Saturday, February 23, 2013

Furniture Facelift Complete

After a couple weekends of work and much hemming and hawing, I have finally finished the makeover of the donated chest of drawers that will go in the guest room.  It has gone from all-black to all-blue with some distressing, to a combination of grey and blue (ASCP French Linen and Duck Egg Blue) that I really like.  I also replaced the drawer pulls with the same style (birdcage) that I used on the side table, to make the piece look slightly less modern and help the two pieces coordinate without being too matchy-matchy.

And....voila!


I am pleased to say that I very much like the piece, which is a good thing considering that I ended up painting and waxing it twice before I found a look that I liked.  All-blue was too vibrant, and the blue is actually fairly similar to the green on the walls (though you can't tell from the photos).  This way there is some bright color, but not too much, and the birdcage pulls lend it a little seriousness.  I was worried two-tone would look too modern, but the drawer pulls really helped! My awesome husband also helped, providing feedback at each stage when I needed a second set of eyes.  And of course, my mother-in-law gave us the furniture in the first place, so I am very grateful for the donation!

We are still working on the guest room.  Nick is taking the pocket doors of the closet down to facilitate repainting of the trim, but they were poorly installed and hence so difficult to get off that we have decided they're not going back on.  We're going to switch to an open concept closet for that room - we never liked those doors anyway,

Next up?  Buying a bed frame for the mattress that used to live in our room but that has been moved to the guest room since we replaced ours.  When budgeting allows, I foresee a trip to Ikea in our future...


Or perhaps we'll build our own, Ana White-style!

There's a Fungus Among Us

We have mushrooms!


 

Say hello to our baby portobello mushrooms, courtesy of the nifty kit my sister-in-law gave us for Christmas.  Nick has been tending to them regularly - he even wrapped a blanket around the box to try and keep it warmer in the closet!  I'm glad he is willing to take care of them, because even though I like eating mushrooms, I think the layer of fuzzy fungus growing over the soil in this box is disgusting and I don't want to have to touch it.  So huzzah for the husband.


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Ups and Downs


It's been a busy weekend for getting work done in the guest room.  We bought a new mattress for ourselves and decided that our previous mattress would move to the guest room.  This meant that I had to get the crown molding painted before arrival of the new mattress Saturday at 11.  Or at least the section in the corner where the bed would be.  But I found myself on a roll painting and taping, and before I knew it I had repainted all of the crown molding.  Then after the bed arrived, I repainted all of the woodwork around the windows too.  Still need to do the doorjamb and the closet frame, but Nick wants to remove the closet doors before I paint so that will have to be another weekend.


 All that pink at the top of the walls?  Gone now.

I also worked on a fair bit of furniture.  Put the finishing touches on the side table with waxing and putting on a new cute birdcage drawer pull (Lowe's - who knew?). 



I opted to paint the inside of the drawer Duck Egg Blue for a pop of color, and I like the contrast!



I am far less pleased with my second painting project.  My mother-in-law donated an old chest of drawers, painted black and a little raggedy, for the guest room.  I decided to paint it the same blue as the inside of the side table/nightstand.  Given that the piece is already a little beat up, I decided to try for the "distressed" look that ASCP (Annie Sloan Chalk Paint) is so famous for facilitating.

Before


I don't have a photo of the whole chest in blue, but suffice to say that I a) don't like the distressed look of blue over black, and b) think that the entire chest in blue is too much.  Back to the drawing board!


Sunday, February 10, 2013

Preparing for Company

The guest room is still a work in progress.  Two weeks later, we are still quite pleased with the Hollingsworth Green color.  This weekend I dug around in the garage, found half a gallon of white semi-gloss paint the previous owners left behind, and repainted the baseboards.


Sadly, the Frog Tape did peel a couple of teensy patches of new paint off the wall, which was probably my fault for not taking it off carefully enough.  But I have plenty of green paint to fix it.  Still need to repaint the crown molding (ugh), as well as the molding around the door, closet door, and windows.

The other weekend project involved furniture painting - hurray!  My mother-in-law suggested that I pick a bedspread for the guest room before picking furniture paint colors.  A good idea, and I thought I had found the perfect bedspread online at Macy's:


But when I went to the store I discovered that the background is taupe, not white or pale grey, and I didn't think it would work with the guest room green.  It might work for our room once repainted blue, though!  My brilliant husband then suggested that I take a look at the pair of extra comforters we already had in the linen closet to see if either of them would work with the green, and lo and behold one does:


I bought this comforter ages ago and still like it.  Various shades of blue and gray with a little bit of pale purplish-pink.  Perhaps a little girly, but not super-feminine, and I figured if I stick to the blues and grays for furniture we can make it work.  Here is a shot of the paint color chart with the comforter.  As you can see, there are quite a few colors that would work.


So...I had a little bit of money left over this month to buy a 4 oz jar of Annie Sloan chalk paint and one of their special paintbrushes.   I spent ages in the store agonizing over colors and finally settled on a lovely color called French Linen; it's a medium grey with some brown in it.  My favorite work khakis are this color, come to think of it.  In the chart above, it is the second column from the left, in the middle.



And here is what I did with it!


Before and After

I am quite excited: I love this color!  It's soothing without being too muted, and it's actually almost the exact same color as the dark grey of the quilt.  The chalk paint was pretty easy to work with, though I have to say that my brush kept shedding bristles into the paint, so I'm going to take it back to the store and see if they will replace it.  Used the entire small jar of paint, but I did do two coats so that's decent coverage.  I painted the drawer as well, though I will paint the inside of the drawer a different color altogether.  Either Provence or Duck Egg Blue, I think...and whichever I choose I will also paint the small bureau that color next month.  Now to replace the drawer pull...