Showing posts with label furniture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label furniture. Show all posts

Monday, March 14, 2011

Kitchen Table Redo

Written by Shannon Leigh

Two weeks ago, on a whim, I decided to repaint our kitchen table and chairs.

This particular table wasn't always ours (like ALL of our furniture).
It was my parents' table.
It was the table I ate on growing up.
It could tell many tales of homework fights and glasses of spilled milk.

My mom painted it white and black a few years ago (it was oak- I think).
When they bought a new table they gave us this one because it had leafs.
Our old one was just a small round table that wasn't expandable.

The multi colored chairs were my sister Morgan's from her first kitchen.
They were a garage sale find and she painted them white.
I painted them the lego colors (yeah, not my best move). IMG_9542
{before}

They were supposed to look Pottery Barn-esq.
They didn't.
However, they stayed that way for 3 1/2 years.
I painted them on the patio in our first apartment, leaving a giant colorful paint mark on the concrete.
Oops.
(Matt had an absolute fit if you can believe it).

I told Matt after the first coat of white paint went on the chairs "It's like we are painting over an era."
I'm slightly on the sentimental side.

We primed the table with oil based primer and then painted it with semi gloss latex.
We then polyurethaned the whole thing for a shine and protection.
It makes it look much more modern.
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{in progress- Matt and I decided the green on the chairs looked too country}

We decided to go with a more modern looking brown fabric on the chairs and I'm so glad we did.
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I am pleased with the overall result. We thought about just buying new chairs (these have been through the ringer) but we really want to save our money for more pressing projects, new chairs are expensive!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

New TV Stand

Written by Shannon Leigh

I am considering this piece a semi-success.

I don't LOVE it but I think I sort of like it. There are somethings that I like about it and there are some things I really hate. I will explain.

Here's the before. I forgot to take a picture of it with all of the drawers, but you get the idea. It also had a cabinet on top (you already heard about what an utter failure THAT was).
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Here's the after.
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Things I like:
-The size
-The storage
-The height
-The hardware

Things I don't like:
- I don't like the color of white I chose... I think it's too white. I wish I would have gone darker.
- I don't HATE the black glaze on it but I'm not crazy about the glaze with the color of white I chose. I feel like it looks dirty instead of "aged." It's my first time glazing... so maybe I should have gone a bit darker?
- I don't LOVE the shape- I tend to like more girly stuff with long legs and curves. This piece is pretty masculine. That being said I think it works well with all of the other girly pieces around the room.

Something I really love is the hardware! This one was a head scratcher at first.
I really liked the shape of the hardware but I didn't really like the color. They were brass and not in great shape. I've spray painted in the past and I haven't been thrilled with the results. So I wanted to try something else.
So I did some research and found out that I could darken real brass to give it that aged look. PERFECT, just what I was looking for.
First I had to see if they were really brass. I did a few tests and had a strong feeling they were in fact brass. I then soaked them in TSP and a laquer thinner.
I then dipped them in brass darkening solution. It's simple! You just soak them until they reach the desired color... I wanted mine almost black so I soaked them for about 7 or 8 minutes. I rinsed and washed them in baking soda to stop the acid and viola- "aged bras."

If you want some of the brass to come through you can steal wool the surface. I chose not to but maybe I'll try that for another project.

Here's the before and after.
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Over all the project cost around $175 bucks (not bad considering the one I really want from Pottery Barn is $1700). The piece itself (with the cabinet on top) was $125 at a thrift store. The paint and supplies was about $60 and the brass darkening solution was $15.

I suppose it will do for now.

Now onto the NEXT project.