A well travelled dresser

I'm so excited how this dresser turned out! I picked this up off the side of the road a couple weeks ago and it had no knobs and looked as if someone had previously attempted to sand it down. The top was half sanded and was a mess. Once again, I really wish i had of taken a before picture : (

The first thing I did was sand down the faces of the 3 drawers. I knew I wanted to make these look like old crates that had postage stamps and other designs on them. I found the design for the middle drawer on a great site called The Graphics Fairy. After transferring the designs on the bare wood, i went over them with a sharpie marker and sanded them a little to make them look aged. I'll add a link to my DIY projects page for complete instructions. I chose to use Minwax Polyshades in the Natural Pine (looks just like an old crate!) and finished the drawers off with some great handles.

 For the body of the dresser I used Burled Redwood from PPG and mixed it to make my own chalk paint. This turned out to be the PERFECT colour! It's nice and rich, warm, and looks like it has a history. After distressing it with 150 grit sand paper, I sealed it with Minwax Paste Wax.

I couldn't be happier how this turned out! I'm definitely going to try this look on another piece soon : )

A new addition!

I'm just about finished my latest project. This is one of my awesome finds during the curbside giveaway, which means it was free! I already had the paint, so with only spending about $10 for stain and a new brush, it's totally changed. That's definitely my favorite part about furniture flipping, the end result! You can find the Before picture of this desk Here.

After sanding down the top, I used Minwax Polyshades in Antique Walnut. This product is great because it has both the stain and polyurethane in one. Two coats of that was all it needed. Then I mixed up some homemade chalk paint in a nice yellow and green for the body, and then used the dark paste wax for antiquing.

Right now I'm trying to get into the Alderny Farmers Market, I have a meeting next week with the lady in charge of deciding who can be a vender. Hopefully she like my stuff so I can get a tent to display my furniture! *fingers crossed*

New life to old shutters

I found these great shutters at Renovators Resource and thought they would be perfect to make old signs out of! First I mixed some homemade chalk paint in a grey/blue; once that was dry I stenciled on the lettering in an off white. After dry brushing a bright red on the sign, I distressed the whole thing with my electric sander. All I need to do is get a picture hanging kit and it's done!

Detail:

First Re-Upholstered Chair

In my last post I mentioned how I started my first re-upholstery project on a chair I bought for $14.99 at Value Village. Well here are the results! I’m pretty happy with it, considering it was my first attempt at re-upholstery. I probably could have pulled the fabric tighter on the bottom, and the back could have used a little more padding, but I really like how it looks! So without delay, here’s my first re-upholstered chair : )

                

                      Before:                                                                      After:

                                  

Vintage Vanity

This was a vanity that was sitting in my mom's storage for a while, and since she had no room for it, it was given to me! As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I think that's how the best DIY projects come to be. If you have instant inspiration then it has a better chance of being something great!

I really wish I had of taken a 'Before' picture of this, but my camera decided to be a piece of crap before i started. If you can imagine, this was in really hard shape. It was painted white at some point, because there were traces of the old paint in certain areas, but mostly it was just wood. 

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Homemade Chalk Paint

I'm so excited that I found this recipe! Chalk paint can be hard to find (as I have discovered with most things), so this homemade recipe is great since the ingredients are accessible! I purchased the plaster of paris from DeSerres for $7.98/ 2kg bag.