Project Update: Table and Chairs

The whole "blogging while keeping up with a house" thing has been tricky (as you can see). We're still plugging away at things, and on top of it, we've jumped back into wedding planning! Never a dull moment over here :)

With that being said, we have conquered a few projects. Last week, I was bumming around Fabrics Unlimited and found this great pale grey upholstery fabric with a diamond pattern set into it. I thought it'd look great on our breakfast nook chairs, as they were currently stained cream suede- not exactly the kind of fabric you'd take home to meet your mother :) So I picked up two yards and a staple gun, then got to work.

A VERY easy- and fun- update. Staple Guns are the greatest!

They turned out beautifully, which made the little table look even sadder. See, Cade got the set from a friend who saw DIY potential in them but then gave up when she received a new set for her wedding. The table started out with this RED (yes, that's the best way to describe it), cheap stain on it, and it was as far from cute as it could possibly be. But, with a little sanding, the red went away, revealing a great natural wood.

Adios Rojos! It's time for a facelift.

Unfortunately, the table needed a LOT of sanding, so doing it by hand would be a nightmare. That's where my lovely friends at Home Depot came in- they set us up with a great little sander that was born to take on projects like this. After about 20 minutes of sanding, the table was ready for some stain. We picked up MinWax's PolyShades in Mission Oak and slapped on the first coat (after cleaning the dust off with tack cloth... semi-related: I'm pretty sure people sleep in tack cloth bedsheets in Hell. That stuff is awful).

The first coat went on okay. MinWax suggests you do at least two coats, and I wasn't sure what to expect since the poly is mixed in with the stain. After we let it dry for 6 hours, per their suggestion, I took a piece of 000 grade steel wool and rubbed the whole table down to get it ready for another round of tack cloth and stain. The second coat turned out a lot better, but there are still some spots where it's more grainy than glossy, so we're going to have to do a final round of the steel wool/ tack cloth/ stain before it's ready to go. The edges of the table top are a bit tricky to stain- it tends to pool on the bottom of the sides, but I think it's a result of user error in trying to keep a "wet edge." If you have any suggestions on how to avoid that, we'll take them :)

All in all, not a bad project- I'd give it a 4 on the difficulty scale, just because of the stain being a pain in my keister. We'll post a picture when the final coat is on- until then, have a great day!

Some Pig

One of our other finds at Home Goods last night was this adorable flying pig on clearance. He had seen better days, as he was being sold as-is due to a giant crack across his hiney (insert jokes here). But he was adorable and $6, and no one would even see it when he was sitting on our shelf. So we officially adopted Wilbur and brought him home.

After some spackle and a little paint, Wilbur is looking better than ever. I'm so glad we picked him up last night, as he brings a little whimsy into the house :)

Adventures in Spray Painting

When we moved in, the house was surrounded with brass fixtures to the point where it looked like King Midas was the previous owner. It looked outdated, but we quickly found out that replacing all of them would cost us a tiny fortune. Cade replaced the front doorknob as soon as we got the keys, but the rest continued to shine brightly.

As a fan of the Young House Love blog, I've developed a growing interest in updating via spray paint. And since Cade saved the original front door knob, we decided we could use it as a test dummy. I picked up some Oil Rubbed Bronze Rustoleum (to match the front door) and set to work.

Not only was it easy, it also turned out perfectly. We're going to wait 24 hours to make sure it holds before tackling the rest. In the mean time, I also managed to update an old brushed nickle lamp from college. It came in a 4-pack and the whole matchy-matchy thing was a little too much for me. So I gave the lamp a little ORB treatment as well, and ouila! It's a whole new lamp.

The trick to spray painting is light coats- hang back about a foot and run each coat evenly across the surface before adding another. And make sure you get an all-angle spray. It'll make your life much easier. Also, check out the awesome shade Cade found at Home Goods last night! It's perfect for where we're headed with the house.