Cute Yellow Dresser re-do

I found this little dresser at an estate sale for only $15. The price was right because of how beat up it was, but it’s bones were good. I loved the no frills, simplicity of it. It was real, solid wood with sturdy dove-tail joins. I did have to wood glue one or two spots, but nothing major.

It improved immensely after a quick sanding and only one coat of paint, but there were a few nicks in the top.  I smoothed those out before the last two coats.

After the last coat of paint, two quick coats of polycrylic and drying over night, it was ready to go! I gave this one to a friend of mine and she sent me a few pictures once it was set up.

She loves it, so I love it. This is also the color I used on the chalkboard. It’s just such a happy, cozy color. Let me know how you like it!

Chevron Door

So I used to have my own apartment and was independent and all that non-sense. Independence was fun, but being broke all the time was not! So… I moved back in with my parents and went back to school. I must say I have no regrets about that decision! I only have a 3 semesters left (so close yet so far away!) and I’ve gotten loads of bonding time with my family. I first moved back home about 3 years ago into my brothers old room and after living in an all white apartment for quite some time, I guess I was starved for color. I painted the room red… like bright Miami party type red…

It was fun for a little bit, but far from calming! After about two years, I came to my senses and painted it a nice seafoamy-teal type color. For some reason, the AC closet in our home is built right into my bedroom. It has this tiny little door that I used to imagine led to a secret hiding room when I was little. Oh childhood… When you open it, all you see is a big, noisy, somewhat dusty tank. Not very exciting, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t make the outside cute! At first I thought about making the outside a different color from the other walls, but that was too boring. I decided to try a chevron thing. I removed all of the hardware from the door first: knob, hinges, etc.. then I took it out to the garage and taped out the chevrons.

For this I used a ruler and a pencil. I decided I want the chevrons to be about 6in and the gaps to be a foot, so I made tick marks all down the sides. Then for the middle I did the same, but I started about 6in down so the depth of the chevrons would be about 6in. I probably should have taken pictures of this, I know… I’m learning. I didn’t want anything too bright, because the chevrons are busy enough. When I went to Home Depot I already had grey in mind and apparently it was meant to be! I ALWAYS check the oops paint section in Home Depot (sometimes I will go there JUST to check it, if I’m honest) and what do you know… there was a sample size grey there! So the paint for this only cost me 50 cents! Small blessings!

Anyway, I painted it and this was how it turned out…

I used a small foam roller so the paint went on smoothly with no brush streaks.

I absolutely love it! I have a confession though. I had to update this post, because somehow all the pictures got erased, and after almost 8 months, I still have not replaced the door knob and hinges… I guess I should do that at some point…

First Chalkboard Frame

Making your own chalk board is all the rage these days in DIY blog land, so I decided to try it out myself. I started with all of the necessary items:

Unique vintage frame found cheaply at a garage sale

Leftover paint from a previous project

A small piece of plywood cut to size with a jigsaw

Chalkboard paint, chalk

And some polyurethane

This is what I started with

The frame is a pretty good wood fake, but it’s actually some kind of compressed wood something, not solid.

The sweet yellow paint was left over from a dresser I had painted for a friend. I LOVE the color.

Once I did two coats of the yellow I added a couple coats of polyurethane to seal it. I had read from another blog that polyurethane will become darker yellow over time and should only be used on wood or darker colors that won’t show the yellowing. I thought the frame was a little two pastel, so I thought the yellowing might actually be good for it.

There is the finished product! You can read about the owl cabinet here. The whole project was pretty simple. One thing that is really important with making chalkboards is that once the paint is dried, you should go over the whole surface with chalk. Otherwise, the first few things that you write on it will show up forever. My dad taught me that!