Monday, January 12, 2015

Progress Report

In an effort to jump back in to blogging (has it really been this long?) I'm updating the ole blog with some current photos of the house. This isn't the bedrooms though. Mainly the living areas. We have completed many a DIY project during my blogging hiatus and hopefully I can return with some more details on those soon. I found a few Before shots that I threw in to compare but not all have one.

I took these photos months ago and I'm noticing that I've already changed some of these rooms up a little since then! We also gave Ella a big girl room but I'll do a separate post for that one. We are in the middle of a makeover in the master bedroom as well so stay tuned for those details.

Foyer - Current

Office - Before

Office/Craft Room - In Progress
Dining Room - Before

Dining Room - In Progress

Hall Bath - Almost finished

Laundry Room
"Mud Room" in Laundry Room
Kids Bathroom - Before

Kids Bathroom - Current
Kids Bathroom - Current


Kids Bathroom
Kitchen - Before


Kitchen - In Progress

Kitchen - In Progress
Kitchen - In Progress

Kitchen - In Progress
Living Room - Before

Living Room - Current

Living Room

Living Room
Playroom - Before

Playroom - Current



Playroom - Before

Playroom - Current

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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Bold & Gold in the Foyer

One of the areas of our home I just tackled in the last couple of weeks is our foyer. Why not start the blog back with right inside the front door?

Here is the shot from move in day, Feb 2012.


Here is what it looked like when I last posted. After moving in, we basically just plopped our bombe chest down in the middle of the foyer wall, threw a few things on top and called it a day...or a year.


I know, how drab does the chest look? Admittedly, the picture itself is dark so it makes the chest darker but whatevs, it was still drabby :) We bought that piece about a year after we got married for our second home because I had to have a bombe chest. I saw one for the first time at a model home and fell in love with the shape. So when we spotted this one about 7 years ago, it came home with us.

I was never crazy about the color or the painted flowers but hey, I was a newlywed with a small budget. I wasn't too picky.

Over the years though my tastes have changed and when we moved into this house, I knew I wanted to paint this a bright bold color to pop off the neutral surroundings.

And about a year and a half later, I did just that.

Here is our after shot of the painted bombe and revamped foyer area. Deets below. I apologize for the picture being a little blown out.



As for the bombe, we painted it with Behr's Peacock Feather and I cleaned up and polished the original hardware with Brasso and then went over it with Rub'n Buff. Brasso works great but they were still a little too dark but the Rub'n Buff made them nice and bright and gold. On top I added a new lamp from HomeGoods and a few accessories. The vase is from the thrift store and I got the inspiration for the painted gold stripes from Kate over at Centsational Girl

One thing I decided would look better was to shift the bombe down slightly and add another little cute nook beside it. The mirror and chair worked perfectly. The gold mirror was a thrift store find that I cleaned and went over with Rub'n Buff.


The chair is one you might remember from this makeover and was originally in my office/craft room. I've had plans to recover it for a while now and this was finally an excuse to get it done. I had planned to paint the chair kelly green to go with this navy striped fabric but I'm afraid it might be overkill next to the peacock blue bombe. I'm still thinking about it though...I just bought another chair from the thrift store yesterday to replace this one in the office so it may be turning green instead. As for the gold detail, I painted it with Gold Leaf paint. It took several coats but worked like a charm. 



Of course we need the side by side before and after too.


And just for fun, another Before & After from move in day to now.


Feeling like home :)

One other quick source. The rugs are these runners from West Elm that we scored on sale.

Let's cross our fingers I will be back SOON with another post :)

Laura
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Remember Me?

Okay, I have no idea why I haven't posted anything in almost a year. Oh wait, I had a new baby and the extra time to blog somehow disappeared. Life with two kids is much busier! I'm really really hoping I can get the blog up and going again as I have so much to share! We have completed lots of projects around the house and hopefully I can start posting about them soon.

Wish me luck!

Laura
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Monday, August 13, 2012

Baby Girl Nursery: Room Reveal #1

My sweet husband and I have been tackling several projects around the house and we finally have a room that is complete...well, mostly. I'm the type of person who always has something I could change or add to a room.

Several rooms have just a few things left before I show them on the blog so one by one I will be doing a Room Reveal series of our progress.

First up is our sweet girl's nursery. She may be 3 1/2 months old but by golly I'm just glad we finished it before her first birthday :)

This post will have just the reveal photos and then I will be back with a detail & source post soon.

Here she is!





















How about a little Before and After, shall we?

This is how the room looked when we moved in...

 

And After!


























Geez, sometimes I wish it was as easy as a click of the mouse to have a Before & After room. But that's all part of the fun. We worked hard in here and it paid off. I just love it so much and I hope our sweet girl does too!

Here's a few more!






A follow-up post to come soon with details of her space. Stay tuned!

Linking up here!

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Friday, June 22, 2012

Refinished Dresser

Good, I kept my word. I'm back with another post and it's not three months later :)

I knew I wanted to find baby girl an antique dresser as soon as we bought her crib. We lucked up and located a crib on Craigslist. Now here me out on this one. We didn't buy some nasty old bed for our precious little angel to sleep in. We browsed the baby furniture shops and the beds we liked were of course way too expensive for us. So after a day of window shopping, I decided to try Craigslist for this particular bed we liked - and there was one! It's this Bratt Decor Venetian Crib in antique white (I will have photos of it soon when I show her completed room). We went and checked it out first and the family was super sweet and their little girl had only used it for a year. We met her too and she was a doll. Anyway, they had the bed all set up and we looked it over really well and it was very sturdy and there was not a scratch to be found. And one of the pluses of a cast iron crib, no bite marks either. So anyway, we took it off their hands for half of the retail cost. Cha-ching!

But more on the crib later. Wasn't this post supposed to be about a dresser?

The search was on for an antique dresser that would compliment her crib. We looked at a few antique shops that had a few pieces already refinished but none that I really loved. Not to mention I could not find one that was the color I wanted and since the price of refinished furniture is already higher, I didn't want to put too much cost into something that I was going to change anyway.

After a trip to a local flea market (Gardendale Flea Market for anyone in Birmingham), I found this dresser sitting with a $100 price tag. Pardon the iphone pic.


I looked it over really well and it was in great shape. The drawers slid out nicely too. That's always something to check when looking at older pieces. I decided to see if I could get it for any less so the nice people at the flea market put in a call to the vendor and he said $85 was the best he could do - sold.  I thought it was a great deal for such a heavy, nice piece. It just needed a little love in the looks department.

We bought this while we were staying at my parents house during the interim of moving out of our old house and before finding our new one so it sat for a bit. Once we moved in the new house and settled down some it was time to waddle my pregnant self out to the garage to work on this baby. 

First thing was to remove all the drawers and hardware. 

My plan was to sand down the top portion and restain it and then paint the remaining portion an antique white to match the crib. The previous owners of our house left several cans of leftover paint and stain and wouldn't you know they left the color stain I wanted for this - Minwax Dark Walnut. Since that part was taken care of it was off to Lowe's to buy paint. I simply took the top finial from the crib and color matched for the perfect paint color. I used Valspar's Pontoon White in a semi-gloss finish.

My sweet husband did all the sanding for me with the power sander. For your FYI it does take a little bit of time to get it all off. And your hand may or may not shake for 30 minutes after you finish. But hey, my hubs is a sweetie and doesn't mind :) 

There was a small place at the back of the dresser that was messed up but a little wood filler took care of it. 

After cleaning the entire dresser like a crazy, nesting pregnant woman, (oh wait, that's what I was) I got to work priming. I decide to paint first before staining since I figured I was more likely to get paint on the top of the piece than to get stain on the paint. Make sense? Probably not. Anyway, moving on. I used my Zinnser oil based primer which does a great job.

These are the three products I used on the base of the dresser.


After sanding and priming.



After the primer dried for 24 hours I went back with the paint. I used Centsational Girl's recommedation for Floetrol (photo up above), which is a paint conditioner that you add to latex paint. It helps give a smoother finish which is great when you hand brush like I did. I was very pleased with it. I also went ahead and bought a good brush (Purdy) and it definitely made a difference. Its worth the extra money.

Here it is after painting two coats and sanding lightly in between each coat. Be sure you wipe it down before applying another coat of paint.


Next was the stain. This was my first time to stain a piece and it was actually very easy! I used a 2 inch foam brush and applied a nice even coat along the top. Then I waited about 20 minutes and removed the excess liquid by wiping it down carefully. I wanted a nice dark stain so that's why I left it on there so long. And that was it!

After the stain was dry I applied two coats of polycrylic to protect the surface and give it a nice sheen.

This is the stain and poly I used. I used the poly on the base of the dresser as well.



Then it was time to focus on the hardware. I liked the look of the original hardware but it was very dull and gross. I washed it all with soap and hot water and then cleaned each piece of it with Brasso to remove the yuckiness and restore it to its original color.

Here is some before and after using the Brasso. Yeah, much better. As you can see from the nasty paper towels, those things had gunk all over them.


And although they looked much better, it still did not have the look I envisioned.

So I decided to go with some ORB (oil-rubbed bronze) spray paint.

Tip: If you need to spray paint small screws, an easy trick is to stick them down in styrofoam so you can cover them easily with paint.


Once everything cured up for a few days I put all the hardware back on and it was moved up to the nursery. 

One more of the Before...


And After!





I was nice and gave you a sneak peek of the nursery. Hopefully I can have finished nursery photos up soon! 

So that's my long tale of refinishing a dresser. It took some time and hard work but I'm glad I was able to do this for her. 

More projects coming soon!

Linking up here!


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