Greek Key Frame and Foo Dog Update

I love Greek Key and have wanted to incorporate it in my home forever. I stumbled across this frame while thrifting for $7. At first I put it back on the shelf but kept thinking about it and decided it was worth it.

It sat in my house for a month while I tried to decide what to do. Paint it? Maybe one color for the raised Greek Key and another for the rest? Swap out the art for something more colorful or modern? I had no idea and then decided to simply highlight the key detail with my favorite Antique Gold Rub n Buff leaving the rest of the frame in its original condition. The red art had to go and I left the frame empty. As a temporary experiment I also taped some grosgrain ribbon to the back so a little would peek through for contrast.

I propped the frame behind a new Foo Dog found on Craigslist for $5. It was a cement lawn decoration in not great shape so it received 2 coats of Rustoleum Night Tide Enamel. This spray paint was leftover from painting a campaign chest that sits in front of the Greek Key stair railing seen in this post.

Along with my newly made over 70's lamps I am finally happy with the bar area. An update on the lamps - I really wanted barrel shades but was having no luck until I stumbled upon some cheap RE base/shade combos at Target. They were on sale for buy one get an additional one for 1/2 off. Even though I only needed the shades it was still a great deal. Plus they were missing a base so I walked out the store with 2 shades and one base for $14! I also nixed the gold/ivory trim because it was weird.

With the exception of paint and the blue glass twig object that was my husband's grandmothers, everything on this bar came in at $36 -lamps, shades, tray, brass vase, foo dog and frame. I love it!.

Sharing this at HomeFor4SweetHome.

Lilac Campaign Dressers

Remember when I found these beauties of this shopping trip?

Well I decided to tackle them this past week. It was time consuming so I broke it down into steps and tried to knock something out everyday until they were finally completed last night. It only took 30 minutes to pry off the hardware with a handy steak knife.

I decided on the color Enchant by Sherwin Williams. It's the third color down on the paint strip.

For supplied I used Zinsser Cover Stain primer because it sticks to everything. I love Sherwin Williams ProClassic because of its durable finish that doesn't require a topcoat. Finally a little Rub n Buff was needed for select hardware pieces.

My dining room turned into a makeshift painting room after pushing the furniture to the wall. This is after the first coat of primer.

I waited a full day before applying the second coat of primer and two days between the two coats of paint. Here is one of the dressers before all of the hardware was put back on.

The handles were cleaned up after soaking in ketchup which worked great. Oddly the discs and brackets were not solid brass so I applied Antique Gold Rub n Buff to them for a decent match to the handles.

Here they are sitting pretty still in my dining room. I couldn't help but style it a little with the makeover lamp and tray to see what it might actually look like in the girls room.

The second coat of paint goes on the walls in the girls room today so hopefully the dressers will move upstairs this weekend. Once the new curtains are hung along with a few more updates their room will be done. Come back next week to see the full reveal (and better pictures)!

Paint Chip Art

There are many amazing paint chip art projects floating around and I was interested in creating my own. This piece and this piece were my main sources of inspiration. Just so you know I don't scoop up tons of these paint strips at the hardware store. I only pick up two or three occasionally when making my usual run to the store. I do buy paint from these places so I'm okay with it.

Only a few supplies were needed to get started. The large hole punch was $11 with a 40% coupon and I purchased a $4 brown bamboo frame from Goodwill that was spray painted Heirloom White.

The stack of paint strip samples probably took about 9 months to accumulate.

After punching out the ovals in the colors I was interested in I did a dry run to see how I liked the layout. This is what I ended up with after playing around with the pieces.

I then carefully stacked all the pieces in order by layer and set them to the side. Rub n Buff was applied by finger on the particle board insert that came with the frame. About a half hour later I attached the ovals with glue starting with the outer layer. It definitely helped looking at the picture of the dry run to remember the placement of each piece. Here is an upclose shot of the antique gold backround with the paint chips.

Some Mod Podge was brushed on to only the ovals to add dimension to the finished piece. Here it is hanging on the living room wall.

What's great about this project is customizing the colors to fit your decor. I was looking for ways to add a little berry or pink to the space and this fit the bill. Now I have to figure out what to do with the leftover paint chips that were punched but not used...

Painted Tray

I have a new obsession with thrift stores. Now that I have a little imagination I see endless possibilites with the amazing deals at these places. This started about 3 months ago. Already I was dropping stuff off about once a month but I never went in. On a whim one day I entered and now it is a biweekly habit.

This tray was a recent aquisition. I'd been wanting a tray for my living room table and seriously considering buying this one from West Elm. I really loved it but was hoping to find something less expensive. While I originally was thinking a square tray, this caught my eye at our local Goodwill and was only 2 bucks!

It was dark black with red undertones. Even though it was rectangular the 10" x 15" size was right and the nailheads were great. I decided on a white finish with a raspberry outline on the bottom. After wiping down the tray it was sprayed with Rustoleum Universal because it's a paint/primer in one and does not require sanding beforehand.

The next day the inside received 3 quick coats of Valspar spray paint in Plumberry left over from a previous project. By the way, the dark berry spray paint was a pain to find. No luck at Home Depot for the Painters Touch line or Walmart for the Krylon line. Even though Lowes was a half hour away I reluctantly drove and was relieved to see the color I envisioned on the shelf.

Anyway...a few days after spraying the berry paint I used 1" painters tape to tape off the design on the bottom of the tray.

Once again it was sprayed with the same white spray paint for 3 more quick coats. The tape was removed about 5 minutes after while the paint was still wet. A little Rub n Buff was applied with a small cheap paintbrush to the nailheads later that day. Here she is empty in her new home.

Eventually maybe a few decorative items will fill it out but for now my magazines fit perfectly. The living room is a favorite place to catch up on magazines and this is the real world - these babies need a home! Where do you keep your magazine stash or am I the only one still on paper subscriptions?