Start at Home

French Country Cottage
Thirty Eighth Street

Monday, August 10, 2015

Evolution of my Kitchen

One of the best parts of blogging is keeping a journal of the progress of my home.

When I look at this before picture it brings back so many memories. This was how the kitchen looked when we walked through the house before we bought it. I remember standing in the kitchen thinking "wow, this kitchen is HUGE" I didn't absolutely love this house the first time through but I didn't immediately check it off the list, because I loved the kitchen. Afterwards my husband and I went to lunch and he said, "I want to put in an offer on that house." I was a little freaked out, this house was out of our price range, but it had the top things on my wish list a big kitchen and living space, great location by family, a nice sized yard. It needed a lot of work so we decided to offer them a lower amount and after A LOT of negotiation we finally came to an agreement and we moved on in.

We had been living in my in laws basement which allowed us to save some money to put into the house. The first thing we did was put granite and a backsplash in the kitchen. I also repainted all the walls to a lighter calmer color. This was the first time I had decorated with tone on tone, and I lost a few hours of sleep over it. After we put the granite order in I went back to the granite yard several times to make sure everything would match. But I couldn't be happier with the outcome. I love how light and bright it is now!

After the Granite and backsplash were in the decorating began. I wanted to add a little bit of color and some character. I made my eat sign out of pallets and stained them with Early American by Miniwax to match my floors. I started searching for barstools I could paint I couldn't find matching ones but I love the mismatched look.

And here is my kitchen today! Last weekend my husband and I took down the China cabinet and replaced it with open wood shelves. The china cabinet came out at an angle over my bar and I always felt the space under the cabinet was wasted, and if someone sat on the barstool on the other side I couldn't see them.

I am so surprised how much bigger it makes my kitchen feel and believe it or not there is more storage on my shelves! I love how the wood shelves compliment my big eat sign.

I will be posting a tutorial tomorrow on how my husband and I made these shelves.

TTFN

Brooke

You can follow me here:

Linking here

French Country Cottage
Thirty Eighth Street

Friday, August 7, 2015

Furniture For Sale

Looking for a fun original piece of furniture? I may have just a few for you!

This beautiful vintage french dresser turned bench would be so cute as a mudroom bench, or a book shelf, or a place to display all your fun treasures and of course a great conversational piece. It has been painted with a high quality latex, distressed glazed and top coated.

Asking $350

Dimensions 61 1/2" L x 19 1/2" W x 33" H

You can see the full transformation of the bench here

French Dresser Turned Bench

I was at a garage sale, {I feel like I say that a lot these days} and a lady was selling this dresser, the only catch was it didn't have any drawers. EEK but I couldn't pass up these french legs, they get me every time!

After I got it home it just sat in my garage until I could figure out what to do with it. And then it came to me....A BENCH!! I wanted the bench to have extra storage so I only took out 4 of the 9 drawers.

Once I had the drawers out I made the seat and back for the bench, and since there are no drawers I lined them all with bead board to finish it off!

And here is the after! Isn't it so stunning and unique? Wouldn't this bench be so cute in a mud room and it could house all your shoes, or in a little girls room as her read/writing bench and it could hold all her books, or just like this and show off all your treasures!

I used Sculpting Clay by Valspar for the bottom gray part, and I stained the top with General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain. To make the details really pop I used a white latex paint to accent them.

Here are a few shots of my treasure. One of my favorite things is to stage a piece of furniture for pictures. It is so much fun to combine different pieces from around the house and see how they all come together. The only down side is then I have to put them all back...

TTFN

Brooke

You can follow me here:

Linking here

French Country Cottage
Thirty Eighth Street

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

DIY Chalky Finish Curio

I was at a garage sale eyeing this piece when the lady selling it ran over and said..."lets wheel and deal, if you buy this I will run it out to your car right now!" After a little negotiation on price I decided to take it home, and sure enough her and her son "ran" it right out to my car!

As you can see the back has a mirror and there was glass on all sides of this piece as well as glass shelves.

I took all the glass out and painted the frame with DecoArts Chalky Finish Paint. This paint, much like chalk paint, can paint over just about anything without sanding. However, I did sand this piece a little bit to make sure it was smooth and sand out the dings.

I wanted this piece to be a soft blue so I mixed

4oz of Escape (blue)

10oz of Yesteryear (grey)

4oz of Everlasting (white)

You can see all the colors here

Here is the coverage after 1 coat, and it stuck really great. My mom also painted with this paint and loved how smooth it went on.

I only had to paint this piece with 2 coats of paint!

After I painted the frame I cut out panels of bead board to fit in where the glass and the mirrors used to be! I painted those with 2 coats of the blue paint as well.

Once the blue paint had dried I used Everlasting (white) to dry brush the entire piece. I love the texture dry brushing gives to a piece! You can see my dry brushing tutorial here.

I also found this pretty appliqué to add to the front door.

After all of the paint was dry I seal this piece with a water based clear coat, after I applied the glaze to all the cracks. I like to glaze after I top coat something as it allows me to have more working time with my glaze.

Here she is all dolled up.

And look at all that storage

I couldn't be more happy with how cute this piece is. I am so glad the lady at the garage sale was willing to wheel and deal!

TTFN

Brooke

You can follow me here:

Linking here