My Cool Green Chalkboard Machine

I found this at a yard sale for $5, like most of my project finds.  After another late night paint fest with a bottle of Coca-Cola, here's what happened!  I've been having a lot of fun with some new techniques.  My favorite so far has been Valspar's antiquing glaze.  I seem to be using it on everything.  Add in some of my fav green and chalkboard paint and voila'!

I'm using Valspar paint+primer.  A quart is about $17, which is pretty pricy for paint, but I can get up to 4 projects out of a quart so it works out well.  I always tape of the edges and around the drawer fronts because it just gives it a better look..  Not to mention paint drips drive me crazy!  After I painted it green I antiqued it, waxed it, and then I taped off the top so I could shoot it with a can of chalkboard spraypaint.

My kids loved this and so did I, until I kept tripping over it in the entryway.  It was just too low and stuck out too far.  So it hit Craigslist and it's gone :-(.

Update: I found some before pics.  This was fugly!

 Ewwww!

Chalk Painted Sideboard - All Done!

If you read about this piece in my last post you'll understand what a pain it was to get it to this point.  It took 3 coats of shellac to stop getting bleed through on my Annie Sloan chalk paint.  Then is took 3 coats of Annie Sloan Pure White.  Then I got creative.  I put one very minor coat of Annie Sloan clear wax, then sanded and distressed it.  Next I used one of my very favorite products, Valspar antiquing glaze (and a wet rag!).  After letting it dry, I put one more coat of clear wax to seal it.  I love this shabby chic look.  Reminds me of all the Rachel Ashwell books I have in my cabinet.  I even painted and waxed the inside of this cabinet.

My favorite part is the hardware, look at this:

I never even took the hardware off!  I really like the effect of the chalk painted hardware, distressed, glazed and waxed.  This piece has made an amazing turn around from the broken, $5, peeling veneer yard sale find that it used to be.

I'm keeping it right where it is for now.  I had a friend make me an offer for it, so we'll see if it stays.  I sure do like to change things around here all the time.  Can you imagine what my husband has to go through everyday?  He never knows what its going to look like here when he gets home from work.  What an easy going flexible kind of guy!

The $5 Yard Sale Sideboard

It seems $5 yard sale finds are my price point.  This was one of them.  It was in really bad shape.  It had peeling veneer, was wobbly and chipped to death.  I bought it while my husband gave me the 'Are you crazy?' look (he was also probably wondering how much work he was going to have to do on it too!).  I'm in the middle of the project now and I'm at the 'what was I thinking?' stage.  To get it to this point I've already glued the veneer down, wood-filled it, sanded it, washed it, chalk painted a first time (then it bled through!), then I tried Kilz primer (and it bled through again!), and finally today I broke down and put a coat of shellac over the entire piece.  I doubt it will bleed through this time.  Its been sanded so well (by my honey) that's it's as soft as a baby's bottom, and then I'm bringing it in to chalk paint it one last time.  Late at night of course.  With a bottle of Coca-Cola.  I think I'm going to keep this one because it's just so darned cute.  Stay tuned!