Farmhouse Bookshelf

With painting furniture, I tend to look a lot of places for inspiration and ideas. One of those places being Instagram and I found NAK Home pretty early on in my painting hobby. I just loved all the unique pieces she found and her style. She also happens to be one of the sweetest and nicest fellow furniture painters that I have met on there. She would paint some pretty unique bookcases and I loved every single one of them. 

So, for a few years here, I have been on the hunt for one. Not having much luck, mind you. I find mostly pieces here in Wisconsin that are from an entertainment center or meant for a big tube TV. Well my friends, I finally found one! I couldn't believe it when I found it at GW and the price tag was still on there. If there was a prank TV show for furniture finders like myself, I swear I was on it with this piece. For the price and quality of the piece, I was on my furniture high for the rest of the day. Next step was getting it home. I didn't even bother to measure it because I knew I was going to get it home, one way (my SUV) or another (my dad's F150). 

Turns out, it did fit into my SUV, if my front seats are almost all the way forward. We got pretty close on the way home. 

Here is a full view before I did anything:

First, I took off the hardware and the cleaned the entire piece with TSP and some hot water. I was envisioning white for this piece, so I wanted to not have to spray the entire piece with primer. 

I cleaned up the hardware with Bar Keeper's Friend and took a picture this time. Check out this transformation:

This truly amazes me every time. All the tarnish literally just wipes off with a rag and some elbow grease. 

After cleaning, I lightly sanded the bookshelf and then shop-vac'ed it to get the dust off. 

At the ReStore, I found SW Dover White paint in satin, so I decided to mix this up to make some chalk paint for this piece. Think I paid $1 or $2 for an almost full quart of paint. Such a great deal for such an amazing color. I used my HomeRight Finish Max sprayer in my garage to paint.

After the first coat:

One tip for using this sprayer: definitely make sure to do a few test sprays first. Then determine if you need to adjust the amount of paint with the spray control that it is spraying. This will really help you avoid the dreadful drips that magically seem to appear!

Between each coat, I lightly sand with 150-220 grit paper and dust off before the next coat of paint. This will really help you get that smooth finish.

Here it is after about 2.5 coats of paint and some distressing:

I then sprayed on 2 coats of General Finishes HPTC in Satin. I lightly sand after applying this as well. 

Definitely one of my favorite pieces this year!

Thanks so much for reading!

-Shayla

Linked up to: Making It In The Mountains | Chic on a Shoestring

Dresser Turned Entertainment Center w/ Wine Rack

When I bought my condo, I was very fortunate to get an awesome neighbor downstairs who has turned out to be a great friend, almost like a fun second grandpa. I knew we would get along just great when he showed me this amazing old antique lamp that he has had with him for 30+ years. He has full on cable and I don't, so we occasionally watch Flea Market Flip. After seeing my work and some of the fun projects on the show, he asked me to make him an entertainment center with a wine rack. 

So I was on a mission to find the perfect piece for him. I found a great Henredon dresser on CL while perusing it on a Saturday night. Small world, it turned out I knew the person selling it. The next morning, I went to pick it up. And then it sat in my garage for quite awhile. Finally around January, I started working on it.

I had never reconstructed a dresser before. First, I started taking of the back. It had these very old nails in it. Here is a picture as I was taking of the back. I then took out all the drawer slides and stops.

My vision was to buy a big piece of wood that I could slide in through the back to make the shelf for the cable box and router. I found a big piece of wood a Home Depot that would do the trick. I also bought two pieces of wood to cut for the wine rack. My dad came over and helped me cut all the wood. Here is the dresser with the wood piece after it was cut. Had to make sure it fit!

I then sanded everything using my Ryobi sander and stained it all with General Finishes Java Gel Stain. Here are the pieces after they were stained. I absolutely love how the stain really brought out the wood grain.

After this, I sanded down the top and stained that using the Java gel stain. 

Once I was happy with the top, I taped plastic to protect it and began spraying. My neighbor picked out Tuscany Hillside for the color. I used my favorite HomeRight Finish Max Sprayer for this. 

For the two middle drawers, I wanted to keep those wood. so I sanded those down and stained them as well. Here is the before and after.

And there here she is, all finished after I sprayed on topcoat! I used HPTC in satin and also wetsanded the paint prior to spraying on topcoat to try to get that antiqued look. I apologize for the photos, didn't get to bring it to my usual staging spot. 

So happy she is finished and in her new home. My neighbor absolutely loves it. He did eventually hide all his cords, thank goodness. My cord OCD'ness was on high alert. Hope everyone is has a great weekend!

-Shayla

Vintage Bed Frame

With all my furniture projects, I have yet to do a head board, foot board or full bed frame. When my client had asked me to refinish an entire furniture set that included a full bed frame, I couldn't wait! This is part of a three piece set I refinished for the client. Here are the two other pieces from the set. It's so beautiful with all the detail, hoping to find a similar set for myself some day.

All of these pieces were previously painted, in a fun green with a glaze on them. Here is the head board for the bed set before I got started on it.

I lightly sanded to rough up the surface with 100 grit sand paper and then 150. Since this was such a big project with a lot of detail, I opted to use spray primer. This was great, but I did not get enough coverage as I was hoping for. I was hoping to just have to use two cans but ended up using three. Then, I lightly sanded and started spraying. The entire set is General Finishes Antique White milk paint. 

I sprayed every piece with my Home Right Finish Max Sprayer. I absolutely love this thing, best $70 I have spent in a long time. It takes a little getting used to when you convert over from hand painting. For me, it was getting a good idea of how much to really spray in one area to get good coverage and have no drips. I feel like drips just happen sometimes, no matter how hard I try. If this happens, I always let it dry, then start sanding. Usually 100 grit first, then 150 and 220 last to smooth everything out before respraying. The finish I get with a sprayer is amazing. No brush strokes and great coverage.

For the top coat, I used General Finishes HPTC in flat in my sprayer as well. I just love how this set turned out. Can't wait to see a picture once my client has her little girls room all finished.

Thanks so much for reading!

Shayla

Linked up to: The Crowned Goat | Chic On A Shoestring Decorating | A Stroll Thru Life | DIY By Design | AKA Design