A Quick Chair Makeover with Stain!

A very easy, yet very dramatic chair makeover using stain!

I recently had the opportunity to join a new blogging group called Furniture Refresh! Each month, we get to take an old piece of furniture and breath new life into it using different products and techniques! This month, our mission was to stain a piece of furniture.

This is my first project with the Furniture Refresh group, so I’m really excited to share it with you all! Continue reading

Making those Teeny-Tiny Spaces Look & Feel Larger (16 Bloggers Share their Best Advice!)

I recently had the opportunity to ask 16 amazing home design and decor bloggers any question that I wanted! Since I know that everyone has at least one of these types of spaces in their home, I decided to ask:

What is your best advice for making those teeny-tiny, small spaces in your home look, or at least feel larger than they really are?

The answers that these 16 pro-bloggers came back with are pretty clever, and I’m more than sure that they will definitely help when you are faced with this more than common, design challenge! Continue reading

Chalk Paint – Tried & Tested (I finally did it!)

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So, I did it! I finally broke down and bought some of Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint… So what did I think? Would I do it again? And most importantly, would I recommend it?

When it comes to crafting & DIY-ing, one of my main goals is to cut costs wherever possible, and painting furniture was definitely one of those items always up on the chopping block… Why would I buy special paint when I could just go out to my trusty garage and mix up some kind of creative concoction to get the job done? Well, chalk paint has been all of the rave lately, and I have a couple of friends who swear by it, so I finally decided to throw in the towel and try it!

And — dun, dun, dun… the results are in! I love, love, love it! And here are the reasons why:

  1. First of all, the color selection is amazing! They have a large variety of main colors to chose from, and then by mixing these you can easily create a whole new set of colors!
  2. It only took me two coats of paint for sufficient coverage. Yes — I said, TWO COATS!
  3. The piece that I painted was about 14 square feet, and I only used about 1.5 inches of paint out of the can! This fact significantly reduces the price-point of chalk paint. You will be able to paint A LOT of pieces from just one can!
  4. Chalk Paint can be used on a large variety of surfaces, ranging from wood and metal all of the way to plastic and fabric!
  5. NO PRIMING or SANDING required! Just another great benefit… (Just remember to use a little common sense with this one… Do not paint over peeling or flaking paint. Just give it a real quick sanding or wire-brushing first!)
  6. There are several different finishes that can be easily achieved with chalk paint. (Chippy-Rustic Look, Smooth Modern Finish, Two-Color Distressing and the Simple Vintage Look!)
  7. Chalk paint  has two different waxes to choose from to finish off your masterpiece, a clear wax or a dark wax… another super-feature of chalk paint — getting so many completely different looks out of the same can of paint!
  8. This wonderful product can also be used as an interior or exterior paint!
  9. I was able to use the dark wax instead of a stain to accentuate the grain in my unpainted wood — So easy!

So, in summary, if you have been contemplating Annie Sloan’s Chalk Paint — I say… GO FOR IT! You will LOVE it! 🙂