Rose Gallery Wall

I actually wrote this blogpost sometime back in June.. and forgot to publish it..! So, I'm not going to edit it..just going to post it haha!

How is everyone?  We are doing well over here at 818..  Lots and lots going on, too..  Hubby's daughter graduated from Middle Tennessee State University (GO RACHAEL!!), he and I both  celebrated our birthdays (17 day apart), then throw in Mother's Day AND continuing work on the kitchen remodel - it's been crazy hectic!  But we love it!

The day of my birthday dinner my daughter was at my house as we waiting on the boys to get there, and I showed her something I had been working on.  She and her husband had recently down-sized to a loft apartment and have created a fantastic gallery wall in their new space, so she was the perfect person to help me this wall in the foyer.  The space at the top of our stairs has been empty forever... here it is pre-stair/rail painting....(which you can read about here)

On a couple of thrift/antique store outings I found several paintings of roses and they were laid out on our bedroom floor for a pattern for a gallery wall - I just hadn't had time to get them up!

I moved my mother's little secretary desk up from the basement where it was basically hidden from the world.  This would be the perfect "base" for my gallery!

We measured where we wanted to place the largest painting, got that up, and then just went from there.  Of course, we didn't stop to take pics until we were almost finished.. That's when we realized we really needed one more something in that lower left corner. I ran downstairs to my little bar cart and grabbed the round rose tray that was propped up on the back. We had to add a wire to the back of the tray so we could hang it, so for picture's sake Amanda held it up so we could see how it looked.. love it!

I actually had several of the pictures in my house, all in different rooms, and the thought popped in my head one day when I saw a gallery of like-minded pictures that I should put them together for impact.  So after a couple of shopping trips I had enough to make a nice statement. 

We had it done in about 30 minutes and love how it turned out! 

Do you have any gallery walls in your house?  My daughter's entire living room in her small apartment is a gallery wall!  It looks fantastic - I would love to see yours, too!

Linking up with Thrifty Decor Chic's August Before and After! 

And That DIY Party!

Love,

The Dining Room Table Update :: It's Done!

I talked about the beginning of this make-over on the blog here.. and now for the rest of the story...

As I lamented to a friend over a Facebook pic of my dining room table that it had taken almost 2 months to get this thing done, he sweetly reminded me that "oh, you know, you did have that foot surgery thing going on..but no biggie!"

And he was right.  I DID have some surgery on my foot which kept me off my feet for three weeks.  Nothing scary or anything, but I could not walk on my foot for three. whole. weeks.  I used a knee roller, or they also call it a scooter.  It's not real conducive to painting or any type of household DIY.  I was basically shut down.

Painting the Old Dining Room Table

Hello all!  I am excited to show you my latest project! When we blended households back in the summer of 2009 I threw a table cloth over this cheap table in the dining room and called it day.

I figured I would buy a new one in a few months and until then this guy was fine with the table cloth on it.  Well, you know the best laid plans...

We kept on using the ugly table....  But actually, it works really well!  It has two big leaves so it stretches to hold up to 12 people (albeit tightly) and it's sturdy.  Here it is last Thanksgiving all stretched out and gussied up!

I realized I probably couldn't replace it cheaply.  Too bad this one was just so ugly.  I mean, it's pressed board with some kind of plastic finish (??) and the edge is rubbery.. bleck!

I decided to go ahead and paint it.  I figured if it turned out awful then I was no worse off. I could still throw the table cloth over it, right?  And then save my pennies and buy a better one down the road.

My hubby took it apart and carried it to the garage. I started by just sanding the heck out of the top with my new Ryobi sander (he had to buy me one because his was at a job site.. oh well!) and that was pretty fun.  I used the sander the best I could on the base - it was a little bit tricky because of the tube-like design. The only real wood on this table is the very bottom of the base!

I wiped it off real well then started priming with Kilz.  I sprayed, let it dry for over an hour, then lightly sanded with a block sander.  Then I applied a second coat and repeated the drying/sanding.  I did this over one weekend.

The next weekend my hubby started painting with Rustoleum Heirloom White - the same color we used on the dining room chairs.  Well, some parts came out great, but others came out not so great.  I'm not sure if it was too hot or dry outside, but the top is very splotchy and uneven, and also very bumpy/grainy feeling.  We ran out of time and energy that weekend, then went to the lake with the whole entire family the next weekend.. and we haven't gone back to work on it.

We need to sand and put on a second coat.  He's thinking about getting a can of the Heirloom White and rolling the top?  Or maybe spraying it with his big sprayer like he did the dining room buffet.  Either way, it won't be getting done this weekend either... I'm having some dumb surgery on my left foot and won't be allowed to walk on it for three weeks. yay. -_-

So, here it sits.  Dining room's a mess.  Who knows... maybe I can just get him to finish it while I call out orders from the couch!  I can dream can't I??  hehe  Do you ever start a project and then just can't seem to finish it?  Do you walk by it every day and it drives you crazy?  **Heavy sighhhh**

UPDATE:  See the finished table here!

Sharing at That DIY Party - always a bunch of cool projects!

Love,
Kelli

From Boring to Swanky! :: Dining Room Chairs Update

It's feast or famine around here folks.. I think you probably are used to it though, right?  I have so many things I want to write about, tell about, shout about! But the reality is that my life gets in the way sometimes.. ANYway.. I have good stuff to share!

I bought these chairs from the company where I work - they did a big re-decorating thing a couple of years ago and they sold them to me for $5 each.  (You really never know where you'll find your next bargain!) They have been living in my pink dining room..

They reminded me of my red dining room chairs so I thought they would be great companions!  I shared on Instagram about finally starting to work on these dining room chairs back here... then, in late March we painted them. Of course I had to take them apart in the yard... with my Shaw Carpets tool swag from HAVEN Conference!

I roughed them up a bit with some steel wool pads, wiped them down real good, then Hubby primed them with Kilz, then painted them with Rustoleum's Heirloom White.

I went back and forth about painting them a bright white or a more creamy white.. in the end I went with the slightly creamer version of the Heirloom White because it matched the fabric to a T.
 

 Primed

Primed on the left, painted on the right

In the picture above the creamy white looks a little yellow-y, but it doesn't read that way in the house.

The fabric is Premier Prints Towers Onyx Natural from Online Fabric Store.  Last year I attended the HAVEN Conference for DIY Bloggers and Online Fabrics Store was a sponsor.  They gifted a yard of fabric and a yard of burlap to EACH attendee!  So generous!  And I'm finally using my gift on my chair seats :)  I just covered right over the old fabric using my hand-held staple gun.

 Old original fabric

When you're covering right over old fabric it is really the easiest thing - the hard part is getting the corners tight.  A friend taught me how to get a nice tight corner.  When you are stapling along the straight edges, staple right up to the corner on either side... (ugh, man hands!!)

Then, gather all of your fabric (and I leave a lot of fabric because you can always cut the excess off later) that is in between those last two staples on either side and pull it tight...

Then I put in three or four (or more if needed) staples over the folds in the material...

When you're finished the corners should be smooth with very little wrinkles.  I didn't like the way one of them looked, so I pulled the staples out and did it again!

I had plenty of fabric and I am seriously in LOVE with how they turned out!  Along with the chairs being finished, I also added a $10 faux sheep skin rug to my piano bench.  I love the warmth it adds to the room, along with that little touch of glamor. 

I am so happy that i finally got these guys finished!  I am looking for some cute red pillows for them, but not having luck finding exactly what I want.  I'm probably going to do some fabric shopping over at Online Fabric Store and just make them myself - that's always more fun anyway :)

One last before and after ~~~

I'm totally in love!  From boring to swanky! Have you ever painted chairs before? Or recovered chair seats?  Do you have special techniques that are tried and true?  Do tell!

Linking up with Thrifty Decor Chic! You have got to check out the great before & afters! And also over at All Things Heart & Home's Twirl & Take a Bow - :)

Love,
Kelli

Beautiful Gold Shelf Unit - Another Spray Paint Masterpiece!

This is another Pinterest story.  I wanted a shelf to hold my stereo receiver and CD changer.  It has been sitting on a wee bitty table over in the corner of my family room since I moved in here.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of the wee table in the corner with my stereo on it, so here's a pretend pic..  and pretend it's in the corner too

Enter Pinterest where I spied this beautiful thang and fell in love!

Sooo pretty, right?  It's from the blog For Chic Sake and she calls it an Etagere~~  That sounds waayy better than just a shelf.  It's an Ikea unit and costs $40.  My hubs and I went to Ikea last weekend to look at some other things and when I saw the shelf etagere I started jumping up and down "oh oh this is it, oh oh I need this" so we put it in the cart.

Hubs put it together and I painted it - spray painted that is, with my new favorite Valspar, shiny "Brilliant Gold" - same paint I used on my frames in the dining room. Here she is in the garage before getting painted..

It's a very bad picture so here is one from the Ikea website. It has three glass shelves in the middle and solid on top and bottom.

And here is mine!  All dolled up with a stereo and some other fun stuff (really hard to photograph that corner, mind you)

For Chic Sake actually removed both solid shelves, replacing the bottom one with a mirror and the top with clear glass like the rest.  Since I was putting a heavy piece of equipment on the bottom I left it.  I still have the top solid shelf too, but plan on replacing it with glass. I just love the way it turned out.

So for a little Before & After (ah-hem, just humor me here on the "before")

Shame on me for being so excited that I forgot to take the "before" picture, but you get the idea!  I think we'll probably get another one in the near future to put over on the other side to balance things out.  We will probably have to rethink the plant and the round table on the end.  Maybe a smaller one..

So, whada think?  You like?

Linking up at Thrifty Decor Chic!

Love,
Kelli

Refinishing a Dining Room Buffet

I really never thought I would actually get to sit down and write this post.  Really. I'm not exaggerating! We bought our buffet back in March (yes, March) and I talked about it here.  I was so frustrated that it had been like, a whole two weeks and we weren't done yet! Ohhh little did I know how long it would take.. So, yes it really did kick our butts.  This is how she looked when we brought her home from the flea market...  I'm sorry, who paints anything this horrible interesting combo?

I'm tellin' ya, I don't think I will ever do it again.  Let me see if I can even remember what we did - We used some of the chemical strippers, and they did okay, but the stuff coming off was really nasty and goopy and I kept running out of places to wipe off the gunk, and my plastic scrappers where wearing out. Sorry to whine be so detailed, but I think I needed to take a class before I started this project!  What really got it moving was using Hubby's heat gun. Now I know not everybody has a heat gun sitting around - he used to work in airline maintenance and he has eeeeverything... (and he's just a great guy ta boot) so he brought it out and I stood for hours holding the gun, letting it heat up and bubble the paint, and then I'd scrape it off. Hours people.  I know you love our professional set up below hehe..

But even with the heat gun it was hard to get the paint off of certain areas.  So I would work on it, and work on it, and work some more, and it was just a hard project for me. Then the weather had a huge impact on productivity.  Anyone of you from the south will know exactly what I'm talking about.  It has been the rainiest summer in about 15 years!  And it always seemed to rain on the weekends when we had planned to work outside on the buffet. Le Bummer. So most of the time this is how it looked, standing on it's side in the downstairs hallway.

We finally got to the point where we started sanding it (and what a pain that was - look at all the detailing, yuck for sanding!) and then Hubs sprayed it with primer. Then it sat another few weeks until it stopped raining again and we had picked out the color.  We chose Sherwin Williams Dovetail.  I absolutely adore it!

Primer

 Paint

Hubby was not in love with the hardware that came on the piece - I was thinking oh it's not too bad, lets spray paint them and same money!  Nope - he'd have none of it.  In the end I'm so glad he insisted because I picked out some gorgeous drawer pulls!  I really wanted them to be gold and of course when things don't come in the color you want you paint them, right?  Heck yeah you do - Rub N' Buff Grecian Gold right here, baby.  They rock my socks now!  I love how hefty they look and feel.  The Rub N' Buff takes a little longer to do, but I really like the finish - it just seems to have more depth.  And since these pulls were going on a piece of furniture in the dining room it just made sense to use the same thing that I used on the light fixture.

So. Finally here she is in all of her glory.  Ahhh.. it's so nice to say that it's finally finished!  The room still needs painting so that is the next thing on the to-do list.  I am super excited to have a place to store my glass plates and seasonal things without dragging them out of the attic.  YAY!

What about you?  Have any projects that are kicking YOUR butt?  Ones that just linger on like a bad cold??  Do tell!  I need to commiserate!!

Linking up at Thrifty Decor Chick , Savvy Southern Style and at DIY Show Off!

Love ya!

Kelli