Friday, February 27, 2015

PRIMER IS AWESOME...PLUS A SNEAK PEEK OF MY FABRIC CHOICE FOR THE DINING ROOM CHAIRS...

Happy Friday y'all! So glad it's the weekend!

Well I bought a can of primer the other day to help with the dining room chairs.  So GLAD I did! I was able to get two more chairs done last night after work.






I was able to do one coat of primer and one coat of paint to get good coverage. No dark wood stain peeking through at all! Beats the heck out of using six coats of paint and the finish is much smoother as well. It saved a TON of time too. I wish I would have done this for the first two chairs. I hadn't because I usually don't have to prime first with chalk paint. I guess with some things you just have to.

Once I get the last two painted and I get all of them sanded and sealed...which shouldn't be too hard or time consuming...I will be ready to upholster.

My fabric of choice for these chairs is natural linen but as you well know, real linen fabric is a little expensive and kind of hard to come by. However, I remembered having some faux natural linen (linen look alike) curtains that I bought from Lowes a couple years ago that I think will work perfectly as my "linen" upholstery fabric.







It's perfectly textured and at a more distant glance you can see that it's the perfect color to coordinate with everything else in the room.  It doesn't have that pinkish beige tinge that the existing fabric has.






and it's the perfect price too...FREE!  All I will have to buy is trim and nail heads. Yes, these lovely chairs will be sporting the ever popular, very sophisticated nail head trim.

I pray they turn out as gorgeous as I see them in my minds eye!

I hope to finish everything up within the next week or so because then I can start on building "the" table.  The hubs has been working to set up our "workshop" in the basement and we are planning on buying the lumber for it this weekend, that way it will have time to acclimate beforehand.

Of course you KNOW I will keep you all posted...about the chairs and the table.

Have a fabulous weekend!  Ciao,



Tuesday, February 24, 2015

FINALLY GOT AROUND TO STARTING THE REDO ON THE DINING ROOM CHAIRS...YEAH, IT'S GONNA TAKE A WHILE!

Hi. Just a quick post to let y'all know what's going on here at the Rodgers Mansion this week...hahaha.

I finally got around to redoing the dining room chairs. Well, I got started on them at least. It might take a few weeks before I can officially say they are done.

I bought this table and chairs on Craigslist about a month or so ago...




I really didn't want the table (because I am building my own Restoration Hardware style rustic farmhouse table) but I needed the chairs.  They are not the exact style I was looking for but they're close enough especially since I was able to get six of them plus a table for a grand total of $50. Not too shabby, huh?

To fit my style, taste and design for the dining room though they needed to be painted and reupholstered.

Now you might ask why I would consider painting such a nice set of chairs (and not want the table)...well they are not in as good of shape or as gorgeous as they appear in the picture.  Lots of scratches and stains. Hence the reason I got it all for 50 bucks, but they are VERY sturdy and comfortable.

Anyway, I spent a large part of this past weekend working on painting a couple of those chairs.  Of course I cleaned and lightly sanded them before applying any paint.  However, it seems I should have gone ahead and primed them first. It has taken about six coats of chalk paint to get the wood fully covered.  Six coats! Usually it only takes two but the dark wood stain kept bleeding through.  I did finally manage to get enough coats on to get good coverage...thank God!




BUT, before I start on any of the other chairs I will be buying a can of primer. It will definitely save me a few steps and a LOT of time.





I think they are going to look great when I do get them all finished, don't you?







There's a lot left to do before they are complete...I still have to prime and paint the other four, then distress, seal and reupholster all of them.

Yes, that might take a while but I am glad I finally got started on them.

What's more exciting is that after I get these done I will be able to start on building my table. I bought the Kreg pocket hole jig I need to help with that from Lowes the other day.  I can't wait!

This dining room is really starting to take shape and meet up with my vision for it. I'm chipping away at it one project at a time.

Until next time have a wonderful life. Ciao!



Friday, February 6, 2015

A LOOK AT THE DIY RESTORATION HARDWARE STYLE ART IN THE DINING ROOM...

Okay, so I promised that I would EVENTUALLY show you the full view of my DIY Restoration Hardware style art that I made for the dining room.  To date I have not been able to get any good pics to share with you. The reason being is that I have not been able to find a time when the sun was actually shining to get any good pictures.






Truth is the winter months around here are the hardest time of year to try and take any good pictures. It's usually very gloomy out as has been the case here for the past few months. There have been a few occasions when the sun has popped out over the past few days but there was no way I could get any pics because, well...I was at WORK!




By the time I get home from work in the evenings there is no sun left to be seen. WHAAAA!

So I decided to just go ahead and take pics anyway...AT NIGHT.




Yes, I know that is a big rule breaker. A real NO-NO. Any self-respecting blogger would NEVER take pics at night...








However we all know that I don't rank up there with those good, self-respecting, perfect picture taking bloggers and some rules just had to be broken...





because I needed an excuse to play with the new tripod I bought myself for Christmas.  So though these pictures are of the poorest quality and a little dark I figured I would share them with you anyway.





Cause I mean they are not THAT horrible, right?


























Perhaps though I will get a chance at some good pictures later on...


























That is before I make some changes to this here DIY Restoration Hardware inspired art. Yes, I decided that Greek Columns are not quite the look I am going for in here. While I love them and think they turned out beautiful and most definitely turned out like something right out of a Restoration Hardware catalogue, I was thinking that something like this would work out better...




A french Patisserie sign....Also from Restoration Hardware...out of their newest catalogue. Of course I will NOT be buying one from them as it's $955.00, but I think with a little work I can turn one of those Greek columns into something similar and the other one I think I will make into a "Menu" board...which I think ultimately will be more suited for a dining room. However, I will probably wait until I am done with all of the other projects before I make those changes.

As you know I still a ton of changes to make in this dining room before I can call it done...Paint the china cabinet, build a rustic farmhouse table (which I will now be doing myself because pops had a little table saw accident a few weeks ago), paint and reupholster the chairs, paint the crown molding and find a few accessories.

I am waiting for warmer weather to tackle most of those things so, yes, this dining room makeover will probably be the longest in history but I WILL get it done!




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