DIY Painted Subway Tile

So I've been getting bored lately so I decided that my next victim would be the Kitchen dun dun duuunnnnn.

Our kitchen seriously lacks any personality.  White cupboards, beige counter, purplish grey walls. Blah!  

Now, we didn't want to really sink any money into it since we know at some point we were going to rip out a wall and completely change everything about it.  It will likely be a few years before we tackle this Kitchen reno since it'll be expensive and totally invasive.

So I'm left with a drab kitchen that I hate and I've been trying to come up with cheap ways to spruce it up.  I thought that adding some type of backsplash would look great. However I knew that it didn't make sense to spend $200- $400 on a backsplash right now. I came across a tutorial on Sawdust and Embryo's blog that described how to paint your back splash.  Loved this idea!  Not only is it cheap, but if I end up hating it, I can just paint over it   WIN WIN!

So based on Beth's tutorial, I started painting some back splash ideas on paper.  The first two back splashes I painted I was trying to mimic real stone. 

I didn't like how the colours looked with the counter though.  Plus I thought they were a bit boring. Next I tried just a plain subway tile in my signature blue. I loved it!  And it took way less time to paint since I wasn't trying to mimic stone.

  

So here are the supplies you'll need:

1/4" painters tape < I looked everywhere for this!  Save yourself some time and just buy it online.

Paint colour for the 'tile'

White paint & primer for the 'grout'

Regular painters tape

Xacto knife

Paint tray and roller

1. Prime & paint the area white for the grout.  I let mine dry for a couple days.

2. Start taping your grid for whatever design you like.  I followed Beth's instructions here.  Beware that taping takes FOREVER!!

3. Paint over it.  Remove tape right away so your grout lines stay nice and crisp.

4. DONE!  

I'm totally loving the cute cottage vibe now :)  There is some bleeding that happens with the tape so my OCD was a bit active. I just took a small artist paint brush and touched up the spots that were bugging me. No worries!  Love it! All for under 60 bucks! Can't beat it :)

~Bri~

DIY Tree Floc

I've wanted a Flocked tree for years but can never bring myself to spend the hundreds of dollars they usually are.  Especially when my current artificial tree is fine. I came across this post  and decided to try it for myself.
 Here is the before of my tree:

Here is the After:

I'm pretty happy with it :)   Didn't really take long either. Yay for fake snow ;)

DIY Coffee Filter Wreath

I wanted a cute new wreath to hang on my kitchen window.  But I didn't really want to spend a lot.  I've been seeing tons of coffee filter wreaths on pinterest so I thought I'd give it a go since I pretty much had everything.  Here she is!

This is what you need:
Foam wreath ( I used a pool noodle and just taped it together)
Fabric to cover wreath ( I used an old sheet)
Coffee filters (150-200)
Hot Glue Gun with lots of glue sticks
Paint colour of your choice
Glitter
Foam brush for paint
That's it!
I pretty much had all of this so My wreath was under $3!!

1. Glue fabric to your foam wreath. If you skip this, the hot glue melts the foam and won't stick to your wreath.
2. Scrunch up the filter. I usually loosely folded it into quarters.
3. Glue Filter to wreath.
4. After they're all on your wreath, water down your paint a bit.  Then dip your foam brush in the paint. 
Paint your wreath by soaking the tips of the filters.

5. Immediately sprinkle the glitter on the wet paint.

That's it!  It's a bit time consuming but I love mine!

Table & Mirror Makeover

I found this little side table on Kijiji for $10!  All she needed was a little paint and some TLC.  Here is the before shot:

I painted it using my homemade chalk recipe.  I used a blue/green, dark grey, and an antique white.  After the paint dried, I sanded it, then waxed it using Mini Wax Paste finishing wax.  Here is the after:

 

So cute eh? I went a bit heavy on the sanding on purpose.  I'm a lover of all things French Country :)
The Lamp is a goodwill find that I spray painted and changed the fabric on the shade.

I've had this Mirror for years.  It started out as gold, then I painted it black.  The black doesn't really go with anything in our new house.  Here is the Before:

So I just used the same blue/green chalk paint that I used on the table. Here it is now:

Much better :)

Happy DIYing!
Bri

 

Cane Chair Makeover - Part Two

Now that we've finished painting the chairs, it's time to get down to the dirty business of upholstery.  If you've never recovered anything before, we urge you to start with something easier like a chair seat.  
We decided to go with a neutral fabric as we weren't sure where the chairs would end up in our house and if we'd keep both of them or sell one.  Let me tell you, it was super hard to walk into a fabric store and buy the most boring fabric.  But we really didn't want a printed fabric to compete with the tufting detail (which ended up being the right choice).

Anyways, the first thing we did, was use the old chair fabrics as a template to cut the new fabric.  

Then we proceeded to staple the seat bottoms.  We ended up purchasing a Pneumatic Staple gun and we are sooooo in love with it!  It made the job super easy. 

 We figured it was okay for the purchase since we have other things to reupholster around the house ;)

Anyways, after the seat bottoms were done, we started on the buttons.  Now there are all sorts of fabric covering button kits out there that would have made this step easy.  However, we didn't want to have to sew the buttons on.  Since we couldn't find kits that used the same buttons we had, we decided to reuse the ones that we already had.  We simply cut a piece of fabric out and glued it onto the button with hot glue.

 

 

 We put a little fabric glue on the exposed fabric edges so that it didn't fray later on.  

Next we worked on the piping.  Luckily, Mom was in town to help out with this as our sewing skills are pretty limited right now.  (Oh and by 'helping out' we mean she sewed it for us ;)

 When the buttons were dry, we started the tufting.  We were able to reuse the foam as it was still in pretty good condition.  All we did was center the fabric over the foam and push the buttons through the fabric, and out the cardboard that's behind the fabric and pulled them through.

We don't know a lot about tufting. But we do know that you want the fabric to be folded in a diamond pattern.

After the tufting was complete, we were able to started stapling the fabric to the chair.

After that was complete, we had to hide the staples with the piping.  All we did was hot glue it on.

 Then we just put the chair together and we were done!

Here is a reminder of what they looked like before:

Here they are now!

Aren't they so cute? We just love em :)

  

    

  ~Bri & Adam~

Cane Chair Makeover - Part One

We came across these two chairs on Kijiji. The blue one was $5 and the pink one was $30.  We knew with a bit of paint and some new fabric, they could look fabulous. 

The pink chair had a bunch of scratches on it, but otherwise was in good shape.  The blue chair was pretty gross. I guess it was a cats chair because the fabric was ripped to shreds and it was covered in cat hair... ewww.  

Anyways, we started by taking them apart which meant removing A LOT of staples.

Then we mixed our go to version of chalk paint.  Which is: Dissolve 1/3 cup of Plaster of Paris with 1/3 cup of HOT water, then add 1/2 cup of paint.  
We wanted to try something new, so first we painted the chairs in a pretty blue green.

Then, we painted an antique white over top of the blue.

We let that dry overnight. We sanded it down with 100 grit sandpaper to 'distress it'.

Not done yet :) Then, we mixed a bit of Behr's Espresso Beans paint with some Satin finish Varathane.  We brushed that on, and wiped it off with a damp towel. We epecially wanted it to get into all the nooks an crannies so it would look 'antiqued'.

We're pretty happy with the finish it gave. When we brushed the varnish on, all of the 'flaws' were highlighted which made the chairs look lovely. It also really brought out the blue tones.

You'll have to stay tuned for the upholstery and after photos!

~Bri & Adam~

Cheap Fireplace Makeover

We just  purchased our home in June and have wanted to do a bunch of renos already :).  One project  in particular is attacking our outdated fireplace. 

Here is the before shot.

It was stained pretty bad, so we had to scrub the soot off with an organic cleaner. The brown brick totally made the whole basement look dark & dingy.  We could also do without the brass surround. 

While we'd love to do this....

Currently, our budget has us saving for other things... sigh. Oh well. Someday.

We painted the brass with a High heat paint. Simple enough.

Then, we decided to try 'white washing' the brick. Which is basically watered down paint.  We were going for a greyish brick look but it ended up looking HORRIBLE. So we painted another full layer of the white latex on the brick and are happy with the result.

It will have to do until we can totally get rid of the brick. But we feel that we accomplished our goal of brightening up the space :) And all for the cost of a can and bucket of paint!

Bri & Adam