Dresser update

One of my favorite home decor places recently had a warehouse sale, and I bought this great dresser for only $65 to go in my guest bedroom.  The owners had already painted the wood finish with one coat of Annie Sloan chalk paint, but I decided that the grayish white wouldn't work because my walls are already gray.  It would just blend right in.

I painted the dresser with two coats of Annie Sloan chalk paint in Old Violet.  It is a great color, sort of like a dark periwinkle.  Depending on the light in the room and the color of the wall, it can appear blue or purple.

This piece has great trim, and I decided to highlight the accents with silver.  I used Martha Stewart metallic glaze in the mercury color.  Then I covered the whole thing with Annie Sloan clear wax to protect the finish.  The hardware had been painted white, and I covered it with the metallic glaze as well.

DIY privacy screen

One of the best things about living in New England is the great weather we have 3 seasons out of the year.  (Those winters are brutal, though.)  We fell in love with the back patio when we found this house, and we tend to spend lots of time out there.  We have great privacy, except for the neighbor across our back fence, whose house is on a little hill.  Most of the time, that bare tree is a beautiful, red Japanese maple and does give some privacy.

Back in the Fall, we put in a hot tub.  Until now, we've limited our skinny dipping soaking until late at night after those neighbors have gone to bed, but we really wanted to be able to enjoy the hot tub in the mornings, too.  A privacy screen was just what we needed.  I found one I like (see below), but to get the size I wanted was going to be well over $500.  Way too expensive.  So I sat down, sketched out what I wanted, and headed to Home Depot.

Materials used (for 4 panels) - 8 10' pieces of 1/2" pvc pipe, pipe glue, 2 cans of black spray paint, 8 pvc elbow joints, 8 pvc tee joints, 9 worm gear clamps (covered with black duct tape), 8 yrds of outdoor fabric, 3 rolls of ribbon, thread.  The total cost for materials was around $150, with the fabric being $80 of that.  (I found the outdoor fabric at Jo-ann on half-price sale.)

We cut the pvc into 7 foot pieces for the vertical pieces, with the remaining 3 foot pieces for the horizontal pieces.  (Easy, right?  One cut per pvc pipe.)  We used the elbow joints at the top of each panel and put the tee joints at the bottom to allow a "foot" to add stability.  We glued them together, spray painted them, and then hooked them together with the clamps.  It really was so simple.  

Each curtain is made from a 6 ft length of outdoor fabric, hemmed on all four sides.  I then added 6 ties to each one made from inexpensive satin ribbon.  We are really happy with the way they turned out!

The perfect amount of privacy from those backyard neighbors to allow skinny dipping any time we want! 

Bookcase makeover using Annie Sloan chalk paint

One of the things you should know about me is that I LOVE a bargain.  So when I saw this cute little bookcase for only $30 at our local antiques store, I couldn't pass it up.  The finish was in pretty bad shape, but that didn't matter because I knew that I would want to paint it.  The decorative molding is what drew me in.  

I had used Annie Sloan chalk paint to paint my kitchen island, so I knew that is what I wanted to use for this project.  I decided on a nice light bluish grey called Paris Grey, with the decorative molding done in Old White.

One of the cool things about chalk paint is that most surfaces can be painted without a primer.  However, sometimes a piece that has a dark stain like mahogany will bleed through the chalk paint - like this piece did.  The solution is to give it a coat of clear shellac before you add the second coat of paint.  This spray shellac is great because it is dries in less than 10 minutes.

Here's the piece after adding the shellac, a second coat of chalk paint, and the clear wax.  I still wasn't happy with it, because I felt that the molding looked flat and uninteresting.  I decided to try the Annie Sloan dark wax.  Just a little bit goes a LONG way.  Much better, as you see in the second picture.  Now you can see the detail that I loved to start with, and the finish looks more aged.

 

Here's one final picture of the bookcase in place by my piano.  I am really happy with how it turned out.  Just a little time and effort, and it is much better than what I started with.  Oh how I love being creative!

Here we go!

So, why exactly am I starting a blog?  

1.  First of all, to stop cluttering up the Facebook feeds of all my friends.  Not than anyone has said anything negative yet, but I often feel bad about constantly posting stuff.  I don't want to be perceived as someone who has an inflated sense of self-importance to believe that the everyday person out there really cares about the minutiae of my daily life.  At least with a blog, the reader has chosen to be here.  

2.  To encourage myself to keep my photography skills sharp.  I love to take photos of special occasions, vacations, etc., but I feel like I need to do a better job of recognizing the beauty in the mundane.  For me, the best way to do that is through photography.  But what do I do with these photos?  A blog!

3.  To have a place to ponder in writing some of the things that are running through my mind - a soapbox of sorts.  Don't worry, I plan to keep these posts to a minimum, but sometimes you've just got to get something off your chest and into words.

4.  To share new recipes I've tried and projects that I've completed.  I've been lucky to be a stay-at-home domestic diva for almost two years, and I've learned a lot in that time.  Now I'll have a place to share those experiences and maybe inspire someone else to try something new.

So, welcome to my blog!