furniture update: shabby chic wardrobe

For the past few years, I've gotten into the habit of collecting old furniture with the intention of fixing it up [hey I do that with clothes too!…. I think I may have a problem]. I found this old wardrobe at this crazy antique store about half an hour from my parents' house - the fact that I restrained myself enough to only bring this home is probably a good sign, ha. But that is another post for another day!

I was too excited to get started to take before pictures [another bad habit I have for purposes of blogging things], but just imagine it in an oak finish - it wasn't too bad in its original condition, but since there were some chips in the veneer, I went ahead and painted it. And then proceeded to sand about a third of the paint off. Maybe it looks sort of authentic?

I also wanted an excuse to try out Annie Sloan Chalk Paint - it's pretty magical. Despite the slightly higher price tag, I would definitely recommend it and am already using it on one of my next furniture redos :D

The original hardware cleaned up pretty nicely, too! Unfortunately, one of the pulls broke when I was reassembling it, but luckily my awesome grandpa was able to weld it back together :)

I was originally picturing this in the living room of my apartment as board game/blanket/miscellaneous storage, but seeing as I currently have no wardrobe or chest of drawers in my bedroom, that's where it ended up. Works for me!

spray painted shoes

I love how versatile my gold flats are during the warmer months, so I thought having a pair of heels might be nice too. Most of the ones I had seen around were a little more spendy than I wanted… do I smell a DIY?! I think so :D



Found these lovelies at a thrift store near where I work… the fabric was questionable but I love the scallop-y detail and they’re surprisingly comfortable. Time for some spray paint intervention [paintervention?]



I painted over the fabric with some old acrylic paint I had laying around to cover up the stripes.



…then taped the soles to attempt to keep paint off of them [it was a good effort…]. Spray paint two coats of gold, then one coat of clear sealer, et voila!



A word of caution: you should not follow my example and spray paint in your basement without proper ventilation, unless you want fumes to migrate upstairs despite having several doors closed in between where you painted and everywhere else. Oh well… guess these sorts of projects are better done when it’s warm outside so you don’t have to deal with that :D

chevron stripe tray update

I have a particularly big weakness for buying things at thrift stores that have any glimmer of potential to be fixed up into a better version of themselves. One of my new year’s resolutions/goals was to knock a dent in my stash of fixer-uppers I’ve acquired over the past couple of years [yeah… it’s kinda bad], so here’s one I recently finished! It’s amazing how much something as simple as a coat or two of paint can update something so quickly.

materials -

• old bamboo/rattan trays [I got 2 for a dollar apiece at Goodwill]
• spray paint for the base coat and top coat [white and clear, respectively]
• acrylic paint for the accent color + brushes

Here’s what they looked like to begin with. Kind of boring and outdated… but add some paint [while watching a couple of movies… it’s not the fastest process ever if you’re a perfectionist like I tend to be :D], and here’s what you get:

process -

> Tape off the ‘rail’ to keep paint off it, then spray paint rest of tray white. Let dry, make sure it’s the opacity you want; if not, spray another coat on until you reach the desired color.

> Paint accent color stripes. This was easy because I just followed the pattern created by the weave of the strips. It’d be cool to use a stencil or freehand something too!

> After that dries, spray a coat of the clear paint over everything to protect the black/accent color from chipping off.

The black & white really makes the stripes pop… they weren’t overly noticeable to begin with. I’ve only painted one tray so far… got some gold spray paint I’m thinking about using for the rail around the edge I left unpainted in this one for some extra fanciness :D I can’t decide if I want to paint the other one to match, or do something different… any thoughts?!