Upcycled Cabinet Door Artwork Tutorial

Earlier this week I posted a before and after post of my kitchen-cabinets-turned-artwork project.

Truth be told, this project has been a long time coming. I painted these a while ago. We finally hung them up this weekend! Isn’t that how most things happen?

Upcycled Cabinet Door Artwork Tutorial:

I used wood filler in all the holes left from the hinges and knobs. After it dried, I sanded that down and then painted the doors with a foam roller. You can read more about that here.

Fast foward – we didn’t need to use the cabinet doors anymore. I posted them on CraigsList, but due to the assortment of random sizes they weren’t useable to anyone. Before tossing them all, I saved a few thinking they might be useful.

I started by spray painting the cabinet doors. This color is Italian Olive by Krylon.

I printed out my numbers in my font of choice (I used “MyWorld” from DaFont.com). For reference, each number is about 9″ tall.

Since I don’t have a large scale printer, I printed sections of it out on different sheets of paper and then taped them together. I taped that to the door and starting to firmly outline the shape with a ballpoint pen.

You’ll want to press hard enough with the pen to leave an indentation of the outline of the shape on the board. Don’t be afraid to scribble. It doesn’t have to be precise, you just need the general shape.

Use a small craft paint brush to fill in your outline. I did two coats, letting it dry in between coats. If your shapes aren’t perfect you can always sand that part down a bit more in the future steps.

Then I used some leftover stain we had in the basement and covered the whole door with stain.

After the stain dried I began sanding and scraping the doors, focusing especially on the letters.

There is no special way to do this. I used an assortment of sandpapers – ranging from very rough to fine. I also slammed a screwdriver on it a few times to give the board a few nicks.

Then I stained the board a second time to darken the places I had sanded. I let the boards dry for a couple of days before I touched them again.

To hang them, I added some picture hanging hardware. I needed to be sure to use screws that were short enough that they wouldn’t come out the other side!

My previous claim to the project being “F-R-E-E” wasn’t totally true. I forgot about this part. I bought hanging hardware at Target for $2.99. You will get about 20 pieces and wire, and I only used 4. So I suppose I could claim this project only cost about 35 cents.

We are very happy with the end result! And extra excited to finally have the artwork above our couch not seem like we just moved in. This definitely helped bring our living room one step closer to feeling completed.

What kind of artwork or decoration do you have in your living areas? Have you DIYed any of it?

I’m linking up to Nifty Thrifty Tuesday No.113 at Coastal Charm and Beneath my Heart’s Best DIY of May Projects

Turning Old Cabinet Doors into Art

Remember all those pesky kitchen cabinet doors that I attempted to refinish?

Well, since this space above our couch was looking pretty empty…

We decided to make a few additions to help round out the space above the couch…

I upcycled our old kitchen cabinet doors into custom artwork.

Since I refinished all the doors before we decided to were going to buy new ones, I didn’t want to let them all go to waste. (I tried to sell them, but since they were all such weird sizes (again, it’s an old house) they weren’t of any use to anyone.

It fits into my love for graphic art and it’s also sentimental – the dates of our engagement and wedding. It also doesn’t hurt that this project was 100% F-R-E-E.

The boards tie in with the rustic aspects of the oar (Many people ask if I made this -I wish! It is from Pottery Barn.) and pitted wood “matte/border” of the center artwork .

You may also notice, I spray painted the center frame a dark brown so it would pop off the walls more.

I’ll be back with a tutorial later this week!

Easy Ugly Pillow Makeover

I love the clearance aisle. That’s no secret here.

When I’m buying decorations for our house, they are usually from the clearance aisle. I appreciate things more when I know that I didn’t over-pay for them. Also, if tragedy strikes and something is ruined, it’s not a big deal.

As I’ve stated here many times before, I especially love to scope out the clearance aisle at Lowe’s. We’ve gotten many a steal there.

Like a few monthes ago, as I rounded the corner I saw this towering box of four ugly, fringey, not-at-all-my-style brown throw pillows.

Then I took a closer look… $1.35 a pillow down from $13.48. That’s pretty cheap – just over $5 for four pillows!! Albeit ugly pillows. (Sorry if you like them!)

When I turned the corner and my husband saw what I was carrying, a grim look crossed his face.

“I can’t even buy stuffing for four pillows for this cheap!” I proclaimed and sealed the deal.

I brought them home.

They have been sitting in my office closet ever since until I found a bolt of outdoor fabric at Joann’s Fabrics for 50% off. I got 4 yards for $15.

I like sewing with outdoor fabric. Particularly for projects like pillows or other high traffic items.

First I sliced off all the fringe. Then I made a simple envelope pillow case (similar to this tutorial here). (Again, so not good enough to do tutorials yet. BUT, it’s so easy even I could do it!)

I’m really happy with how they came out, and the envelope pillow slip is very easy to change if I get tired of them.

(I do need to give them another iron though it looks like.)

While similarly sized and style throw pillows are at Pottery Barn and West Elm for $20 a piece, these ran me $5 each pillow. So I could make four of these for the price of one fancy store pillow.

While I could have easy paid the original price of $13 per pillow, totaling $52 (!!) for ugly pillows, I paid $20 and made four pillows that I love!

Next time you are in the clearance aisle, don’t snub the ugly stuff! You never know what it can become.

What recent clearance bin items have you discovered lately?

C’mon Baby Light my Fire (A Hearth Refresh)

One of the perks of living in the cold, frigid, bone-chilling weather of New England (can you tell how I feel about the direction the weather has taken lately?) is sitting by a roaring fireplace.

I love fires (the kind in fireplaces, that is). They are warm and cozy and smell nice.

Plus, if we didn’t have fires I’m not sure what else we would do with all this firewood in our yard.

This was our fireplace the day we moved into the house. Fairly non-descript. Classic mantle. Old bronze cover. Brick in need of cleaning. Strange pre-historic floor thingy most fireplaces have.

First we ripped out the bronze cover. It was really dated looking.

I started sanding a few spots before we painted and lo and behold.

But this mantle has a secret past. Once upon a time this mantle was teal.

PROOF:

It’s like finding out my favorite librarian was a cocktail waitress.

But it’s secret past is safe with me. And all of you.

After sanding down a few rough spots, I painted the mantle our trim color (Valspar Swiss Coffee in semi-gloss).

And TA-DA. The fireplace is complete. (Sorry for the dark photo. As you can see this was right after we moved in.)

Just kidding. It wasn’t that easy.

As you can see, the interior brick of the fireplace is a little worn looking. We’ve looked into high-heat paints (and even had a lengthy discussion with our local Sherwin Williams store manager), but have yet to find anything that won’t likely burn-up as soon as we start the next fire.

Then, we needed to have a chimney-sweep come clean out the chimney.

*cue “chim-chiminey, chim-chiminey chim chim charoo”

via

I really wanted our chimney-sweep to show up and sing on the rooftops like Burt. But he was just an old dude wearing a hoodie and he smelled like smoke. Another childhood fantasy dashed upon the ground.

In addition to the sweeping of our chimney, we needed to have the chimney re-tipped (they needed to repair some cement-work at the top of the chimney) and we also needed to have it re-capped (to avoid any more wild animals using our bathroom).

It looks sort of like this:

We purchased a stainless steel chimney cap for our house. This is one of the necessary projects that is entirely under-whelming.

But that’s a fact of renovating. It’s 20% exciting and 80% stuff no one will ever notice. So I need to point it out to someone.

Actually, this is a perfect example of DIY renovating. People think you just painted the mantle, when really you had to have the chimney guys come over three different times to estimate, sweep, cement and install. I could hear rain drops pitter pattering in our fireplace people! There were larger issues at hand!

All that to say – we love our fireplace now!

We purchased a screen from Lowe’s (and are considering putting a new door cover on in the future).

We enjoyed a roaring fire all night long for our New Year’s Eve party!

(Sorry about the autumn decor! I’m quite behind on posting about our different projects.)

I’m still not sure what to do about the weird floor though. Our fireplace is flush with the hardwood so it doesn’t make sense to build something. For now I don’t even see it behind our coffee table, so it stays. : )

Are you a bigger fan of fireplaces or campfires? I can’t decide.

Shelf Life

I have a friend who recently moved and is currently in the abyss of decorating her built-in bookshelves.

When we moved in I filled my bookshelves with all kinds of junk. Then I proceeded to spend 5 minutes a day adding, removing, rearranging items for the next several weeks.

I realize I’m kind of crazed. I probably think about things more than I should and over-analyze the placement of items. I also have a plethora of books.

(No, really, far too many. I tell this to myself every time I move. NO MORE BOOKS! Then I see one little used book sale and come home with armloads more.)

Suffice it to say we have four bookshelves in this house. And I still don’t have room for them all. There, I said it. And I’m not ashamed.

I don’t think I’ve ever shared my living room here before.

Here she is in all her pre-painted, just-moved-in glory.

Here she is now. (By the way, while sanding the mantle I discovered that it was once painted teal. Crazy huh?) This was our favorite room to paint. (Read: easiest job to do because it required the least spackling, sanding and prepping.)

And yes, our humongous television is in front of the window, but we don’t have much of a choice. There are 5 large windows, two built-in bookshelves, one fireplace, two doorways and one radiator (we already removed one!) to deal with. Not to mention furniture. It was here or over the fireplace. And we weren’t really feelin’ that. Plus, I don’t think we will have our tv in this room for long. Next to this room is an amazing 70s wood paneled sunroom we will tackle. But until

So, back to my being crazy and analyzing how to balance out our bookshelf decor.

Here is a close-up of our two built-in bookshelves side-by-side.

As you can see, it’s not totally finished yet. Some of the photo frames are still empty. And most of them are filled with the first photos I could find in our move. I’ll get back to it someday. I have since been distracted by IKEA pendant lamps, evil kitchen cabinet hinges and cleaning up from Hurricane Irene.

There were three rules of balance I used when decorating and fiddling with my bookshelf decor.

1. Color

Color-coded bookshelves are all over the map. This is likely because it helps a huge stack of books look a little less sloppy and slightly more presentable. I should add, I totally judged a book by it’s cover. If I didn’t like the spine of the book, it didn’t go on these shelves. My “uglier” books (aka: most of my paperbacks, how-to books and chick lit are upstairs).

• Whites: white, cream, yellow, silver, gray
• Darks: black, brown, navy
• Reds: red, orange, pink, maroon, purple
• Blues: blue, teal, blue-gray
• Greens: evergreen, lettuce green, you get the idea

2. Elemental

The elements of the world are earth, wind, water and fire. The elements of your bookshelves will depend on what you are putting on them. Mine are paper, wood, metal, glass and organic material. Yours could be pottery, plastic or ice cubes.

• Paper: books, obviously
• Metal: photo frames and other collectibles
• Wood: sentimental knick knacks made out of *shocker* wood
• Glass: vases
• Organic material: woven straw, rocks, seashells, etc.

3. Impression

I am not sure if I really know how to describe this one.

While I was arranging by color and by element, I was also trying to balance out the impression certain piece gave. I distinguished them by graphical, weathered and photographic.

• Photographic: I think this is obvious. Photos.
• Graphical: A lot of these are book spines with graphic text on them. As a graphic designer I pay a lot of attention to type, so this would bother me if everything was arranging sloppily. (Did I really just admit I arrange my books my typography style. Eek.) I am also including any frames or vases that are a solid color into the “graphical” category.

• Weathered: I also own a lot of older books (Hi, my name is Kat and I have a used-book-purchasing problem.) so I wanted to group a lot of these together. Other weathered items include driftwood, a carved buoy and pieces that just looked old.

Perhaps the easier way to describe this step is to balance out your antique (that word for me is kind of a stretch) and new items.

I think I’ve reached a new level of nerd-dom in this post.

Please tell me I’m not the only one?