Monday, January 23, 2012

Making the Old New...then Old Again


I don't know if you're familiar with Pinterest, but I am seriously addicted. Pinterest is a website where you can "pin" favorite items, projects, books, recipes, places, etc. that pique your interest. You can pin your own ideas, but there are so many creative people out there, I just "repin" everyone else's awesome ideas. (So far...) I'm especially fond of the DIY projects.

Finally! Ideas for all of the junk we have lying around!!!

I now know how a seagull feels when it finds an open dumpster behind McDonald's.

For a seagull, that's a good thing.

For my Mister, this may not be good as I'll be double checking each load of stuff bound for the dump. Old doors, window frames, cupboard doors, broken chairs, and miscellaneous jars are no longer deemed junk here. In fact, some of that old stuff may even find a place of honor on my living room wall or hanging from a tree as a repurposed swing!

What Pinterest does is inspire. It inspires me with new ideas, but mostly it inspires me to finish all those projects that I've kind of lost a vision for.

My first project was an old toybox/bench that my mom-in-law gave me. First, I removed the hinges and the bench seat. The original color (when I got it) was tan. I covered it with an espresso (of course!) brown.


Once that was dry, I applied a coat of antique white.


After 24 hours, a third coat of paint, this time in a robin's egg blue, was added.


Once that was dry, it was time to make the new paint look old with a little sandpaper. The edges I took all the way down to the espresso brown.


A little clear varnish, and hinges that I spray painted "Hammered Black", and the old toybox was given new life.


"A chair for me!"

I told her it was a toybox.


Maddie's not convinced.☺


5 comments:

Candy C. said...

Great job! :)
I try to stay away from Pinterest, too addicting! LOL!!

Unknown said...

Yes! Pinterest is WONDERFUL! I have to be careful though...I could spend more time on there than is good for my schedule and then none of those good ideas go any farther than being pinned to one of my boards. :) Love the toy box, so cute!

Carolyn said...

I LOVE recycling! And Maddie looks pretty happy using it as a chair...maybe a place to stash her books?? :)

Oh, and BTW, you had mentioned Pinterest a while ago and I finally looked it up......and was browsing it for OVER AN HOUR!!! Thanks (I think?) for the reference, it's addicting and I LOVE it!

Lisa said...

I recently discovered Pinterest, but I promised my husband I would only use it as a place to save (pin) really great Internet finds. That means no Pinterest surfing for me. But that's ok. I really need to not have another reason to be on line...

Your toy box/chair turned out really nice, and from the looks of it, a certain cute little girl thinks so, too. :)

Blessings, ~Lisa

Anonymous said...

Maddie's new toybox...aah chair really turned out nice! Erleane aka mom-in-law