El Table de Chevron

This project happened on a Thursday. I work from home, which sometimes drives me stark, raving mad. I was having a particularly busy and frustrating day, so by 4pm.... I was DONE. By done, I mean DOOOOOONE. I could not stare at the computer screen any longer.

Later that evening, my roommate and I were expecting company for dinner, although, at this time we didn't yet have a dinner table. Thankfully, our friends are willing to sit on kitchen counters. I could have gotten dressed up for them. I could have. Instead, I put on my number 5 (a term we used in the community service group I traveled with for almost 2 years for the worst clothes you own... the kind you don't mind ruining with paint, sweat and whatever other gross things come your way). To give you a description... I was wearing a hoodie I found a few years ago in a lost and found bin where I worked. The hood was so tight I assume it originally fit a girl with a toothpick for a neck, so I ripped that sucker. The pants were a pair of tights I used for dancing in the show I was a part of with the community service group. One day, while on tour, I was too tired to do laundry, so I wore my dance tights to a service project where we painted a house. They became painting clothes after that. My hair, as usual (because I'm a tomboy who doesn't like to blow dry) was in a frizzy bun on top of my head. I'm not sure why I felt the need to describe my clothing, but there you go. As my roommate would say, I looked like an orphan.

I have these two tables in the living room that have traveled with me across states, and I can't bear to get rid of them. I'm not even sure why I love them.... probably because they were free. I can't pass up a good deal. FREE?! Yes. Free. I literally pulled them out of the dumpster when I was working for Bath and Body Works about seven years ago. There was also a ridiculously cute hutch, but there's no way I could have gotten that sucker into the Ford Focus (thanks to the 2 transmissions I had replaced, it was also known as, "THE WORST CAR EVER.") The tables had been taking up residence in my little brother's room at my mom's house for the last couple of years. I'm surprised they weren't dented/burned/demolished/broken/smooshed/slammed/stained. He is 17, after all... that's all that 17 year old boys know how to do....destroy things. When I moved into this new house, I immediately confiscated the tables, like a thief in the night....along with my stool (from the baby sister) and desk. Sorry kids, get your own furniture! :P

The tables are an ugly beige color. See below.

Ugly, and you ain't got no alibi.

I forgot to take a before picture of the little table, and now that I think of it.... I forgot to take an after... so that'll have to come another day... It's a story in itself, anyway.

This time around, I was a smart girl, and bought myself a mask from Home Depot, along with Kilz primer (thought I'd give it a whirl), and some Rustoleum Heirloom White (apparently, in the blog world, Rustoleum is the new pink).... I was on the fence about if I wanted it to be white and aqua (because I'm Aqua Obsessed) or if I should use a darker blue (as seen on the ugly owl here). My roommate decided aqua (Krylon's Ocean Breeze), so I obliged.



Because I've spent the better part of a month drooling over Twice Lovely's Chevron Dresser, I knew it was time to try my hand at it. Because I'm impatient, I decided to eyeball the pattern with painter's tape. It took awhile, but it was good mind-numbing fun. I think it turned out pretty well. I wanted it to have a non-chalant, hand-painted attitude.

Look into the table, you're getting sleeeeepier....

I then went for the aqua, while my poor friend, Anthony, watched and told me his latest girl stories. At this point, everyone was at our house, but I was determined to finish this project, dinner party or not. Worst hostess ever, right?

Taking my lead from All Things Thrifty's Glazing Tutorial, I knew that it was time to glaze away. Glazing is interesting. I had no idea if I was doing it correctly. You basically put on a bunch of tinted paint, try to get it in all of the nooks and crannies, and then, in my case, take an old ratty t-shirt to wipe it off. You can adjust the amount of glaze you slop on, and adjust how many coats of glaze, to give it a different look. It took a little trial and error. (Probably more error.) I put on several coats of glaze until I really felt like it was staying on the table, rather than completely wiping off. I do think it'd be easier to glaze if the piece had been more aged, carved or even somewhat less smooth than a baby's butt. Regardless, I really love how the piece turned out. I did later decide to attempt some sanding to give it a more aged, beachy look. I wish I had thought to do it before glazing, as I think that would have looked better. 

Check her out... what do you think? 

Hey, girl, hey!

I heart you, aqua chevron table.

I do need to take some better photos of it in the house. The lighting here just makes it look dirty. It really is adorable and brings some funk into our living room.

Update: I couldn't stand looking at those gloomy pictures, but my awesome camera is dead. These iPhone pics are going to have to suffice:

My grandmother hacked up my Hyacinth plant because, apparently, I was killing it. EEK. 

Linking this baby up here:

• Furniture Feature Friday
• Centsational Girl
• Transformation Thursday
• Frugal Friday
• Bass Giraffe
• Fab Friends Thursday
• Keepin' Company Thursday
• Stumble Through Thursday
• Terrific Thursday Blog Hop
• Thirsty for Comments Thursday
• Thrifty Thursday
• Thrilling Thursday
• Traveling Through Thursday
• Show and Tell Friday
• Social Parade Follow
• Remodelaholic Friday
• Boost my Blog Friday
• Weekend Blog Hop
• Buzz on By Thursday
• Best DIY Project of April

Aqua Obsession

I have an obsession with aqua lately. I'm surrounded by such intense colors in my room (red, black and white) that I felt the need to put something fun and colorful in there. Hence, aqua obsession. I'm slowly, but surely adding in bright aqua pieces.

I saw this Krylon Ocean Breeze at Walmart, and said, "She will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine." Not really. Although, I do quote Wayne's World a lot. Who can pass up a good, "psycho hose-beast?" I digress. This was the exact color I wanted to introduce to my room. Room meet Ocean Breeze. Ocean Breeze meet Room. Problem was, I didn't have anything to make aqua.

Ew. You's ugly.

Cue Flea Market Collectibles & Things, where I found a super gaudy, gold mirror. To anyone with spray paint, a gross, old mirror like this is a freaking jackpot find. Don't believe me? Check any of the blogs I read, they all want this crap. I have caved to blog peer pressure, and I wanted it too. So I got it, for a decent price. My mom looked at me like, "Seriously?" Yes, mother, seriously. My lovely grandmother would have kept it in this gold color, and it would match the other 231298274 gold frames and mirrors in her house. She knows how to make gold work. It works for her. Not my style. Homie don't play dat. Just like my aversion to browns, I have an aversion to golds. They assault my eyes and my general sense of happiness.

Apparently, that box was from a drugstore.

Here's the mirror, mid-makeover. I don't love the color that it was looking like at that point. I started to freak out a little bit, thinking it was going to be that powder blue. NOT aqua. I do not have a powder blue obsession. Not cool, wet paint, not cool. Thankfully, it dried into a lovely aqua. I should probably wait to freak out until the paint is dry.

The thing that actually made me semi-freak out was that I clearly didn't do a great job taping the cardboard to the mirror, because little aqua particles were ALL over the mirror when I took them off. I had no idea if it would come off, or if I was doomed to look through grains of paint for eternity. Thankfully it scraped off.... albeit not easily. I spent a while scraping it off, and really didn't do a great job cleaning it before putting it on my wall. Someday, when I care enough, or get sick of the smears, I'll actually clean it. For now, it brings the right shade of aqua into the corner of the gigantor master bedroom. Good job, me! (Stay tuned, I might get nuts with some glaze to make it look more aged and antique-y.

Hey baby, lookin' good.

Next up, an aqua gun rack. "A gun rack? What am I gonna do with a gun rack? I don't even own A gun, let alone many to necessitate an entire rack? What am I gonna do with a gun rack?" Oh Wayne, you slay me.

How I gave myself carbon monoxide poisoning....AKA the Shutter Headboard Adventure

So I've found this store across town that has become my new heaven: Flea Market Things & Collectibles.  I stumbled upon it while trying to find the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Best accidental discovery, EVER. It's basically an indoor flea market without a bunch of people hassling you. You can just shop through the different sections and pay for them at the front.

I found a ton of things that I scooped up, but this little story is about the ugly pink shutters I found.  I imagine the ugly, pink shutters I found lived a depressing life as a teenager's abused closet doors. They were absolutely HIDEOUS. I'm talking hot pink, sticky, glossy paint with additional paint splatters all over the place. INTENTIONAL paint splatters. GLITTERY paint splatters. Awful. It was like those poor, pathetic shutter doors fought in a puff paint war, and were declared a casualty.  So there they were, gaudy and horrible, sitting in what someone must have thought to be their final resting place. I saw them and had a vision. A moment of clarity.

Hello gorgeous! This picture really doesn't capture how awful this paint really was.

I had been searching Craigslist and everywhere in between for a queen size headboard. I've never had a headboard on any bed. It's a sad affair, being so headboardless. As I just moved into a new house, with a GIANT master bedroom, I knew it was time. Even my old vintage furniture doesn't fill this monstrosity of a room. (I know, I know... wah wah wah you have a big room.) I just don't have enough to fill this space. I did a little feng shui-ing (not really, I just moved things around til the room didn't look so ridiculously big)... and knew that I needed to do something big to make a statement in this room.

I had no desire to even attempt to strip the paint from these.... Too much work, and let's be honest, I'm still learning. I covered both sides with some Krylon Gray Primer, which took for-freaking-ever. I realized that I also had no desire to paint the back of the shutters since no one was ever going to see them if they were against the wall. The least amount of work sounded great to me.

Primed and ready to go.

Next up, layer upon layer of Krylon Flat Black Spray Paint. Thankfully, black is great for covering up imperfections (just ask any bloated woman). Although you can still see the drips of paint from the previous, bad paint job... I figure no one will be looking that closely... and if they do and actually say something, I'll smack them.

The final product. Yes, I probably could have made my bed. Clearly, I need to work on my staging for these big reveal pictures. Whatever.

So here's the ridiculous part of this adventure. I did all of this in my garage, with the garage door wide open. There was a nice breeze flowing through the garage. Silly ol' me didn't bother to wear a mask of any sort. Silly ol' me has had pneumonia in the last couple of years. Because there's nothing that says "spray paint without a mask" like respiratory problems. My friend, Ian, even said something about the fact that I shouldn't inhale all of those chemicals, which I brushed off nonchalantly. Worst plan ever.

So later that night, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I was a lovely shade of bright pink. I'm talking... princess pink. I had been hiking in the mountains earlier that day so I figured I had a nice, little sunburn. Usually when I'm sunburned, my skin feels hot to the touch.... this was different. I was just.... PINK. I ignored it, thinking I was being silly...until later that night when I was having a conversation with my roommate and suddenly became VERY dizzy... and immediately ran to my bathroom to throw up. This means a lot. I think that throwing up is the worst feeling on the planet, and will do anything to avoid doing it. I started thinking about all of my symptoms, and had a flash of an episode of CSI. I remembered an episode where the parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and when found were a lovely shade of bright pink. Yeah. After a little more self-diagnosis via the internet, I realized what was going on. I gave myself minor carbon monoxide poisoning.  Ridic.



Moral of the story: Wear a mask, moron.

Linked here:

A Little Different

So there's something I've noticed about all of the blogs I read. Almost every one of them is written by a twenty-something with an adorable husband/fiancee, a fixer-upper, newly purchased home and a perma-smile (maybe because they have an adorable bald child or their own vintage style). That's not me. It's not to say that I'm not a happy person. I am. The difference is... I'm as single as it gets, living in a rental home with dingy, white walls unable to be painted, a roommate with the perfect relationship, and a little black dog. At least I'm still in my 20s.... at least for another year.

I work from home, which means that I'm horribly sick of looking at empty walls and bad furniture. In fact, I think I may be going completely stir crazy sitting in this house all day long. As I'm sitting here typing, I'm thinking, "I hate you, cheap DVD shelves, I HATE YOU."

So the way I've decided to fix this hatred is through thrift store shopping, blog reading and spray painting everything I touch. I wish I could say that I have the creativity and know-how to come up with incredible ideas and designs, but I don't. I blatantly steal ideas from the blogs I read, and try to make them my own. I started small, and I'm wanting to go big.

I started off going to a few garage sales to buy some frames and came up with these beauts...

"Oh hello there ugly frames! What's that? An ugly owl. I think I'll take it!" Now, I must have looked like a pathetic mess when I rolled up in the Corolla, because the girl gave me everything for free. FREE. That's right. She did ask me to "take care of her owl," which I found to be equal parts funny and creepy. Mostly creepy.

So what'd I do, you're wondering? I went to Hobby Lobby or Michael's (can't remember which now) and bought myself some overpriced spray primer and spray paint. I'll be going to Walmart from now on, even thought it's my absolute least favorite place on the planet Earth. Walmart frustrates me more than when I'm watching a TV show live, and can't fast forward through the commercials. NOT COOL. Sorry, let's get this choo-choo back on track. So here's the super fun (/sarcasm) part. I tried to use the primer, but the primer decided to come out as a solid rather than a liquid. It looked to be a mixture of cottage cheese and asbestos. It left a horrible texture on the ugly owl. Oh well. I gave up on the priming and started in on the spray painting. My roommate and I had decided upon a black, white, and blue scheme in the living room. Basically, between the two of us, those were the colors of furniture we already had. Neither of us are rolling in the dough, so we're not really looking to go all out with the decor.

I just went nuts with the blue paint. I even grabbed up an ugly, little white cherub I had been given as a kid. Although I'm not even the slightest bit religious, I used to have a thing for angels. I figure the owl needed a winged friend.

As far as the frames go, I can't do wood. I'm not that natural kind of girl who can do earth tones. My roommate has found a gorgeous mixture of modern wood, greens and browns for her room. I can't do it. It just doesn't fit me. I'm still in my black, white and red phase. I do damasks and antique, painted furniture. I had to make the frames black or blue, no wood allowed. Here are the results, a first attempt... don't judge me.

Welcome, blue owl, to my empty mantle.