Monday, January 14, 2013

Home Harmony: Projects

I loved One Kings Lane’s commercial on projects.



A homemaker’s (or renting-maker’s) life is all about change. There’s always something to adjust, measure, rearrange, paint, or chuck and replace. Growing up, my Grandma was always about some project. I can remember opening the front door and finding my Grampy in one of the two same spots – the kitchen or reading on his day bed. I’d ask him where Grandma was and he’d always say something different: “in the garage”, “on the roof”, “in the garden”, “the dining room”, “by the fireplace”, or the most likely answer, “*shrug*” (which loosely interprets to “no idea but good luck!”). It does the heart good to be busy.

My humble list is nothing like super-Grandma’s but I have embarked on a few endeavors that have made her proud. My most recent project was turning this:



Into this:



Here’s how I did it.

Step 1: Picked my color (cool pallet here):



and bought my Milk Paint. Heads up, the colors listed in the pallet are Chalk paint but Milk paint is where it’s at. Just ask Miss Mustard Seed.

Step 2: Cleaned my coffee table. Notice how this step is not sand my coffee table? Milk paint is awesome because you don’t need to sand your furniture! Easy.

Step 3: Paint that puppy!

Step 4: Wait for it to dry (20ish minutes)

Step 5: Paint another coat

Step 6: Wait for it to dry. (This time wait 30ish minutes)

Step 7: Add a coat of furniture wax. Since I worship Miss Mustard Seed I would obviously recommend her wax:


Warning: the wax brush can get pretty pricy but it might be worth the investment. Check out this bodacious brush:


I introduce Waxwell. Isn’t he a hunk?

Step 8: Antique it! A little sand paper on the edges will do the trick.

Step 9: Replace those fug handles! I ended up picking these rope handles:


Step 10: Rearrange your entire living room to accommodate new coffee table.

Have you had any proud Grandma projects lately? Share your ideas with our readers!

Happy project-ing!

6 comments:

  1. I want to see a picture of your whole living room!!! Your table looks so incredible! The rope handles are divine. Excellent tutorial. <3

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  2. This is gorgeous! Is that your actual living room Miss??

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  3. Drea: Whole living room to come!
    Amy: Yep, that's my living room. I've been trying to add some color (I had way to many brown tones) so the duck egg blue coffee table was my attempt to spice things up.

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  4. Wow. When I get a house, I'm having you come and decorate it!

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  5. It looks awesome! I've done lots of furniture painting, but never used wax on top. I'm going to look into that.

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  6. Steph: I tell yeah, it makes a load of difference. It acts as a watertight sealant and really helps it wear/tear more slowly. I used the brand Briwax for this project - I sometimes see it available at Ace Hardware but it's usually always available at Rockler Woodworking.

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