Tag Archives: Budget

Painting an Ikea Laminate Table

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This weekend I visited my sister in law in South Carolina and helped her paint her Ikea coffee table.  Visiting was even more fun with a project to work on together!  Unfortunately, I forgot to get a true “Before” picture, so here’s her table after we finished the first coat of paint:

NC/SC Map Table

Since it’s a a laminate table, we used my leftover Rustoleum Cabinet Tranformations paint.  Most paints will peel off laminate after drying, but you can use a primer like Zinsser or a specialty countertop paint.  After two coats of paint, we used a design we created and resized/printed using Block Posters with white carbon paper to trace the design on the table.

NC/SC Map TableThen we painted along the lines with some leftover tester pot paint.  (You don’t need special laminate paint once you’ve painted the table, since regular paint will stick to the painted surface.)  You can see more of this painting method here.

NC/SC Map Table After letting the design dry, we painted on a dark glaze, then wiped away the excess.  This darkened the design and left an impression of wood grain, and also cleared away the little smudges left by the white carbon paper.  With the glaze applied, it almost looked like the design was carved into a wood table rather than painted onto laminate.  The final step was a sealer.

NC/SC Map TableThis picture was taken from the side to avoid glare, and then we were on our way home so I didn’t get more photos.  The coastline was so much fun to paint that I wish I needed a coffee table topped with Norway’s fjords.  I’ll save that idea for another day.

sarahsigres

Budget Kitchen Makeover, During

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Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations in Espresso

As I was finishing with the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations on our kitchen island, our dishwasher went all rogue and SOAKED the floor.  I called a plumber who replaced the disposal and told me all was well.  He didn’t remove a cap inside the disposal, so when I ran the dishwasher it had nowhere to drain but the floor.  I called him back.  He removed the cap and said the way to drain a dishwasher is by running it again, and he pushed the button.  My floor just got wetter and wetter.

I became more depressed.  Finally another plumber diagnosed the real problem, a new dishwasher was installed and I had to call in the professionals to deal with the wet floor.  Here’s the Servpro machines in action.

Serv-Pro at Work in my Kitchen

It’s not pretty, and it’s REALLY, REALLY LOUD, but they really get the job done.  And the guys we dealt with were all the nicest people.  My floor felt better, my kitchen felt better, and I felt better, too. If you ever have a water disaster like this, call Servpro.  For real, they are wonderful.

It’s still pretty ugly in there, but we’re making progress.  The floor gets measured in a couple days for new vinyl flooring and my “budget makeover” has extended way beyond what I’d imagined.

I tell myself that in six months or a year, the new disposal/dishwasher/floor will be really nice to have.  For now, UGH.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I got a new rug for the little eating area.

New Rug

(It’s from Amazon, if you need one for yourself.)  In the photo above, I’d just done the first layer of sealer on the concrete counter.  I chose Buddy Rhodes sealers because they’re food safe.  In my online studies of Ardex concrete counters, I found a lot of people using sealers that weren’t food safe.  This was kind of a sticking point for me, and so far I’m really happy with the system.  It was easy to use and I really like the finish.  Here’s a couple pictures of the island fully sealed.

Ardex Feather Finish Counter

Ardex Feather Finish Concrete Countertops

This weekend I may be able to get back to painting.  I’m happy with the Rustoluem Cabinet Transformations kit, although that top coat is pretty tricky.  Eventually I’ll take better pictures, but phone pics will have to do for now.

Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations Before and After

This makes a good before and after picture, with the cabinets in the back still in their “before” state.

This is taking weeks longer (and lots more money) than expected, but we’re getting there.

sarahsigres

Herringbone Shuffle Dining Room Wall

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Herringbone Shuffle Dining Room Wall

I finally finished painting my dining room!  (Well, that’s not exactly true, I do still have some touching up to do … but I’m still counting it.)  I used the Herringbone Shuffle stencil from Royal Design Studio Stencils, but because we have heavily textured walls I had to trace the stencil with a pencil …

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and fill it in by hand with a small paint brush.

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It took AGES, but it did allow for a much more random color placement.

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The cats are thrilled to be allowed back into the room, and I’m working on a few smaller projects to finish things off, like hanging the curtains, touching up the paint and recovering the dining room chairs with a bright Marimekko fabric that a wonderful friend gave me.

Recovering Dining Room Chairs

I’m finding the chairs difficult to photograph, but there are the first two.  (Please ignore the puppy-chewed spindles on the chair to the right. )   I may also recover the ironing board because it often sits out in this room while I’m sewing.  It should be pretty too, right?

sarahsigres

Red Flower Pillow

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Red Flower Couch Pillow

I’m replacing the smooshed back cushions of my couch with big, colorful, quilted pillows.  This morning I finished my first one, a huge red flower made from some of the scraps from my Lava Meets Sea quilt.

Red Flower Pillow Close Up

Next up is another design from Pillow POP!, Crystallized by Angela Mitchell.  I’m calling my version “Hot and Cold” because instead of using value in these half square triangles, colors are separated into warms and cools.  I have so many greens that look warm to me, so in my mind I’m sorting red, orange, yellow and pink or blue, purple and green.

Starting Hot and Cold Pillow Cover

My pillow forms are huge and I decided to downsize the half square triangles.  That means extra work, but I hope it will also make a seriously cute pillow cover.  We’ll see, lots more to sew!

sarahsigres

The Evolution of a Painted Fireplace

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When we bought our house, I loved everything about it except the fireplace and my kitchen counters.  I’m still living with the counters, but I’ve been working on the fireplace.  (Note:  This is not a decorating blog, and this house is lived in and loved on by a family of four, plus three cats and two dogs.  In other words, nothing here is perfect and it’s always a work in progress.)

By the time I took this picture several years ago, I’d already painted the family room walls, including the backs of the built in bookshelves.

Family Room

Still, I had such an urge to paint the brick fireplace.  I know painting brick is a big step, but it wasn’t in great shape and I really didn’t like it.  My best friend felt the same about her brick fireplace,  telling me that it was so ugly — but if she painted it, she couldn’t ever have the old fireplace back.  Yes, exactly!  Never having that old, ugly fireplace back sounded like a huge plus to me, so I painted.  She moved.  :)

Fireplace After

This helped, but the brass fireplace surround irked me and anything I put on the mantel always felt like clutter.

So, more paint.

Fireplace

I used Rustoleum High Heat brush on paint on the fireplace insert.  I’d heard about high heat spray paint ages ago, but I just did NOT want to deal with plastic and taping and trying to spray paint inside the house.  The brush on paint was a little more expensive (about $15 a quart instead of $5-ish for a spray can), but I was much happier with the method.  With just one coat it has a smooth, satin finish and NO BRASS.  (That’s my favorite part, no brass!)

The backs of the bookshelves are actually five shades of gray, lightest at the top and darkest at the bottom.  There’s an earlier post about the birds and branches painted above the mantel.  (Ignore my little basket of knitting to the left on the mantel, that’s my attempt to keep it away from the cats.)

Have you painted a fireplace, or something else around the house someone told you not to paint?  Did you love how it turned out?  I was told that painting the backs of the bookshelves would “ruin them” and that they wouldn’t look like built-ins anymore.  I totally disagree.

sarahsigres