Favorite Projects of 2010

This week, Kim at Savvy Southern Style and Rhoda at Southern Hospitality are having link parties for everyone to share their best projects or favorite makeovers of the year.  How great is that?!  I guarantee there are going to be some great things to view. I am going to join and list my fav five.
I have two favorite furniture re-do projects.  The first is this sideboard, that started out as a cherry stained piece with veneer that had yellowed.  Here is the before....



 and this is after I painted it, applied a metallic glaze and gave the hardware a new finish.



My next favorite furniture re-do was of an old oak table that had an Early American stained finish that had yellowed terribly.  Here is an "in progress" before pic as I had already had started on the table top...



This is after I painted it black and applied metallic highlights...



Plus chairs....



My last three favorite projects have to do with specific room improvements. The first room is the hearth room in my kitchen.  Here is the before with a sofa from my previous home...



and here is the room after I picked out an area rug, coffee table and sofa...



 Each pillow is reversible...





Another favorite room project in progress is my great room.  I chose two identical sofas for the space...


The sofas have reversible pillows...



 allowing different looks.



My last favorite project is my still unfinished dining room. I love the mirrored eglomise console table I put in the niche...



and the end chairs I found this fall..
.


and in place.



Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and looking forward to 2011!

Lori

Linking to:
BTB Party #8 at Savvy Southern Style
Top Projects of 2010 at Southern Hospitality

Textured and Glazed Handrail

 I love iron spindles and railings, so in planning our new house, choosing iron for the staircase was a no-brainer. The difficulty for  came in choosing a specific design. I initially was hoping to have an all iron look with swirled iron panels and an iron handrail, but the cost was exorbidant. This was probably fortuitous because that treatment probably would have overwhelmed given the scale of the area. So, I went with a simple spindle and wood handrail.

Here is a pic showing the raw wood hand rail at the bottom of the stairway.

Since I wanted an all-iron look, I decided not to stain the handrail. Instead, I did a metallic paint treatment that had texture that mimicked metal. After priming the raw wood, I applied texture (weathered bronze lusterstone) with a chip brush, and lightly sanded after it dried. Here is a pic of the lusterstone after sanding.

I then applied a metallic paint glaze (mixture of two Modern Masters metallic paint colors plus some glazing medium) to match the spindle color.  Finally, I topcated with two coats of  polyurethane.

Linking to:

Project Diaries at Stories of a House

Kim at SSS Before and After Party

Power of Paint Party at Domestically Speaking

Before and After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick

DIY Project Parade at DIY Show Off

Transformation Thursdays at The Shabby Chic Cottage

Flaunt It Friday at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating

Show and Tell Saturday at Be Different Act Normal

Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous

Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest

Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming

Remodalaholic Friday at Remodelaholic

Weekend Wrap Up at Tatortots and Jello

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On the Porch

Sofa Finish Fix

This is my hearth area sofa as it looked when I left my house the other day. Please note the condition of wooden frame, especially the corner on the left side of the image.

This is how the corner looked when I returned home a few hours later.

One of my Dobermans decided to lunch on my couch. Almost as bad was that my husband saw it first AND he had already been giving me a little grief about two sofas I had just ordered a few days before for another room. UGGGH!  Right away, I started sanding the s**t out of the area because it was all fuzzy, with splinters sticking out everywhere.

...after more sanding.

After I got it to where I thought the surface was smooth enough,  I brushed on and wiped off Rich Brown Stain and Seal. Here are pics during application.

I needed to apply a darker glaze over the Rich Brown Stain, so I clear coated the area with Aqua Guard as a barrier coat to prevent the darker glaze from biting into the surface and covering up the underlying Rich Bown color. Here is a pic of the clear coat after I applied it, still wet.

After the barrier coat dried, I brushed on and blotted off an American Walnut Stain glaze. When that dried, I applied two coats of polyurethane.

... without flash.

Even though the shape of the corner is more irregular than the other ones, I still think it is hard to tell that the area has been worked on unless you look real close.

Linking to:
Funky Junk Interiors' Saturday Nite Special
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday
Finding Fabulous' Frugalicious Friday
Chic on a Shoestring Decorating's Flaunt It Friday
Be Different, Act Normal's Show and Tell Saturday
Under the Table and Dreaming's Sunday Showcase Party
DIY Showoff's DIY Project Parade
Between Naps On the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday

The Turquoise Dining Table

Look what I came across at a local department store this past weekend when I was shopping for charger plates….

This table was gorgeous. The turquoise finish was glazed beautifully and perfectly distressed. I not only loved the table, but also thought the dinnerware, table linens and topiaries looked great.  ALthough I liked the benches,they looked too low to provide functional seating.

                                   A close-up of the distressed finish and the crystal knobs.

Here are the placesetting with the multi-color floral design dinnerware. The charger was a bronzy amber  that had a glitter look. The second pic shows the “glitter” look a little better.

Here is a close-up of the topiaries.  They are made of real preserved boxwood leaves. They are soft and feel real to the touch.

                                                                         Another angle....

Linking to: A Stroll Thru Life's Tabletop Tuesday

                                     Between Naps On the Porch's Tablescape Thursday

Dining Table Re-do for My Son

I have been busy running around with my twenty one year old son, who is getting ready to move into an unfurnished campus apartment at the University he is attending. He has lived at home during his first three years of college, other than living in a dorm for two semesters. I am happy for him but I am also SAD, but I don’t let him see.  Anyway, other than bedroom furniture, neither my son nor his roommates have any furniture to speak of. I figured that a dining table was one of the more important items to address so I pulled out an old oak pedestal table that was my husbands when he was single. I think I have seen a gazillion of this same table on blog posts. The finish was a yellowing Oak and in pretty poor condition. I forgot to get a good "before" picture but below is one I took after I primed the top... you can see the original finish on the pedestal base.

So I cleaned, sanded and primed and then painted it black. To add a little interest I wiped on some metallic paint (Faux Effects MetalGlow in Toasted Coconut) on the pedestal base and legs.

Because the accenting seemed a little too THERE, I went over those areas with some dull black paint and wiped/blended to bury some of the metallic. (Below shows the dull black paint just applied, and then after blending).

I decided to add metallic paint along the bottom edge of the apron, see below. I was tempted to add some metallic along the top perimeter but decided to edit myself. Here is the table:

...plus chairs.

.
The table seemed too small for young men. I remembered we had a leaf to the table, which took me 40 minutes to find... good thing young ears were no where to be found.  Below is a picture of the expanded table.  I like the size and shape, so did my son.

...plus some upholstered end chairs.

Finally, I topcoated with 3 coats of polyurethane. My son is not sure if he likes the upholstered chairs… now that I take a step back I understand that they are probably not the taste of most twenty one year old boys. I seriously don't know what I was thinking. I'll need to get more simple end chairs.

Also linking to:
The Shabby Nest         My Romantic Home     Blue Cricket Designs
Chic on a Shoestring     Funky Junk Interiors
Life in the Fun Lane