Sassy Surfboard Coffee Table!

I found a fun little piece of furniture for the Sassy Seagull one day when I was killing time waiting to pick up a granddaughter from her skating party. I was bumming around a nearby store and came across this mid-century modern coffee table.

With its long oval top it reminded me of a surfboard and I thought it might be a fun piece if we painted it.

  I'm not the most talented when it comes to drawing but I found an idea on Pinterest that I liked and thought would be doable.

I was thrilled when my husband decided to take on the project of painting and striping the table....

I wish I had taken pictures of the entire process but I didn't think to do it in time. Henry sanded the table all over and then he used a tack cloth to clean it up. The paint contained a built-in primer. However I decided after he put the first coat on that I preferred the background to be white--so he repeated the process and painted two coats of white semi-gloss paint. (Such a patient man--thanks honey!)

Once the paint dried for 24 hours Henry used FrogTape for delicate surfaces--the yellow one--to mark off the stripes. Once he measured and was satisfied that the lines were exactly where he wanted, he painted the stripes with blue. We used a sample pot of Behr P460-1u called "Morning Sky" for the stripes.

Behr P460-1u   "Morning Sky"

Last step was a topcoat of glossy clear coat that is intended for use on painted surfaces. We felt it would make it look like a shiny surfboard and add durability to the

top of the table.

Here it is!

Good job Henry!

Repurposing A French Door!

Kim, my sister-in-law, is a great cook--the Hostess with the Mostest!

She's also a very creative and handy lady!  I love the vision she has for 

repurposing found objects.  

One day this summer Kim was walking by The Mulberry Inn, a hotel in downtown Savannah, on her way to work.  The hotel had been purchased by The Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group and it was being remodeled  into a boutique hotel.

Source

They were throwing out a french door so Kim asked if she could have it.  The remodelers were happy for her to take it so she brought it home and made it into an outdoor table!

She had Home Depot cut 2 x 4's into legs for the table and attached them with door hinges.  Then she painted the table.  All in all it cost $28 for supplies!  

And voila!

Isn't this a cool idea for recycling a door?  It pays to keep your eyes open for "trash" that you can turn into treasure!  Kim is planning to have glass cut to cover the top and she wants to paint the wrought iron chairs as well.  Great job!

A Happy Accident!

One thing I've learned about decorating:  No matter how much measuring and planning and dreaming you do, sometimes things don't work out the way you expect them to--you may have to change things up---and it's okay!  Just keep working til it's right.

That's just what happened with this little cupboard...

The cupboard comes in two parts but my original plan was to use them together with the TV and equipment in the top and DVDs, etc. in the bottom.  Once it was in the space--it didn't look quite right so they were separated.  I moved the lower half to another location and designer Jane Coslick suggested adding legs to the upper half. 

 So I made a trip to Lowes for the furniture legs and after a quick paint job...voila!

Much better now!

Split personality! 
Have you ever had any happy accidents in decorating?  

DIY Tutorial: Stenciling With A Freebie Seahorse Stencil!

 I bought this piece to use in the living room at Doc Holiday.  I thought It would be great to put a TV, DVD player and cable box in the top and store other stuff in the bottom half.

I loved this little cupboard in all of it's rustic goodness but I decided the black was just not going to work in the color scheme I had planned, so I decided to paint it.  This is how it went down.

First the piece (or pieces--it came apart into two pieces) was sanded with a medium grit sandpaper and my friend Loretta brushed on Zinsser Cover Stain primer--the one with the gold label.  Then it was sanded lightly with a finer grit sandpaper to eliminate brushstrokes.

Next I painted the piece with Sherwin Williams' Duration acrylic interior paint in semi-gloss.  I had some left over from painting another piece of furniture for the Coral Cottage.  The blue is 

SW 6485 Raindrop and the white on the drawers is SW 7005 Pure White.  I let the first coat dry for a few hours and then applied a second coat using a good brush.

 I had a little bit of lighter blue paint--SW 6763 Retiring Blue--from painting a dresser so I decided to try putting some stripes on the white part of the cupboard doors and drawer. 

 After measuring I marked off the lines with Frog Tape, a painter's tape that would come up without damaging the fresh paint.

Next I found a free printable seahorse stencil online to use on the doors.  I printed it and my son Jordan cut the stencil for me using an exacto knife and blue transparency-type stencil "paper" that I got from Michael's. 

 

 Jordan is very meticulous and exacting in all he does and he did a 
great job getting the stencil just right!

He was supervised by Rafael and Lucy so how could he go wrong?

 I measured and placed my stencil on the cupboard door.  Then I taped it in place with 
painter's tape....

 The key to stenciling is to use paint sparingly and to apply it with an almost dry applicator.  I used a pouncer sponge but you can also use a stencil brush.

 Get as much paint off the brush as you can and then apply to the surface in an up and down motion.  If you use too much paint or brush it on in a side to side motion, paint will creep under the stencil and it won't be a clean image.

I was using latex paint and I had a little too much paint on my first attempt so it is not quite as crisp as I wish it were.  I cleaned the stencil and did a mirror image sea horse on the other door with better results.  I am still fairly happy with the overall results so I left it--after all it's handmade!

For knobs I used these glass starfish knobs from an online source.  For more info check out this recent blog post.

This is how the lower part of the cupboard turned out...you likey?

Stay tuned and I'll show you what happened with the top of the cupboard!

Chandelier Shangri la!

I showed you lots of chandeliers in my last post...lots of bee-u-ti-ful chandeliers that I loved but had to pass by because they were too costly for me at the end of our major restoration of 

Doc Holiday cottage.  But I was determined to find Chandelier Shangri la in my price range.

So, starting with an inexpensive off-the-shelf chandelier from Home Depot

    

and some spray paint--Rustoleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover 2X Satin spray paint in Aqua--to be exact this is what my fixture looked like (minus the glass beads).

 It was in great need of some embellishment and some shades for the light bulbs! 

Here's what I did...

First I consulted my friend Beth Silvercloud, a very gifted jewelry artist--you can drool over her creations on her website here.  She had some great ideas and showed me which tool I needed to purchase in order to recycle some of the hooks from the glass bead strands.

 When Beth saw the shell necklaces I had purchased from Michael's she suggested that I use something with larger shells.  She felt (rightly) that the smaller shells were too tiny for the chandelier.  Here they are hanging on the chandelier.  They were kinked from being in the bag and I was trying to get them to straighten out.

In the interest of the budget, I decided to use the smaller shell strands for half of the project--the part where the strands come down from the top of the chandelier to each arm.  Like this...one...two...three...four...five...

...and six!

Then in keeping with Beth's suggestion that I use a larger scale strand of shells I found this rope with shells attached one day while shopping at Home Goods (where else?)!!

 I played with the strand to determine how long each section needed to be to look pleasing as it draped from arm to arm on the light fixture.  Then using some covered aqua-colored wire I found at Michael's, I marked each section

 Then it was time to attach the rope and shell strand to the arms of the chandelier.  I unhooked the other small shell strands temporarily and then reattached them after I attached the rope.

One at a time like this until I made it all the way around...

 Once the rope strands were attached I re-hooked the smaller shell strands.

Almost done!  I had some extra starfish left over and I decided to add them to give a little extra pzazz!  This is what it looked like...

 

Last but not least--shades.  The bulbs are way too bright without shades.  Voila!

 

Ahhh---It's Chandelier Shangri la!

Let's Be Enlightened!

The crown jewel of most dining rooms is the chandelier.  My remodeling budget at this point was more like rhinestones than crown jewels.  I did lots of looking around for a bargain.  First I went to a great flea market in Savannah called Two Women and a Warehouse.  They can usually be counted on for some funky, fun finds--and they did not disappoint.  I found this cool chandelier with 

strands of turquoise....

It was nice but a bit too small. 

I spent some time looking at online sources.  No luck with Craigslist or eBay but I checked on Etsy and found a vendor who made these fun pieces with canning jars.....but at $385.00 I had to pass them up.

 Here are three of my faves from Shades of Light--one of my all-time favorite sources.

I would have loved one of these especially the jute one (on the far right above) but they were way too pricey sooo.... I kept looking and found this gorgeous oyster shell chandy from

Low Country Originals...

 So many pretty things--so many expensive pretty things.  It became clear to me that I was going to have to buy an inexpensive chandelier and rework it so that is what I set out to do.  I found these great chandeliers at Home Depot that were more in my price range.

 

But the chandelier that really caught my eye was this one from Home Depot...

The glass beads could be replaced with strands of shells and it would be easy to spray paint the gold-tone metal before putting the shell strands in place.  At $169.00 it was more affordable so I decided to take it home!

Here is what it looked like after being sprayed with Rustoleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover 2X satin finish spray paint in Aqua.  The electrician had just finished hanging it and he hooked the chain to make it shorter so the workers would not hit their heads as they worked.

It was time to get busy embellishing the chandelier.  I'll show you what I did next time!