Chalk Paint Adventure

So our screened-in back porch is amazing! Andrew and I absolutely love being able to sit out there under the fan and eat dinner with no bugs bothering us. It still needs a lot of work to make it pretty, but I’ve been working on it-slowly but surely.

Something that had been bugging me is all of the grilling necessities – charcoal, lighter fluid, matches, scraper, etc, just sitting out there. I knew that they need to be out there, but I hated them just lying around. I went to our local Goodwill and found an old tv stand with doors on the bottom that I thought would be a great size for all the grilling supplies without being overwhelming. The best part though? It cost me $7.00.

Well this thing was ugly and outdated. It needed a facelift desperately. One of my friends Kristin had written a blog about using chalk paint to re-do furniture and I thought it was something I could do.

Check out Kristin’s blog here: http://sassysapperstein.com/2014/06/04/how-to-paint-with-chalk-paint/

**Kristin uses a different Chalk Paint recipe than I did, but they both worked, so either one can be used.**

I initially looked at buying chalk paint, but it was sort of pricy for just needing a little bit, so I did a little Pinterest Research and came up with the recipe I used.

Step 1: Prep your furniture

The great thing about chalk paint is really no prep is needed. You do not have to sand or anything, just give the piece a good wipe down to get rid of any dust or dirt. If you are planning to use multiple colors like I did, you will need to use painter’s tape to mark off the parts you want a specific color.

Step 2: Make your paint

You will need 1/2 cup of Plaster of Paris mixed with 1/2 cup of water. Mix well-I used a whisk. Next pour in 1 cup of any paint you wish to use and mix together until it is nice and smooth.

I used two different colors, black and a light blue.

Step 3: Paint

This paint was so weird for me to use. It’s a little thicker than normal and your strokes don’t matter on the first coat. Depending on the color, more coats may be necessary. I ended up putting on 4 coats of black and only 2 of blue. This seems like it would be tedious, but the paint dries within 30 minutes and you are ready to do another coat.

You can see how I had to tape off certain parts and how weird the stroke marks look at first.

This is what the black looked like after the second coat.

Step 4: Wax

I used a Minwax matte varnish finishing wax that I purchased from Lowe’s…it was my only option and worked really well so I was pleased with the outcome. The purpose of the wax is to make the chalkiness of the paint go away and leave the piece with a nice shine. I used cut up t-shirts to wax it all over and it worked perfectly.

 

I was definitely pleased with how the table turned out! Its cheery and fills up the awkward corner in between the steps and the screen door. The cabinet underneath is perfect for all the grilling supplies and this project is one of my Top 10 easiest!

Project Math:

Cabinet $7.00

Blue Paint- $2.98 (I bought a sample size and had some left over)

Black Paint- $0 (I had this left over from a previous project)

Wax- $9.97

Plaster of Paris- $6.78

Total Cost: $26.73

Normally this is more than I am willing to spend on one project, but I have supplies left over that will definitely be used to paint other pieces after seeing how easily this was done. 🙂

Placemat Throw Pillows

I have been on the hunt for MONTHS for some throw pillows for our bedroom and to decorate the couch we have in our basement. If you haven’t figured this out about me yet, I am CHEAP…when it comes to certain things and throw pillows just happened to be one of them.

In my mind, I should pay about $10 at the absolute most for something that really has no purpose than to just “dress up” a room. However, all designers and stores seem to think that their throw pillows are worth upwards of $25, which to me is insane when you think that I would like to purchase about five. $125 is too much for this teacher’s wallet for pillows.

I know, I know, you’re thinking, “Come on, just whip out the sewing machine and make those babies!” I had this thought too, however I don’t own a sewing machine, have little knowledge about using one alone, and have no idea how much fabric it takes to create things from scratch. I searched on Pinterest and found how to create a “no sew” pillow by covering an old one. Well, I didn’t have any old ones to cover and even the ugliest of pillows I found at Gabe’s, Marshall’s, Walmart, K-Mart, and pretty much anywhere else you can think of, were still $10, plus I still had to buy the fabric.

I had all but given up, when I remembered a conversation I had with my best friend about how her mom buys holiday placemats on sale and uses them to create holiday throw pillows for super cheap-she had even given me a super cute one this past fall. Now, her mom is super crafty and has sewn many a halloween costume through the years (like AWESOME ones) and I was a little weary that the sewing part would get me.

Still, I started looking for some cheaper placemats that could be used on our couch and Walmart did the trick. I bought these placemats for $2.47 a piece.

For this project to work, its really important that the placemats be double layered-what I mean by that is that there is a piece of fabric on the front and one on the back and there is a stitch that connects the two together. You know they are double-layered if this is visible.

As long as you have those two layers, you can chose any pattern, material, or color of placemats. I used my scissors to tear out the stitches on one of the sides to make a pocket.

Then I used the stuffing I purchased at Walmart for $3.47 to fill the placemats up until they were fluffy (like a pillow).

 

Once the pocket was filled, I used pins to close it up and get it ready for sewing.

Thanks to my wonderful Mother-in-Law, I had borrowed her sewing machine and after watching approximately an hour of YouTube videos about setting up the machine and such, I started sewing those sides closed. Now, are the stitches straight? Nope. I do not claim to be the best seamstress, however, considering this was my first attempt, I was super pumped.

Here’s the final product. Pretty easy project that made a big impact! Our couch doesn’t have extremely large back cushions, so putting pillows all along the back of it seemed to work best for this particular couch.

So here’s my math breakdown (I am a math teacher after all):

Placemats- $2.47 (I used 8 of them) =19.76

Fiberfilling- $3.47 (20 oz fills 4 pillows, so I used 2) = 6.94

Total: $26.70 for 8 pillows

 

Needless to say, I will be using this to create a few more pillows for around the house. It was a super easy project that even a beginner sewer can complete in a few hours!

Have you used anything that is usually meant for something else as decoration in your house?

DIY Plate Hangers

OK, so in a post a few months back, I talked about getting some wall art for the kitchen and found an awesome deal on some vintage prints on eBay (See that post here https://robinlaneliving.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/thursday-work-day/). But I still felt like my wall needed something. Recently I had purchased a killer serving plate at Kohl’s for mega cheap. It was so pretty and matched my Fiestaware colors, a great size, and was PLASTIC but looked glass. We’ve been using it as a tray for taking food out to eat on the back porch and I had told Andrew many times that it would look great hanging on the wall underneath the shelves.

I searched and searched for a hanger to use that would allow us to take it off the wall and use with little-to-no hassle with no such luck. Everything was either too involved or too expensive so I had given up.

Today I was at Kohl’s purchasing curtains for the basement (one of my summer to-do’s) and saw that they were running a sale on summer-themed dinner items. I stopped by the section on my way out because I didn’t really need anything but thought I would look and they had dinner plates and salad plates in the same pattern as my serving dish ON SALE. The dinner plate ended up being $2.00 and the salad plate was $1.88….so obviously they had to be mine.

I brought them home and started brainstorming. I wanted to use them to hang as wall art, but how? Then my DIY mind started thinking and I started to search the internet. I came across a post that one of my favorite bloggers had written about using paper-clips to hang glass plates (see post here: http://thefrugalhomemaker.com/2012/03/29/hanging-plates-on-the-wall-with-diy-free-plate-hangars/) and thought I could definitely do that since my plates were plastic.

While searching for some paper clips, I came across these plastic ties with  metal wire running through them and thought….BINGO! I used some hot glue to attach them to the plate, stuck some tiny nails in the wall, and TAH-DAH! I could not be more pleased.

Summer To-Do List

As most of you know, I got my first teaching job this past year and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. There is so much that I love about teaching, but one of the best things about being a teacher is summer vacation. Not only have I been looking for a job to help pass the time and bring in a little extra income, I’ve been making my home improvement to-do list! There are so many little things that I’ve been wanting to do but didn’t have time. Here’s my list:

1. Paint the ugliest room in our house.

Don’t believe me that its ugly? Here’s your proof…

       

This bedroom needs the terrible Earth wallpaper border removed and a coat of Kilz Primer over the even more terrible blue paint job. I plan to use a neutral color on the walls that will match the current furniture and that can easily be changed when we need to.

2. Paint the second ugliest room in our house.

   

Remember when I painted the kitchen that had the two different shades of yellow? Well the previous owners used the darker yellow to paint the entire second bedroom and then added a “swirl” effect with the lighter color. It is always daylight in that room.

3. Paint the basement and the basement hallway.

          

This project should be relatively easy. I am planning on using the same color we used in the living room that way as we get the money to purchase the furniture we want (I want a brown leather sectional couch) for the basement, it will coordinate with whatever we choose and the paint color will flow from room to room throughout the house.

4. Stain the wood paneling in the basement. Two of the basement walls are covered in this real wood paneling that looks weathered. While I don’t mind the paneling, I HATE that it looks weathered-I think it should be in a barn. I plan to stain it a dark brown color to coordinate with the Cafe colored walls and brown brick fireplace. I hope that this will bring a warm, cozy feeling to our ICE BOX of a basement.

5. Replace the light fixtures in the basement hallway.

I mentioned in an earlier post how our home still holds onto some of its 80’s vibes and these light fixtures are one of them. We bought replacements when we first moved in and replaced the main hallway lights. We just kept pushing this project to the back burner because it wasn’t as important as other things, but it will get done this summer!

6. Paint and put up shutters on the house/Paint the front door

 

I honestly could not be more pleased with how well the outside looks! The landscaping turned out fantastic and Andrew has been working really hard to get the yard to look nice. I plan to paint the shutters a cream and the front door a light blue and this will really lighten the house up.

7. Replace the blue curtains showing through the basement doors. These have needed replaced, however, have not been super important. I hate the way the blue looks, but once we get the cream shutters up, I plan to replace them with some sort of cream linen curtains.

I thought writing this post would overwhelm me, but these projects are going to make the house look so much better and become even more homey. How do you plan to spend your time this summer?