Reader Ravamp: Turquoise Treat

My wonderful email pen-pal Kelsey over at Fabulously Flawed has just revamped the cutest dresser. She has a little baby girl named Layla on the way, so she wanted to create something unique and fun for her soon to be nursery. Kelsey scored this amazing dresser on craigslist for FREE... yes FREE! She got to work and did an amazing paint technique to make this dresser look FAB! I love it, and want it in my own house. I might just steal her idea. She watered down a deep torquoise paint and applied it to the dresser so that the wood still showed through a bit. Then with a "dry" brush applied a lighter shade to give it some dimension. She updated the drawer pulls with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint for a brand new look. Great job Kelsey.To read exactly how she did it, colors and all check out her post here.

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Reader Revamp: My Pink Life- Side Tables & Daughters Dress

Hi Everyone. I'm back with another Reader Revamp. I know it has been a while since I featured one, so here is a great group of revamps from Aimee Weaver at My Pink Life. If you haven't been to her site, go- GO now...check her out.  She is currently working on a very big project... a baby. I can't wait to read about her pregnancy progress.
Here are just three of many great re-do's she has created.
First, check out this 80's nasty side table that she transformed into a neutral, useful, super cute table.

BEFORE

With some paint, a sander, and some new drawer pulls it looks 1000 times better.

 AFTER

ANOTHER side table that she transformed was this Goodwill find....

BEFORE

This is a table that I might have just walked right past, but Aimee saw the potential and turned it into this classic looking side table. Great knobs!!!

 AFTER

And I just had to include this next Revamp, because it is sooo cute. She took a cute woman's size 0 skirt from Goodwill and turned it into a super cute summer dress for her little daughter. What a great idea! It doesn't get cuter than this...

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AFTER

Thank you Aimee for sending these great projects to me. 

Here are some other great things you can find at My Pink Life...

If YOU have a Revamp you would like to share... Email them to me!!!! I love seeing all the creative things you guys come up with. And remember, you don't have to have a blog to be featured.  Keep em' coming guys.

Old Table Gets a New Life

  

I'm really excited to share my new dining room table with you. It has been a labor of love.

I've had a plan to paint/stain it for a while but I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it. I thought of some colors, I thought of all white, I thought of all stained. I just couldn't make up my mind. So it waited... and waited... and waited. Ten months later I made my move. 

When we moved into our first home in March 2009, we acquired some left-overs. Some good, some not-so-good. One of the left-overs was a sturdy old oak dining table. It was in great shape, but in my opinion,  super out dated. The verdict: and it down the the raw & get to work! I decided on a dark walnut stain. I mixed a Medium dark and a really dark stain together to get a, what I like to call... dark-but not black stain. Like this...

  

I applied it and left it over night. The next morning I awoke to find a super duper uneven messy staining job. We decided the sanding job wasn't quite as raw as we had hoped. Some of the old poly has managed to stick around, therefore the stain wasn't soaking up as evenly as it should have.  So Ryan got to work some more. The oak table had a previous  thick poly shine, so it was really hard to get down to the raw wood. He bought a 60 grit, and worked his way up through 80, and then 120. 

 

I decided to beat the wood up a bit to give it an aged look. I purchased 3 feet of metal chain from Lowe's. I took the chain and beat up the top of the table. It was actually a lot of fun, and got some aggression out for sure.

I think my dogs were a little scared of me + beating chains, they all ran for shelter- far away from me. Note to all of you who might try this: be careful! The chain recoils faster than you think, I have two deep bruises on my fingers where I got hit with the chain. Probably not the smartest decision I've ever made. Wear heavy gloves! 

 

I also busted out a hammer and gave the table a few smacks, that's actually where most of the dings came from Use both ends of the hammer, the nail removing end actually works great, but be sure to move it around a lot or you will end up with a lot of "snake bite" looking marks. . Just stick to that method, no chains needed. Save your fingers!

 

So.... Once the table was sanded down super good. I applied two coats of stain. Between each coat I let it sit for about 10 minutes and then rubbed the excess off with a clean rag. After the two coats, I let it sit for about 24 hours.

 

Check out this post to see how I made up the chairs.

  

During that time I applied two coats of Valspar's Homestead Resort Jefferson White (Best creamy white paint ever!). Then I distressed the edges and sides a bit.

  

  

  

To top it off, I applied a Satin wipe-on Poly to the entire table. Wa- La, that's it. A brand new table for under $20 bucks. I can say that because the table was free, the paint I already had from my fireplace revamp, I had half of the stain so I only spend about $5 stain, and I already had the wipe-on poly, and I spend a little over $12 on sand paper.
You can also check out this post where I gave the old chairs a face-lift 

  

  

 

 

 

 

Thank you for stopping in. If you want to see the China Hutch in the  background's Before & After click on the picture below.

  

  

Vintage Chair gets a New Life

I bought this chair at Goodwill for $18.00. It had been marked down from $22 since it had been there for so long. I thought about maybe tackling an upholstery job for the first time... but got too scared Maybe one day, with something a bit simpler. I decided to just give it a few coats of satin white spray paint. I used painters tape and plastic to keep the fabric safe. So for only $18 + $4.30 for spray paint I have a really comfy chair for my living room.
I love how well it goes with everything I have, its a little funky, but still a little classic, and of course, Colorful!!!  For only $22.30 I can't beat it.

 

 

Deep Torquoise and Gold Nightstand

 I'm participating in Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday! Head on over and check out everyones great revamps.

Here's my newest:  She was once old and ugly, but sturdy. I loved her design, especially the lines inside the drawer area...

I busted out my Deep Torquoise by Laura Ashley color and got to work...

With such a vibrant color, I felt like a lot of distressing was in order with this one.

 

 

I painted the detailing a metallic gold, as well as the original hardware.

 

 

The photo above looks a bit more gray green than the actual color is. The rest of these photos are much more true to the real thing.

I love this color so much. This table is currently waiting for a new home in my Etsy Store. While she waits, shes sitting in the spare bedroom against an orange damask curtain, which has inspired a guest bedroom look. I LOVE orange and turquoise together.

Antique Cabinet Revamp

 I found this low sitting cabinet and fell in love. It was so unique and loaded with character. I knew it had a better life just waiting for it.

 

I gave it a little help. After some sanding, painting, more sanding and glazing, it was new and old at the same time...

 Its hard to tell from these photos, but its a soft olive green color. It looks a tad more sage-green than these photos show.

 

It makes a great TV stand...

I think it would be great at the foot of a bed too.

She's now listed in my Rocky Bella etsy shop.