Trash To Treasure Gallery Wall

This summer I worked on remodeling my bathroom by adding a fresh coat of paint, a new mirror, lighting and as a finishing touch, a colorful gallery wall. Can you believe everything I used came from thrift store junk? I choose the pieces that had an interesting shape and the potential for prettiness-because I know what paint can do!

Below is everything I used to create the look above: 
Stainless steel platters, outdated Avon recipe plates, cast iron owl trivets...stuff you might just throw away, or transform like I did!

Here's what I did to create my gallery wall: 

Painting Technique: Faux Subway Tile

Well, I feel like I've been neglecting the poor blog here but I have been working on the big task of painting my upstairs bathroom-and with my three boys as my full-time priority, I can only squeeze in a few hours at a time for that (hello, bedtime!)

So, this week, I have paced myself each night, grabbed my Frappucino, paint brush, paint and rollers and done a little bit here and there and I am almost done. And I can't wait to reveal it to you! I love the colors I chose and am dreaming up some homemade salvage wall art to go along with it. The big reveal is coming soon, please stay tuned!

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a painting technique I loved that I saw on This Old House's website.

Do you love the look of subway tile? If you're trying to save money or time and want a similar look, you can try this technique using painter's tape and either two different colors of paint or for a more subtle look, just two different sheens in the same color-try a flat sheen for the "grout" and a shiny sheen for the "tile" in a simple white or cream shade.  Pretty cool, isn't it?

Click on my Pinterest link below for the complete step by step process:

Source: thisoldhouse.com via Kristina on Pinterest

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Patchwork Distressed Side Table Revamp

I was thrilled when Cassidy of Remodelaholic, contacted me and asked for this project to be featured on her blog, a very cool site run by a husband and wife team who have remodeled 3 houses on a very tight budget-like $5,000 cheap! I don't know how they do it but they are a very talented team. Thanks to those of you coming over from their blog today-
I hope you take a look around and like what you see here and stay awhile!

So, about this fun experiment I got to try-my first time doing a patchwork technique:

This side table was sitting in a dark corner of my aunt and uncle's basement.
My cousin, who is moving into a downtown loft apartment has been looking for tables to
furnish his new place and he saw the potential for this piece. 

I was happy to take on the challenge of revamping it for him and his girlfriend. 

I have been fascinated by patchwork salvage furniture I've seen,  but not so hot about the prices (hundreds and hundreds of dollars when I can recreate the look myself??) I got to experiment first with this project and am really happy with the results. Curious? Read on to see what I did:

I used these materials by DecoArt as my accent colors and brushes for the project.
After priming the table, I brushed these acrylic colors in strips on all of the areas of the table
that had separate sections of wood, along with a muted yellow latex paint sampler ( believe it was Glidden eggshell paint in "Crisp Ginger Ale".

 I allowed to dry before I coated the table completely with a light latex gray eggshell. 


 I then allowed the top coat to dry for a full day before my final sanding, 
which I did using 100 grit sandpaper with an electric sander. 

Hideous looking at this point--but look below 
to see what sanding the final top layer revealed! 

The table now has a similar effect of those expensive salvage wood pieced together tables and chests. I love how all the colors subtly show through underneath. I finished the project with a protective coating of Deco Art Acrylic Sealer. It left the table feeling as smooth as satin.

 I hope Kevan and Anna like the end result as much as I do! 

I can't wait to try this technique on some pieces of my own furniture next. Stay tuned as I reveal more revamps...Thanks for reading! 

--Kristina

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Weathered Barn Framed Chalkboard

As promised, I am showing you today more details on some distressing techniques I've played around with.

I am by no means an expert, but I definitely had fun helping my friend Cindy who called me up, a little "distressed" about the whole process. She wanted to transform a frame she had painted for a chalkboard    to give it a nice old feel--like it had been through years of sun, snow, and wind. You can get that look by laying it outside for a few years, or you can speed the process up with a faux finish using sandpaper and some elbow grease.

I pretty much said, "Distressed?--one of my favorite words, I'd be happy to help!" The nice thing about creating a distressed look, in my opinion, is that there really isn't a wrong way to do it. I'm pretty bad at projects that require perfection--distressing is so forgiving!

Below, you can see the original color of the frame-a nice paprika red and our beginning marks made with medium sand paper. The chalkboard part, made from cutout plywood painted with chalkboard paint, would be nailed into it later. All we did was run the sandpaper along the ridges of the frame to expose some of the white underneath.

Next, you can see where we sanded more into the center of the frame to expose even more white. To make our faux finish look more authentic, we sanded in random spots, where the frame would have distressed naturally with age. In some spots we exposed through the white layer to a layer of brown wood.

 Below, a bigger picture to show the overall effect we were looking for. We were almost done!

Next, we nailed in the plywood chalkboard to the back of the frame to complete the project.

Works great! 

A nice spot to put the chalkboard-kid level! 

Cindy's girls loving the huge new chalkboard! 

You're welcome! 

Now that I have given you a more detailed look at my version of the distressing technique-do you have any questions? You can ask below by clicking on the "comments" tab. Thanks for reading! 

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