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

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