Armoire Part I

I had been looking for an armoire when we were still living in the apartment because space was really getting low. We found this one on craigslist for under 100 and I figured we could rehab it in some way to make it like new. We had almost finished the rehab when we moved and...

Well we needed to rehab our rehab project.

Here you can see that we painted over the off-white with true white. I will post the next step tomorrow.

A tip for finishing white-painted projects. Traditional oil-based poly will tint it yellow. That was one of our unfortunate discoveries. In order to get true white, or even close to it, you need to get water based poly that says "crystal  clear" on it. TRUST ME!

That being said, the water based isn't as tough for protecting against scratching, so you need to put quite a few coats on. On surfaces that see wear I do up to 5 coats. It's worth the extra work in the beginning!

Stay tuned :)

Posting Again!

I know that I've literally been the worst at posting. Literally. But to be fair, we did move into a house (yay!) that needs a lot (a lot!) of renovations (boo!). So I've been pretty busy. ALSO, I'm definitely posting this because I need your help! I entered an upcycling contest and need your votes to get into the top 10!! Ya'll would be the best if you could go over to:

VOTE HERE!  (you have to click "view more" at the bottom) the thumbnail that you click looks like this and is on the far right: 

NOW TO THE POST!

and find my entry and click vote. Everyday. Until voting ends. Okay, just kidding. Unless you will. 

Look at that sorry old dresser! The reason I picked it out was because it was 15 dollars and I'm cheap. Also it was long and skinny which is exactly what I wanted in a book and toy shelf for Jude. 

First, I stripped it down to the bare wood. Under that white was yellow paint (yikes!) and under the yellow was BLUE. Try to picture that whole thing in blue. I took out the drawers and used some scraps of flooring we had to make shelves. I unscrewed legs from a nightstand that I also got at goodwill (for 2 bucks, mind you!) and painted them light aqua. Then I added trim so that it would have a clean finished look. 

But my favorite part ended up being the doors! I actually filled in stencils with wood glue. I did quite a few layers of it, and let it dry completely. Then I stained the doors and the stain won't stick to the wood glue, leaving the color of unfinished wood as the design. I think it turned out pretty neat! The only thing I had to buy new was the hardware and the trim. 

Jude always picks a different stencil as his favorite. Just goes to show you, you can never trust a two year old. They just don't know what they want in life. 

This is what my entry looks like on the goodwill website. Please help me get in the top then and vote!

Vote HERE!

and look for: