Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Buffet turned TV Console

We had been going back and forth about whether or not we wanted to hang the television on the wall or get an entertainment center for it. While I was scoping out my favorite thrift store on 1/2 price day for VIP's (yes, I'm a VIP at my thrift store...and proud of it!) I found this beauty. I thought we could take out the top two drawers and be able to put our dish box and dvd player in there, then the rest of the drawers can hold all the other things that are usually laying out all over a family room.

I decided this would be the perfect project to use annie sloan chalk paint (ASCP) for the first time on. I've always used the latex paint, which has been great, but ASCP allows you to paint almost anything without having to sand and/or prime it first. Well, let me tell you that it IS as amazing as everyone says it is! I used Primer Red which is a barn style red since that's my accent color in the family room.

It seemed so weird to just take my paint brush out and start painting without doing anything to it first, except wipe the dust off of it.

This is the first coat. It took two coats then I put two coats of minwax finishing paste on it for extra protection since it'll be a high traffic piece.

I bought new hardware for it. Since each knob was almost $5.00 (gasp) I didn't get knobs for the top drawers since they'll be removed anyway. Once I get it all set up I'll post a picture, but here it is finished!

Best part is it only took up about 1/4 of my paint! So the $37 quart paint will go a long, long way!

My first solid piece of furniture...black distressed

This was my first solid piece of furniture that I took on as a project. Lane brand, solid wood spectacular find for $30! I knew I wanted to try out distressing, but I wanted to use regular latex black paint instead of the expensive chalk paint first just to see if I would even like doing these sort of project.

I didn't document as well as I should've as far as products used, but I basically sanded, primed, distressed, painted, distressed, then used a wood color pen to color the distressed areas. Well, technically, my niece primed it for me, and painted it for me. But in between the priming and painting, I roughed it up with some sand paper around the edges/corners. Then she painted it black and I roughed it up again with some sand paper (very light grit). Then I took a wood color pen and colored in the parts that I had sanded so it looked like the wood showing through instead of white or light colored wood.

The gold latch is to keep the little ones out. I haven't decided yet if I want to paint the hardware brass or paint the brass a different color. You know, brass is back! Not sure how I feel about that yet. I think a little bit excited.

My first furniture piece...a cheapo Ikea dresser

My very first piece of furniture that I wanted to paint was this Ikea dresser. This was before I discovered 1/2 price days at the Thrift Store. But, regardless, I already owned this dresser so I thought I might as well work with it.

First things first...Primer. Now, I bought the Zinnser primer that says you don't have to sand before priming. I was a little hesitate about that, but it actually worked! So far it was going good. Now, I always lift my furniture up on boards to get it off the floor so you can paint all the way down easily. So when you go to get your supplies, buy a couple of boards too.

I used a cheap brush to get the crevices first, then rolled the primer on. Here is the dress fully primed and halfway painted. (Remember, I wasn't documenting as well then)

I used a Valspar color on this that I bought from the return section for $5.00/gallon. You hardly use any paint when painting furniture so you should never need more than a quart...which could probably paint 5 of these.

Here's the finished product:

Here it is in Gabe's room! I want to get some airplane knobs to put on it, but haven't gotten around to that yet. (Christmas gift maybe...hint, hint family) :)

Kitchen Renovation...in Progress

It could take a month, it could take 3 months, it could take 2 years....but it WILL get done! Ha. So we started the reno the last week of June. First on the list was painting the kitchen cabinets. Here are some pictures and step by step instructions on how we did that.

Here is the kitchen on inspection day. Basically...this was a very hip kitchen at some point (back in the mid 90's I'm guessing) and I knew right away that I'd be able to do an inexpensive reno as soon as I saw what I had to work with. 

 Your first thought about this oven/range is probably the same as mine was...."well I'd get rid of that right away!" However, after cooking with it I've become quite attached to the quality of it. If I wanted to replace this with a comparable one today it would cost me probably close to the $3500-$5000 mark. That's not happening. So, for now, it's staying.

Let the games begin! I can't believe that my kitchen ever looked like this. It felt like we had just moved in all over again. Notice there's a new fridge. We bought that the day we closed on the house. It was an absolute must.

Ryan got to sanding. First things first. We removed all the cabinet doors and sanded those with the hand sander (we thought the orbit sander might be too harsh on them). After he got what he could, he handed it off to me to use sandpaper in the cracks and then to clean all the mess off the doors.

Let me begin this by saying that there was a HUGE stipulation in painting our cabinets. I absolutely DID NOT want them to show the oak lines through the paint! I was so fixated on that, that I spent endless hours researching what method to use. Alot of bloggers kept saying only Oil based paint would get that look, but I really didn't want to work with oil based paint. So, what do I do when I fixate on something so much that it consumes my life...I pray. And what happened, God answered (as usual). I showed up at Sherwin (with a cabinet door) with just a tiny clue of the method I was going to use. And low and behold, three guys were in there sitting around after a long day of work just chatting when they noticed my cabinet door. Long story short...two of them were professional contractors that paint or refinish cabintry for a living and the other one was the employee who was very knowledgable in the field. Now, I'm not about to bash on the big department stores because I frequent them for EVERYTHING, but when you have an important job (like changing the look of your entire kitchen) to do you probably want to consult the experts. So, they were very kind and basically all they needed to know from me was the color I wanted to paint them. The employee tinted my primer the same color as my paint, which is of course, Alabaster (same color I've used for all my doors and trim). They walked me around the store handing me all the supplies I needed. And, guess what, it also happened to be 40% off weekend!! Woo Hoo!! God is good! I highly recommend waiting for the sale, because the gallon of paint alone is about $80. I got a gallon of primer, gallon of paint and 4 rollers and some sand paper for $80! Was so excited!

Now onto step 2...finally. After we sanded and cleaned up really good, we put our first layer of Primer on. Now...this is a very important step. If by some chance you're primer isn't soaking into the wood like it should then your cabinets might have been painted or stained with an oil based paint at some point. If all of that oil wasn't sanded off during the sanding stages then you will NOT get the finish you're looking for. You'll need to stop priming and sand some more.

The primer I used was Sherwin Williams Multi Purpose Latex Primer (below in blue can)

We laid sheets of drywall down in our garage and put nails in it to hold the cabinets up off the ground. This is the first coat of primer on the top of the cabinets. Once dried (2-3 hours) we flipped and primed the back side of the cabinets.

In between coats we unloaded everything from the kitchen cabinets (that we had just unpacked a couple of months earlier...and everyone knows that unpacking the kitchen is the most daunting part of unpacking!) Anyway, we (Ryan) sanded down the wood as good as 'we' could in here. It was such a mess! Then we primed everything that we could in here. Two layers of primer, just like the cabinets.

Now time to paint! I used Sherwin's SuperPaint (blue can below) in a satin finish. I'm very happy with the color. Ben Moore also has amazing quality and some great choices, but I had actually seen the Alabaster on someone's cabinets so I knew first hand that I wanted it.

Here's the front of the door freshly painted.

About two weeks later we decided it was time to tackle the crown. Not a job we were looking forward to. We decided to reuse the existing crown and add some wood in between to bring the crown all the way up to the ceiling.

Here's my guy being, well, my guy! This is really why I DIY...shirtless hubby doing projects around the house! Woo Hoo! (He would kill me if he knew I put this on here)

Here's the board that we're attaching to the top of the cabinets.

Now some would look at this and think "how in the world are they going to pull this mess together?" I know this because the first time my guy put up crown, I thought the same thing.

AND HERE IT IS (still in progress)!!!....

Look at it...all pulled together. Nice job hubs!

Now what kind of person would I be to not give you a close up of the cabinet???

Do you see any signs of oak lines anywhere??? NOPE!

By the way, I spray painted the brass knobs that were already on the doors (well, I took them off to paint them). I couldn't make a decision on what I wanted, so until I do, I thought I'd go this route. Looks pretty good....but it isn't durable. It will chip.

Next on the list...the backsplash! Not sure when we'll get around to that, but at least I've picked it out.  

Here is our backsplash:

Not sure if you can tell, but it's sort of an aqua blue clear color. Very subtle. Love it! It's a lighter color of blue that we have on our walls.

The counter tops are just going to have to stay the same until we get the other things done. It will probably be a few months (which means after football season) before we tackle those. And by "we" I mean whatever company we decide to use to install them. That is definitely not something we can do. I can tell you that I want a lighter color. Stay tuned for more progress.

So just to recap on the steps:

Prep:

-Set up your painting area (we used the sheetrock to hold the doors in the garage)

-Number your cabinet doors as you take them off so you know where they go (I used tape)

-Sand

-Clean

-Prime the front of door FIRST (use paint brush in crevices, then roller)

-Dry for 2-3 hours

-Flip and prime back of door

-Dry for 2-3 hours

-Flip and prime front of door again

-Dry for 2-3 hours

-Flip and paint the back of door (yes, I only used one coat of primer on inside of doors)

-Dry for 2-3 hours

-Flip and paint the front of the cabinet. Very important that you use your paint brush first to get in the cracks and try not to have any paint built up anywhere. Then use the roller to get a nice even look.

-Let dry completely and reinstall the doors. Now....be prepare to get some smudge marks on your freshly painted doors from the hardware when reinstalling. Have some touch up paint near by.

Tip: If you do get some paint or primer built up, then just sand it down a little bit and re paint that area. Some of the doors I did a light sand job in between the primer coats just to make sure it was even. Not neccesary but where there seemed to be some unevenness (is that a word?) I thought it'd be good.

I think that's it. And all for $80! Let's see a before and after:



Our Home....A Labor of Love in Progress

I wanted an easy way to capture the journey of renovating our home so this seemed to be the best idea. We moved in the first week of May, and it had been vacant since last September, so there have been many projects just to make it liveable again that we've been working on. The first thing I did was paint the ceilings. The first thing Ryan did was tackle the leaves from the fall that were killing the grass. In the last couple of months we've really just made it "move in ready". Now the fun really begins as we get to start doing special projects along and along, like adding crown, moldings, picture framing, board & batton, built ins, etc. So these pictures show we've come a long way since we moved in, but I'll be adding as we do projects.

Here it is two months after we moved in. We have alot of plans for the exterior, but we'll get to those later down the road. 

Here it was BEFORE we moved in: 

It was a little sad, but nothing that Ryan and I couldn't handle! We were ready for a challenge and had been praying for the diamond in the rough. This was it!

It was easy to fall for the backyard. Love having all this space with little boys. These were all taken before we moved in.

Here is the master bedroom before. We loved this room from the moment we walked in because you can see the lake from these windows.

And here it is after we painted and put our furniture in. This is the same color we used in the dining room. Benjamin Moore Montpelier.

This is the before of Gabe's Room

And this is after. The is also Ben's Moore Montpelier, but we added a quart of white paint to it to lighten it up.

Here is the hall bath upstairs before: Pink walls and a hole where the medicine cabinet was??? The vanity was new, which was a score. And the flooring is a nice tile so the bones were great for this room!

And here it is after!

The medicine cabinet was a huge hole in the wall. We thought about patching it, but with little kids it's nice to have a space up high to keep bathroom items out of reach.

This is the guest room's before:

Again, loved the view! Love that all our rooms either overlook the lake or our backyard.

Here it is after: This is my favorite neutral wall color: Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. That side table was a thrift find that I painted to spice up an area.

This is the half bath on the main level before:

And here it is now with a fresh coat of paint and new light fixture, towel ring and a temporary mirror. We eventually want to switch out the vanity, but again, that'll be sometime down the road when I happen to see the right piece come along. For now it's in the process of being painted. Pics to follow

On to the playroom...or as the amazing guys that helped us move in called it, the Yo Gabba Gabba room! Before (the owner ended up taking the red couch, which I was a little bummed about):

After: Painted same color as Gabe's room.

I have some big plans down the road for this room.

Here is the before of the dining room:

And, here it is two months after we closed. Trim and bottom half is painted Sherwin Williams Alabaster. The blue is Benjamin Moore Montpelier. Table and chairs, Crate and Barrel. Curtains are Waverly. Black distressed buffet/table is my thrift store $30 find that I painted and distressed. Still lots more to decorate, but it'll be filled over time as I find the perfect piece for each space.

Stairway and Entryway before we moved in:

Here it is after. I painted the walls Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. I painted the railing the same color as all of my trim and doors, Sherwin Williams Alabaster. I have more pictures to add at some point.

This is the living room before. We're currently using it as our family room, as you can see in the after photos, but until we get our family room furniture, this will stay set up like this.

Kind of felt bad painting over this because I'm sure it took them a long time to do. You can see the oak railing in the back ground.

Here is the temporary after. Painted Ben Moore Revere Pewter. Curtains are from Ikea. We plan to get rid of this furniture and put a couple of lounge chairs and a writing desk with some built ins in this room.

And now for the kitchen. We're currently renovating it...and that's all I have to say about that. Ha. No, but seriously, this is super insanely time consuming, tiring and challenging to say the least. It's been non-stop work for a week around here and we've only finished the cabinets. Huge accomplishment, but now it just makes me ready to finish the backspash and the countertops even more than before the cabinets were done. Here are some before pictures of the kitchen and the progression of the renovation.

And here it is with a little progress:

Other rooms we're still working on are the office, nursery, family room, master bath room and back yard.

Here are the before's of those rooms:

Family Room off the kitchen. Please remember this was before we painted it. I'll have after pictures up soon. We ordered our sofa today so hopefully this room will come to life in about 8 weeks.

 

UPDATE: 10/2012-Family room is still a work in progress, here is an updated picture with paint job and couch. I'll post a more finished product shortly.

 

This is our office before the move in. We've since painted it and I'll post pictures soon.

Perfect size nursery! We've already painted this room too, but everytime I think about taking a picture of it the baby is in it sleeping.

So many projects...but we love every minute of it! Stay tuned for more!