neglected to do, but should have done in hindsight, was to wash the fabric first so that it would have shrunk up a bit.

The next step was to apply Mod Podge to the drawer front, place the fabric on top, smooth any bubbles and let it dry.

Once it was dried, I turn the drawer upside down, with the fabric on top of a cutting board, and took an Exacto knife and cut around the edge of the drawer front to trim off the excess fabric. I initially tried a rotary cutting tool, but couldn't get the angle and found that the Exacto knife worked better.

Then I applied 3 layers of Mod Podge glue  to the top of the fabric to seal it. I let it dry between each coat, and used a damp rag to smooth out any bubbles I came across.  Had I prewashed the fabric, I am certain that I would have had less issues with the bubbles and the fabric stretching as much as it did.

The top drawer got a coat of Rustoleum's Slate Blue, as well as the drawer pulls on the three bottom drawers. I opted to use the existing hardware since I liked them initially. The drawer pulls on the top drawer were painted white to give it a contrast from the blue, and the entire dresser was just painted with a white latex semi-gloss paint that I had on hand from a project I had done two years ago.

So here it is all finished!

I am pleased with how it turned out. It does have a few bubbles here and there, but I know what to do differently next time.

Here is a  close up of the knobs.

Happy to be done with this one, and happy with where my creativity lead me.

Linking to:

Meringue Dresser

Dresser #1 is done! I told you that I was on a mad dash to get some projects done!

So here is the Craigslist dresser before:

I stripped the paint off of the tops and sides, before I decided I was too tired and lazy to do anymore.

So it got primed with some Kilz Primer, sanded, and then painted with Krylon Indoor-Outdoor Spray Paint - Satin Meringue.

And VOILA!

Here it is!

This  dresser went in my youngest daughter's room. There was a bit of a shadow when I took the picture, hence the darker color towards the bottom of the picture.  Her room is decorated in greens, pinks and yellows. The storage book bin, was the blue one that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I spray painted it with Krylon's Ballet Slipper and put some books in it.

The knobs on the drawers, I hand painted different designs with some acrylic paint to give it some character.

Then I outlined the details with a black fine point Sharpie Marker.

I like how it turned out. What do you think?

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall.

Once again, here is the mirror that I picked up at the Goodwill this past Monday for just $9.99. Heavy mirror, plastic frame.

A little bit of primer, some paint, and a bit of distressing, and it was good to go! I hung it in my dining room. It really opens things up quite a bit.

The chandelier shades, I started tweaking last night. I may have something ready to reveal there as well, soon!

But that's it for now.

Cost:

$9.99 for mirror.

Had primer, paint and sandpaper on hand.

Linking to:

Debbiedoos Before and After Party.

A Partridge... Not in a pear tree.

This one's for the birds.

Inspired by all of those lovely spray painted ceramic birds out there floating around in Blog land, I have been collecting a few birds here and there. It seems that there is no shortage of partridges... particularly this variety.

I paid .75 for both of these guys at a garage sale, brought them home, and with a little bit of spray paint, transformed them into this:

Then this partridge here,

Was transformed as well, into this bird here.

And as a brief side note, I thought I would talk about my tchotchkes in this corner.  The plate stand was $2.99 and came from the GoodWill a few years ago. The plates are from St. Vinny's and were only .49 each. The silver candlestick was $1.00 at a garage sale. The lead crystal candy dish was a wedding gift, from 16 years ago. That thing ALWAYS stays out, and typically is filled with candy or gum. Just ask any friend or family member that knows me. LOL. The Gorham Lead Crystal salt and pepper shakers were also a wedding gift. They are pretty, but I have never put salt and pepper in them. They came from a dear friend. The  floral "thing" came from Big Lots last year and was $5.00.  The candles I had on hand and the other candle holder came from Goodwill and was .50! The table my dad made for me several years ago. It was a honey oak color, and I painted it white a few months ago. 

O.K.... back to the birds.

I have no before pictures of this next guy, but he was also spray painted.

And this rather innocent looking owl was .75 at a thrift store and way too cute to paint. He didn't get painted. My youngest daughter, aged 9, is a crack up. We were at a local hardware store the other day and I was in the garden area. I saw a couple of very large plastic birds, one was a hawk and the other was an owl. They were ugly, tacky and meant to serve as a decoy to keep rodents and other pests away from your garden. Nonetheless, I was a bit intrigued by them, thought they were tacky as well and just picked the owl up to look at it.

My 9 year old piped right up. "No MORE birds Mom! We have all these birds in our house and they are just sitting there. Just sitting there staring at our guests. It's creepy."

I stifled a giggle and explained to her that I was NOT going to buy this bird.

She's not a fan of the birds I guess.

I'm linking to:

Light Revival

I love those projects that can be completed in a day. It's even better if it involves  spray paint!  It's instant gratification. Kind of like vacuuming. Vacuuming the carpets always makes the room look instantly better. Vacuuming and mowing the lawn are my two favorite chores. I like the lines in the carpet, the lines in the grass. That fresh cut look, or that freshly cleaned look.

Having said that, after working on the front door, and seeing how much better it was looking, my eye naturally gravitated upwards.

Yes, up to this eyesore.

An outdated, brassy coach lantern style light, mounted on the exterior of our house. And dirty at that! We have four of them. One is located next to the front entry, two on either side of the garage doors, and one on the back patio.

Yes, something needed to be done and I knew I could accomplish it with a can of Rustoleum black spray paint.

Hubby removed the fixtures, and I got to work pulling them apart and cleaning them. Some were worse than others...

as was the case of this nasty dirty fixture that was on the front of the garage. Hope you are still with me and today's breakfast or lunch didn't just come up.

Hardware was removed, light was taken apart and cleaned. I even took some compressed air and sprayed out the dead bug guts from the areas that I couldn't  reach.

Everything got a good coat of spray paint, including the little bits of hardware, and then the lights were remounted.

Ta Da!

Much better! Cost of this project? Approximately $9.00 which included spray paint and a can of compressed air for 4 light fixtures. The cost to replace this exact type of light fixture? Approximately $15.00 per light  X 4 light fixtures = $60.00.

That's $51.00 still in my pocket.

Fixtures were updated, I saved some money on NOT buying new and they were saved from being sent to Goodwill.

Linking to:

Shabby Nest Frugal Friday

 

The Evolution of a Little Table

Remember the little pink table I picked up about a month ago at a garage sale for $4.00?

I finally finished it.

It was a pain in the butt.

I spent WAAAAAAAAAAY more time on it than I should have.

First I decided to strip it... don't ask me why. The brush strokes were awful and it was sloppily put together. There was no way I could get the little crystal knobs off of the drawer, so I had to get creative.

So I spent a lot of time stripping the paint of first the pink, then grey, then blue - green layers, and finally a thick layer of shellac came off last.

I sanded it and  pulled out my Dremel to get in the grooves, all for a clean finish. I should have just primed the whole thing, did some light sanding, painted it and called it good.

But I didn't.

My obsessive nature kicked into overdrive... in a big way.

This is what it looked like all stripped down to the bare wood.

Nothing overly special.

This is what the little drawer looked like before it was cleaned up and primed.

The screws at the end of the knobs had been flattened and as hard as I tried, there was no way to cut them off , or undo them since the center of the knob was similar to a nail.  So I clean them up as well as I could and taped them off with painter's tape so I could work on the rest and paint around thm.

Here it is primed... ah, that's a bit better.

I might mention that this drawer is unique in that it goes all the way through and you can open it from either side.

Then the table was primed with Kilz primer.

Then spray painted with Heirloom white, a piece of scrap book paper was decoupaged on top, but not without ruining another piece of paper first. Something was missing, so I distressed the edges a bit.

It sat like that for a day or two. I didn't like it. Something was missing.

So I grabbed some Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze and spray painted it another color.

Then I put yet another piece of paper on top to decoupage, and added a rub on detail to the front beneath the door.  It was something that I picked up at the thrift store.

Only  now the paper was bubbling and not sticking and it was just generally having lots of issues. So it was ripped off and painted over again and a few more embellishments were added to the plain blue  top.

It's finally done enough that I can leave it alone.

I call it my Tiffany table because between the crystal knobs and the color of blue, it reminds me of the signature colors of the famed jewelry store, Tiffany & Co.

Here is a close up of the drawer and the detail.

Fun little table, but I spent way too much time on this one. Obviously, the blue looks different indoors as opposed to the outdoors.

This will go in my oldest daughter's bedroom for a little nightstand.

I do have to say that it was fun painting a piece of furniture without using a shade of white in the final finish!

Linking to:

You Light Up My Life

Nothing like a cheesy 70's song to get the theme of this post going. No offense if that is one of your favorites. ;-)

Today's theme is transforming mismatched candlesticks to give them a sense of cohesiveness in a grouping.

This particular candlestick I picked up at garage sale a month ago for $1.00.

The Magic of Spray Paint

I found these ugly 80's inspired plastic wall sconces at St. Vincent de Paul a few weeks ago. For $1.00 I thought it would be fun to see if I could transform them into something usable.  What did I have to lose? 

So after cleaning them up, priming them and giving them a couple of coats of Heirloom White, this is what I ended up with! I am liking the new wall accents for my front entry.

I may change out the candles for a brighter red. It's all about seeing the potential and what something COULD be when you cast your eyes upon that garish object at the thrift store.

I'm linking this to Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest