Ottoman reveal

Here's the ottoman - finished!


In case you've forgotten, here's what it looked like before:


Let's be honest. I didn't really like this ottoman/bench thing. I knew I could recover it, but that didn't help much. It wasn't balanced for me. The legs were too long and the upholstered top too small. It sat in my garage. For almost three months. Then one day while I was working on slipcovering a sofa it occurred to me I should slipcover the ottoman as well!

About an hour later (I had the piping already made) I had this (including paint time):



I painted the legs Rustoleum Annodized Bronze. Slipcovered the top with canvas drop cloth, added a generous ruffle and called it good. Don't mind the fact that it needs to be ironed - it will be a while before that actually happens :) Love it now! It will be going in my shop soon!

Enjoy!




Linking to:

ottoman sneak peek

THIS is how it started:


(come back tomorrow to see how it ends!)

Coffee table makeover

Traditional coffee table makeover. From drab (and booooring) to fab!

Here's the fantastic before. The coffee table is in the center - I redid the end tables too, but I am saving that for another post :)

And the fantastically colorful after:


The base is painted with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Antibes green and distressed and waxed with clear wax. Chalk paint is the best paint ever! No sanding, no priming, just wipe the dirt off and paint it :) I was lucky with this table because the original color was hunter green so it worked well under the Antibes green.

The top was painted with a half and half mix of old white and water. Slop it on and quickly wipe it off. If too much comes off, repeat. If it's too white, wipe harder. It's simple but you have to work it fast.

I made the damask stencil. I used damask dings and found the one I thought would work. Then I saved it as a .jpg and found this place online where it would blow up my image as big as I wanted and I could save it as a .pdf on my computer and print it out. I printed it out on plain printer paper and taped the image together and lined it up on my table to make sure it was the right size. Then I did something super intelligent (aka. stupid) and used an exacto on TOP of the table to cut it out. About half way through I realized what a not so great idea that was, but decided I could probably line it all up when I was done and spray paint it and make it go away (it didn't actually happen that way).

So, when I was done with my super intelligent cutting, on TOP of the table, I used my trusty Elmer's spray adhesive to make my copy paper a stencil. I knew I would be quick so I figured the paper would work. After I sprayed on the adhesive, I let it dry for a while so the paper wouldn't stick permanently to the top of the table. I stuck it down where I wanted (I made sure to line up the dot in the middle and then went from there).

When it was all done I used my trusty spray paint in hot pink (same hot pink from the last post )


I sprayed on two light coats - but I had to be careful because when the paper got wet it wanted to lift and I had to push it back down. I forgot to do this in one part and got some overspray on the table, but decided it was ok.

When the second coat was on I pulled off the make shift stencil. Then I really could see the cut marks in the table and I was not pleased at all. I stood there for a while unhappy and then remembered I had bought some chalk ink markers for a different project and I could trace the cut lines with the chalk ink markers and call it intentional!


I think it turned out beautiful. What do you think?

sunburst mirror

Spoontastic mirror!

Here's a preview of the finished product:

2 packages of dollar store plastic spoons (48 or so per pack) = $2

1 round 7 inch mirror from Hobbidy - $2.99
1 round 7 inch embroidery hoop from Hobbidy - (inside circle only) - $1.99 (i think)

Cut a circle from cardboard bigger than your mirror. I used some fancy measuring. I put the mirror down, traced it, then used some lids from pots that I have (which are clear glass) and traced them as well for a line to use as a guide.

Don't follow my direction here - take my word for it and put the glue down and the spoons on top. It looks much better after it's painted. I had laid out a bunch of spoons and got them all nice and neat and didn't want to move them to glue. I wish I had. Putting the glue down and laying the spoons in them worked much better.

Here she is, all glued ready to paint!

Oops - forgot to get fancy spray paint for plastic while I was at the store. Hm, I have self etching primer (Rustoleum) that's supposed to be for metal. Sounds like it might work - I did a test run (see the spoon outline in the upper right corner?) Can't even scratch the paint off. Bingo! Paint front and back with primer

Final coat - glossy pink (not sure of the name of it) HOT pink. Painted the embroidery hoop as well. Used E6000 to glue hoop to mirror and mirror to cardboard. Before I glued the mirror on I used a piece of wire and poked it through the back of the cardboard to make a hook to hang it. I forgot to take a picture of this, but since the spoons are so light I figured it would work just fine. It does. Use fancy weights to weigh down hoop and mirror while it's dry, ie. cast iron skillet balanced top.



Stand back and enjoy! And yes, I cleaned off the fingerprints!


This is very close to the true color:

Here's that price run down again:
Spoons - $2
Mirror - $3
Hoop - $2

glue - already had it
paint - had that too
cardboard and wire - yup

Not bad for $7 and an hour of your time huh (not counting dry time)? Enjoy!