Painting Wood Paneling

I have been dying to do something with this room

since we first moved in. 

See all that dark wood paneling?

See the dark carpet?

See the dark furniture?

Yep. DARK. The room is a cave.

It is also messy;)

 There is a window, but it doesn't get any direct sunlight. See? Cave.

This giant stone fireplace area doesn't help either;)

Home Depot had a paint sale last weekend; 50% off Glidden paint.I went and picked up 2 gallons of paint and 1 gallon of primer.

Before we painted there was some prep that had to be done. I am not a fan of prep work,

but my daddy always says:

"If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right!"

Grrrr! Stupid Daddy's Girl.

Step 1: Sweep walls to get off all the dust.

Step 2: Scrub the walls with TSP(our bucket was black when we were done...EEEEW!)

Step 3: Sand. We sanded just enough to rough up the surface.

Step 4: Wipe down walls with a damp cloth to remove the sanding residue.

Step 5: Prime.

When you prime wood paneling you will spend what feels like half of your life painting inside the cracks. Blah! My hand is cramping up in terror just thinking about it.

Make sure that you use the tip of your brush to get primer into all the knots in the wood.

Then roll a nice thick coat on the rest of the wall surface to help your paint stick.

Step 6: PAINT!

This is my favorite part:)

I love cracking open a new can of paint!

The color is Fresh Pineapple from Glidden

Isn't it just so sunny and happy?

This is me after 7 solid hours of prep and painting.

At this point I had not even finished 1 full coat of the paint, but it was 3 A.M. and I had to get some sleep.

The next night I started at 8 and finished painting by 3A.M.

I put in over 14 hours of labor doing this and my husband put in about 6, so that's over 20 hours on this one room and we are not even done! I still have all the door and window trim to paint and Jon is going to put in new baseboards and add some crown molding(which I will then have to paint).

I did 3 coats of paint to ensure good coverage. 

Here is a picture of the room right after I pushed all the furniture back against the walls.

I will take a better photo once the trim is painted.

I am linking up with some of these fun-tastic blogs:)

Dining Room Buffet

My sister in law has been asking me to see pictures of the refinished dresser, hereafter known as the "buffet" in it's new home and I realized that I had not posted about it yet. 

Before it came into the house I decided that the kitchen walls needed a fresh coat of paint. It had been about 2 years since the room was painted and it just needed it. I knew that if the buffet came in, the painting would never get done. This way there was a reward for completing the paint job! Yay!

I stayed up way too late painting and then as soon as the walls were dry had the husband help me carry the very heavy buffet into the dining area and then nagged enthusiastically encouraged him for days until he rehung all the wall stuff I had him remove when I painted.

It's a good thing he loves me...I make him do lots of random stuff:)

Here is the buffet in it's new home. That tree candle holder is only temporary. I am thinking that I want a large mirror there. What do you think? I am still not certain about it. Any suggestions for what I should do with the wall space?

For "just because" here's the other side of the dining area.

P.S Anyone know how to get that box around my new signature to go away?

I've been featured!

My refinished dresser has been featured by:

I always love seeing what she features and was beyond THRILLED to be among them today:)

Thanks Stephanie!!!

Refinished Dresser

Here it is BEFORE:

Not a bad piece, but I wanted to use it as a buffet 

and it just wouldn't go with my table as it was.

Here is the color: Caribe by Behr.

 

I painted it and then asked if I should glaze it or not.
The consensus from the comments here and on Facebook was to glaze!

Here is the glaze: Ralph Lauren Glaze in Tobacco.

 After trying it out on one drawer I decided that it was too light so I added some black paint to it. I went to Home Depot and got a paint sampler which was just the right amount of paint and it was less than 3 dollars! Oh yeah!

 To update the hardware I used Rust-Oleum Hammered spray paint in Bronze. Normally I am a doofus when it comes to using spray paint, but this was so easy and smooth! It took everything in me not to remove all the doorknobs in the house and paint them. I told that to the husband and he just looked at me as if he was discovering a whole new side of my freak-ness. What can I say? I was excited!

Here is the AFTER:

Isn't she gorgeous? I am so glad that I glazed her! 

Thank you to all the wonderful blog peeps who weighed in on the decision:)

Y'all rock!!!

 Here are more pictures of it:

If you look closely at the dresser you can see which drawer was my first one. It's much lighter(I hadn't added the black paint to the stain yet), and it's all "perfect" but not in a good way. Blah! I am going to have to redo it, but for now I will live with it.

After my first drawer I let go of my perfectionistic freak-ness and just had fun painting on the glaze and then wiping it off. It was so freeing!

I am very pleased with the outcome and am already wanting another piece to redo! This was my first and as such will always hold a very special place in my heart:)

I will be linking up with some of these amazing blog parties!!!

This project has been featured by:

 

Dresser Progress and a Question

Here is what I have done so far on the Flower Dresser:

I took all the drawers out and gave the whole thing a really good cleaning. Then I had to figure out how I was going to tape off all those drawers so that I could keep the primer overspray out of them. I HATE taping, but I hate overspray more.

I looked around the garage and had a light bulb moment when I saw this:

It is meant for wrapping furniture for moving.
It keeps whatever you wrap it in safe from scratches:)

As you can see it worked great. Yay for not having to TAPE!

Here are all the drawers wrapped and ready to prime.

 All primed! I used 2 cans of spray paint primer and I have to say that I am not a fan.
I just didn't get the coverage that I wanted.

I prefer a bucket of primer and a paintbrush.

Here is my paint...isn't is delicious?

You see now why I wanted to slather it on my person, right?

Here is the dresser after 2 coats of paint.

I love this color so much that I want to paint EVERYTHING!

You'd better run!!!

I still have to paint the hardware and I want to do one more coat of paint before I can put it together and bring it into the kitchen.

I have a question for you:

Should I leave it a solid color or should I put a glaze on it?

The glaze that I have is Ralph Lauren Glaze in Tobacco.

What do you think?

If you don't know what "glazing" is, 

here is a Glazing 101 by All Things Thrifty that explains it really well.

Flower Dresser

My sister in law Cindy gave me this amazing dresser for FREE! After hubby brought this home for me I was dying to go to Home Depot to pick out my paint.
I love hardware stores!

 Isn't she gorgeous? I love the different sized drawers and that the top two are curvy while the rest are more square. I am planning to use this piece in my dining area as a buffet and to store some craft supplies.

This is my favorite little detail...there are three carved flowers on the front! 

One on each side and one in between the top drawers.

I am in love!

I took the girl to Awana and then went to Home Depot. I was literally giddy while I walked up and down the aisles waiting for my paint to get mixed.

When the guy opened the can to put the little dab of color on the top of the lid
I thought, "Is it weird that I want to rub that color all over me?"

Seriously? Yep:) 

I wanted to dip my hand into the paint and smear it all over me. 

I am revealing all sorts of freak-ness right now,

so feel free to click "next" on your reader.

I'm sorry.

Birdhouse

Jon left this morning to go camping and Travis was down for his morning nap, leaving just me and Brooklyn to occupy ourselves. Brooklyn is on a No TV day today because of a poor attitude yesterday, so we had to come up with something fun for her to do that did not involve a television.

We had bought this birdhouse awhile back at Joannes. It was 50% off and we thought it was so cute. I pulled out paint and newspaper and she let her creativity loose.

I just love the way the paints look in this old muffin tin that I bought at a garage sale for a quarter!

This is Brooklyn painting her birdhouse. She had so much fun!

While she was painting I went through my e-mails and then got to blog surf while drinking coffee.

 I found so many great crafty blogs and am feeling so inspired! I found an adorable book bag at Mmmcrafts that I plan to make for Brooklyn for 2nd grade. She likes them so much better than a backpack and at this age all she really needs it for is homework and library books, so it doesn't have to be super large. Here is the tutorial for The Basic Messenger Bag that I am going to use. Brooklyn wants her bag to be all purple with stars and a "B" appliqued on the front. I am so excited to get started on it!

Here is the finished birdhouse: