A bunch o’ kitchen and breakfast nook updates

Posted in DIY by Christina

So, remember how one small thing can lead to a bunch of other changes without even trying??

Allow me to introduce you to ~~one~~ two small things…

Yeeeeaaaahhhhh…. I decided that there was no way to get a decent close-up shot without being in the mirror’s reflection (or getting my tripod which seemed like entirely too much work at the time). So, I chose to maximize the opportunity with a cheesy thumbs up victory pose. I’ll bet you’re thanking your lucky stars to be reading this right now, aren’t ya?? 😉

Anyways, I had a total score of a trip to my local thrift shop. It was one of those magical trips where I found these things immediately, paid, and left all within about 5 minutes. And these items would be a sweet ceramic planter that I got for $4.50 and a vintage shoe mirror which I scored for $8. Honestly, I had no idea what to do with the shoe mirror when I purchased it, but I thought it was awesome so I had to adopt it.

Once I got them home, I simply washed the planter, and shined up the shoe mirror with a bit of Restore-A-Finish and Feed n Wax. I dropped a plant I already had into the planter and stuck both items into the corner of our breakfast nook…

Which I loved, but unfortunately, the planter TOTALLY clashed with my bird chairs. Which were last seen here…

FYI: That orchid has since bit the Big One.

Back when I refinished our Craigslist kitchen table, I mentioned that the chairs needed to go. They just didn’t mesh with the table and were too busy for the space. I REALLY wanted to purchase new chairs since these are getting pretty worn (I originally purchased them for $8 from Craigslist and then refinished them), but with the unexpected expense of fixing our rotting wall, that option was (and still is) delayed. So, my pretty blue and white planter was really the straw that got the motivation flowing as far as making cheap changes. Or something like that. 😉

I knew that I had some leftover sagey grey fabric laying around, and while it wouldn’t have necessarily been my first choice for this space, it was free and neutral…

Which meant that it definitely had a leg up on the bird fabric. So, I got going on recovering the seats. I won’t go through a detailed tutorial on seat recovering since I posted one back when I initially recovered my bird chairs. But, if you want more precise information on this process, check out that post. I will say this, though. I generally consider myself to be in okay shape. I try to work out regularly and really enjoy it for the most part. But recovering seats makes me feel like I’m getting a full-on workout. Every.Time.Not.Joking. I was literally sweating and breathing hard as I was completing this project. Something about the strength needed to wield a staple gun while pulling fabric taut is just too much for me for some reason. So, I’ve found that the easiest way to get ‘er done is like this…

Now, if I weren’t holding a camera with my opposite hand, I would’ve been pulling the fabric tightly directly in front of the staple gun. So, imagine that. Basically, you wanna rest the top of the staple gun on your surface, and the bottom of the staple gun on the floor and then use your body weight to compress the staple gun rather than your grip. This should work as long as your surface is relatively flat to the ground. It becomes worlds easier. Trust me. Now granted, this requires you to rotate your surface much more frequently (or move around your object if it’s larger), but it’s worth it in the end.

Once the seats were recovered, I made a point to Scotchguard them. Since this is a solid-colored fabric, stains will be much more apparent, so I felt that this was important in making the seats last more attractively until we purchase our new chairs.

As a refresher, remember when we first moved in??

And now our breakfast nook looks like this…

And our chairs no longer clash with my new planter…

I’m really pleased with how the space is starting to come together. It definitely feels more grown-up since I recovered the chairs. Now I’m REALLY excited to replace them. In the meantime, though, they’ll do. 🙂

My plan with the shoe mirror is actually to use it as a dry erase board for messages. I just need to get some decent dry erase markers that show up better. You can barely see the ones that we have currently.

Eventually, I’ll add something to the other side of the French doors to balance out the space, but I’m not sure what yet. Functionality-wise one of the most welcome additions to the nook is this striped runner by the door…

I found it at Target and love the pop of pattern it adds. Plus, it goes a long way to preventing dirt and wet feet from muddying up the kitchen. My goal was to find a dirt-colored rug that was still cute. Mission accomplished.

Now, since we’re in the kitchen anyways, how about an update on the other side of the room?? Now, let me preface this by saying that I realize that a dressed-up turd is still a turd. And well, our kitchen right now is definitely a turd (what with its mismatched appliances, nose-cabinets adorned with chipping/drip-ridden paint, chipped Formica countertops, etc.). But, I figure that I may as well style it cutely to better to help us live with it until the renovation starts (which will hopefully be late summer/early fall depending on when we find decent reasonably-prices appliances).

Just as a reminder, last I showed you, the kitchen looked like this…

And this is the current status…

Minor changes, but they all work much better in the space and seem less cluttered than before. I’m constantly changing things around in here. Even as I was taking these pictures, I was altering things actually. So, now for a few countertop cameos. First, our coffee area (and yup! This picture prompted me to refill the sugar)…

Next… Anybody remember Larry the Table Guy?? He was my very first project on the blog almost 2 years ago…

Aaaand… Just like in our last house, chunky cutting boards are a mainstay on the countertop (and see how the teapot is tilting??? Our stove is dangerously uneven. One more reason why it needs to go.)…

Then, I added a stack of coffee cups opposite the coffee bar for easy access. Plus, I think it looks kinda cool (and you can catch a small glimpse of our dining room in this shot)…

And one more shot. Simply because Lucas gifted me the rock….

Right now, I’m okay with this space (sortof), but I’m not gonna lie… I cannot wait to get started on this baby. It has so much potential that it isn’t living up to right now. I’ll have a planning post on what we’re thinking soon. But until then, that’s what I got!

So have any of y’all had small changes that add up to many more? Kind of like a snowball effect??

11May2015

Painting our rusty metal gate

Posted in DIY by Christina

Hey y’all! So, I’m back with a how-I-did-it post about painting our metal gate. As you can see here, it was not in the greatest shape…

It was faded, rusty, didn’t stay closed due to a broken latch, and one of the gate caps was broken…

Not so hot. It basically sucked the life out of our curb appeal. It’s amazing how a seemingly small element can do that.

Our first order of business was to find some gate cap replacements. Apparently, both Home Depot and Lowe’s have discontinued sale of most of these items, but we were lucky enough to find some simple plastic black caps at Home Depot before they sold out…

I googled them as well and discovered that you can also order them online from several different retailers. Once we had these on hand, I went about prepping the gate. First, my trusty dad came over with a friend and welded the gate latch so that the gate would actually close (I took no pictures of this… sorry).

Then, I taped and protected the surrounding stucco and flooring around the gate with paper and got to brushing the rusty areas with a wire brush to loosen any rust particles and peeling paint…

For the more stubborn peeling areas, I used various sizes of putty knives to scrape off the offending paint…

I apologize for my putty knife. I have no excuse for (1) the fact that it’s gross or (2) that I chose to photograph it anyways. Ha! Sometimes I just get so involved in a project that I quickly snap progress pics, and then decide when I look back at my photos later that I must’ve temporarily lost all sense of vision. In any case, despite it’s appearance, my ~~unattractive~~ well-loved putty knife was highly effective in removing the paint, which is the most important thing.

Once I was finished scraping, I moved on to using low grit sandpaper followed by high grit to try and further smooth the surface. Honestly, the gate was in such bad shape in spots that I had no illusions of getting it smooth. My goal was to simply get it slightly less wonky.

I wiped the gate clean with tack cloth and then it was time to attach my end caps…

(P.S. The above shot was actually taken before I started, so I definitely sanded down those paint drips and rough spots before painting) To attach the caps, I simply set them up there (as shown) and then tapped them into place with a rubber mallet. It was a perfect fit.

Now, it was painting time. Before beginning this project, I’d completed some research and found that a good method for painting rusty outdoor metals was to apply a rust-inhibiting primer followed by an oil-based rust-inhibiting paint, so I went with Rustoleum brand products, which I found at Home Depot. I primed my surface using this…

And no, I didn’t follow Rule #1 of Home Improvement 101: Wear Gloves. And yes, this was another what-was-I-thinking shot that’s causing me embarrassment (rightnow). And yes, I still chose to post it anyways. Honesty. It’s a virtue that I try impart on this blog if it means you might learn by my mistakes. So, please, for the love of Lucy, don’t follow my lead. Please wear gloves and protect your skin. That is Recommendation #1 of things to do differently than me in this post.

To spray my primer, I simply kept the can about 10 inches from my surface and kept my arm moving the entire time, applying a light, even coat to all surfaces of the gate. I held a large piece of cardboard behind the gate as I sprayed to limit the over-spray (hence the crazy amount of paint on my hand… I never claimed to have great aim). 😉

After the gate was primed, it looked like this…

Already a huge improvement, right???

Next, I used Rustoleum’s oil-based paint in gloss black…

I don’t have any pictures of the painting process because about a quarter of the way in it started to lightly drizzle. I was literally hauling bootie to finish. Fortunately, it was only a VERY light sprinkling of rain and it stopped quickly, but it put the crazy-woman-panic in me to where I was just trying to get ‘er done before the skies decided to open up again (which they didn’t). Since I was using an oil-based paint, the water did nothing to the finish whatsoever, but really…. I consider myself lucky. If it had rained any harder I may not be able to claim that. So, Recommendation #2 of things to to differently than me in this post: Check the weather forecast before painting outdoor items.

As for how I applied the paint, I simply brushed it on with a paint brush and it worked like a charm. I’ve never worked with oil-based paint before and, aside from the fumes, it was amazeballs. It covered like a dream and smoothed right out leaving a glossy hard finish.

Like I mentioned before, I knew that our gate would never be completely smooth. You can see in this shot that there were areas where the metal was just too eaten away because of neglect over the years. Fortunately, these rough spots aren’t too noticeable unless you’re right on top of the gate inspecting it (or staring at a high resolution photograph. Lol.). We’ll eventually have to replace the gate, but in the meantime, hopefully priming/painting the metal has inhibited further rust damage enough to extend its life and make it look more presentable.

In any case, despite the bumpiness, it still looks way better than it did before with that rusty, decapitated gate cap. This is the same post, but with the gate open…

I plan to add a second coat of paint to the gate eventually which will hopefully smooth out the surface more. The coat that I did covered really, really well, so at the time, I didn’t feel like I needed a second, but we’ll see. Added protection couldn’t hurt.

A shot of the gate before so you don’t have to scroll up…

And now…

You can see that the old/wrong front door was in when I started this project, and I’d already started painting the new/correct front door when I actually got around to taking “after” pictures. I love seeing the evolution of things.

Here’s the other view from when we closed on the house…

That’s how the gate stayed for months since it didn’t lock. After we moved in, the courtyard quickly turned into a weed-fest since that mulch that you see above was only applied in a very thin layer (probably just for showing the house). Since then we’ve added layers of cardboard to smother the weeds, topped with decomposed granite. And I’m happy to report that it’s so far, so good on the weed front. We also had the house painted (which included that stucco wall). Its a slightly darker color with more of a grey tone to it than before….

The courtyard is just so much neater. I have to say that I really like the simpler gate caps. They really streamline the gate to make it feel slightly more modern. And I love the crisp blackness. It adds much needed contrast and sophistication to the courtyard. Now to address those faded lanterns. Funny how making one thing look good, makes another look just awful. So, we’ll be addressing those at some point soon. Eventually we want to add a nice, stained wood wrap-around bench around the perimeter of the entire courtyard and maybe some pavers underfoot to give this space some additional function. Eventually. We’ll get there. 🙂

In any case, the courtyard is much more presentable now and I couldn’t be more thrilled.