De-Fugifier. Not sure that "word" is allowed, but technically, it's not a known word. So, umm. Yeah. Where was I?
Right. Spray paint.
So a few weeks ago I bought this sad & loney chandelier at an auction. No one else was bidding on it and I didn't think it was ugly enough to go to the great landfill in the sky. I put my paddle up and walked away with it for $20. In retrospect, I should have waited another minute, I probably could have gotten it for $10. Live and learn. I slapped some painters tape on the sockets to protect them from the paint. Here it is in all its ugly glory:
and with a flick of my wrist and my trusty spray paint trigger gun...it became a beautious apple green...don't mind the clothes line...
My next step is to paint the candle socket covers. They were white but I was so inspired by the blue painters tape that I have decided to paint the covers blue. Will load more pics as soon as the socket covers are painted and ye olde electrician helps me install it.
By the way, this is going in my home office where it will surely make me smile.
Steps:
Clean all dust n whatnot off the chandelier.
Cover socket and electrical components with painters tape.
Prime! I used spray primer cause that's how I roll...
Spray Paint - I did 2 coats and then spot painted any weird/missed areas.
Gloss/Shine Spray Paint Sealer in Clear.
Voila...I spent (including the chandelier) about $34.
When I bought my house, it was the equivalent of my decor nightmare. Wallpaper as far as the eye could see ... with pattern on pattern curtains. Of all the rooms, the one that gave me the most visual grief was the kitchen. Naturally, this was the (almost) last room I have tackled. The room was so disturbing to me that I sort of blocked it out. It's also one of the costliest rooms to renovate. Joy.
So here are some "before" pictures. You'll note that the wallpaper is gone and the ivy border that the previous owner had hand painted everywhere is missing ... still ... fairly traumatizing. The faux brick linoleum and faux marble green/black counters were enough to paralyze me for a long time. Let's NOT discuss the electric cooktop (ick).
Finally, I could take it no more. It was time for action. Well, that and I'd finally found a contractor that spoke my language and could work within my piddly budget.
So here's the laundry list...
More Light! We ripped out the non-working hand crank window and added in BIGGER windows in the breakfast nook and above the kitchen sink.
The nasty faux linoleum flooring was removed. The floor itself is not level and it was too expensive to straighten it (we couldn't use leveling compound). The boards were kinda groovy, so we went with paint. The shade is called "Warm Scones". It's special deck/floor paint from Ace Hardware. It's actually been pretty easy to keep clean using window cleaner and a damp mop.
Then it was time to tackle the countertops. I spent a lot of time looking at everything from granite to corian to zinc, etc. I kept coming back to butcherblock. Butcherbock won, not only because it was amongst the cheapest (thank you Ikea...) but also because it was such a natural and neutral color. It blended in and didn't demand attention.
We also decided to switch the electric cooktop to a gas cooktop. It was much easier and cheaper than I had expected. I bought a mid-range priced unit on sale at a home improvement store--WITH a coupon. That's just the way I roll. I called the local fuel dude (that's his techinical name, of course) and he converted the cooktop from "gas" to what he called "country gas" (psst, it's propane) and ran all the lines for $125. Hurrah. We can cook with FIRE!
For a backsplash I went with beadboard, again - I didn't want something that was demanding attention.
The biggest change is probably the ceiling in the breakfast nook area. I haven't been able to get a good picture, but we ripped out the ceiling and angled it as high as we could and gained about 2.5 feet of ceiling height. We also put in 4 recessed lights and a dimmer. It's no longer a dank cave. It's now a light-filled room that's nice to have breakfast and other quick meals in.
We still need to paint the kitchen...I'm being a major pain in the rump about selecting a color, or specifically a shade of creamy white. Eventually I'll just spin the bottle and pick one.
Most recently we put down a red/white houndstooth jute rug. Say that 5 times fast. Here's a picture of my Mom modeling the rug...
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