New House Update and Ikea Hack Sofa Table

We’re finally starting to feel settled in the new house.  The mile-long “to do” listing is slowly but surely getting projects ticked off. I love all the space and openness in the new digs and am savoring the design process, making the house into our home.

I found some great bar stools at an even greater price at a new wholesale to the public type furniture store in town.  I have some plans to add some dark stained, thin wood and some white trim in a board and batten type treatment below the breakfast bar.  It’s on the list. ;)

I started painting Behr Wheat Bread, a perfectly dreamy warm gray in the main living areas.  (You can get a glimpse of it in the background there.) It’s a two-story living room, and there was no way I was going to paint all the way up, so I picked a point to paint to (try saying that 5 times fast) but STILL there was a lot of up and down and moving the 12 foot ladder between taping and painting.  I was sore for days.

Since our sectional is now floating the in the middle of the room instead of being against the walls, I needed a sofa table.  I came up with a CHEAP option that I ended up really liking using 2 Ikea Dalfred Bar Stools that we had from our old house but I wasn’t going to be using for the new place. 

This was extremely simple! Just a 6 foot long 12 inch wide pine board for the top and an 8 inch wide board for the bottom.  The top board is screwed right on through the bottom of the stool seats.  The lower shelf is just resting on the foot rest bar thingy (the technical name for it.)  I sanded, did a quick application of some Dark Walnut Minwax stain, and Tung Oil (my favorite top coat for wood surfaces!) and voila! (Still want to get some baskets for the lower shelf.  That’s on the list too.)

Have you tried Tung Oil on wood finishes?  It’s really amazing!  I love it!  It’s a really hearty top coat, water-resistant, heat-resistant.  Just really great!  I use the Minwax stuff you can get at HD.  I have the pure Tung Oil too, but I love the Minwax so much I’ve been hesitant to try the other stuff. :) I just used one coat on this sofa table, because I wanted to keep a more subtle, rustic sheen, but the more coats you add, the higher sheen you get and the heartier the finish.  Try it!  You’ll love it too.

Vintage Valve Knob Dresser

Hi friends!  It’s been a while.  Remember me?

Life kind of turned upside down not longer after my last post back in October.  To make a very long story short, we decided to list our house, it sold in 3 weeks, the buyers needed to be in before Christmas leaving us to pack and move our entire household in just 3 weeks and find a temporary rental house while we shopped for a new home.  We have been squished in a tiny rental for the last 3 months, so needless to say, there has been no furniture work to speak of.  But we close on our new home in a week and a half!  Hooray!  Can’t wait to get back to furniture flipping and I’m CERTAIN I’ll have a ton of house projects lined up that I may share as well.  Thanks for sticking around.  :)

As you might guess, I’ve completely redecorated the whole new house in my mind already.  Amongst the plans is a new, mature, vintage/industrial bedroom for my big boys that will see them through as they grow. (You can check out my inspiration board to see the direction I’m heading with it.)

So the other day, I decided to get a little jump on the project with a quick change-up for this pine dresser that I’ve had in their room since my first son was born, almost 11 years ago.

I took off the painted wooden knobs, and my kids helped me beat the poor thing within an inch of his life with various implements to distress it.  Then I went over it with a couple of coats of Dark Walnut Danish Oil, which subtlety deepened the color overall, but mostly just seeped into the distressing and brought out all the dings and gouges, which worked great for the look I was going for.

I added some of these great vintage valve knobs that I sell in my Etsy shop, The Hob Knobery. (Stop on by! I’d love to make you a custom set!)

And that’s 1 project to cross off my make-your-head-spin-its-so-long new house to do list. :)

This dresser has another little 4-drawer matching friend that will get the same treatment.  And I’m considering adding some industrial looking casters to the bottoms. Can’t wait to see if everything comes together in real life as awesome as it looks in my head! ;)

MyColor™ inspired by Pantone® Painting Party, Flow Blue China Dresser

Welcome to the MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® Painting Party! A group of awesome DIY bloggers, including myself, have all completed projects using MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® paint. Now we’re giving you the chance to read our tutorials, gather inspiration, have fun and win prizes! Check out my project below and then jump to the other blogs in the party for even more inspiration!

I’m the last stop on the painting party train today, so if you’re just joining us, please head on back to the beginning and see some other great projects from some very talented blog stars.

1. Sarah @ Alderberry Hill *Go Back to the Beginning!*
2. Cristi @ Charm Home
3. Sara @ House Bella
4. Jerusalem @ Jolly Goode Gal
5. Katie @ Craptastic
6. Ann Marie @ Twice Lovely *You Are Here!*

I’ve been chomping at the bit to jump into this project, but have been waiting for inspiration to hit.  I wanted it to have every bit of WOW that it deserved.  Check out those gorgeous ornate details, carved pulls and marble tops!

I knew I wanted to do a paint treatment that would highlight all those details.  I decided to paint a base coat of white, add petroleum jelly over all the details, then paint a deep and vibrant blue over that.    With the distressed white peeking through the details and just the right blue, I envisioned it looking like a piece of flow blue china.  (Thank you MyColor, because Medieval Blue worked out to be the PERFECT flow blue!)

Sometimes these ideas are a little more exciting in the planning and disappoint in the executing, but let me tell you, I couldn’t have been more pleased with how this project turned out.  I was giddy!

First, when I began working on this piece, I thought I was going to have to recreate some missing moulding with my favorite JB Weld Kwikwood.  So imagine my happy dance upon finding all the missing moulding pieces stashed in the drawers!  Eeeeeeee!!!

After some repair work, including gluing back on the broken mouldings and removing the broken caster feet, I sprayed on a base coat of white primer.  Confession: I used a canned spray primer this time.  Why do I feel like I’m somehow cheating? I love Krylon spray primer!  It’s fantastic for bleed through control on old pieces like this.  One of the best, really!

After the white primer base coat was on, I went back with a cheapo chip bristle brush and dabbed on some petroleum jelly over all the details: the handles, the key holes, the appliques, the corbels, and the moulding.

Then came MyColor’s Medieval Blue!  Because of all the nooks and crannies of all those details, I decided it would be most efficient to spray on the paint.  The MyColor paint is thick, far too thick for the spray gun to handle, so it took significant thinning to get it to the right consistency for spraying.  Thinning of paint to the correct consistency takes some practice with your particular gun, but after a while, it becomes second nature.  If I had to guess, I would say I thinned this paint at least 1 part water to 2 parts paint.  It might have even been as much as half and half.

The paint started to resist the petroleum jelly as soon as it was sprayed on, and did amazing things as it dried.  I started to get very excited.  And might have squeeled just a little.

So then I attacked the crackling, resisting paint with the scrubby side of an old sponge.  And I definitely squeeled.  A lot…

It turned out every bit as wonderfully chippy and authentically aged as I imagined, an ode to Flow Blue China.

The generous folks at MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® would like one of you to win 3 pots of MyColor™ paint to try it out for yourself!  If you’d like a chance to win some MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® for your own project, simply comment on my post and share how you’d use MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® in your next project! Feel free to comment on the other blogs in the party too – they’ll all be giving away samples! For a second chance to win, tweet your project ideas to @MyColorPaints using hashtag #PassItOn. Also check out and like the MyColor™ inspired by Pantone® Facebook page to get access to the schedule for today’s parties as well as the rest of the parties going on this month! Share your project ideas there for one more chance to win! Make sure to leave a separate comment on this post for each entry!

The giveaway will be open through next Wednesday, October 31st.

Good luck!

MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® reached out to me to participate in the MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® Painting Party. My post represents my honest experience with MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® paint. I am not being paid for my answers, but I did receive MyColor™ inspired by Pantone^® paint to use for this project.

Linking to:

Miss Mustard Seed, The Shabby Nest

Distressed Turquoise Sideboard

I picked up this fantastic sideboard a few weeks ago from Craigslist and immediately posted it to the Twice Lovely Facebook page…

… where it was immediately pounced upon and snatched up for a custom paint job.  And I couldn’t have been more excited when it’s new owner said she would love a distressed turquoise with a dark stained top. So I set to work mixing up a custom turquoise with my DIY Chalk Paint Recipe. The top was stripped and stain Minwax Dark Walnut and given a top coat of Minwax Tung Oil.  I’m in serious love.  Very sad to be seeing this one leave.

Lots more to come soon!

Linking to:

Miss Mustard Seed

Chippy Mint Green Stenciled Dresser

I’ve had a very busy last few weeks!  Cranked out a few rad projects and still managed to pull together a very fun bridal shower for my little sister this past weekend!  Phew!

Before I made myself put down the paint brush and start with the shower prep, I finished up this fun chippy mint green dresser (which I big fat FAILED to get a before picture of, dang it!)

I tried a new-to-me technique with vaseline to achieve the super chippy distressed look on this piece.  When it was still wood before I painted, I did a few random smears with my hands where I wanted the wood to peek through.  Then I mixed up a batch of my DIY Chalk Paint in the darker green you see peeking through and painted 2 coats.  Once that was dry, I did a pretty heavy, random smudge application of the vaseline again with my hands.  I then mixed up another batch of DIY Chalk Paint using a lighter shade of the same green (just added some white paint until I was happy with the shade.  In retrospect, I wish I would have made the top coat even lighter for a little additional contrast between the layers, but you live and learn, eh?)  Did  2 coats of the lighter shade and let it dry.

I had picked up this fabulous border stencil from Royal Design Studios at their booth at the SNAP! Conference in April and had been waiting for just the project to utilize it.  I had a crazy hair that it would be amazing to use it vertically, off-center on a tall dresser, and it turned out to be every bit of cool I thought it would be.  :)

After I painted the stencil (I used a foam roller with VERY little paint so as not to seep under the edges) I went back with some very fine (220 grit) sandpaper in my palm sander and went over the whole piece.  The paint comes right off in the places that you’ve applied the vaseline, and the super fine sandpaper makes everything nice and smooth like buttah!

I have a couple of other smaller projects that I also wrapped up last week that I’ll be sharing soon.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Linking to:

Miss Mustard Seed

Distressed Turquoise Sideboard

I picked up this fantastic sideboard a few weeks ago from Craigslist and immediately posted it to the Twice Lovely Facebook page…

… where it was immediately pounced upon and snatched up for a custom paint job.  And I couldn’t have been more excited when it’s new owner said she would love a distressed turquoise with a dark stained top. So I set to work mixing up a custom turquoise with my DIY Chalk Paint Recipe. The top was stripped and stain Minwax Dark Walnut and given a top coat of Minwax Tung Oil.  I’m in serious love.  Very sad to be seeing this one leave.

Lots more to come soon!