Nightstands, Part Deux

Sorry if you don't like spread-out blog posts where one project takes forever to reveal instead of the instant gratification of scrolling down to the bottom of the post for a big reveal.  I realize I've been a fairly bad blogger of late and I'm trying to get back into the swing of it all by blogging my nightstands project.  Only, being the impatient girl that I am, I started writing the posts as soon as I started working on the nightstands, so I'm basically writing tonight about what I did last night and today.  So, consider this a warning - no instant gratification here.  Instead, settle in and enjoy more details on prep work, because these things are taking a lot of prep work.

The look I'm going for on the nightstands is a high gloss emerald green.  The master bedroom is mostly neutral colored, so I want them to stand out like big emerald jewels - the furniture equivalent of Angelina Jolie's Oscar earrings.

Via

I'm following Honey & Fitz's guide to getting a high gloss finish.  She stresses the importance of the prep work, something I have the tendency to skimp on.  So I decided to take my time and try and get as flawless of a finish as I can achieve.  Unfortunately, it doesn't provide a lot of interesting photos since it's a lot of monotony, so I'll try to get through them quickly.

After building the new bases, I filled all of the dings and screw holes with wood filler.  I prefer the stuff in the tub and generally spread it on with my fingers.  Overfill it, because it might shrink as it dries.  Make sure you wait the appropriate time, then sand, fill some more, and then sand again.  I know it's ready when I can close my eyes and run my hand over the wood and not feel any imperfections.  You cannot use paint to fill in these imperfections, it will only exaggerate them, especially in a glossy finish, so get the wood filler right.

Sanding is a big theme of this project.  After every sanding step, I carefully vacuum, wipe with a dry cloth and then wipe with a wet cloth.  I'm a big fan of microfiber for this step.  I picked up this cleaning mitt at the Dollar Tree (for $1, yo) and have had the same results with it that I experienced with more expensive tack cloths in previous projects.

Once I felt everything was consistently smooth, I moved on to priming.  I bought this primer at Lowes for about $7 for a quart.  It's water-based and cleaned up nicely.  I used a 1-inch angled brush to get into crevices and corners, followed by a four-inch foam roller (the one specifically made for cabients).

Here's the cabinets after one coat of primer.  You do not need a solid look to the paint, just enough to help the paint stick.  This was enough for me, so I stopped after one coat and moved onto the fun part - the final color!  I'll save those pictures for later, but I'm super excited about how it's looking so far.

New Nightstands!

Remember back in January when I mentioned I was looking for a pair of nightstands for the master bedroom?  Well, I finally found a pair on Craigslist this past weekend.  Despite not looking for a particular style, the search took so long because I definitely had a final vision in my head.  It needed to have lots of storage - definitely a drawer and additional shelves or open storage space - and it needed to look good once I painted it emerald green, so I was leaning towards brass hardware.  Of course, if you've ever read this blog before, you're not going to be terribly surprised by the fact that I came home with a pair of campaign nightstands.

I paid $60 for the pair and couldn't wait to get them home and get working.  They're not as much real wood as I would prefer - mostly laminated MDF - so wood enthusiasts can calm down over the paint treatment.  And notice the horrible bun feet - they'll be on the midterm later.


Please disregard the mess in my garage - we also had a garage sale this weekend.

First, I removed the doors.  I hated the accordion fronts, which are unfortunately an integrated part of the door rather than being a piece I could easily cut out, so I planned on just getting rid or the doors completely.  The space behind the doors was fairly cavernous, so I wasn't sure if I was going to leave it open or perhaps add a shelf.

Next I removed the hardware.  When I'm working on a project, all the pieces get stored together until the end of the project.  You never know what you're going to need later on, so it's easier to keep it all together.  I use a highly sophisticated storage system - the ziploc bag.  Make sure you mark what project they are from.  If, like me, you tend to have a lot of "ongoing" projects, they all start to look similar after a while.  This was pretty labor intensive - I created quite a few gouges trying to pull off the brass corners.

Now onto the bun feet.  There's nothing wrong with bun feet, but their style doesn't belong on these nightstands.  The buns, however, disagreed.  I tried to unscrew them so I could save them for a future project, but whatever space-age glue the previous owner used to attach them was not budging.  I'm sure I could have found a saw that would have helped me remove them, but my plan from the beginning was to add a box frame on the bottom, so I decided to simply work around the ugly buns.

After this semi-setback, I made a nice discovery:  the door turned backwards looked mighty nice.

I immediately scratched the plan to keep the space open and decided to reattach the doors backwards.  Hopefully this works out, I'm blogging in real time over here.

To build the new bases, I picked up two 1x3x8s at Lowes for under $3 each.  I picked the whitewood since I was going to paint them anyway, but I tried to find the nicest, straightest boards they had, which took some searching. 

I made a simple box around the buns.  I don't have a Kreg jig (oh, how I want one), so I used cleats to help attach the boards, as well as countersunk screws. 

I like the new bases so much more than the ugly buns.  Don't you?

Black and White Headboard

Living Etc. via Nest Egg

Total and complete love.

Name That Color

I've been obsessing over this picture:


Via Decorpad

I discovered it during a search for the La Fiorentina fabric by Lee Jofa in the wine/magenta colorway - which is by far one of my favorite fabrics ever. 

Too bad I'm too poor to own any.  One day...

Anyway, I digress.  The original picture pairs the magenta pillows and neutrals with a bold blue wall.

LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE

"Honey, what would you call this color?" I ask the boyfriend one night.

"Turquoise?"

"No, that would be lighter I think.  Electric blue?"

"Aqua?"

This went on for about five minutes a bit, and nothing seemed to fit.  So the color was stashed away in my brain as "Crazy Blue."  Short for "Crazy Freakin' Awesome Blue" of course.

Today I decided to try and find out the real name for the color.  During my google searches, I luckily stumbled upon a site called Name That Color.  Designed by a guy who admits full ignorance to knowing what lavender, mauve, or indigo look like - you can drag a color wheel and find out a name for that elusive color.  You can also use the drop down menu to search through the alphabetical list of colors.  That was how I found a match.

Deep Cerulean.  Do I get bonus points because I guessed cerulean at some point in our game of "Let's Name Every Color of Blue That We Know"?

I think it's a pretty close match - right?

Just for fun I also tried to match the color at BenjaminMoore.com and came up with Laguna Blue.  It's always hard to tell for sure from a computer screen, but it looks pretty darn close.

Since I can't paint the walls of our rental, the goal is to find a fabric I like in this color - either for a headboard or curtains for the master.  I'm considering this:

Not an exact match, but it's on sale crazy cheap right now and they only have a very limited amount, so that might be the deciding factor.

Or maybe I'll let my job interview this morning be the deciding factor.  Get the job - buy the fabric.  Then we can rename it "Kai's Not So Freaking Poor and Can Actually Buy Stuff for the House Instead of Just Talk About It Blue."  Rolls off the tongue.

Help Please

A couple of days ago, Reichel at Copy Cat Chic posted this curtain from Urban Outfitters and I'm obssessed.

It's called the Antoinette Damask Curtain in Purple, and unfortunately, this is the cheap version.  (In case you've never visited - which I suggest you do - Copy Cat Chic finds high end looks for less.) 

At $38 a panel, there's no way I can afford these curtains for the master bedroom (where I need at least 4 panels, but maybe up to 6).  So I've been on the lookout for a copycat of the copycat - or more likely - fabric that is very similar.

So far I haven't turned up anything - so I'm asking for help from my reader(s?).  If you come across anything strikingly similar - could you please let me know?

Thanks a million!

Chevron - Yes Please

I have been wanting to incorporate some chevron into my house for a while now.  Hopefully it's a trend that will stick around for at least a few years.  I love the bold pattern with the muted colors of this fabric.

It's Premier Prints ZigZag Village Blue/Natural.  Fabric.com has it for only $6.98/yard - which is really affordable, especially since they offer free shipping when you spend $35 or more and often have coupons floating about.

I think I'll be using it in my master bedroom.  I've been holding off doing anything in there.  It is such a disaster area.  I see beautiful color schemes or inspiration photos and get all excited, but I was having a hard time forcing myself to pick a direction.  Currently there's not a single piece of furniture in the room that I'm tied to in any way.  Sort of a blank slate.

A really ugly blank slate.

However, I do have some things on hand - and I should use them.

I have a gallon of a pretty cream color, "Heavy Cream."  It's close to the new Martha Stewart color of the same name.

I bought this 5x7 rug at Target forever ago.  I think I paid around $70.  I was so happy that I bought it when I did, because the next time I went they had the exact same rug, but they had tweaked the colors.  Instead of being lovely and muted, they were more saturated.  Does this happen to anyone else?  They also did it with a set of dishes that I bought - they still have the exact design, but the color is just slightly different.  It's really aggravating

Then, a couple of years later (but still several years ago), I bought this wallpaper.  Also from Target.  It was clearanced out to $7 a roll and I bought two because that was all they had.  I'm not usually a wallpaper gal so I didn't really realize that 2 rolls of wallpaper isn't very much.  I had no idea where I would use it - just that I liked it and that it was nice, textured wall-paper.  And I knew it was a bargain.  I've thought of putting it in almost every room in my house at some point, but never pulled the trigger.

So I think my color scheme is coming together.