Annual Sewing Room Refit

Do I really do this every December/January?  I do, don't I?  Weird.

Anyway, the gray and white that I did last year was boring the heck out of me.  This is a creative space.  Grayscale?  Really?  I have no idea.

Before (last year)

Beige linen curtain (love), fabric boxes on wall shelves,
white above, grey below with grey trim. 

Closet shelves.  Grey and white and grey and white. 

What has turned out to be an awesome fabric storage idea, 

What's happening now... 

Fabric bins moved into the newly-pink closet

Doors back on.  The curtain was always a pain in the rear;
I ended up taking it down, and then the closet was
just this great big gaping hole.  

Last week and over the weekend I did a LOT of painting, refinishing, spray-painting, and re-arranging.  I'm not quite done yet; but by way of a preview, the whole room is going in somewhat this direction:

made using Olioboard

Update soon!


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A Very Girly Lamp

I believe I mentioned that I have several new lighting projects lined up;  here's the first:

Before 

This is an antique "oil lamp" style lamp that was given to me over the summer by a friend.

It has a pink milk glass body, a horrifically tarnished and somewhat rusted brass base, and a modern brass cup at the top that someone at one point used to replace whatever was there before.

The glass was in great shape; but the brass base was really, really gross.  I tried everything to clean it, from lemon juice to scary chemical cleaners.  I got it clean, but I couldn't restore the finish - and it was certainly never going to match the bright gold color of the modern cup at the top.

Spray paint to the rescue.

After

A thin coat of silver metallic-finish spray paint, light enough to allow some of the dark, tarnished brass to show through in the relief of the fluting and pierced feet;  and then a light dusting with a brilliant gold spray paint over that, to warm up the silver to almost a metallic-champagne color (since the silver paint by itself is very blue-gray, and not really silverish at all).

 I *love* the way it came out.

And I ADORE the little key-shaped switch.  Hee!

New super-girly bedside lamp!

And this light bulb, while VERY cool (and I WILL find a use for it), is nooooot working with this lamp base, LOL.  Bit ridiculous.  I don't have a shade that works at all;  but I'll figure something out, hehe.


Nice base, though.  ;)
















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Stuff N Thing, Part Troix

Before:  

*DRUMROLLLLLLL*

After:  

Coffee table.


The story is, and you got some of it a while back, that my existing coffee table, though lovely, and dear to my heart, was just too large for the current living room arrangement, and the furniture therein.  I plan to keep it, though I don't know yet what I'll do with it - probably just store it until someday when my living room expands again, or something.

Meanwhile, between an old trunk which became a shelf, (and then another shelf), a bulk-trash-day side table find, and a whole bunch of spray paint, a new, smaller coffee table was born.

the new table receives a cat scan

The dog loves it.  Her favorite spot in the house was under the coffee table, and I was worried that the new one would be too short for her to get beneath, but it works great for her.  Hee.

Truth:  it IS a bit small for the couch, LOL.  But honestly, functionally, it's *exactly* the right size.  And it's pretty.  And it looks awesome with the wing chair and the little gold side table between it and the couch.  Even though it makes the couch look enormous, I really love my new wee coffee table.  (And to be honest, the couch doesn't look so large without a bunch of old blankets draped over it.  Hopefully there's slipcover news in the near future).

I really  should think up a tag/label for "furniture that's been cobbled together from parts cannibalized from parts of other stuff."  But shorter.

Aside:  No shit, a friend of an ex, years ago, was the WORST at mis-using words.  One night while the boys were gaming, I overheard him describing a pirate ship that had been "galvanized" from parts of other ships, and I just could NOT keep from bursting out laughing.  I was dying laughing, and yes, I had to explain why - and then I had to explain what "galvanized" and "cannibalized" meant, and he didn't believe me,  and he was SO MAD.  Shitforbrains. 

A Very Late Update

Earlier this month I promised you a cool living room thing, and I admit, the reason I haven't posted is that I just CANNOT get a decent frikking picture of it.  I've tried and tried, but I'm back to my phone cam again (new phone, at least), and it just can't handle the weird light in the living room.

But here goes, anyway...

Before stuff:

Living room, almost just like it is now. We're looking at the space behind
the couch, this time.  Ignore the blankets on the couch, we're working on it. 

Brown shoe shelf in the front hallway. 

A gigantonormous wood-framed mirror (40") I picked up
via Craigslist for FORTY DOLLARS. 

 After stuff: 

Yay, the shelf is painted!  And also behind the couch! 

Yay! 

A couple of notes: 

• craigslist is da bomb
• yes, these were both painted with the same black-ish paint that I used on the hallway doors, the little Ikea candlestick table, and the dressing table in my bedroom
• I cleaned the mirror glass before taking these pics (you're welcome), and while I was at it, I went ahead and cleaned all the other mirrors, too, and I counted as I went.  Turns out I have nine mirrors in the house, and that's just mounted on the walls (not counting jewelry boxes and makeup mirrors).  Weird.  

Next post:  who the heck knows?!

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A Craigslist Dresser Facelift

I did two things over the holiday weekend break!  (I mean, aside from sleep all day Sunday, because I could).  The first was a quick furniture re-finish:

Before

I found this baby on Craigslist for $40 last week.  It's just a little MDF jobber by Sauder, but brand-spanking new, and pretty nice.  And certainly better than the thing it was replacing (which I'll get to tomorrow).

The first thing I did was remove the drawers, and dismantle the child-proof hardware that was attached to each one, which prevented (a) more than one drawer from being open at a time, and (b) any drawer from being opened without being pushed in and pulled up or some weird combination, in order to release the child-lock before the drawer would open.  I don't have kids.  And now I don't have a dresser that's a PAIN IN THE ASS, either.

The second step was to degloss the entire thing with my trusty Liquid Sander, and hit it with a bit of fine sandpaper to muck up the finish enough to take a coat of paint.

Then I wrapped the entire thing in plastic (yay, planning!) and spray-primed the top.

After

I streaked the body of the dresser, and the drawer fronts, with black paint, to darken the finish and give this thing some actual texture (rather than just the ultra-smooth Picture-of-Wood finish).

I also replaced the wooden knobs that came with this dresser.

A better shot of both the paint
finish and new hardware.

The bottom drawer sports a pair of these guys.  Yes, I adore maps, but actually this was because I only purchased enough handles for the top three drawers the first pass through Hobby Lobby, and when I went back for one more pair, they were out of the flat key-shaped handles I bought before.  I got these instead, because they're adorable.  And I kind of like the mish-mash of hardware on this thing, actually.

The top got another faux-marble paint treatment (whites and grays this time, in stead of the alabaster-y cream and brown like I did on that little nightstand), and I'm sorry to say that most of the picture I took of it just didn't want to come out right.

But this dresser makeover is actually a part of a much larger ordeal - I finally fixed up my bedroom closet!  More on that, and better pics of the dresser top, tomorrow.  :)






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Bit More Fireplace, and Then We're Done

After taking the mirror down from the fireplace wall, there was one more thing that needed to happen.

Before

Notice anything about the fireplace screen?

...

...wait, do you NOTICE the fireplace screen?  You don't, do you?  That's right.

BAZINGA


That's better.  Nothing a little silver metallic spray paint couldn't take care of.  Now the screen not only shows, it stands out, and it's exactly the right kind of understated "bling" that the fireplace needed to keep it from being just a big, black block,

I have to say, I LOVE this metallic stuff.  I'd never used the new kind before.  Silver-colored paint, sure; but this is the stuff with itty tiny metal particles in it to give it shine and texture when it's dry, and I loooooove the way it comes out.  It really does look like metal.  And it's beautiful.

I sprayed some wall hooks, too, and the outside handle of my storm door, hehe.  Show you later.








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"Honey, we're out of arsenic again!"

Fun with kitchen canister labels:

AFTER - chalkboard paint

I'm sad to say, my little quart can of chalkboard paint is badly dented, and doesn't seal properly, as I discovered the other day when I went to paint these canisters and discovered a can full of black peanut-butter.  Fortunately, I was able to reconstitute the paint by mixing in about a cup and a half of water  (I figured, it's not usable now, it can't hurt to try).   Some of the paint peeled and chipped when I pulled off the tape, but it's all good.  The labels are totally cute.

And I'm sure the same friends who like to write on my chalkboard when they come over will re-label the jars for me when I'm not looking.   LOL.

Before - 2009. Paper labels.  Also painted faux-tile on the backsplash.

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