Thursday, January 22, 2015

Trash into Treasure

There's only two pieces of furniture I always buy new; couches and mattresses. I am a firm believer that new furniture is a load of CRAP! The minute you buy something from the shelf it immediately looses value. There is no way you will ever resell your particle board Target dresser for the 400$ you purchased it for. Speaking of....particle board....probably one of the things I hate the most, but it's really hard to avoid. It really irks me that furniture is so expensive, then on top of that it's made of particle board. EVERYONE is guilty of it, Walmart, Target, and YES even Pottery Barn. So, what is the solution may you ask? BUY used! 

Why is buying used better? While it might be time consuming it is SO worth it! Older pieces of furniture have so much more character that you just can't find in brand new furniture. Plus, this is how I have "me" time. It relieves stress and I really enjoy painting! Where to find pieces? I get so many of my pieces from other PCSing Military families and Craigslist. Secondhand shops are just as useful.

Recently I've used 3 different techniques to refurbish 3 different pieces to mimic more expensive furniture. Each technique requires a little work, but I promise the results are amazing!! AND money saving! Which I like! 

Project #1: My dining room table

(Side note: I AM OBSESSED WITH JOSS AND MAIN! GET ON THAT SITE FOR GREAT IDEAS!) 

I wanted my table to look this style


This is a Wakefield dining set that sells for nearly 1,600$
OBVIOUSLY way out of my price range, so I bought this



For 60$ off Craigslist, I got a SOLID oak table with 6 chairs and a leaf. I opted to take the leaf out and only use 4 of my chairs, because my dining space is very small. So far I have only done the 4 chairs, crafting and being a mom is a hard job.

So now the challenge of how to get the look! I searched online for the perfect tutorial and honestly, I couldn't find one, so I kind of made up my only and used several different tutorials to get the look I wanted. Here's two ladies that really helped:
Cherished Bliss

Materials I used:
80 grit Sandpaper (5$ for sheet pack)
120 grit Sandpaper (5$ for sheet pack)
Steel Wool (4$ for 6 pack)
Cheap White Spray Paint (Use the project kind from Lowe's it's only 2$ a can)
MiniWax woodstain in Dark Walnut (9$ A little goes a long way and will last for multiple projects)

Step one: Use both sandpapers and give the chairs a rough sand.
Step two: Spray paint the chairs white, doesn't have to be covered thoroughly
Step three: It is very important you let the spray painted chairs dry for 24 hours
Step Four: Take the steel wool and rough up the chair, make sure there are spots where the wood base is showing through
Step Five: Clean the chairs off, make sure there is no dust or residue left on the chairs. 
Step six: Take a brush and paint stain over parts of the chair, every 4 or so strokes, take a towel and wipe away the stain. Repeat this process until the chair is completely covered in stain, making sure the completely wipe off all residue. 
Step seven: Let the chairs dry for 48 hours


Here's my outcome. In total the project cost me roughly 85$ and about a week of my time. 

Project #2: Our bedroom dresser

Our bedroom is teal and burlap, I am slightly obsessed with teal. I was shopping online and on Pulaski I found this amazing vintage dark teal dresser! For 420$ 


So I bought a 100$ vintage dresser from a family here on post who was moving down to Georgia. I opted to buy a pint of paint in Sherman Williams Costal Wave because I wanted to keep the paint to do more projects. I spent 15$ on the paint and I already had primer and sand paper on hand. I purchased new handles for about 1.79$ each. This is the end result 


This cost me probably 140$ in total! 

Project #3 My dining room hutch, I am so happy with how this turned out! I will share a seriously CRAZY technique I used! 

Pottery Barn has these beautiful country white "distressed" hutches for about 1,200$. This wasn't in my budget or in my color scheme. I wanted something bright, since all post housing is plain and painting the walls isn't really in my plans. So I decided on a mustardy yellow spray paint I found on clearance in Lowe's. I bought the hutch on Craigslist for 100$. The final product was AMAZING! And yes, this is particle board, but you would never guess that. 


The key to redoing particle board is primer. The spray paint I bought said paint plus primer, but I decided to paint white primer over the hutch anyways and it worked really well. I then did two really good coats of spray paint, I let the first coat dry for 8 hours and the second coat dry for about 24 hours. 

You don't have to distress furniture, but I really enjoy the look and it fits into what I am doing in the dining room, style wise. 

This technique almost makes the hutch look like I used chalk paint, but I didn't! 

Step one: Take sandpaper or a sander and randomly sand spots of the dresser down to the wood or particle board. 
Step two: Wipe all the spots clean of dust and debris
Step three: Dip a q-tip in stain (I used MiniWax Stain in Dark Walnut) and rubbed stain into each of the random spots only where the wood was bare. 
Step four: wipe the stain away and let the stain dry another 24 hours. 

The results are so great and it's so much easier than using chalk paint in my opinion! The whole project cost about 115$ I had most of the materials on hand, but I did buy more antique looking handle for the hutch! 

Feel free to email me with any questions and remember UP-CYCLE!

Blakelee






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