Showing posts with label before and after. Show all posts
Showing posts with label before and after. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Something You CAN Do

 I often dream of  kitchens that look like this one...
 and this one...


but for now the reality and the dream have yet to meet.  Upon moving into this house of ours we agreed that it was best to wait a year or two before starting kitchen renovations. After all, there were walls to tear down and pink fireplaces to cover up. We were going to be busy!

Then 4 months after we moved in, amidst much hard work, the breakfast nook that is right next to the kitchen went from this...

to this...   

and that my dear friends is when this ....
                               ( kitchen pic from our initial house tour)

became quite unbearable indeed. Pink cabinets and dingy pinkish walls, ugh there is just so much a girl can take!
Something needed to be done, but that something had to cost not a single penny since we were committed to waiting one more year before making any major changes to the kitchen.
Fortunately, I had  plenty of primer and white paint leftover from a previous project. My first goal? To banish every last bit of pink from the room. I removed two upper cabinet doors for some open shelving and lightly sanded every cabinet surface.  I then applied two coats of primer and two of paint.


After all the priming and painting was done I unpacked a box of  kitchen items that I acquired at estate sales and different retail stores while living in The Temporary Apartmant

As I surveyed  the items a color scheme began to emerge. Its seems that inadvertently most of what I bought that year for the kitchen turned out to be either red, white or pale aqua blue!  I was determined to use only what I had so I went with those colors as accents. This was the end result.
 

Much brighter and happier don't you think?  We ended up only buying some cabinet hardware for this 'spruce up'.  It is hardware that we plan to reuse when we renovate the kitchen next year. 

And now dear reader it is your turn to take a closer look around you, for there is always you will find, that  little something you CAN do to bring beauty and light into your space.
Yes, even while you wait for those grander dreams that are still yet to be.....

To read more about the breakfast room makeover go here. If you like the quote print on the wall learn how to make one here.




I just found out that I was added to Involving Color's Room Gallery!
 Hop on over there and check out all the lovely homes she has featured.
I am also linking this post to Addicted to Decorating and Homework link party.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

How To Paint Particleboard / Laminate Furniture

Remember these sturdy Broyhill bookcases I got on Craigslist for our schoolroom? Well, they were hiding a little secret....

While the front and the drawers were made out of real wood, the sides, shelves and backs were made out of what I like to call the fake stuff. Yup, there was particleboard all over the place!
After seeing this inspiring image....
I decided that painting those babies white and putting them on either side of the window was just the thing to do.  But what about the fake stuff?  I knew from the start that the paint job needed to be indestructible. It needed to withstand three boys and the constant friction of books and other school items for the next 15 years. ha! Yeah, I did NOT want chipping paint and since we were dealing with particleboard (laminated wood?) I decided to do a little research.  I combined the advice of different painting experts just to be on the safe side (I was scared remember :-) I bought what I needed and took the plunge.

Here they are after eight months of daily use, nary a scratch to be seen....

I was so impressed that I recently painted our dining room table using the same process even though it is made out of solid wood.  I did not even sand it beforehand!

Before

After

Here is the scoop on how I did it: 

First I cleaned the bookcases thoroughly with a damp cloth. I then applied two coats of this primer...
 
This oil based primer is key!  It allows you to prime without sanding or 'roughing up'  the particleboard beforehand.  The odor is strong so I only use it out in the garage with the door fully opened.  I would not use it indoors, especially if you have little ones running around. To apply the two coats of  primer I used a small foam roller similar to this one..

This primer dries quickly, in about 2 hours, but I waited 12 hours between coats as a precaution.  After all the priming was done I applied one coat of Olympic's Zero-voc, white, latex paint in semigloss.  It can be found at Lowes.
After the paint was fully cured I applied two coats of Varathane Floor Finish, waiting about 12 hours between coats. It was boiling hot and bone dry here in Texas when I worked on this project, so it took only three days for the paint to cure. If you try this project in a cool or humid climate you might want to wait a bit longer for the paint to dry.


I used the brand Varathane recommended by the talented Holly from  
Life in the Fun Lane . It has not yellowed the white paint yet and it is so easy to apply! I now coat all my painted pieces with it. 
 So with just a little elbow grease the bookcases, fake stuff and all, went from this..

to this...
and best of all they have withstood the test of time amazingly well!
I am more than happy to answer any questions in the comments section below so ask away.  If you want to see more of my makeovers go here or here or even here :) Happy painting everyone!

Linking up to Miss Mustard Seed.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Sometimes Those Walls Must Come Down!

As I stepped through the front door of this house with the realtor for our initial walk through I immediately thought "Houston, we have a problem", you could see the kitchen sink from the front door! Now I don't know about you but as a homeschooling momma of three lets just say my kitchen sink is not the first thing I want people to see when they walk into our home!  Below I drew the layout of that part of the house so you can get a better idea of what I am talking about.

This is how the dining area looked on that first day we saw the house with our realtor.

As we conducted the house tour I quickly realized that we could make a wider opening to the right of the kitchen doorway since the breakfast nook was on the other side. Oh what difference it would make, I was sure of it! I loved the location of this particular house above all the others I had seen and I knew we could more or less transform the whole feel of the house with just that one simple (not so simple?;)) change.  This is what it looked like after hubby removed the old carpet and tore that section of the wall down to create the new opening.

Former entrance patched up and flooring being installed.

We decided to make the spot where the former entrance was a big slate colored chalkboard and painted all the other walls a light cream color. We also painted the dining table and chairs in Creamy a Sherwin Williams color.  To read more about how we painted them without sanding go here.
I still have to move the chandelier and hem the curtains but we are so glad to have most of it done!  Here is the after (So sorry for the glare created by the windows. I love all the light that streams through them during the day but it is not good for picture taking!)

Before

After
A better view of the wall to the left.

Before ( Looking in from the breakfast nook side, realtor picture )

After

Close up of opening
Moral of the story? Don't be afraid to tear down a wall (or two), sometimes it can make all the difference!
If you like the print on the breakfast nook wall learn how to make it here. You can also see more of our makeovers, Before and After's here and here.

I am linking up to Modern Country. Check out her blog for lots of inspiration!


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Fireplace Makeover With Details and Before and After Pictures

Do you have a fireplace that is an outdated eyesore?  Here is how we updated ours without removing a single brick.
Before
 Before (realtor pic from our initial house walk through)

This project is a good alternative for those of you that desire to give your outdated fireplace a new look without all the mess that tearing it down brick by brick would create. My husband and I had never done a project like this before and neither one of us had any carpentry experience so if we were able to do it anyone can!

This post by The Lettered Cottage started the ideas swirling in my head. I drew some pictures and haphazardly :o) covered part of the fireplace with white cardboard so that my husband could kinda see what I wanted it to look like.


We ended up using..
about 10 furring strips
6' of Crown molding
6' of 3"x1" mdf
5' of 1"x 4" wood
liquid nails
6 concrete anchors
two 4' x 8' x 1/4 inch plywood luan (luan wood is a mid grade mahogany plywood)
lots of caulk
a bit of wood filler
a jig saw
a few carpenter clamps
primer
paint
and a drill
We began by attaching the furring strips to the brick facade with liquid nails (the painters tape was used to secure them to the brick while the adhesive dried)
Hubby also drilled two concrete anchors (pictured below) into the first and last of the furring strips for extra support.

While the adhesive dried hubby used the jigsaw to cut the 1/4 inch plywood luan facade that would be nailed onto the furring strips.
The facade he cut out was carefully nailed directly onto the furring strips.
The original fireplace mantle was made out of three sizes of pink brick that were stacked up on top of each other.  It was a pretty horrible sight...  

Creating a mantle without chiseling off the protruding brick shelf took lots of effort and I am very proud of hubby for doing such an amazing job. He started by attaching a 1"x 4" piece of wood to the bottom layer of mantel shelf bricks with two concrete anchors. He then attached a piece of crown molding to the second layer of  mantle shelf  bricks.  Lastly he attached a 3"x11" piece of mdf to the crown molding to cover the top layer of mantle shelf bricks.  The mantle that hubby ended up creating is very beautiful and was so inexpensive to make. Bingo! 
Hubby cut leftover pieces of wood into wedge shapes and used them to secure the crown molding to the mantel shelf brick. Hopefully the pictures below will help you better understand how it was all accomplished.:)





After the mantle was done we attached furring strips to the top half of the fireplace brick just like we had done to the bottom half. We cut the 1/4" inch wood luan and nailed it onto the furring strips.


 I then used wood filler on all the nail holes and caulking on all the edges.  I coated everything (except the inside of the firebox!) with Olympic's zero voc primer which provided fabulous coverage. I painted the area around the fireplace box with Olympics Flat latex Zero Voc paint in Black Magic and the rest of the fireplace in Cloud White (flat latex) a Benjamin Moore color. 
Before (on the day we moved in)

After

The inside of the firebox will be painted with black, heat resistant paint sometime before winter arrives :). You can find two more of our makeovers here and here. Please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments section and I will do my best to answer them.



Party Time! Please visit the following blogs for lots of inspiration