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

Farmhouse Side Table

You've probably noticed that I haven't posted in a few months on here. 

I have still been finding pieces and projects, but have not had much motivation to actually work on them. For this, I am attributing it to my new real-world job that I started last November. It has certainly been keeping me busy, but for the rest of the year, I am making a dedicated effort to work on projects for the rest of the year. When I was really working on this, I couldn't wait to get out of work to go home to work on this. I missed that little bit of excitement in my nights and now it is back!

Anyways, so with this table, found it as a local Goodwill. Like I do with all my projects, I fall in line with all the details, original hardware and great lines. It was also marked as solid mahogany. It was pretty scratched up, had collected quite a few dust bunnies and looked like some sort of liquid has been dropped on it. 

So to start, I started with my Shop-Vac (Christmas gift from my dad from 2014, thank you Dad!) and go rid of the bunnies and spider webs. Next, I used mixed TSP and hot water to wash it down. I was really hoping this would clean whatever liquid had dropped on this table so I wouldn't get any bleed through in the paint. Then, I lightly sanded with 150 grit sand paper and gave it one final sweep with the Shop-Vac. Here she was before I started painting. 

My eye usually only sees in neutral colors, so of course I wanted to go white for this table. I decided to use Behr's New House White. For my projects, I have been using Behr paint for quite some time. Behr Premium Plus Ultra has always been my preference for the specific product, in hopes that it will really block stains. For this project, I wanted chalk paint so I could distress it. I used the same recipe that I have always used, one part water and one part Plaster of Paris mixed first, then three parts paint. Works like a charm every time.

So I start spraying with my Home Right Finish Max sprayer and get the first coat on. Within a few minutes, I could already see the bleed through [insert sad face here]. From my experience, there are just some stains that come through no matter what. That is when I go to Zinsser Shellac primer in the spray can form. I have used this on multiple projects and it has blocked every single stain, absolutely love it and highly recommend. They occasionally go on sale at Home Depot, so I usually try to get quite a few when they do. 

Then, the table just needed two more coats of paint to get full coverage. Here is a sneak peak after I did some slight distressing:

One part of this table that I did not take pictures of before/during/after that I am sad about is the hardware. It was so tarnished, but had such great character. So one morning as I was getting ready for work, I put the pieces in a bowl and sprayed on the liquid form of Barkeepers Friend. It sat for probably about 20 minutes. Then I washed it all off with a scrubby and couldn't believe how the hardware looked brand new again. Pictures next time for sure. 

Then to seal the table, I sprayed on General Finish HPTC in Satin. Here is the final table, I absolutely love it. Can't wait to start on some more projects again. 

What do you all think? 

Thanks so much for reading, hope everyone is enjoying 2017 so far!

-Shayla

Linked up to: Making It In The Mountains

Two Matching Bookcases

Ok, I know I say this a lot, but I think these might possibly be my favorites thus far. Or at least until I paint something next. I picked up these beautiful bookcases from a local Goodwill. One of them was broken, but I used some handy dandy wood glue and my brad nailer/compressor to get it back together.

Luckily everything was mostly still in tact. I love all the detail on these, I couldn't wait to get started. I first cleaned them with TSP, hot water and rag. They were pretty dusty, old, full of cobwebs and definitely had the antique smell going on. Here they are after I got them all fixed and cleaned up:

I wanted to use these as my nightstands, so next it was onto find a color that would go with my bedroom. I narrowed it down to these two Behr colors:

Flint Smoke ended up being my final decision. I wanted a light greyish/blue to pick up on the rest of the color in my bedroom. Now, they were ready to paint!

I sprayed these with my HomeRight Finish Sprayer knowing that all the beautiful detail would be very hard and time consuming to hand paint. I mixed up my paint with Plaster of Paris and water to make the good ol' homemade chalk paint recipe and got to spraying. In between coats, I lightly sanded with 220 grit sand paper and then would vacuum the dust off. I then sealed them with General Finishes HPTC in satin. 

I absolutely love them! Without the paint sprayer, I never would have even thought about touching these with a paint brush. If you are on the fence about getting a sprayer because of whatever your reason is, just get one! It is honestly life changing and will save you a ton of time and you will get a perfect finish on whatever you decide to use it on. 

Thanks so much for reading and happy holidays!

-Shayla


Linked up to: Making It In The Mountains

How To White Wash - A Nightstand Redo

Recently, I have had a little obsession with whitewashing. It started small when working on my signs from Board & Brush. It was appealing to me because I started trying it on a small surface and then this weekend, I got the bright idea to try it on a piece of furniture. This nightstand came from a local thrift store here in Wisconsin, something like this. 

I just loved all the great curves and details of this little piece. It was calling my name, like a lot of pieces do. So into my car it went. Kristen @ NAK Home recently tried FolkArt's Home Decor chalk paint from Joann's in black, so I thought I would give it a try on this piece and keep the wood top. I got it to this point and didn't love the top.

So I thought I would try a white wash. I had some leftover Fusion mineral paint in Limestone, so I added a little water to it and started. 

Here is what it looked like after I did this. The trick is not to let it sit on their long enough to dry. I quickly painted it on and then right after I had fully covered the top, I took some paper towel and wiped it off going all in the same direction. Here is what it looked like after.

I loved how it turned out with the different shades of color. Next, I slightly distressed some the paint to bring out the details, put some poly on the top and wax on the rest of the nightstand and here she is!

What do you all think? 

Thanks so much for reading,

-Shayla

Linked up to: The Crowned Goat | Chic on a Shoestring | A Stroll Thru Life | Making It In The Mountains | Chic On A Shoestring | Patina Paradise

Dark Grey Bassett Dresser

Happy November! Sorry I have been a little MIA, been busy getting ready for the holidays and I took my mom on a trip to Palm Springs, CA. We both had never been to that area of California and I would highly recommend it. We had beautiful weather and spent most of the time at the pool. The nice shuttle driver for the resort was convinced we must not have pools in Wisconsin. Ummmm... we do, but we only get to use them about two months out of the year! We stayed at the Westin Mission Hills and here is a view from there. My favorite picture I took while we were there.

OK, now back to the snow, cold weather and talking about this grey dresser. I had found this on CL quite some time ago. Ok.. like back in March. Ugh that sounds horrible, anyways. I finally got around to it in October. I thought it would be a good candidate to try spraying on since it was small in size and if I ruined it, I wouldn't be heartbroken. So, I took all the drawers out and lightly sanded everything. The color I used for this dresser was a custom mix with Behr's Orion Grey and Downpour. Now that I have been getting more familiar with how certain colors change with other main colors, I have really been enjoying making custom colors. That also means the color is very original then too, which I love. 

I forgot to take a complete before picture, so this is the best that I have. Next I got to spraying. With this, I learned that I definitely need to make some drawer skirts (inpired by The Resplendent Crow). I sprayed two coats of grey and the one coat of General Finishes high performance top coat in matte. 

Here was one of the drawers as it was drying.

Here, I was almost done with it. Just doing some little touch-ups on it. And you can see my other inventory/mess/workshop/garage. See anything you like?

And there she is, all done!

Thanks so much for reading,

Shayla

Linked up to: Thirty Eighth Street | A Stroll Thru Life

Grey Cabinet

Meet my favorite little cabinet! I picked up this beauty from St Vincent De Paul in Milwaukee. When I saw it, I instantly fell in love with all the lines and detail on it, as well as how narrow it is. Then, I opened it and it has this amazing shelf inside. Here is a picture of it in the parking lot after I bought it. Love love love the cute little legs on it as well.

I have been having somewhat of a color block lately, or maybe just a block in general in life. I just feel like summer has been so busy with things other than furniture, that I lost my creative vision when I look at an old piece of furniture and what color I should go with. Of course my first vision was a wood top. So I sanded down the wood top and did one coat of dark walnut stain. I wasn't super thrilled with it and then I got the vision to just paint all of it and bring out the great detail.

I love to post pictures on my Instagram and I generally tag the company of products I use. General Finishes, creator of the beloved Java gel stain, has featured a few of my pieces on their IG page. Every time they do, I tend to get a few new followers, that I love. I posted this picture asking for some color advice and after a few followers gave me ideas, I decided to go grey with it.

One of my absolute favorite furniture pages on IG is nakhome out of California. She does absolutely beautiful work. She mixes a lot of custom colors for her furniture, so I decided to give this a try for this cabinet with some grey paint I have left over from Behr. I mixed 2 parts Flint Smoke and one part Orion Grey. Then I added Plaster of Paris and water to make it chalk paint.

For cabinets, I take the hinges off so I can fully paint everything. I also tried out Frog Tape for the bottom of the cabinet to get a straight line. It helped tremendously. 

This cabinet took about 2.5 coats of paint and then I sealed it in furniture wax. Once I had it completed and staged, I fell in love with it. Now I just have to find a good spot for it in my furniture loaded condo.

Now, as a little side note, other than just Instagram, I also love to look at and read other blogs to get some inspiration ideas as well. Since I have started blogging, it has been so fun to connect with other bloggers with similar interests. These are a few of my favorites that I would highly recommend you read as well.

The Weathered Door | Phoenix Restoration | The Crowned Goat | Love Grows Wild

Linked up to: AKA Design | Thirty Eighth Street | A Stroll Thru Life | The Painted Drawer | The Curators Collection | Huckleberry Love

Thanks for reading!
Shayla