This furniture makeover was a really whimsical, fun project. The mid-century nightstand is chalk painted in a rich blue with this classy constellation peel and stick wall paper accent. This was the before:
I saw so many awesome projects other DIYers have completed with mid-century furniture, so even though its not really the style choice in my home, I was really excited to do this makeover. These were the supplies I used.
This wallpaper I purchased from amazon, and is a very nice quality. It was very sticky but I could re-seat the paper easily as needed when applying.
I used 2 layers of chalk paint then I applied a water based semi gloss polyurethane to the entire piece. I actually like the original handle, but I might give it a gold spray update. What do you think?
If you have been following my DIY basement renovation, you know I’m turning my dark, out-dated basement into a cozy family room. One of the things on my list was to expose the joists in the ceiling and paint them white. Its been a lot of work to get to this point, but its starting to come together!
Here is a before picture. Its honestly depressing to spend any time in this space.
Before basement remodel
The prep
I cleared out the space and I went to work taking down the ceiling tiles. They were pretty easy but it was a messy job. There was a lot of dust and rodent droppings. It was disgusting. I wore gloves and a mask and used a heppa filter on the vacuum when cleaning up.
Once the tiles were down and cleaned up, I had rows and rows of strapping to remove. Using my pry-bar and hammer and pulled them down, and also used a saws-all to cut it into more manageable pieces when needed.
Painting
Then I was ready to start painting! I had an airless paint sprayer from Harbor Freight given to me, and I don’t think I would have done this job without a sprayer. It would have been a lot of work to hand paint the joists.
I had already started the German Smear technique (read about that here) on the bricks so I covered everything up and prepared the paint gun. I used Kilz II primer in a 5 gallon bucket and I used at least 3 gallons to spray the ceiling and wood shingles.
What a difference already! I kept moving, changing my point of view to make sure I didn’t have any missed spots. Also I didn’t really cover the carpet since I’m replacing it anyway, but the sprayer has a lot of over-spray that settles on everything, so cover anything you value before starting. I was able to control the spray and gun well, but the paint mist settled everywhere.
The coverage could have been better, you can still see some texture and staining coming through the paint. I want to cut off all those exposed nails and I need to wire in some new canister lights so for a first coat this was perfect.
The reveal
These are the after pictures (so far!) Follow more of my DIY basement renovation as I have to finish the German Smear down the wall. I also plan on painting the shingles in a Ben Moore Pale Oak color. What type of flooring do you think will look good in this space?
I’m always looking for cheap, simple, but also lasting crafts to make with my kids. Anything that doesn’t involve a paper plate, or a bunch of taped together garbage is a win in my book 😉 I pulled out my Halloween decorations from the attic this year and much of what I had was paper based and was not looking so hot after a hot summer in the attic. My kids are still pretty young and making projects I actually want to display for years to come are hard to come by. But this Halloween project is perfect! It didn’t require them to make things perfect, it was made with scrap materials, but will also last in the attic year after year without getting crushed or mangled.
I cut some scrap 2 x 4’s to even heights, about 4″ high and one long piece for the base about 12″ long. I sanded the edges lightly with an electric sander and 220 grit paper. You want the cuts and edges smoothed but I didn’t spend a lot of time sanding the faces of the wood.
From here is was all craft acrylic paint to paint the wood white, orange and green. I’ve seen similar crafts with purple bats or vampires.
Once it was dry I penciled the faces on, then traced with a sharpie. I also printed out the Trick or Treat from my computer and made a stencil by taping packing tape over the print out and cutting out the lettering with an exact-o knife. That’s it! These are such cute Halloween decorations and were so simple to make.
When I bought this house, one of the things I dreamed about turning the dark, outdated dirty basement into one of our favorite rooms in the house. When I started I didn’t think it would be that much work…boy was I silly 🙂 This German Smear technique really did begin the transformation from dark and scary to cozy and bright!
The basement was a real mess. I might have been better off with an unfinished basement compared to what I had! The ceiling had these fiber tiles that were yellowed and sagging, the lights flickered, 1 1/2 walls were brick, 1 wall was shingles, one wall was a cement drip effect and the other 1/2 wall was shingles and wood lattice. The floor was cement with the cheapest, thinnest medium brown commercial carpet. There is literally nothing I liked about this room, other than the wood burning stove. I grew up with a wood burning stove in the basement; I love sitting so close to a cozy fire in the winter!
Well here she is! Even in this picture its dark and just looks dirty. The lighting is so poor, and the walls so dark, it’s very gloomy. In this picture I’ve already removed all the old ceiling tiles. (I will post more about that once I have some after photos to share, I’m going to paint the rafters white to give the ceiling the effect of being higher.)
I searched Pinterest for weeks looking for the best way to paint this monster, and came across a technique called the German Smear, that added a lot of white to the brick, while still maintaining the brick-ness. I’m sure that’s not a word, but I didn’t like the effect that painting brick has, the color was too flat and looked like you wished the brick wasn’t there so you tried to hide it (cheaply) with paint. Brick should have character, but I wanted it significantly whiter, cleaner and brighter! This technique did just that.
I only needed one bag of mortar from Home Depot, and a 2 gallon bucket from the dollar store. I had the rubber gloves and a 5″ putty knife. Here is a link to the Versa Bond White I used, but its much cheaper at your local hardware store.
I started behind the stove, since I didn’t have any way to practice the technique. I mixed a small amount of mortar and water until it made a peanut butter consistency. Then I would rub the mortar into the cracks, leaving some extra that I then smeared across the face of the bricks in a random pattern. I would then go back and re-wipe the cracks to grab any excess.
I repeated these steps until there was no excess mortar in the cracks or on the face of the bricks and my glove marks were erased.
I ended up mixing 2 buckets for the entire wall, and it took in total about 3 hours to do just the back wall. Its not hard work, but I moved along in small sections. The mortar is actually very forgiving and doesn’t dry too fast, I found I could go back over my work and the mortar was still malleable even after 30 minutes or more.
I finished up the hearth the following day using the same technique.
Since the hearth bricks used the larger face of the brick I think I will go back and do a second coat to whiten them up a bit more. These still large amounts of brick left visible. But either way it already looks so much better! Its so much brighter already.
There is still another wall of brick, and an old hearth you can’t see in these photos. I still haven’t totally decided what to do with that, its so much brick and I really wish it was not there at all 🙂 I may just do the smear until I have the resources to demo it and remove it at a later time.
I’ll be posting more on this renovation as it progresses, so check back for some nice after pictures!
