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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Hutch Makeover

I recently had the opportunity to refinish a few pieces

of furniture for a friend.  I forgot to take before pictures, but

here are some of the afters.

This was just your average pine hutch....the back was wobbly and it

had wooden knobs to match.

My Dad helped with this project....he actually did a lot of the work!

First he took a $15 piece of wood from Lowe's and cut it to fit the entire back.

This made the whole piece more solid and less wobbly.

Then he primed it with a sprayer and  sprayed two coats of an

off-white satin paint by Behr.

I complained to him because my job was to come in and distress it...he

did such a good job painting, I had a hard time taking the paint off!

After taking a hand sander, I added one coat of Satin water-based polyurethane

sealer and some snazzy new knobs....

I didn't want to give this piece back!

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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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Side Table Makeover. . . .

Well.....I am just not totally pleased with this project....I tried making my own chalk paint and I'm not quite sure that I did it correctly....

I started with this stand.....it has drawers, I was just too lazy to put them in for the picture!

Her older "sister" was this junked dresser......

Yep....big sis is a lot cuter.....biggest reason for this....I took my time with the dresser and did a lot of sanding!

I also did some guessing with my homemade chalkpaint recipe...since I had never seen chalkpaint prior to this, I wasn't confident as to what the consistency should be.

I couldn't find calcium carbonate anywhere, so I went with plaster of paris.  Here is a link to another chalkpaint recipe from Too Much Time on my Hands.  When I try this again, I am going to use Kim's recipe!

I don't think that chalkpaint is supposed to leave such a streaky first coat....

I am thinking that I may try this again.....I'm probably going to sand down the top and try staining it like I did with the dresser and paint over the distressing.  

I'm going to add glass knobs and finish the inside of the drawers with some mod podge over the fabric.

Any suggestions??

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