Tag: black

Furniture

Before & After: Child’s Desk

Jessica Smith

One of the big furniture projects I recently tackled was an overhaul of a kids’s desk. I found this awesome desk at a thrift store, but boy did it need some love.

Child's Desk_Before

I immediately had grand visions for this desk and let me tell you, they didn’t include the mermaid blue, shabby shic look.

So I painted, painted and painted some more. Again, I used a flat white paint and mixed in some Paint Minerals. This stuff gives the paint a chalky finish to it and leaves the surface very smooth. So far, I’m really pleased with how the Paint Minerals works with the paint. You don’t need to sand or prime and it covers really well.

I wanted the book shelves on each side of the piece to pop, so I painted a metallic glaze inside each shelf and then wiped each shelf down with a rag. It created a messy-ish sort of look in each cubby that I really like.

For the top, I painted with a gray-brown chalkboard paint. Some kid is gonna love this desk.

I waxed the whole piece using Johnson Paste Wax. This was my first time using a furniture wax and it left my piece feeling so smooth to the touch.

Check out these after pictures:

Love.

Child's Desk

Love.

Child's Desk Open

Love.Child's Desk shelves

I think this desk was definitely transformed for the better.

Home Improvement

Entertainment Center

Jessica Smith

The biggest most awesome totally fabulous outstanding project I did during my Christmas vacation was our entertainment center. Our entertainment center. Sigh. I never hated our entertainment center, but I never loved it haha. Which is hard to say, since Brian and our contractor/lifetime friend designed it themselves. BUT (sorry men), it was man designed! They made the shelves too tall so you can see straight past the equipment to all of the jumbled up wires. And They did a hugely weird angle.

Unfinished Entertainment Center

When we redid our basement I had to call my dad because I was so upset about it. It did not fit in with my “vision,” but it was Brian’s total vision. So, per dad’s wise advice, I sucked it up. I made it almost two years of sucking it up, but I didn’t want to suck it up anymore. So I put my tweak on the piece.

I did something crazy.

Dirty Hands

As you can see from my hands, I stained it! That might not sound so crazy, except that the entertainment center was built out of MDF! CRAZY!

Stained Entertainment Center

Our house stink, stank, stunk of stain for days after I was finished. I ended up doing two coats of the black stain, following up with two coats of poly. But, the end result and the temporary stench (and high) were worth it!

Entertainment Center_Shelves

I picked up new baskets from Michaels that were made of fabric because our old baskets scratched the soft MDF — that’s the biggest downside of using stain instead of paint. It’s easy to scratch. But I love the baskets and I eventually want to make fun labels for each.

Entertainment Center_2

The top of the entertainment needs some accessorizing, especially at the corners. But the black stain makes a world of a difference.

Entertainment Center_1

And the baskets just complete the whole thing perfectly. Can you see cords? Me either 🙂

 

And in case you were wondering, I chose black because our bar is black. The colors tie in together nicely.

Entertainment Center_3

Glad to have this one crossed off of my list. My head hurts just thinking about that stinky stain.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Improvement

The lamppost from hell

Jessica Smith

Our lamppost has been crooked since day one of moving into our house. Well, I’ve been on a mission this spring and summer to beautify the outside of our home. Landscaping, shutters, new doors, painted driveway, new mailbox, tree removal, new lattice for the garbage, redoing the rocks alongside the driveway… you name it, we’ve tackled it. My dad even removed the well from our front yard because he’s awesome.

He even took pictures for me to put on my blog.

RemovingFrontPipe1

RemovingFrontPipe4

With the biggest eyesore of our front yard removed, we pretty much had no choice but to tackle the crooked lamppost.

It also helped that while we were on vacation by dad cleared out a spot for plants and bought a few stones to circle the post. He basically forced us into it haha.

See how much it leans? Bad news bears.

Lamp Post1

So this lamppost was the post from hell. Originally, I bought a new post to replace it all together. Then my dad suggested I simple paint the current post in the ground. So I tried that.

Lamp Post3

Many coats of black spray paint later, and it wasn’t looking to bad.

Lamp Post2

Then came time to replace the fixture at the top, which I guess we didn’t have to do…. except that when we took it off we realized it was disgusting and broken.

The fixture came off the post just fine, but the ring and the screws holding the fixture to the post wouldn’t budge. At all. I tried every trick in the book to remove those screws, from WD-40 to putting a rubber band in the groove of the screw and turning it that way. Nothing worked. So I got fed up and started to tear the metal off the post. We were going to replace that part anyway, so what did it matter?

Well, here’s a fun fact. Hammering a screw driver into metal creates a lot of sharp metal pieces. And yes, I did manage to cut my hand. And yes, I did (eventually) get a tetanus shot for the cut. And yes, the place where I got my shot it still swollen because I’m a hot mess.

See why it is the lamppost from hell yet?

If you weren’t convinced, after all of my hard work on the darn pole, I got fed up and pulled it out of the ground. I ended up trekking back to Home Depot (that’s really melodramatic since Home Depot is less than 10 minutes away… not too much of a trek) to buy and even nicer lamppost than the first one I bought. I’m talking about a built-in light sensor and an outlet. Hot damn!

Hours later, my husband and I (mainly Brian — I was so proud of him!) managed to properly wire up the new post. I don’t think I’ve ever shouted so loudly with glee over a darn light working, but we were both really shocked and really excited that it worked.

Now our post isn’t crooked (we still need to cement it in place), it has a light sensor so it turns on automatically, and it is beautifully landscaped 🙂 Total win.

Lamp Post Finished

That lamppost ain’t got nothing on us.

And it looks nice, too!