Tag Archives: Redefined

Gray Weathered Wood Nesting Tables

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https://sharsumpaint.com/2019/06/30/gray-weathered-wood-nesting-tables/

I have been searching for a good way to create a gray weathered wood look for a table top ever since I saw my cousin’s new dining room table. I was sure I could paint something similar.

These nesting tables had been waiting patiently for me to work the gray weathered wood magic on them. The time was now.

I came across a tutorial from Angela Marie Made which showed the look I was going for so I pinned it and waited for the right time to try it. Thank you so much for sharing this technique!

First up, the legs – the tables are well made – solid wood with metal inserts for the legs to screw into. I’m sure there is a furniture term for that but I do not know what that is. Just know the legs easily screw on and off with no worries. We cleaned, hand sanded, then cleaned again and they were ready for paint.

My original idea was to paint the legs a light gray, but once I painted one with a new custom color “MO Graystone” we created in our Missouri Limestone Paint Company chalk-style paint line, I knew it would be too light. So I started dry brushing “Sunday Silver” over the lighter gray, lightly in the detail areas and heavier on the rest! I used just a small amount of paint, dabbing most paint on the brush on paper towel first. This is a great way to distress without sanding and it was fun to watch it happen.

Two down, 10 to go!

Love this distressing technique

Table tops: My husband cleaned, sanded, and cleaned again (top and bottom) and I used Varathane Premium Fast dry stain in Kona. I stained the bottoms for a finished look but did not do the weathered wood finish on them. I thought that Kona would darken them a lot, but actually didn’t. The wood is a very hard wood so I probably could have given them another couple of coats, but I lack patience in waiting for oil stain to dry so I chose to do just one coat.

I watered down the “January” color 50/50 and painted it on, then wiped off excess and rubbed in what was left. I could tell it was going to be lighter so I also used a little “Sunday Silver” here and there and rubbed it in. Yes, it turned out lighter than my inspiration, but I love how it turned out.

Love when the furniture decides how a technique is going to look.

I put five coats of Varathane water based Crystal Clear polyurethane Satin on each table, sanding lightly between coats. I love the satin finish!

Now that I’ve experienced how nice this technique is, my plans are to use this finish on this farm table set I have to paint and sell. But that’s a project for another day.

Upcycle a Stone Coaster with a Decoupaged Napkin

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I ran across a set of four stone coasters in a thrift store one day. Someone had tried to stencil and had a fail with bleed through. Their loss was my gain so I bought them with the idea I could do something with them some day.

Update: these coasters were already made but a friend told me she gets the stone tile at Lowes and then adds felt pads to the bottom for coasters. 🙂

Today is that day. We are going to deliver this beautiful bistro set to its new owner this weekend (hopefully the snow stops soon), but we wrapped and loaded it before the snow started in case we can’t go until Sunday.

This is a repeat client and I wanted to have a little gift for her. As I am such a hoarder….I mean a person who is always prepared …… with supplies, I just happened to also have a package of napkins I purchased in a shop somewhere that I knew would look great with the color of paint I used, Missouri Limestone Paint Company Chalk-style paint “Clothesline”, one of my favorite colors.

Here are the steps I took to create two coasters for her that will look great on the stained table top. Sorry, I forgot to take pics of this part.

1. I cleaned the coasters thoroughly.

2. I painted the tops and sides (to cover the black stencil) white “January” color. The white paint will really help the print stand out.

3. While the paint dried, I cut out the flower area a little bigger than the coaster. I peeled off the two white layers of the napkin so that I was left with only the printed part.

4. For the decoupage medium, I did not use Modpodge. I used Varathane water-based Polyurethane. I find it works great for decoupage. I applied a layer over the white paint and while still wet I applied the napkin. I used a sponge dipped in the poly to press the napkin into the stone, making sure I had no bubbles.

5. Once dry, I used 220 sandpaper to sand the edges.

6. I then used 2 coats of Rustoleum spray lacquer on the tops and sides to seal the napkin. Using lacquer will not reactivate the poly, so no bubbles formed.

The coasters look beautiful! I think my client will be very happy with her gift.

Nightstands & Storage Bench

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The problem (not really a problem) with selling chalk-based paint is that with everything you paint, you really want to keep it all. Take my bedroom….we bought nightstands about a year ago. We’d never had nightstands before much less matching ones and I was going to paint them. We bought themnightstands_somethingblue at Mary Ann’s Home Decor and Consignment in Rolla, Missouri, about a year ago and they were in such good shape I really didn’t want to paint them. So, I compromised and painted just the drawer fronts, then gave them a coat of wax. I’ve really enjoyed the size and the drawers and the drawer fronts I painted with Missouri Limestone Chalk-based paint in the color “Something Blue”, which is similar to a light teal color.

Then about a storagebench_pier1month ago, our son Trevor found at an estate sale in Cape Girardeau,  a really neat rattan storage bench for me to paint and sell. It was from Pier 1 Imports originally.

Hmmmm…that would look so nice painted with the same color as my drawer fronts and sitting at the foot of my bed storing clean sheet sets. I gave this a couple of coats  of polyurethane for protection.bedroom_somethingblue1

 

 

 

 

 

Sold! To me!  See, I told you it was a problem. I had to keep this one.

bedroom_somethingblue

TIP OF THE WEEK: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAYS – Creating a Barn Wood Look With Paint on a Farm Table Top

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You can create a barn wood like look on a table top using Missouri Limestone Company chalk-based paint and a stain_sealer. I have a step-by-step tutorial here to show you how!

For previous TIP OF THE WEEK click here.

The tip of the week is a little late thanks to Thanksgiving holidays. One of my sons and his two sons ages 4 and 17 months came to visit the week before Thanksgiving so need I say more.

My tip of the week for the Thanksgiving holidays shows you how I created a barn wood look on a table top. Plus I get to share the final results of the farm table set.  This is one of those projects I sure wished I had #1 – a garage to work in and #2 – that my dining room was big enough for me to keep it.  I posted pics of the progress and that generated so much interest, I sold it the day I finished it, so others liked it, too.

 

I did manage to get some time in to finish the huge farm table set I started (hoping to finish before Thanksgiving) the day after so that wasn’t too bad.  It took a couple of mornings getting up at 4:30 am to work on it before the little ones were up.  I really needed to get it out of the basement before everyone got here so we could get to the bed.  I was thinking we might have to sleep on it.  It sure was big enough. LOL

TIP OF THE WEEK

How to create a barn wood look with paint and Varathane’swater-based stain and sealer (I call this my magic stain).  I love it!  I debated about keeping this as my secret weapon, but I can’t do that.  I’m an educator and I just have to share what I have learned myself.  Hence the name of our paint company….SharSum Paint, a play of words based on my name Sharon Sumner (Share Some – get it?)

But first, some before pics of the table and chairs.

original-top originalbase originalchairs

farmtablebenchchairsbefore

The table and chairs were basically in pretty good shape.  We had to do some repair on some of the veneer under the table top and on the leaves and had to put the sliding mechanism back together, but this was a good sturdy set.

TIP #1:  Creating a barnwood type look on a table top.  I really didn’t know how this was going to turn out, so I did a practice piece and then decided to just go with it.  I really do love how it turned out and it is all due to my magic stain/sealer technique.

First, I gathered my supplies.  I used Missouri Limestone Paint Company’s chalk-based paint.  I needed Grannie’s Lace (an off white) Sunday Silver (a medium gray), French Roast (a dark brown) and Varathane water-based stain and sealer in Dark Walnut.

I painted the leaves and table first with the French Roast.  The pic shows a finished sample.

barnwoodlooksupplies

Next, I used Grannie’s Lace and dry-brushed over the French Roast.  Then, just a little of the Sunday Silver dry-brushed, and even less of French Roast again.  I then did a light wash of Grannie’s Lace.  I took dry paper towel and just started rubbing that wash in.  Sometimes I rubbed down to the French Roast and sometimes even harder down to the original finish.  The picture below shows the dry brushing.  UPDATE:  I did another table top after this (see pics at bottom of post).  I didn’t bother using the paper towel and rubbing it in.  Instead, I did a dry brush technique on the other colors (adding just a bit of water – not much) and tried to keep the brushing as straight as possible.)  It turned out as nice, if not better, with much less work.

2016-11-14_225107555_480a1_ios-1

The magic comes when I add the Varathane water-based stain and sealer.  I used Dark Walnut.  It somehow just blends everything all together and seals it at the same time.  You can see the white wash on the picture below.

2016-11-20_170958642_3595a_ios

The more coats you put on, the darker it becomes.  I used 3 coats on this table and leaves.  I very lightly sanded in between coats.  The result was a very smooth finish.  The sealer has a little shinier finish than I like, though, plus I always want to have a really durable surface on a table, so I added two coats of Varathane water-based satin polyurethane, which toned down the shine.  Every single time I would walk past the table top, I just had to admire it and feel the smoothness.  : )

So, there’s your tip of the week.  And now for the finished farm set.  By the way, we made a bench for this table out of 3 complimentary chairs.  Check it out on a previous tip of the week.The lady buying the set loved the bench.  She has two little ones and one on the way and she said she was worried about the benches with no backs and afraid the kids would turn them over too easily.  She loved how heavy and sturdy the chair bench was.

finishedbench finished-table farmtableset10 farmtableset9 farmtableset8 farmtableset7 farmtableset6 farmtableset5 farmtableset4 farmtableset3 farmtableset1

The 2nd table top I did is pictured below.

 

 

 

Electrical Spool Redefined as a Coffee Table/Bookcase

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We’ve all seen these…..those spools in the hardware store that hold electrical wiring, etc.  You may not realize that at stores like Lowe’s (at least in my town) you can put your name on a list to get one of these for next to nothing.

Then, once you have one…..what to do with it?  I recently, thanks to my son’s father-in-law, received one.  It was a smaller one, the perfect size!  I forgot to take a picture of mine before the redefine, but it looked similar to this one…especially the top.  The bottom had 4 holes around the perimeter that matched the 4 top holes.

electrical-spool2

A quick search on the internet “electrical spool DIY” produce quite a few results.  One of the ideas I ran across was to make a coffee table/bookcase.  I loved that idea.  I also knew I wanted to keep all the imperfections in the spool so I chose not to sand mine.  My project was going to be to redefine my spool into a shabby/chic coffeetable/bookcase perfect for a lake house.  Why not beach house?  We live closer to a lake rather than an ocean and I think one that says lake house would sell much better….more market for a lake house table.  LOL

It’s a little difficult to see from the photo above but there are 4 washers and screws on the top.  I also decided to leave them as is and not paint them.  I did clean them good as they were kind of oily.  Now, onto creating my table.  Here’s the inspiration piece I found.

spoolbookcase_inspiration

Off to Lowe’s we went to purchase dowel rods….oops…stumbling block.  They had the perfect size dowel rod, but at over $6 a rod and we need 4 of them, that meant over $24 just for the rods to create the bookcase part.  Nope….that wasn’t going to happen.  So, we put on our thinking caps and decided pvc pipe was the way to go and off to the plumbing department we went.  They had a long piece that would make 4 the size we needed for a little over $3 for the piece.  Yes…..pvc pipe it is.  However, there was printing in black up one side.  We knew from experience that wouldn’t wash off.  So, off to the paint department we went.  We found a can of spray paint for plastic for about $6.  I knew I would use this again, so we purchased it and were on our way home.

The first thing Danny (my handyman husband) did was cut the pvc into 4 pieces just about the right length and then sanded out the existing 4 holes around the edge so the pvc pipe would fit.  It was just a bit too snug.  It didn’t take long and soon our bookcase supports were in place.  He then sawed them off even with the top of the spool.  We took them out again and gave them one coat of the spray paint for plastic.  (I wanted to have that base coat so that the chalk-based paint I would be applying later would have a good bond).

While that paint was drying, Danny turned the table over and added some wood on the bottom to create a stable base.  There were washers and nuts on the bottom, too, so without that (or casters – which were more expensive than I wanted) this worked out fine.  He made kind of an X pattern with the wood that fit around the nuts and washers.  He made one long piece and then two shorter pieces that formed the X and screwed them in place.  He also added on each edge, those little things you put on the bottom of furniture to keep it from scratching floors.  The ones he used were round and had what looks like carpet pieces on them that you tap into place.

I was now ready to paint the spool and bookcase supports with Missouri LImestone Paint Company’s (MLPC) chalk-based paint – “Front Porch”.  We put the supports back in and for good measure, Danny added a small screw on the inside of each one to make sure they stayed in place.  But they were a good type fit as he pounded them in with a rubber hammer so I don’t think they were going to go anywhere. I gave the whole thing one coat, allowing a little of the wood to peek through if it wanted to.  On the supports I also only used one coat.  A lot of the white showed through, but I liked that.  It looked like the front page color was just a wash over them and it created a nice effect.

Note:  All the other hole in the top of the table we left open, including the pvc pipe holes.  In interesting thing to note is at the bottom of the spool column there is a little hoe shaped like an upside down U.  I saw one idea that someone draped white Christmas lights down the big middle hole.  The plug would easily come through that little upside down U hole and you could plug them in.  That would make a nice effect at night.

After the paint dried, I cut a stencil from my Silhouette machine and stenciled “Lake House” on the top using MLPC “Sunday Silver” color.

The final step was mixing up some liming wax by adding some MLPC “January” to some Briwax and giving the whole thing a coat of wax….let it dry for a bit and buffed it.  I loved the effect of the liming wax.  The redefine was complete.  We are taking it to our storage unit “PopUp Shop” this morning.  Fingers crossed that it sells!  If not, I’ve posted it on Facebook’s marketplace and several local facebook swap shops, so hopefully it will sell on one of those if not today.

spooltable

TIP OF THE WEEK: November 3, 2016 – Steampunk Decor – Who Knew?

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For previous TIP OF THE WEEK click here.

I have to admit, before I started painting furniture I had never heard of Steampunk or Steampunk Decor.

steam·punk
ˈstēmˌpəNGk/
noun
a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.

Steampunk incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk decor will then have elements of machinery and the elegance of 19th century design.

I found this article does a great job of explaining Steampunk and Steampunk Decor.

http://www.impressiveinteriordesign.com/steampunk-interior-design-style-decorating-ideas/

Here’s what came up with a Google Search on Steampunk Decor.  Browse through some of these links to get an idea of the look.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=steampunk%20decor 

For previous TIP OF THE WEEK, click here.

Why am I so interested in learning more about this unusual interior design? I have a customer who really likes this and looks for pieces that will fit. So, I made it my business to find out…and you know what? It’s pretty fascinating stuff.

I’ve done a couple of pieces now for him. I call it a Steampunk type look. Not exactly the real deal, but reminiscent of true Steampunk.

The first piece was a marble top coffee table. The middle piece of marble was missing and had been replaced with glass. I painted the table black and bought a piece of fabric from Jo-Ann’s which featured some of the colors of Steampunk and included images of a map, post office stamps, etc. I covered a thin board and stapled it on the back. I put it under the glass (it fit fine as with the board and the glass, the width was just about the same as the original marble and ended up with a cool, Steampunk look coffee table.

steampunktablesteampunktable11

Then, this cool clock came to me through a friend and I thought it would really be a statement piece. I painted it black and an out of date nautical clock has now been elevated to a Steampunk look. My customer loved it and purchased it on the spot.
nautical-clock

I’m kind of liking this Steampunk Decor.