Vintage Wine Buffet

A while ago, when I purchased my French Provincial dresser off of Craigslist, I also bought a depression era buffet from him as well. It was in rough shape and needed some serious attention. The top was peeling off and just looked awful. We tried to peel of the rest of the laminate, but it wasn't happening. We were going to have to replace it completely. This thing sat in our carport for months before I finally got around to tending to its needs. From all the rain we had this winter, the top (which needed to be replaced anyways) warped, and just reiterated the fact that it had to go.

This past Friday I came down with the crud and felt pretty awful all weekend. Andrew did a fantastic job of taking care of me. He managed to get me to walk around Lowe's with him just long enough to pick out the router bit I wanted to shape the new top we had to put on the buffet. It took the life out of me to leave the house for a few hours, so while I slept for 3 hours, he got to work!

He did such an amazing job! I'm so proud of him, because for a first time router user, it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. I wasn't up for any kind of DIY this weekend, so we moved it into our mud room to get it off the carport and out of the weather.

I knew what I wanted to do to this piece, it was just a matter of getting around to it. When we went to pick out paint for our kitchen table, I went ahead and bought Annie Sloans Emperor's Silk RED! The red came from the wine inspired canvas Andrew got for a STEAL at Kirkland's. Originally $184 marked down to $23. That's right TWENTY-THREE!

I finally started gaining some energy back and managed to lay out my drop cloth in my now favorite winter time place to paint; my kitchen. I did some light sanding with some 220 grit paper just to smooth out some of the wood.

I started with the drawers and was loving the way the wood came through just one coat of paint. It looked distressed without me having to go back and rough it up.

I saved the top for last. I knew, since the top was newer/different type of wood, it would take the paint differently. I didn't want to leave it natural or stain it. So I crossed my fingers and laid on the first coat.

It was much brighter, but I wanted to give it time to dry, plus I had burnt myself out and needed to take a couch break. While I plopped on my couch I was racking my brain on what I wanted to do. I decided not to do a second coat and go ahead with my dark wax.

I started with the edge (which you can see the detail of the routing Andrew did really well in this picture) and really liked how the grain showed up more.

The technique I made up as I went along when it came to waxing the top went like this. Dip my rag  two-three fingers deep in the wax. Then I skipped and made 5-6 quick marks going with the grain. Then I spread these out along the top remembering to go with the grain. Making some areas dark and others light letting the bright red shine through.

To my surprise, the wax stained the top to match the rest of the piece almost perfectly! I love it!

We are on the hunt for the perfect drawer pull for the center drawer, but haven't come across it yet.

This piece really adds a pop of color to the bland room. Here's the finished decorated Wine Buffet!

In the top center piece, the red on top of the wine bottle was the inspiration for the red!! This is the $23 canvas I was talking about

Next up! WALL PAINT 

What color do you think would look best based off of the pieces in this room?


xoxo

 

Gramma's Kitchen Table Makeover

This past weekend, I finally decided I wanted to tackle the beast. AKA our kitchen. Our kitchen is the typical out-dated kitchen, fully equipped with dark wood cabinets, burgundy walls and the previous owners signature sponge patterned walls with matching outlet covers. I set the plan in motion and started with my grandparents kitchen table. 

I cannot type the word "grandparents" without tears coming to my eyes. We lost my Grandad in 2008 and my Gramma most recently in August of '13. My mom has pictures of me as a little girl eating breakfast with my granddad and making cookies with my gramma at this table. I have so many wonderful childhood memories and even adolescent memories of countless Thanksgivings and Christmas's at the "kids table". It means so much to me to have this piece furniture in my very own home. 

This past weekend was so gross out. We did the majority of our painting inside, but had to take the table out to our covered porch to do the sanding. Starting with 50 grit, then working my way up we went to 80, 120, 220 trying to get down to the actual wood beneath the layers and layers of polyurethane my granddad had put on there when he had it refinished. I needed to get down to the wood so that it would take the new stain.

Not even kidding, after about an hour of sanding with 2 different sanders (square and a 360 sander for the rounded edges) and 4 sheets of sand paper, the poly was finally coming off. I cleaned it off all the dust with a dry rag, then went over it with a damp paper towel. This was to make sure I got all of the dust off of the table so that I wouldn't trap it underneath the new stain. I also took the damp paper towel to moisten the wood and to hopefully open up the grain so that the wood would take the stain. 

I knew I wanted a dark walnut stain to go on the top only, but when we got to Lowe's, Andrew found an even darker stain called "Kona" by Rust-Oleum. It was perfect!

I applied the stain with an old ratty t-shirt. I dipped it in the stain and started from the outside and worked my way in.

DIY projects are FULL of trial runs and screw ups, so at first we didn't shake the can of stain (because I didn't read the directions) and we got this...

I thought, "what the in the world!!!!!!!! It looks exactly the same" It looked nothing like the picture. So Andrew read the directions out load, we shook the can up and tried it again.

MUCH BETTER!!! This was the desired color! While we let the stain dry (directions said about an hour) we tackled the chairs. I fought hard for turquoise, but in the end, we settled on Annie Sloan's "Old White" Chalk Paint.

With Chalk Paint, it's not like a normal paint. No sanding or prepping necessary. I painted right over top of the polyurethane on the chairs and bottom half of the table. You apply the first coat just enough to cover it. There is no need to slap it on thick and cover everything in the first coat. It is going to look awful and streaky and you might have your doubts, but in the end it is worth it!

The amazing thing about Chalk Paint, is that it drys so quickly. Each chair took about 45 minutes to paint. Had the legs been square and not round, it would of gone a lot faster. Needless to say 45 minutes X 4 chairs gave them each plenty of drying time and were ready for a second coat the moment I finished the 4th chair. 

I'm really particular about paint brush streaks, so to decrease as much of them as possible, I got an aluminum  pie pan (because I could just depose of it when I was finished and not have to worry about washing paint out of something I actually use regularly), filled it with water. I barely kissed the tip of my paint brush in the water before I dipped it into my paint can. The second coat was much smoother when the brush was wet, almost eliminating paint brush streaks! The paint almost falls onto the furniture and it's easier to spread out.

I'm going to let you know, this took an entire weekend. I'm trying to learn to start a project and finish it completely before moving on to the next one. We drug this little project into Sunday morning. Even left over night, the stain (because we had to do two coats) was still a little tacky, so I went back to the chairs to do some distressing.

With 220 grit (very smooth sandpaper) I started at the top of the chair and worked my way down. I sanded through the paint just until the wood started to show through as to not over do it. I tried to put stress marks in places where I thought "if this chair were really old and distressed, where would it be stressed?"

 (side note, we are not alcoholics/wine bottle hoarders. My soon to be father-in-law makes wine, so we save all our bottles we buy so that he can fill them up with his wine!)

The seats of the chairs have butt grooves, so I stuck to sanding where the grooves were and would most likely have been used a lot.

 Another thing about Chalk Paint is that it has a rough texture to it. It doesn't feel smooth like a latex or acrylic paint. To make the seat smooth I did one coat of polyurethane to smooth out the texture. Then, I took steel wool and buffed the poly to get rid of any air bubbles. We also polyurethaned the top of the table because it is going to get the most abuse. Plus we want to protect the top from water stains and food.

I'm in love with the way this table turned out. It is the center piece of the room. I can't wait to put some new color on the walls and a rug underneath to complement the Old White.

Be sure to check back to see our kitchen transform piece by peace!

xoxo

How I asked my Bridesmaids

Like any other girl, I spent months (ok, probably years) on Pinterest pinning the perfect wedding ideas waaaay before I even met my fiance'. With all that pinspiration, I knew I wanted to ask my girls to be my bridesmaids in a more creative and formal way, vs a plain text message. Considering the majority of them live in different cities, it would be too expensive to drive and ask them all in person.

I started at Hobby Lobby, and it was on from there. I found these adorable burlap envelops, some mixed media flowers and buttons in my wedding colors to put on the outside, some 4.5" x 6.5" cardstock to print on, ribbon to tie it all together and doilies just because I think they're pretty.

  

 Good ole' fashioned hot glue goes a long way. For once in my life, I really thought things through before I dove right into my project. I made sure to take a scrap piece of card stock and actually put it in the burlap envelope before I glued my pieces on. Otherwise, I would of glued the whole thing shut!

6 tedious envelopes later, I took off to my computer to write out all the things I wanted to include in the Bridesmaids package. I found a sweet Pin here and like the way she worded things. 

 

 

I just started writing their names on the doilies and not until I started stuffing the envelopes did I find where I wanted them to go.

 

I played around with the design of "will you be my bridesmaid" for days until I gave up on it. Again, call me last minute, but not until I was stuffing envelopes did I go with completely simply. After all, we aren't having an over the top, extravagant wedding. We want a simple wedding with all of our friends and family. So my bridesmaids package should reflect it.

 

Basic details like who, what, where, why.. these girls will be the ones I direct all my guests to when they have questions and I don't have all the time in the world to respond when things get to crunch time, so they should know as much as I do about our wedding.

All of my bridesmaids know of each other, however, not all of them have officially met. So I included their names, phone numbers, roles and how we know each other. I did this so they could get in contact with each other when it came time to plan the bachelorette party, bridal shower, whatever they need to get in contact with each other for, they now have the resource to do so.

In hopes of NEVER becoming or acting like bridezilla, I wanted to reiterate how much these girls mean to me and how much I appreciate them being with me. So I included that too :)

Again, I say, I don't want to be that crazy bride cable TV loves to cast. So to keep it simple and stress free, I want my girls to pick out their own dress. No 6 girls are going to look great in the same dress. Most dresses aren't made to flatter every body type. I am well aware so I picked out some color swatches from the local hardware store and included them in their packet. Granted they don't have to be exactly Cream Angels or Raffia Cream, but you get the idea. Creams, tans, and neutral. BASIC yet BEAUTIFUL!

My bridesmaids are my best friends as yours will probably be too. This took me a few hours to put together. The longest part was typing everything up and making sure I included all the important parts. It was a really special way for me to ask my girls and is totally worth it! All in all, this probably cost $5.20/envelope.

envelopes $2.00 x6 = $12
ribbon $.99
cardstock $4.99
doilies $2.99
mixed media $3.99 x2 = $8
buttons $1.99 x2 = $4
color swatches = free
hot glue I already had

Shipping was roughly $3.50 an envelope, which rounds out for a grand total of about $9 a packet.