Bath Cabinet Update (oh, and a winner....)

Thanks AGAIN for the fabulous comments and new followers! Now don't be shy and send me your projects! I did get a couple of great ones that I'm so excited to show you guys in the next week.

I'm so excited to announce the winner of the first ever (definitely more to come....it was so fun reading everybody's comments!) giveaway! But first.....another great before and after project from one of you!

My friend Anjeanette sent me these pictures and I just have to share them. What an amazing transformation. Here's what she said:

Here's my latest project in my guest bathroom.
I didn't care for the wood finish that was in there, so I decided to change it.


I first sanded it a little, then put a fresh coat of white paint on.

I then glazed it with a brown paint, and wiped it off. I had to sand quite a bit of the brown off to get the look that I wanted. I then brushed on a clear coat of varnish. I then put hardware on them. I think it turned out pretty good.

Yeah, Anj, good is an understatement! I think the white was a total improvement, so I LOVE that you decided to go even a step further and it looks fantastic. GREAT job!

If you have a project or recipe you would like me to post, I would LOVE to share it. Just email me at: ahomeinprogress@gmail.com.

OK, now on to the good stuff.....the winner of the giveaway!

Heather L. said...

Love the little labels! So cute! I'd love to win, thanks for the opportunity =)

Congratulations, Heather! Email me at ahomeinprogress@gmail.com to let me know what kind of labels you want.

Stay tuned, there's more fun coming up this week!

New Life for an Old Hutch

(For those of you who aren't fans of painted wood, this is your warning to look away now. Then again, if you're not a fan of painted wood, I highly doubt you're interested in this blog anyway!)

I love wood. I get that wood purists cringe when something could be salvaged and stained back to a beautiful wood finish. I. get. it. Anyway, this is a painted wood project. If you're a purist, take a deep breath but take a look and see what you think. And then I'm posting something for you later this week where somebody DID bring a wood piece back to life by restoring the wood and it's beautiful, too! There's room for everybody!

So, I've had the same Ikea shelf for the past six years as my bookshelf. It's served it's purposes nicely, but I've dreamed of having a nice hutch or something that made more of an impact in the room for a while.

Enter Craigslist. I scored this piece for $30 from somebody who just wanted it gone. It looks a lot better in the pictures than it did in reality. It was well-used but not anything that I couldn't get past!

I loved the glass cabinet.
And had some nice drawers and covered storage, which is a must in a house
with two toddlers.

It had nice curves.
And the drawers had nice dovetail construction. I know that's a sign of good construction from watching Antiques Roadshow all of my expertise.

I used this tutorial from the Nester. (I am sure you have, but just in case there are a few of you who haven't, please go check out The Nesting Place. It was the very first home design blog I came across in blogland, and her motto of "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful" is just the best.) Anyway, I just LOVED her armoire - the color, the tutorial, everything. And I waited. And waited. And finally the time came for me to paint something that beautiful color (it's Sherwin Williams Halcyon Green).

Since the Nester started out with untreated pine, she just dove right in and DIDN'T sand or prime (since she used paint with primer in one). This wood had definitely been treated before, but I'm sort of a lazy perfectionist, and a detailed sanding just wasn't sounding fun. So, I did a quick sand to rough the surfaces and get out a lot of the nicks and scrapes.


See? Nothing major.

Here's the stuff. Isn't that color awesome? I thought about being original and finding my own color, but why would I when this one is just so perfect???


The color actually looked great with just one coat. I didn't notice a HUGE difference with between lots of prep (sanding, primer) and what I did, which was minimal at best. If this were a piece that would be used and abused more often than this, I probably would've done more.


These slats were soooo difficult to get without drips or goops. Oh well - nothing's perfect in this house (oh, that is such a freeing feeling)!

I added some new hardware, but kept the original hinges.
And here it is in its new home! I only kept the best books that we use and packed the rest in the basement. Inside those drawers are our keys, sunglasses, and odds and ends. Inside the cabinet are all of my kid books and accessories - covered and out of sight! I love it!

Great quick tip: A tip I read somewhere (if you know of who to credit for this, please let me know!) is to take the shiny paper dust jackets off your nice hardback books. I did and it looks so much more cohesive and subdued. And they are the exact same books we had before!

Come back later this week for a before and after where somebody kept the wood - it turned out just as beautiful!

I'm linking this to Kimba's DIY Party at a Soft Place to Land.....go check out some fun projects!

So, are you a painted wood fan or a purist? Does it depend on the piece or the room its for?

A Quick Change

Does anybody else just hate having to decorate that awkward space between the tops of the cabinets and the ceiling in your kitchen? Confession...this is what that space looked like in my kitchen for the first, oh, nine months we were in this house.


Yikes. It was a convenient place to store those nice, big mixing bowls that I only seem to use every year around the holidays. But I didn't LOVE the way it looked. So...my mom came to visit, took me to Hobby Lobby and we came up with this:


Much better!!!! The red vase on the left I already had in my basement, the key-shaped candleholder was on clearance at HobLob for 3 smack-a-roos, and the four plates are actually chargers that were less than 2 bucks a piece.

I have loved having something nice in the area where I spend a LOT of my time during the day! Lately, though, I've just been getting the itch to spray paint SOMETHING (you all know how that feels, right? Right???) and I just wasn't feeling the red of the plates. Too much color, maybe? (Sorry, mom.)

Considering they were $1.75 plastic chargers from Hobby Lobby, I thought "Why not?" and broke out the Rustoleum.



And I have to say, I LOVE the results!!!! Now it looks all white and creamy (much more my style lately) and like nice pieces of china. Extra credit for the Curious George white board on the fridge. Gotta love having toddlers in the house - they have their own decorating style, don't they????

What have you spray painted lately?

Functional Meets...well, Functional

I first saw this idea on the fabulous blog (linked here for your stalking pleasure) How About Orange. I knew I needed a file cabinet - the one little Rubbermaid tote I had been using for all of our personal files/papers since we were a family of two was just not cutting it anymore.

First, I found a DEAL on Craigslist (how much do you love Craigslist? A post devoted to Craigslist/random thrifty finds is forthcoming) for a 4-drawer metal filing cabinet. **THRIFTY TIP ALERT**: A local University was getting rid of surplus office supply-type furniture and had a BUNCH of these cabinets for 10 BUCKS each. Score....

(Full disclosure: I didn't take a before shot of MY actual cabinet, but this is a pretty close idea of what it looked like.)

But it was too....metal. Office-y. So...I got to work.

First, I detached the hardware and sanded that sucker with my trusty hand sander.

Second, it got a nice coat of primer.

Because this filing cabinet would share space with the kids' playroom in the basement, I decided to go a little crazy. I painted the sides of the cabinet with, you guessed it, chalkboard paint.


And since the sides got chalkboard paint, why not do chalkboard labels on the drawers??? (LOVE it...it works perfectly!)


The top, front drawers and back of the cabinet got two nice coats of Rustoleum American Accents Heirloom White.
I also wanted to get rid of that shiny metal look that is standard with most office filing cabinets. I couldn't find the Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint that many of my blogging idols swear by, but I did like what I ended up using. It is Krylon Brushed Metallic spray paint and it worked like a charm.

(I was a little antsy to take the tape off around the hardware that couldn't be removed, so it's not perfect - but neither am I and a little touch of imperfection helps it fit right in at my house!)

I am so excited about how this turned out - it's totally functional for our family as a place to keep track of all of our important stuff and it's totally functional as a play piece for my kids as it resides in the basement with the rest of the toys.


Linked up to Kimba's DIY party at A Soft Place to Land. If you've never visited her, you must! And take a look at other great DIY projects!

You CAN Do It!

Hello Living with Lindsay readers! I'm so glad you're here. Read on to get the specifics of my table re-do, but make sure to click over here to enter a small little giveaway!

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We have had the same counter-height dining room table for the last four years. But with two toddlers, the table has taken a beating. Plus the shiny, brown veneer just is not my THING anymore!

Because our table was cheap not solid wood, I had been hesitant to change it to something I loved. Then this post from Living With Lindsay (such a fun site, you must visit) on how to paint laminate furniture (what??!?) inspired me. I CAN DO IT! And you can do it, too.

First, though, I must give you the before pictures (in all their embarrassing glory):

It's just so wrong.

Oy.

This picture makes the table look lighter than it really is, but I used my flash so you could really see the table and all of the scratchy loveliness. Okay, that's enough of that.

After a lot of work and patience, here's what my table looks like today!



OK, not really - here's what my table really looks like today (just keeping it real, here. Have I mentioned I have two toddlers in my house?)

So.....here's the step-by-step (based off the instructions from Lindsay in post I linked above. I'm telling you check her out)!

1. REMOVE cushions by unscrewing them from the chair and gag as you see the stains.


2. LIGHTLY sand the table, being careful to not sand into the particle board if your table isn't solid wood. I used a palm sander for the flat surfaces and legs, and then hand sanded the harder to reach crevices. (Those cross backs on the chairs were KILLER.)


3. PRIME the table and chairs. I used Zinnser BIN Primer and was very pleased with the results. In the interest of imparting lessons learned (I'm a NEWBIE, remember?) I did NOT have the primer tinted (DUH!) and so covering the white was a bit....tedious. If you are planning on painting your piece a darker color, see if tinting the primer is a possibility.



4. PAINT the table and chairs. The hubby and I used a foam roller for every part we could and used bristle brushes for the chair backs. I did three (or four) THIN coats of red (Ralph Lauren Hunting Coat Red) allowing lots of dry time between coats. Then I did three (or four) thin coats of black (Ralph Lauren Black Truffles) again allowing for lots of dry time between coats. I wasn't AS careful to get in all of the crevices with the black paint, since I had planned on distressing it to show some of the red underneath anyway. (Plus I was REALLY sick of those cross-backs, have I mentioned that?)


5. DISTRESS the table and chairs. This was the fun part (for me). I used a fine-grit sandpaper and lightly sanded the edges of the surface of the table and the legs of the table. I also did the edges and legs of the chairs. Just wherever it felt right. In THEORY, the black was supposed to sand away to reveal the red underneath, like so:


In actuality, sometimes the red was sanded off with the black, revealing my non-tinted (see step 3) white primer. It still looks fine, I just wanted to share what REALLY happened during the distressing process! (This is all about sharing and learning, remember?)

6. PROTECT the surface by using a polyurethane top coat, applied with a bristle brush NOT a foam roller (don't ask how I know this). A top coat was especially important for my project because it was a dining room table that would be used heavily (see above pictures) and wiped frequently. I used a semi-gloss poly, because I didn't want the look of the shiny veneer back.

7. ALLOW ample dry-time before moving the piece back inside and using it daily.

So, what do you think? Are you inspired to tackle some of your not-in-love-with-it-but-can-I-paint-it pieces? If you are, PLEASE send us the results!

Up next: recovering the chair cushions (easy peasy).

I'm (attempting) to link up to Kimba's DIY party at A Soft Place to Land. If you've never visited her, you must! And take a look at other great DIY projects!