(Face)Lifting Iron

Any excuse to use spray paint...  It truely is my new hobby.  In my defense, this project was much needed.  I have iron railings both in my back yard and along the steps on my front porch.  Both locations had chipping paint and rust and needed a little TLC. 

After I finished yard work this weekend I grabbed a can of Rustoleum Black for Outdoor Metal and went to town.  I laid down plastic to avoid painting the surrounding plants and concrete.  About 10 minutes later, good as new!

I really should go into the handy man business, but specialize only in spray painting.  My overhead would be low and the hours (minutes) would be great! 

If I do decide to go into business, I will be sure to wear protective clothing rather than shorts and a T-shirt.  While my plants and concrete were protected, I manage to coat my arms and legs in a fine layer of black spray paint.  Two showers later and I still haven't gotten it all off.  Sigh.

It's On!

The weekend is here and my backyard says, "Bring it!"

Bench-over

Several years ago I was feeling crafty and made this bench for my living room.  It's basically MDF, foam, a yard of fabric and some newel post finials (upside down).



Now I'm not positive I want to keep this piece in my living room but I do know that the old fabric is probably not going to fit in wherever it does finally land.  I found some cute yellow and grey fabric on Amazon.com (via Fabric.com) for $8 a yard and decided to updated it.  I removed all the legs and then painstalkingly removed a bajillion staples holding on the old fabric. 

I sprayed the legs black using some spray paint I had on hand.  It took a couple of coats since the legs, like my armoire, were once treated with Briwax.

After that it was just a matter of stapling the new yard of fabric over the foam into the MDF and then reattaching all my newly black legs.

The black legs seem a little harsh against my small print fabric so I may eventually tone them down or perhaps add a black trim border around the perimeter.  We'll see.  For now I'm happy with my $10 makeover  bench-over.

Furniture Painting

Ten years ago when I bought my condo I was in a Mexican Hacienda-like phase of decorating.  Rustic pines, wrought iron, warm colors of a sunset.  You may recall me threatening this armoire a few blogs back:

My parents bought me this armoire when I moved into my condo.  We got it at a nude furniture store.  I was so excited to hand distress and stain in.  I ended up using Briwax.

And now I'm over it.  I decided to paint it black.  I thought I'd be able to prime my wood and then just paint right over.  I took all the doors off because I was going to save time by spray painting their primer on.

Great idea, right?  It was.  Except the Briwax was still on the wood after 10 years.  I'm not sure where I thought the Briwax would have gone, but I knew it wasn't sealed and figured it had been long enough for the primer to set.  Not so much.

It was coming off with just a fingernail.  At this point I had to go back to the drawing board.  I hand scraped as much wax as I could get off and then sanded the whole thing down.

Next I coated the entire thing with Zinsser BIN Primer.  It claimed to seal stains, stick to all surfaces, and block odors.  My armoire had no odors but that still seemed like a niffy claim so I bought a quart.  The funny thing is once I got it coated, I began to think I liked the armoire white instead of black. 



Note:  This is right where Ashley breaks Ryan's heart on The Bachelorette

I like the way the white just blends in and the furniture doesn't seem too obtrussive in the room.  I think this will allow me to do more around the armoire (like art on the walls or things on the ground).  As luck would have it I already had some white semi-gloss paint.  So after a couple more coats I finally had my armoire all back together!

Yay!  It took a couple of weeks to get it done but I like it!  Let's hope the paint lasts longer than the relationship that results from this season's Bachelorette.  Sorry, Ashley. 

Cubism

When I saw these photo cubes in the dollar bins at Target I instantly had flashbacks of my childhood. The room I stayed in while visiting my grandparents in Oklahoma had three of these in it. I was always fascinated by the photos of my dad and his siblings in their teen years that filled the small panes. I knew immediately I had to buy some, especially at $1 a pop.

I surfed the net for photos and printed them out as power point slides. For the first one I went with classic Texas images that evoked fun memories: vintage signs, a longhorn and even gruene hall.

For the second one I used a variety of skeleton key photos with white backgrounds.

I haven't decided what to do with the third but so far I'm very happy with my $3 art project. A modern display that brings back the good ol' days.  Can't beat it.

Sit for a Spell

I cannot begin to explain how obsessed I am with my new living room chairs.  They are so fun and comfortable and fill the space perfectly!  I had to go to two different Pier 1's to gather a matching set but it was worth it.  I love the raised teal chenille flowers and the squatty stature of the chair.  I got two green velvet lumber pillows to tie it all back in to the couch, as well as a couple of teal pillows for the couch.

You can also tell in the above picture that I finally got white sheer curtains for the windows instead of the olive green ones that came with the place.  Thanks, Target!  I think the chairs add a great second conversation area to the living room while at the same time being light enough to carry over to the sofa for seating larger groups.  And I love that I see them every time I walk in the front door.

Pillow Talk

I'm slowly replacing my old couch throw pillows with fun colorful new ones.  I got a few in from CB2 yesterday and I really like the way it's starting to look.

How cute is that monkey?  I think everyone needs a dancing monkey in their decor.  I also love the multi-colored pom poms on the velvet lumbar pillow.  I still have a couple more bright solid pillows to buy and that will break up the grey pillows more. 

Yes, that is Pablo "cleaning" the old green pillows.  That's what he does.  He hasn't paid too much attention to the new tree pillow.  He's nostalgic like that.

He has come to enjoy his new grey doggie bed for the living room so I guess that's a start.  Because when he's not licking, he's generally sleeping.  Rough life.