House of FabForLess: April 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Re-did my Re-do!

Yeah, yeah, I know... Where the HECK have I been?!
I totally got sidetracked over Spring Break. I painted my sunroom. From ORANGE to a sea foamy green. I swear
I will get to a post on that next week! That has led to a total snowball of ideas basically consisting of me wanting to completely transform my home from warm tones to cool tones! Oh geez - hold on to your hats!
(and don't mention ANY of this to my hubs!)

So while I get my bearings on that I am going to try and get caught up on some other posts I have been meaning to do! The first of them being my pedestal table that was the start of my chalk paint fetish! Read on!

The first time I ventured into the world of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint I had great aspirations. I bought this little table at
HomeGoods and thought it was the perfect piece to practice on. It was white when I bought it. I wasn't wild about
the etched design on top but thought maybe it would look better once I painted it.
Here is the finished table. My photography skills were seriously lacking in my first few blog posts. I am not even
going to enlarge this because it is so embarrassing looking. I feel bad for it!

Here she is finished. I painted a layer of Florence and then a layer of Arles thinking the Florence would look fab peeking through. The white underneath was not doing it any favors. And I had some trouble getting the hang of waxing! So my finished table had a very uneven look to the sheen. Not good. The whole thing was just a fiasco!

After I got a a little practice painting I went ahead and gave her a makeover-makeover!
She looks SO much better now! Right? (and my photos are coming along as well!)

I used the last bit of my samples of old white and mixed in the last of some Coco. The color is like French Linen minus the gray. I grabbed the stencil from Maisondestencils.com . They have such a nice selection of plastic reusable stencils.

And did you notice? No more etching in the top! I filled it in with some wood filler and
sanded it down nice and smooth. It looks like a completely different table now!

I opted for only a tiny bit of distressing as well. I think I just went overboard the first go 'round!

Here it is in the living room with my newly started gallery wall! Can't wait to get that completed!

I swear I won't disappear again!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

From Plain Pine to French Linen

Hey all!

Where have I been?! I know, right? Well it was Spring Break, and I BRAKED!
Well, I was actually pretty busy at the beginning of the week. Then my in-laws came, and the cold came,
and I just got plain lazy! Plus, we had NO nice sunny days for picture taking.

I am still waiting for Spring to hit Virginia. It looks like we may finally be in for a nice weekend though!

So my last project was my dining room corner cabinet. It was a gift from my parents years ago after I bought
my first home, a townhouse. For some ungodly reason they bought me a unfinished piece. If they did this
NOW I would be uber-excited! But back then I was working full-time and long hours. The last thing I wanted was MORE work. So I had just stained it with I don't even know what! It was quick. It was one step. And it looked fine.

Of course I forgot to take some straight on shots of it BEFORE I started dismantling it for paining...

And then the dining room table looked like this for a week:

Filled with crap! Gah!

I may want to take the wallpaper down in the dining room soon so I wanted to paint the cabinet something

that would work later as well. And I was dying to use my can of Annie Sloan French Linen. I have seen so many pieces

painted in this color and it is just a great neutral.

I had painted two coats. The worked on the cabinet in the dining room. But the doors I took off and had laying

in the family room so I could paint and watch some of my taped "chick" shows that the hubs does not enjoy

watching! (Touch, The Client List and any Real Housewives shows!) So I was oh, so overjoyed when he walked

in and commented "is that primer?". Argh. Usually he knows to ignore that anything is even going on. I mean,

he could walk in and I could be standing on my head and he will not even bat a eye.

Anyway. It WAS looking a bit drab and grey. I started second-guessing my color choice. I added another coat and reattached the doors and let it sit for a couple days. Sometimes you just have to walk away for a day or two and then comeback to a project. I came back and waxed it. Still not happy. So then I added another coat of half wax/half dark wax. THAT was exactly what it needed! Much better.

I left the inside stained wood... for now!

Sorry about the pictures. Between the lack of sun lately, black wallpaper and positioning of my dining room it it SO hard to get a good picture! Look at my cute pup peeking in... He is so scared of the camera. I have no idea why!