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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Accessorizing the Dining Room

As my dining room is beginning to pull together, I am starting to accessorize.  I always seem to fall apart when it comes to accessorizing because of the cost.  Cute things usually cost money....money that I would rather put into crown molding or a gallon of paint.

So I decided to shop around my house...

The first thing that I found was this old crate that I made last year from pallet wood.

Truly, there was no real measuring involved.  I used a hand saw to whack apart the

pallet, lined up the closest shape to a rectangle and ask hubby to 

pound the nails.

The crate has been sitting empty until my hubby decided to have a "storm" party the

other evening.  We were under a tornado watch for about 8 hours of the day, so

he felt we needed to celebrate?

As we were sitting there drinking our Fizze soda playing {arguing over!} Uno Spin, I gasped and yelled..."No one throw away your bottles!!"  Yep....soda bottles that were headed for the recycling became filler for my crate.

The flowers were originally part of my spring mantel and I just ripped them apart

into individual stems....the whole project was FREE!!!!

My walls have been a bit more challenging.  I've been pinning plate wall ideas to 

my dining room Pinterest board.  One of the ideas that I saw was

to hang plates with a paper clip, felt and a glue gun!

I decided to try it.  I took my $1.50 Goodwill plate, a piece of felt, a paper clip 

and guess what.....it worked!!

 I just keep stopping in our local Goodwill and Thrift store and pick up 

white plates for $0.50 or so and add them to my wall!

I am determined to spend as little money as possible for as big a result as possible!!

I'd like to put up the chair rail before I show you an "after" photos!

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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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Dining Room Chairs....

 

Remember how I found these dining room chairs at the Habitat Restore for $60?  I am working on transforming them with a little bit of homemade chalkpaint....

I took some sand paper and started the distressing.....6 chairs + 1 table adds up to a lot of painting and distressing!

I ripped off the disgusting seat covers...

When I am doing a project and I need to keep track of screws, I always put them in a baggie and tape them to my piece....

I recovered the seats with drop cloth....the same material that I used to slipcover my wing back chair......

{Notice.....I didn't finish the legs yet???}

I love the look of faux grain sacks....

{source}

I plan to add the faux grain sack stripe to the seats, I just have to first decide on a paint color for the walls......which may take another 5 years!

Although.....would a scroll-ish stencil in white look good??

Still painting....

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Dining room....progress??

Way back when.....I embarked on a project.....the week before Thanksgiving I decided to "redo" my dining room....what a DISASTER that was!

It didn't start badly...in fact, I really like my Craig's List hutch that I painted with homemade chalkpaint....

I also like my Habitat Restore chandelier that got a new life with a little bit of spraypaint....

The disaster was (and still is!) the paint....

In fact.....I am so paralyzed by the paint color that I've been ignoring the room for 2 months now....I just can't pick a color.  I'm not sure what is wrong with me.....maybe it's the fact that I  had FOUR colors on the wall in a span of 1 week??

The other problem was that I had a dining room table and no chairs.....it's a long, confusing story, but I sold the chairs on Craig's List because at the

time I had no dining room....it was a school room.....but then the flood came....and we redid our basement and I moved our classroom to the basement.....told you it was confusing!

So I was left with a table that I hauled out of our basement and no chairs....

But I recently saw these on our Habitat Restore Facebook page....

They were $10/chair and there were SIX of them!!  I tried to bargain them down, but it didn't happen....$60 for 6 solid wood chairs is a good deal, I guess....

I still have no idea what to do with the walls.....but I know what I'm going to do with these chairs!  It involves homemade chalkpaint, drop cloth and faux grain sacks!!

I'll keep you posted!

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Chandelier. . . .

1 Habitat Restore Chandelier + 1 can of Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze Spraypaint =

1 "Brand New" Chandelier

The End!

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Paint disaster. . . .

I have heard of painting disasters.....I've just never experience one until now....when I decide 10 DAYS before hosting my family for Thanksgiving to completely change a room!!

It all started with a can of free paint.....I took it to my True Value to have it tinted, but it was the wrong base for the color I had chosen....what can 2 extra drops of black do to a color anyway??

A LOT!!

It wasn't as much the color issue, but the coverage issue....I felt like I was painting with WATER!  

I have never experienced this......the above picture was after at least TWO coats!!  After 4 on the one wall, I decided to go back to my True Value and purchase the paint with the primer.


Mistake #2.....I panicked.  I had picked a very soft yellow, but because I was having so much difficulty with coverage, I picked a darker soft yellow....

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but the new color SCREAMED "I'M YELLOW!!"

I had now invested 7 coats and a $30 can of paint that I didn't want to purchase......I was hyperventilating....and acting a little crabby...

I went to my neighbor's house to get away from the yellow and walked into her dining room and said....this is more the color that I was going for.  She replied by saying that they still had their 5 gallon can of the paint leftover in their basement.


I texted her before she went out-of-town the next morning and grabbed her 5 gallon can of paint...


Problem #649???  The paint had been sitting in her basement for about 3 years and had a serious case of the CLUMPS!!!

UGH!!!  What should have been quick and easy....and more than enough paint to cover became a game of rolling and picking out the latex clumps and praying that God would multiply that paint like He did the loaves and the fishes! (seriously.....I was!)

I'm not sure if I will ever have "finished" pictures for you.......

This still isn't the color that I have in my mind, but it will work for now......my overall plan is to add chair rail and faux boxes on the white part of the wall....but we've just been struck with the stomach flu....

I may just paint the whole room black.....

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French-inspired Craig's list hutch. . . .

The dining room saga....was I even sane thinking that I could pull off a room flip a week and a half before Thanksgiving???  I'll be sharing with you later my paint disaster.....because I'm still somewhat in the middle of it!

I found this hutch for the dining room on Craig's list.......I've been stalking Craig's list for a couple of months.....

I sold a pair of these the same day, so it was basically an even swap.... 

Wanting to save time and money, I mixed my own chalk paint. I used the recipe from Kim at Too Much Time On My Hands.  This recipe works great!

1 1/2 cups of paint 
1/2 cup of Plaster of Paris
1/2 cup of water.

I mixed it all in a washed out applesauce jar....be sure to shake it well!

As I continue to work with chalk paint, I am beginning to understand it better. One thing that I am learning is that you don't necessarily want complete coverage...

I did add a second coat to this (and then a third, but I shouldn't have!).  I ended up sanding off most of the third coat....

Before I got to this point, I had moments of extreme panic.....it looked terrible!  I thought for sure that I had ruined this piece of furniture!

One of my favorite parts is hidden inside the hutch......beadboard wallpaper and thrift store glass!!

I had leftover beadboard wallpaper, so I lined the back and side with the wallpaper!

I bought the glass dishes (with the exception of my Grandma's cake stand!) at the Goodwill for 50 cents each! Some were even half-price!!

I love how the hutch turned out....the color on the walls.....still giving me fits.....

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