Did it Ourselves: New Nightstand!

This is my first piece of furniture to revamp. Thanks to Miss Pinterest, I found a TUTORIAL on Censational Girl's blog and I followed it EXACTLY. I'll hit the high points here for you, but if this is a project you want to do, she will lead you on the path of painting righteousness.

I picked up this nightstand for $25 at an antique store, and it is a solid wood piece. Mind you, this is a tutorial for PAINTING furniture, not STAINING it. I wanted something more eclectic than a traditional wood stain, so I knew painting was the way to go. You don't actually have to sand your furniture to do this (another reason I didn't want to do a stain), just clean it really good and if you feel like you MUST do some sort of sanding, just grab a piece of whatever you have laying around and go over it lightly. Just remember to clean all the sand-dust off before you prime.

CG says in the TUTORIAL that the right bonding primer is the key - and she is RIGHT about that. She recommends an oil-based Zinsser cover stain and I second that completely.

You can get this stuff at Lowe's or Home Depot. It also comes in a spray version, which is what I got for this project because it's a pretty small piece, and I was really worried about being able to see brush strokes. I did 2 coats of primer on mine. I was nervous when I finished because it didn't look like it covered really well on the bottom shelf, but it turned out fine (especially if you plan on glazing it or distressing it at the end).

After this it's pretty much easy painting. CG says in the TUTORIAL to paint by hand (not spray, unless you have a professional paint sprayer). Get any interior paint you like at Lowes or Home Depot (I like the Behr brand at HD the best), and get a really good brush. Note - it doesn't really matter what finish your paint has because you're going to polyurethane it at the end, and THAT is the shine you'll end up seeing. So it's fine to get the less expensive flat paint!

CG also turned me onto something called Floetrol, a product you mix with your paint to slow drying time and eliminate brush strokes (can also be found at Lowes or HD).

Floetrol is for latex paint, and there's an oil-based paint equivalent called Penetrol that does the same thing. It is a wonderful product and does absolutely everything it claims to do. I will use it on every brush-painting project I do from now on.

Paint your two coats (allow for drying time), and then get ready to glaze! CG has some links on her page for some good glaze tutorials. For mine, I bought a paint sample (you don't need very much actual paint) in brown and a quart of the glaze base (again also bought Behr brand), mixed the two together and followed the instructions on the glaze. It is seriously idiot-proof, you can't mess it up.

Let that dry overnight and then ALWAYS make sure to use polyurethane to protect your project. CG also turned me on to Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic. Buy it in a quart and it'll go a long way. This is also where you select the amount of shine you want. I didn't want my piece to be super glossy because it's kind of rustic, so I went with a satin finish.

I did two coats of it to finish my nightstand, and then added the new drawer hardware (found at Hobby Lobby for $3).

VOILA! Trust me now, if I can do this, anyone can!



Did It Ourselves: Cookie Sheet Crafting

My BFF Cathy (Cat) is a really good Pinterest Pinner. Unlike me (and most of you), she only pins things she has a legitimate interest in pursuing, whether that be a craft, recipe, outfit, whatever. Since I moved away from her last year, a lot of our reunion gatherings have included craft time, which is AWESOME. This allows for simultaneous creating of pretty things while also catching up on happenings back home (with the occasional glass of wine!)

Anyway so in all her brilliance, a few months back Cat came up with this craft idea (I think she got it from Pinterest but I could be wrong. But then again, where did we find crafts before Pinterest??) On one of my home visits we spent a rainy Saturday creating THIS:

Y'all I just have to tell you, this turned out WAY better than I thought and was also WAY easier than I thought to pull off!

Here is what you need:

• cheapest cookie sheet imaginable (just make sure it has sides and if you want handles like the one above, make sure the ends of your cookie sheet are a little wider so you have room to attach them)
• fabric of your choice (We each got a yard, but you can get less if you feel like you are better with measurements than we are. You need enough to cover the front and sides, and an inch or two of overhang on the back/bottom)
• felt (you will use this to cover the bottom. Makes a better sitting-surface than regular fabric. Any color is fine, you won't see it.)
• spray adhesive (get at Hobby Lobby or even Walmart may have it)
• If you want handles, get two drawer pulls at Home Depot or Lowes. Just make sure they aren't wider than the ends of your cookie sheet.
• Gorilla glue (if you're doing handles)

Literally, all you have to do is cut your fabric so that it will wrap around the front/top of your cookie sheet and still leave enough room to slide up and around the sides, and have an inch or two left for the back.

Cover your surface/table with newspaper. Spray glue is about to get everywhere.

The hardest part of this is keeping your fabric straight while you're pressing it onto the cookie sheet to stick. To combat this, we sprayed our cookie sheets in small sections, starting at the center. Press your fabric onto your sections a little at a time, smoothing out any bubbles. Keep going until you've sprayed and covered the front and sides.

Flip your cookie sheet over so that the bottom is facing up. Again start from the center, pulling the fabric toward the center so there aren't any bubbles until it's all been glued down. The corners will look messy becuase you'll have a lot of fabric congregating there. That's ok, you're not going to see them anyway.

Cut your felt in a rectangle that will cover all but an inch around the bottom of your cookie sheet. This should cover any metal still showing and make a smoother-looking edge, because your fabric underneath is probably going to look messy.

Let it all dry really well. If you're doing the handles, use a bit of gorilla glue under each end of your drawer pull and stick them onto the fabric. When you use gorilla glue it's best if you can use a clamp to really push your handles into the glue, but if you don't have a clamp it's ok. Just put pressure on them for a few minutes and it'll be fine. A little bit of that stuff will go a long way, so be careful. Any excess is going to come out from under your handle and it dries in a crunch white-ish consistency that is quite hideous.

Let it sit over night and you should be all set! The only thing I would caution you of is that if you DON'T use the clamps on your handles, don't use them to pick up your tray when it's piled with magazines and whatnots - just pick it up using the cookie sheet ends or the tray itself.

I love this project because the fabric and handles can be totally customized to fit your decor! I use mine as an ottoman tray to hold remotes and magazines and I LOVE IT! And I love that I got make it during craft time with my BFF! I am sure there will be many more cat-crafts to come. :)

Did It Ourselves: Window Cornices

Chad and I bought our first house together in September. Someday I will do an entire post full of "before" photos of this place, but not today. For now I will just say that our Project List for it is about 3 years and too-many-thousand-dollars long. I absolutely love this house and the neighborhood it's in, but the original (1998) brass-tastic trimmings of it have GOT. TO. GO. We're tackling it one yellow-gold project at a time.

One of the easiest things we've done (and one of the only projects I have a before and after pics of) was to build window cornices for our breakfast room. I didn't want curtains in there because there isn't a ton of room between the table and the windows, and I didn't want someone to have to fight a fabric maze just to take the seat on the back side of the table.

Here's what the room looked like when we moved in:

Why yes, that IS fruitly wallpaper, and that is absolutely a green faux marble and brass ceiling fan....in a breakfast room. Does it really get stuffy enough in a breakfast nook to warrant a ceiling fan? Maybe....

Anyway, you will never hear me tell you how to do projects (talk about the blind leading the blind!) - all I can tell you is where I got the dummied down instructions I used to do them. Before we did these cornices we did some other spruce-up work to get us started. Chad the Wonderful actually stripped all this wallpaper the week after we moved in while I was traveling for work, and we painted the walls shortly thereafter. We also tore out that ceiling fan IMMEDIATELY and replaced it with the chandelier that was originally in the big dining room (after it was spray painted of course. More on that to come).

For the cornice project, Miss Pinterest led me to a blog called be.love.create and we followed their instructions as close as we could for this revamp. Go there if this is a project you are thinking about doing. Their tutorial is way better than anything I could ever tell you.

Here is how it ended up. The fabric and batting were a 50% off deal at Hancock Fabrics, and we bought the wood (1'x6"s) at Home Depot. The only thing I would add that wasn't in the tutorial I used is that you need to get upholstery fabric, not just any old thing on a bolt in the store. We got 3 yards for this and it was just the right amount (but then again we had three windows to deal with). Chad the Wonderful built the wood framework and I covered them. Teamwork people!

I think it turned out really well, especially considering the whole project only cost about 80 bucks and only took about 3 hours! Still way cheaper than buying drapes/curtains for 3 windows!

We still have to paint the ceilings in the kitchen but we're at a standstill on that because the living room and kitchen share a ceiling....yet we painted the walls in both rooms very different colors. So we are in a war over which color to lighten up for the ceiling. I will let you know who wins that battle. ;)