China Cabinet Makeover

I have been looking for a piece of furniture for our dining room for a while now because our handmade table was just so lonely in there.  So when I saw this (potential) beauty on a resale website for $40, I immediately left the house to go pick it up.

I loved all of the detail and edges in the doors and moulding at the top - I knew that it would look great with some of my favorite antiquing glaze.

Step 1: Prepare the piece - take the doors off, remove the hardware, and tape around the glass.

Step 2: Sand everything to help the primer stick.

Step 3: PRIME.  I did some research on what to use because the cabinet was not solid wood, and this was my first time painting laminate furniture.  I had heard great things about Kilz primer, so I decided to use it and some foam rollers and brushes.

This was also my first time using Kilz, and now that my project is over, I can say that I am completely satisfied with this product and will probably continue to use it for future projects. However, I feel like someone should tell you this, since no one told me: Kilz does not smooth out easily and does not create a pretty finish.  This is what my cabinet looked like after one coat of Kilz:

I was really worried that I had done something wrong, but now I am pretty sure that this is just the way that Kilz works.  Maybe it would have looked better if I had done a second coat of primer, but I chose not to.  If I had been painting a dresser or something that I knew would receive a lot of wear and tear, then I probably would have used a second coat.  But let's be honest, china cabinets are mainly for looks and don't get opened and closed a lot - so I only used one coat.

Step 4: PAINT.  After letting the primer dry for 24 hours, I applied the first coat of paint.

If I had this to do over again, I don't think that I would have painted the inside of the cabinet.  It was really hard to paint the shelves without getting the paint on the glass, and I am not sure that all of that effort improved the look of the cabinet at all.  oh well.

Step 5: After 24 hours, I applied another coat of paint to the outside of the cabinet - I figured one coat was good enough for the inside.

Step 6: GLAZE! After another 24 hours, it was time for my favorite part: antique glazing!  This is my favorite product:

This glaze last forever!  I have had this one bottle for over a year and used it on at least 4 different projects.  The instructions say to wipe the glaze on with a damp cloth in a circular motion - this NEVER works for me.  So here are my instructions:  

(1) Use a dry brush to apply a thin coat of the glaze.  Make sure to get the glaze in all of the crevices and details.

(2) Use a damp cloth to wipe off the glaze.  I usually only leave the glaze on there or about 5 minutes before I wipe it off.  It is supposed to be workable for up to 15 minutes.  The longer you let the glaze sit, the more it sticks.  The wetter your cloth is, the more it wipes off.  This step is usually trial and error.  If you wipe too much off and there isn't enough glaze, you can always brush more on.
                                          
Here is the side by side of the ornament on the top before and after wiping off the glaze:

The glaze dries pretty fast, so after I finished all of the pieces and doors, it was time to reassemble.  I decided to line the back of the china cabinet with fabric, and I chose some light blue chevron material.

Here is the finished china cabinet:

Our Home ... in its current state

Some friends and out-of-town family have requested pictures of our house.  So here it is:

The Living Room

 The Piano Room:

The Foyer:

The Dining Room:

The china cabinet on the left in currently in the process of being painted.  I will post pictures when it's done!

Spare Bedroom (Coral Room):

I still have a few projects to do in this room.  I am going to paint the bedside table and an armoire.

Happy 1st Birthday, Riggins!

July 16, 2013, was Riggins 1st birthday!  And I decided to bake him a dog-birthday cake.  Y'all, this is sort of a big deal because I am not a chef, and I kind of hate to cook - just ask Jeff.  But, it was Rigs's special day, and he'll eat anything, so I decided to go for it.

I found a recipe for his cake here: http://dogs.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Dog_Birthday_Cake_Recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 jar of beef baby food
• 3 eggs
• some bacon bits*
•  couple scoops peanut butter*
• one block of cream cheese

*Notice how my measurements for these are real precise - NOT.  I was real careful with what I put in the actual cake part because I didn't want to make the poor dog sick.  But as far as the bacon bits, I just poured some into the batter.  I did make sure to get the "pieces of real bacon" bits and not those stupid imposter crunchy things.  As for the peanut butter and cream cheese for the icing, I just mixed some together.  To dogs, and most people, peanut butter + anything = goodness, so I didn't figure that Riggins would be particular about the cream cheese to peanut butter ratio.

Directions:

1. Mix flour and baking powder together.
2. Cream together the butter, oil, baby food, and eggs.
3. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet mix, and then add the bacon bits.
4. Pour into a 8" baking pan.  (I used a 9" round one, and it worked fine.)
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  (Oven times may vary.)
6. Mix the cream cheese and peanut butter.  (I used a hand mixer.)
7. Let the cake cool completely and then spread on the icing.

That's a pretty good looking dog-cake, if I do say so myself.

Then, it was time for Riggins "party" ... okay, so it was just the people living at my house and one of our friends, but it was a party to Rigs.  I gave Riggins some new toys that I bought for him, and then it was CAKE TIME!  We decided to give him the cake outside - mainly so that the pictures would be better, but also so he wouldn't make a mess in the house.

Let's be honest, somewhere deep inside, I was slightly worried that even my dog wouldn't like my cooking, But HE LOVED IT!  He immediately started licking all of the icing off, partly because that is the best part, but mainly because he doesn't have hands to pick it up and eat it with.  So Jeff helped him.  He bit into the cake and then gobbled it up super fast.

All gone!

I'd say that it was a successful 1st birthday for this handsome Dane.  

Happy Birthday, Riggins!  I hope you have many many many more!!

Me and the Birthday Boy - he wasn't to sure about that hat

Some recent crafts...

For a long time now, I have been wanting to make a cute map so that Jeff and I can pin all of the places that we travel together.  And this week, I finally got around to it.

I printed a big map of the Good Ol' U.S. of A. from this website that I found on Pinterest: http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm.  You can print maps off as big as 8 pages x 8 pages.  I chose to print mine off at 3 pages x 3 pages.

I cut out the map and taped the pieces together to make a stencil.  I used a roll of cork from Hobby Lobby that cost me $8.99 thanks to their 40% off coupon.  I traced the map and cut out the USA.  The cork had been rolled up, so I left some coasters and things on the map overnight to flatten the edges out.

I currently have a collection of large frames, mirrors, etc. that I have picked up at thrift stores and yard sales along the way.  But, my map was too large to fit in any frame that I had.  But I did have an old corkboard from Wal-Mart or something that was the perfect size.  You know, one that looks all plain like this:

I also had some extra burlap from my wedding laying around.  So, I recovered the corkboard with the burlap, just stapling the burlap to the back of the board.  I used spray adhesive to glue on the map and added a couple banners and ended up with this:

Hopefully we'll get to add a few more locations soon!

I also had an ugly, gold, scratched-up oval frame laying around and decided to finally do something with it too.  I spray painted it white and added some Valspar antiquing glaze.  I also used burlap for the background of this project too.  I got a wooden "H" at a local Home Accents store and ...

I am so excited that the house is finally coming together, and I am finally doing something with all of these random frames that I have bought over the past year.

So last night I made a ottoman...

We recently rearranged our furniture in the living room, and we realized that we needed a huge ottoman in the middle of our couch and chairs to complete the look.  A few years ago some friends of our's gave us their coffee table.  It used to have broken tile pieces on the top and looked like this:

I forgot to take a "before" picture of the coffee table - this is the only one that I had.  Riggins was such a cute puppy.

I bought some upholstery fabric at Hobby Lobby, some foam, and some batting.  Picking out the fabric was a little difficult (mainly because I got to Hobby Hobby 11 minutes before they closed, so I was in a bit of a hurry) because our couch is a sage green color and we have a pinstriped chair with a million colors in it.  So I picked out a fabric that had some of the same colors as the striped chair - but in a floral pattern.

The project took longer than I expected because I decided to paint the bottom and legs of the table.  Tip: Maybe you are smarter than me and you already knew this, but it is way easier to spray paint the legs of the table if you flip the table over.  That way, you don't have to lay on the ground under the table trying to paint all the way around the legs.  Believe me - it is much easier to flip the table over, with the legs sticking up.

After I let the spray paint dry, while I watched The Vow for the 25th time, it was time to get to upholstering (- i think that's a word).  I used spray adhesive to secure the foam and then cut the foam to fit the top of the table.  Then, I pulled the batting tight and stapled it to the bottom of the ledge of the table top.  Next, I cut the fabric and stapled it to the ledge as well.  I trimmed all of the extra material and corners - and I was done! Voila!

I also decided to add some decorative fabric tacks for a little extra decoration and to secure the fabric better.  And they were only like $1.99 at Hobby Lobby.

Our Farmhouse Table

So our dining room is rather large, and we really like to eat a lot, so Jeff and I got this bright idea to make our own dining room table.  We found an Ana White plan online that we really liked.  We pretty much followed it exactly with just a few small changes.  We went to Lowe's and bought all of the wood, screws, stain, and polyurethane.  We also got all of our lumber cut at Lowe's  - which is so much easier than having to measure and do all of the cuts yourself.  Then, it was time to get started!

1. We started by putting the apron (the sides) and frame together.  We used 1x4s for the apron and 2x2s for the under tabletop supports.

Big thanks to my husband Jeff and our friends Kyle and Taylor for their help!

2. Next, we screwed the 1x10s onto the frame to make the tabletop.  

NOTE: To make sure that your tabletop boards are centered,  find the center of your  apron and mark it. Screw the two middle boards on each side of the line, and then screw on the two outside boards.

This is where we ran into Problem #1:

The tabletop was supposed to be 40 inches wide - made from four 1x10 boards (4 multiplied by 10 = 40).  So we made the frame 36 inches wide so that there would be 2 inches overhang on each side (36+2+2=40).  

That all makes sense mathematically, right?  

WRONG.  

Some of our boards were a little warped, and a 1x10 board isn't technically an exact 10 inches wide - it's just more of an approximation it seems.  Well it seems to me like the lumber industry needs to get their stuff together and start measuring things correctly.  

Well all of that resulted in ZERO overhang of our tabletop - as in the sides were flush with the apron, and I did not like this.  So Jeff and Kyle made a quick trip to Lowe's and bought two 1x12s.  We left the two center 1x10s screwed into the apron, removed the two outside 1x10s, and replaced them with the new 1x12s.  Now there was a few inches overhang on each side of the table, and I was happy, happy, happy.

3.  After the tabletop boards were finally screwed in, it was my turn - time to sand, stain, and paint.

In order to make the table sturdy and to keep the tabletop boards as close as possible, we had to put ugly screws in the tabletop.  In an effort to make the tabletop prettier, Jeff filled in the screw holes with wood putty, and I attempted to sand down the wood putty.

Problem #2:

Wood putty does not stain.  I repeat - WOOD PUTTY DOES NOT STAIN.

So when I finished my first coat of stain, you could clearly see all of the places that we had tried to fill in the screw holes - and that was much uglier that just being able to see the screws.  

We let the stain dry for 24 hours, and then Jeff took the sander to the wood putty again and got most of it off.  I put another coat of stain on the tabletop, and made sure that I put a good, thick coat on the areas that had the wood putty on them.

Sorry the picture is so awful - it was dark.

4.  After letting the second stain coat dry for another 24 hours, I applied one coat of polyurethane.  I let that first poly coat dry for 24 more hours, and then applied another coat.  I also chose to paint the apron and table legs white.

5. After letting the final poly coat dry for 24 hours, it was time to move the table inside and put the legs on.  I really wanted to make the legs out of 4x4s, but Lowe's did not have any.  So the legs are currently 2x4s.  [I may try to find some 4x4s or some pretty table legs and replace them later.]

Project Overview:

This project turned out to be easier than I expected.  It took about 5 days to finish the table, but that is because you have to do so much waiting in between stain and polyurethane coats.  [Usually I am the most impatient person when it comes to waiting in between paint coats, but I knew that this table was something that I wanted to have for many, many years - so I wanted to do it correctly and follow the instructions.]

Labor Time: 3-4 hours

Total Time: 5 days

Stain: Cabot - Red Mahogany

Cost (lumber, screws, stain): About $110

Our New House!

We have successfully moved into our new house.  We have gotten a lot of rooms painted and several projects are in the works (including a farmhouse table for our dining room - post to come).  The boys (Jeff and some of our friends) have done tons of work in the backyard - chopping down trees, clearing out a lot of brush, digging up an old goldfish pond, etc.  It is starting to look sooooo much better :) We love the new house and are enjoying making it our own.  And Riggins loves it too!