kitchen chairs

the chairs that came with our kitchen table were small and starting to break. I've loved these metal tolix chairs for a long, long time now, but didn't even want to pay the knock-off price. I saw these on Overstock and bought them, even though they only had the black ones in stock at the time. (I'm a bit impulsive, in case you didn't know.) They were a very good price, only $150 for 4 of them, and I figured I could spray paint them silver.

Well, no matter what anyone tells you, silver spray paint looks like just that, not like real metal. So, after ruining one of them, I tried to sell the other six (another one had been sat on wrong or dropped in shipment and the back was bent - not unusable, but different looking) on Craigslist so I could just bite the bullet and buy the ones from Home Decorators or even Crate and Barrel. No takers from Craigslist, and since I am impatient, I decided to strip them down to the metal.

Well, factory powder-coated finishes are really, really tough, and it took me a LONG time to get the paint off. Many, many coats of stripper and long hours in the garage with my respirator on.

But, in the end they look FABulous, and I learned my lesson, I think.

kitchen table

My mom and dad came out for Jack's baptism, which happened to be the week before we left for spring break. My dad likes to stay busy, so I thought we could refinish my kitchen table together while he was here. I ended up having a TON to do (of course, what was I thinking!) and couldn't help him much, but he got it mostly sanded down and then when I got back I finished the project.

Here's what it looked like before:

We bought it from our neighbor before we left Utah, she didn't have room for it and we loved its big bulky sturdiness. It came with different chairs. The chairs are another story for another post.

After sanding it down, this is the beautiful wood that we found. I think it is alder, and it is such a gorgeous color. Well, I wanted to keep it very close to the natural color, so I went to the little woodworking store here in town to get advice, and I was told to use an oil-varnish blend for a finish. I bought the stuff, came home, mixed it up and put it on, but as it dried it turned very very orange.

I cried. And then had to wait over a week for it to cure before I could strip or sand it off again.

In the end, I used a milk paint white wash and then went over it with wood stain in a driftwood color. I then finished it with polycrylic and wax.

I LOVE the way it turned out! And, I love the way it looks with my chairs. It only took me 5 weeks.

I linked up to MISS MUSTARD SEED

pantry before and after

my pantry was one of the last areas in my house with those darn wire shelves. it's hard to tell, but Erin had just reorganized it like a week before this picture was taken. it just wouldn't stay neat. i really wanted to "fix"it, but so many other things were higher up on the list.

Eric finally persuaded me to have California Closets come in and put in new shelves for me. this feels like cheating to me, after all, i am perfectly capable of building shelves, and i even like doing it (not to mention that i'm a cheapskate.) but, with starting school, i knew that having our family's food strewn all over the kitchen for two weeks while i finished up the project would not have been fun, so i relented.

i wanted to wait until i got all of the stuff put away and labeled to post about it, but i just couldn't wait any longer! i love it SO MUCH!!!!!

Somebody loves me...

Look what Eric made for me this weekend:

The builder wouldn't put slide out shelves in this cabinet because the gas line caused an obstruction in the back of the cabinet. But my smart husband figured it out:

He just put a notch in the back corner to allow for the gas line.

Here they are with the pots and pans in. It makes me so happy! Thanks, honey!

Kitchen Cabinet makeover

I've always hated how the glass cabinets in my kitchen just didn't seem to have much of a wow factor. So I used some of the leftover fabric from my new shower curtain and made them a little more interesting.

I took out the glass shelves, hot glued the edges of the fabric to the back of the cabinet, and then put the shelves back in (that was the hard part)

I love how they make my kitchen a little more modern and fun!