Distressed Chalkpaint Corner Hutch

I shared earlier with you about my first experience bidding in a silent auction and 

how I had to outbid a sweet little grandpa for this hutch....

She was a beauty wasn't she!  I had some friends scratching their heads as to

why I was nervously bidding on this piece, but I had a vision!

And here's what I saw in my head....

My photos don't really capture her in all of her glory, but she IS a beauty!

I made my own chalkpaint and painted and distressed her.  

I even added a topcoat of Annie Sloan's wax.  

The round knobs are just spraypainted with black spraypaint and I bought inexpensive

black handles for the drawers at my True Value hardware store.

I took the glass out of the doors and went to my shed for some chicken wire which I just stapled right to the back of the doors....cobwebs and all!  

I mixed up some more homemade chalkpaint and using a sample can of paint, I painted the inside a pretty blue color.  I've been using sample cans more often for smaller projects.  

I realize that there are not hardeners in sample cans, but if the painted area is not going to get heavy wear, the DIY chalkpaint recipe helps it to hold up!

I've had some major scores recently at Goodwill and have been outfitting the hutch with white dishes.  I got the soup tureen for $5.00!!! Woohoo!!  

I think that I skipped out of the Goodwill that day!

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Faux Grainsack Dining Room Chairs

I am so excited now that the pieces of my dining room are starting to fall into place.

I originally purchased the chairs from the Habitat 

Restore....remember what they looked like?

They were a lovely shade of.....BROWN!!

For their new look, I was inspired my THIS pin from my dining room pinterest board.  I used homemade chalkpaint that I had on-hand, leftover dropcloth from my slipcovering projects and leftover gray paint from our basement remodel.   

Voila.....

.....a whole new look!

I decided to make each chair seat a different "grain sack."

I used a foam brush, painter's tape and gray latex paint.  I wasn't overly concerned 

about perfection.  In reality, these are dining room chairs....there 

will be spillage, it's just a fact of my life!

Using materials that I had on-hand, the cost of this project was.....FREE!

All the materials that I used were leftover from other projects!

Total Project Cost:  $60/cost of 6 chairs

One more project check off my list....only a thousand more to go!

Partying at Beneath My Heart!

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Dining Room Peek...

The saga of the dining room may be coming to a close....

I have been pinning like crazy to my Dining Room Pinterest board and
one picture in particular has been providing inspiration...

{Source}

Have you discovered The 36th AVENUE?  I LOVE this blog.  
Her rooms are simple, bright and beautiful!


So...I have been painting, Craig's-listing, dreaming and pinning!


The first thing that I did was list this hutch on Craig's list...

As much as I liked it, it was just not working in the space.  I had painted it a pale
blue and found that I was planning the whole room around a color that I just didn't love.


I flipped that piece of furniture for this piece of furniture....

Can you see the potential with me??? {as well as my vacuum cleaner in the reflection..oops!}


I have never bought anything at an auction before and I saw this at a
youth mission trip fundraising auction....talk about stressful!


If was me verses a 75 year old man for this piece.....UGH!  But, I won!!

A lot of people gave me that raised eyebrow..."What are you thinking" look, as 
I hauled away my loot, but here is a sneak peek of what I've been doing with it....

I am just GIDDY with how it is looking!

As for wall paint...I have my color picked and am waiting for 9 AM tomorrow when

True Value paint goes on sale...Buy One Get One FREE!!!!  I have a 

whole LIST of paint that I am planning to buy this week!

My goal this summer is to finish all my half-completed projects with the dining 

room taking priority.

I finished painting and distressing my Craig's List Dining Room chairs today.

It has only taken me, what...six months???

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My 20 hour coffee table redo...

Well...maybe it wasn't exactly 20 hours, but it sure wasn't ONE!!

I love the blog Dear Lillie....I hate to admit that I kind've stalk her.....not really, but

I do look forward to that RSS feed email telling me that she has posted something new!

When I saw her coffee table redo, it provided me with the inspiration to finally

make over my ugly coffee table!

 I wouldn't say that I am finished....I need to do some more distressing and

I'd like to cut a board to go under the table so that I can add cool looking

baskets to hide more JUNK!!!

But, for now, it's good enough!

And here's a fun little before....

and after...

Have you ever underestimated the time spent on a project??

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My One Hour Project....Ha!

This project was supposed to take one hour...I was going to quickly paint the legs and

sand off the top and stain it...an hour, that's all I thought that it would take!

UGH!!  Did I miscalculate!!

I originally hauled this baby out of the garbage....it was lovely in all it's 70's wood glory!

So, I painted over it in black....

Then, I got tired of black and painted over it in cream with a coat of stain overtop.

Yep...you can see ALL the colors that it's been!  It was in BAD shape!

I started by sanding it....and sanding it....and sanding it.....

I wasn't getting through the layers of paint, so I decided to chemically strip it...BAD IDEA!!

I will NEVER again chemically strip a piece of furniture....it turned into a gooey nightmare!!

I called my Mom in a panic because she has stripped furniture before...what had 

I gotten myself into???

HOURS later, I had it "clean" enough to sand...isn't that where I had started???

I had a little bit of dark walnut sitting on the shelf, so I started staining.  


I just use an old t-shirt to apply the stain.

I'll show you later this week how it turned out....but let's just
say that it's take a little more than an hour!!

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Laundry Room

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my laundry room makeover at Craft-o-manic.


What I didn't share was that the whole project started here.....

I was only going to "reorganize" this shelf...HA!  I added shelf paper and then 
I found about 1/3 a gallon of paint leftover from my kitchen makeover.....INSPIRATION!

Here are some "before" pictures of my laundry room....the color was called latte, but it reminded me of sitting inside a cup of lukewarm hot cocoa.....but it had been leftover (and free!), so I used it!

You can see white spots where I used to have wire shelving....I ran out of paint and wasn't able to touch up those spots when we added built-in shelving a couple of year ago....those spots drove me crazy!

So here's the reveal.....all that this makeover involved was leftover paint, one roll of beadboard wallpaper, and some foam chair rail and trim!

I love the response of my one son....he walks into the laundry room, turns around and says, "Did we get new lights in here??"  Uhm...no......did you miss the other changes??

My total cost was $30.00!

 Beadboard wallpaper:  $15.00 available at Lowe's 

Brushes and rollers: $5.00 

1 piece of foam chair rail:  $7.00 at Carter Lumber

1 piece of foam trim:  $3.00 at Carter Lumber

Wood shelf: FREE!  Wood just sitting around

Everything else:  FREE!  


I just shopped my house for the blue mason jars and

rustic key holder.

And because we all love before and after shots...

Truly...you are able to make BIG changes to your home for very little money!

Now....if I could just magically find a free can of paint that's the perfect
color for my dining room!  


Yes....I still haven't decided on a color yet and it's driving me crazy!!
 


Linking up to:  Beneath My Heart

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Come see my laundry room....

Today I am doing my first guest posting for Jen over at Craft-o-maniac.

I am the DIY/Decorating contributor...which I truly find quite amazing since

most of my "decorating" consists of spraypainting something from Goodwill!

I was pretty stressed about what to submit for my first project....I had a bunch 

of ideas floating in my head, but just couldn't focus....

During all of this I decided to organize a shelf in my laundry room where

I found some left over paint from my kitchen redo!  

I was suddenly inspired AND I didn't have to spend much money!!

Here's a picture of my laundry room "before"....

If you want to see the "after", you'll have to visit Craft-o-maniac!

 

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