Telephone Bench Makeover

The antique store wanted $40 for it:  a heavy, well-built oak telephone bench with turned legs and a small storage compartment.  It had some nice detailed carving, too.

But the finish was pretty rough and scarred, so I haggled a little, and for $35 it was mine.  That's a bit more than I like to spend on a makeover piece, but I had a good feeling about this one.

Home to my basement studio it went, and I immediately painted it all over with Annie Sloan chalk paint in Pure White.

To make the carved detail stand out, I applied a coat of Paris Grey.  Then I used a bit of Duck Egg Blue to further bring out the carved medallions within the detail.

After the paint was thoroughly dry, I thinned down a dollop of Annie Sloan Dark Wax with some mineral spirits until it was the consistency of chocolate syrup, and I applied it to the piece using a natural-bristle paintbrush.

I brushed on wax in small sections and immediately buffed it off using an old cloth diaper.  Finally I applied a thin coat of clear wax.

And here you have the finished piece in all its made-over glory:

Kitchen Baskets

I began collecting wire baskets.  Some of them I bought at places like the Dollar Store and Wal-mart for a few bucks.  Some of them I picked up at the local thrift store for even fewer bucks.  Some were the wrong color and I hit them with a little spray paint.  (Oil-rubbed bronze to be specific.  Click here  to find out how much fun I had with that stuff.)

Then I began hanging these wire baskets on the wall of my kitchen nearest my cook top.





Now I enjoy the convenience of having many of the things I most often use in my cooking -- onions, garlic, peppers, potatoes, lemons and limes -- easily within my reach.  It's simpler for me to keep track of what I've got and what I need to replenish.  The food items, which do not require refrigeration, benefit from a little air circulation.  It's easy to see and remove anything that starts to look a little mushy.  The baskets are hygienic and easy to keep clean...

Honestly, need there be any better reason for mounting a wall of wire baskets in the kitchen?  Oh, here's one:  they're cute, too!  




It's really easy to do this.  Take any basket you want to mount on the wall, place a piece of masking tape along the top, and mark where you want the hangers to affix.  





Place the masking tape on your wall and adjust as needed.  Measure to make sure the marks are centered or positioned as you want them... hold up the basket and see if you like the way it looks in that spot...  use a level to ensure straight placement...  Basically, you can play around with the masking tape without marring your walls or driving yourself crazy.

Once you have everything positioned exactly the way you want it, then it's time to break out the hammer and nails.  Or if you prefer, use cup hooks.  They screw easily into the wall, and they hold the baskets a bit more securely than nails.

And voila!  Pretty and practical.

Here.  Have another look:

This post can also be seen at some great parties.

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Paula's No Rules Weekend Link Party

Linkn Blog Link Party

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Wednesday Roundup

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Fun with ORB

One of my favorite bloggers is Nancy at Artsy Chicks Rule.  I follow her on Bloglovin and Pinterest because she has so many creative decorating diy ideas and instructive before-and-after posts.  Not long ago Nancy blogged about all the things in her home she has updated using "oil-rubbed bronze," a.k.a. ORB spray paint.  It was pretty impressive.  And it gave me an idea....

I decided to go to the local thrift store and pick up as many items as I could find within a $20 budget to experiment with ORB spray paint.  And just to be ornery, I tried finding test objects that would take this experiment to the very limits of hideousness.


I think I succeeded.

I used the no-mess "paint in a box" method that so many pinners recommend.  (I suppose I could have used a bigger box.)

It was easy.  I spray-painted each item (sometimes several at a time) inside the box, waited for the paint to dry, then rotated and repeated.  The paint dries quickly, so I was able to get most things completely covered within a few hours.

This was fun, and the results were surprisingly good...

Here are the "after" shots of my crazy collection.

You may have already seen what I did with the brass candle holder on a previous post.  If not, check it out.  

The scratched-up silver collage frame turned out nicely.

 And here are all the rest:

Now I get it.  People love oil-rubbed bronze spray paint for a reason:  it can make ANYTHING look good!

Well... almost anything.

Come on.   

And now it looks like this....

Experiments with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Primer Red and Napoleonic Blue

Picture a well-built, but outdated and banged up child's table and chair set.  A relic from the 1990's in honey oak with a wood-look formica top and a generous sprinkling of scratches, paint stains, and probably boogers... yep, that was in my house.  The thing is, a generation of children played, ate and created at that little table, and a new generation has begun to do it all again.  It was worth some TLC.

I wanted something cheery and kid-friendly, but not overly bright.  I decided to give Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Primer Red and Napoleonic Blue a try.  I painted the chair and the sides and legs of the table in Primer Red.  Then I enhanced the spindles of the chair and some of the carved details with the Napoleonic Blue and finished with clear wax.

Rather than paint over the formica top, I taped off the edges with 3M painter's tape and spray-painted the inside with chalkboard paint.  Finally I stenciled a little lettering detail at one edge and used a black Sharpie pen to outline the letters.

And now it looks like this.  A new generation is using this furniture to play, eat and create.  It is pretty and durable -- I scrub it off daily, and all the surfaces have held up just fine.

Next I picked up a little coffee grinder at my favorite thrift store for about five bucks.

First I gave it a first coat of Primer Red...

(Spoiler alert:  Future ugly thrift store makeovers pictured!)

After the red was completely dry, I used a tiny amount of Napoleonic Blue to enhance the details.  To do this, I used a cheap, natural-bristle paint brush and just a dot of the blue paint on a paper plate.  I swished the dry brush through the paint until the brush was just barely tinged at the edge.

Then I slapped it over the corners, ridges and knobs.  And also very lightly across the flat surfaces.

I finished with a coat of dark wax.  

And now it looks like this.

Come see this post where I party:
Twirl and Take a Bow

And now it looks like this....

Experiments with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Paris Grey and Coco

Unfortunately I have no "before" pictures of two items I bought at my favorite thrift store for under $5 each.  The clock used to be dark-stained wood with a heavy, glossy varnish and a shiny brass frame around the face.  The photo carousel had a boring, homogeneous, mid-tone teak-looking finish.  Chunky, clunky, awkward and ugly, both.  But I did like the carved grapevine detail on the front of the clock; there seemed to be some possibility there.  As for the carousel, I liked nothing whatsoever about it.  I almost left it behind, but something about its practicality grabbed me.  Under the lid is a little compartment for storing... more photos?  Who knows, but I'm a sucker for any kind of hidden storage.  So I decided to see if chalk paint could fix even this much ugliness!

For the carousel, I decided to try Annie Sloan chalk paint in Paris Grey, just one coat.  Then I distressed it heavily, and I finished it off with a coat of dark wax.  I actually like the little thing now.  I'm thinking about using it to display some flowering window box photos I shot in Germany last October.  (Who am I kidding?  It's gonna be pictures of the grandkids!)

I also tried painting the clock with the ASCP Paris Grey, but for some reason I wasn't as pleased with the result.  Next I tried giving it a light over-wash with some watered down ASCP in Coco, then lightly distressed the edges and the carvings.

Still it just didn't do it for me.  The brassy framing around the face still looked shiny and fake to me.  And the grapevine carving just didn't pop the way I wanted it to.

I tried to come up with a solution -- maybe a darker wash of Graphite over the carvings?  Try another color altogether?

And then it came to me:  THE WAX, STUPID!

 I brushed on a coat of dark wax, wiped off the excess with a clean cloth diaper and buffed the piece all over with a shoe shining brush I stole from GrandDad Fabuloso.  (He'll never miss it!)

For the record, if you get wax on glass or mirror, scrub it off without delay.  Like, right that second.  That may sound like a no-brainer, but some of us just have to learn things the hard way.

And now it looks like this: