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: