Reviving a Mid Century Modern Dresser with Paint and TLC

Welcome back my BEAUTIES!

Did ya miss me?

I am still plugging away on furniture, and makeovers and crafts over here in my little world, but as usual the kids and life seems to keep me running in 4 different directions. 

I have been trying to figure out how to still show you makeovers but not have to spend the massive hours with posts.

So I finally bucked up and put down my REAL camera and started using my phone.

I realize that I am going backwards in blogger world going from great camera to phone but something had to GIVE and this was the easiest way I could kill two birds with one stone.

So using my phone I can quickly show you my makeover.

Hopefully this way I will be able to keep up a little bit more!

(in my head it sounds good, but we will see what happens :))

So here goes.

You can see in the above pictures my less than beautiful MCM dresser thrifted find.

I was trying to save as much of the wood as possible.

I even started sanding the top but that red ring you can see in the pic went all the way through. (It also had multiple spots with missing veneer around the bottom edge and deep gouges)  It would not be sanded out.

So I went to plan B.

Painting the base and restoring the drawers.

This post is a sponsored post or  uses affiliate links to help you find the products I trust and love

First things first. 

I removed the awesome hardware.

Normally when I find pieces like this, ONE or more pieces of the original hardware is missing, but I lucked out this time.

All I needed to do was clean and spray paint them.

I used 

Rustoleum Gold Metallic finish spray paint

and gave them a quick little refresh.

While the hardware was drying, I simply wiped down the base and started painting it with 

General Finishes Driftwood Gray paint

Since the drawers were actually in really decent condition I just used a little steel wool and 

RESTORE A FINISH

Once all the parts were dry I put it all back together again.

I love how the brass hardware made the wood drawers pop and how the gray paint framed it all.

I actually have yet to bring this into my booth as I am quietly considering switching out my husbands dresser.

I will let you know what I decide.

I am happy to be able to bring you guys another makeover.

Slow and steady wins the race, right?

If you ever wonder what I am up to in between posts you can 

Follow ARTISBEAUTY on INSTAGRAM 

You can see all the REAL life stuff and see what makeovers will be coming up.

Well I have to go make dinner now, 

so until next time,

Have a BEAUTIFUL day!

BROKEN TABLE and Old Cabinet door turned WINE BAR.

 Welcome back my Beauties. 
I have a fun little makeover today.
Come see how I rescued this old broken table and turned it into a Beautiful Wine Bar.

This post uses affiliate links to help you find the products I trust and love

 One day while I was at the thrift store they were carrying this table out off the floor.

I asked if they were selling it and they said "yeah, but the top broke"

I asked how much they were going to charge and they said a couple bucks.

I grabbed that sucker and stuck it in my cart. 

I instantly knew what I would use to fix it.

 

I went right out to my shed and grabbed this old cabinet door I had been saving.

It was the perfect fit. 

I quick gave it a light sanding and starting working on my project.

 

I grabbed some old hardware that I had been saving and grabbed my valspar copper spray paint and gave them a couple coats of copper spray paint and started working on the other parts of my project.

 

Next I grabbed my General Finishes Driftwood Milk paint and started painting the cabinet door.

 

Once it was dry I grabbed my Americana Gel stain in walnut and gave it an antique finish by wiping on and wiping off the stain.  

 

Once it was all painted I used my Black and Decker drill to drill some holes and add my hardware to cabinet door so it could be used as a serving tray for the drinks.

Once the handles were on the wine bar was ready.

The old door sits perfectly on top of the old base.

Perfect for serving and entertaining this holiday season.

I hope you enjoyed this latest makeover.

I was so happy to be able to save this old base by salvaging an old door that I had in my 

scrap pile.

Until next time.

Have a Beautiful day!

Painted Kitchen Cupboards Makeover REVEAL

Welcome back my BEAUTIES!

I am FINALLY getting around to posting our Kitchen Makeover REVEAL.

You may remember a couple weeks ago I promised you I would post the reveal the next week..

UMMMM......YEAH....I never got around to it.

Wanna know why?

For REALS???

Here goes..

I JUST DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT.

I LOVE my Kitchen so much now, but between painting the cupboards,

doing the DIY blogger roundup in Chicago (which was at the same time as me making over my kitchen)  and the plethora of other projects I have going on for different companies I honestly could not bring myself to photograph edit and post about it.

For the Non DIY'ers who don't understand the "Process" that a post takes; let me explain.

Its not JUST the project...that I do on a daily basis.

BUT, once the process is done there is about a MILLION other things us bloggers need to do.

First thing being....CLEANING UP OUR MESS.

You see we tend to be BIG mess makers, so while we are working on a project I tend to push all the CRAP that was in the room aside, and have to keep taking pictures of the process.

Then after the cleaning we have to STAGE.

(which is not my THANG...I am sure I have told you before)

Being A.D.D. I know I have a limited attention span before I get tired of staging and move onto something else. (this is one reason I am sure my home will never be magazine worthy. I can't see myself NOT ever being so busy that I have time to do a proper staging because I know one of my 4 kids or hubby...or dog will come in and mess it up in seconds)

NEXT, Photographing time.

This can take anywhere from a half an hour to a few days.

In this case it was WEEKS.

We live in an old house and no amount of external light systems or natural light 

would show in the pictures how it looks in real life.

THAT caused me the frustration to postpone my post; and my A.D.D. to flair up and find Lots and LOTS of other projects to focus on until the kitchen makeover nagged and nagged at the back of my mind to make me JUST DO IT. 

:)

and that finally happened.

SO HERE YOU GO...

FINALLY! 

(and thanks for listening to my little explanation of my METHOD and what my BRAIN goes through on a daily basis)  

Oh and even writing the above was a procrastination :)

 

 As I showed in the BEFORE post, this was me trying to decide on a color.

I was mixing and trying to decide how DARK I wanted to go. 

Well by the time I decided I went with a color straight out of the can.

I chose General Finishes 

QUEENSTOWN GRAY.

It was just the deep hue I was looking for.

and since it was in the kitchen I chose their HIGH PERFORMANCE finish in Satin.

So I spent the next few days painting cupboards which as you know is always a FUN time.

The nice part about this  makeover is that I was leaving my upper cabinets the cream color 

that I had painted previously.

You will see from the pictures that although we are in an older home (built in the 60's) they LOVED storage.

WE have a U shaped kitchen with tons of cupboards . BUT that means lots to paint, so not painting the uppers saved me tons of time.

So now that the cupboards were painted it was time for some new hardware. 

I am normally a copper or a bronze girl, but I really wanted to do something fun and different with the hardware.

That's where HICKORY HARDWARE came in.

They had these fabulous pulls and knobs that look just AMAZING with the dark deep gray.

I chose the stainless steel pulls

and the Euro Contemporary knobs.

They went together like peanut butter and jelly.

I couldn't have been happier with how it looked.

PLUS, as I was getting ready to write up my post someone shared this post from HGTV...

Hey that color looks almost like mine.

For once in my life I just might be ON TREND..(probably not but I can dream.:))

I loved how the hardware pulled together the stainless steel appliances but yet still looked good with all my vintage kitchen decor.

I have to tell you. This paint is so awesome. Since it took so long to post, I had a crazy amount of time to see how it did in the kitchen. 
IT IS AWESOME. 
My kids and I love to cook, and even more..make messes. This paint has withstood all of that.
I love the added strength that the hard finish added.
And its still looks like I JUST painted it.

So there you have it.

The Reveal is done with the best pictures I could get.

Its funny because I took about 300 pictures and I didn't like any of them.

I have gotten so critical with myself with photographing that I can see each and every single FLAW.

Where the light is reflecting off of a door,

or where there is a shadow that I can't control no matter what kind of lighting I used.

I finally had to make peace with the fact that no matter what I did I was going to find something

I didn't like about how I staged it and just like life I was gonna have to LOVE them for what they were.

The pictures may be slightly flawed but that's what makes them REAL.

And I couldn't be happier.

So there you have it.

The Kitchen Reveal that took longer to post about than it did to paint it.

I hope you enjoyed this unusually LARGE and wordy post.

 I finally accepted my imperfections and I am happier that way.

Until next time.

Have a Beautiful day.

To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections. ~ Sandra Bierig

 

 Disclosure: Remember all opinions I share about the products in my post are 100% my own with complete honesty.The post contains sponsored links

http://www.casawatkins.net/
http://farmhousechicblog.com/2015/inspired-by-you-1/

Handmade desk Turned MID CENTURY MOD

 

Well Hello again, my BEAUTIES!

I have been working up a storm here at the Art is Beauty home,

but not so much that I couldn't quick grab a couple pictures of my

latest furniture makeover.

I found this piece at my local Goodwill.

I know what you are thinking....BORING...or EW..

but you see the LEGS...those very simple legs are what caught my eye.

You see Mid Century Modern is SOOOO HUGE right now.

Everything I grew up around and honestly DESPISING 

is becoming once again sought after.

I will be honest I was not really pleased with this trend at first.

Like I said..having grown up in a home filled with this I dreamt of 

Frenchy, frilly, fun and delicate things.

But as I aged I came to appreciate lots of different styles.

Now I know why this stuff was so popular..

Its functional...stylish and fun in its own funky way.

This desk was handmade. There are measurements and scribbles all over the back and on the 

inside. Yet the painted brown and colonial hardware were not really doing anything for this piece.

 I honestly had NO IDEA where I wanted to go with this piece.

I had just done a different style Mod desk that you can see HERE

Thoughts of Navy and Gold did once again pop into my head.

I let that stew while I got to work on the top.

I used stripper on the top and I will tell you, what came of looked like the

inside of a babies diaper..It was actually quite disgusting looking.

It took 2 attempts at stripper just to get it down to this.

I honestly swear the universe has some sort of bet on how much work I will 

go through to strip off 40 odd years of paint.  :)

It was time for the belt sander.

I knew a palm sander wasn't gonna cut it if 2 layers of stripper barely touched it.

Plus I needed to sand out some pretty deep GRAFFITI that had worked its way into the top.

After burning through one belt and putting on a new one, I finally got it down to this.

A couple passes with some higher grit sand paper and a tack cloth and I could get to staining.

I chose a provincial stain and put that on the top.

Once it was finally dry I protected the top with a Satin Poly.

I spray painted the leg with a brushed nickel spray paint.

Here is where the color comes in. 

After researching lots of mod pieces one thing stood out.

YELLOW!

Now I don't very often paint things yellow.

But I knew this piece was calling for it.

I mixed up a custom yellow and put that down on the desk.

Then it was time to find hardware.

I wanted to find something that fit with the mod style.

That is hard to come by but I did find these fun diamond style knobs from 

Target.

  

I think you will agree that this desk now fits with the style.

I truly am starting to crush on the mod pieces more and more.

I hope you enjoyed this latest makeover!

I know I had fun doing it.

Until next time.

Have a BEAUTIFUL day!

"Icing on the Cake" Hall Table Makeover

This post is a sponsored post or  uses affiliate links to help you find the products I trust and love

 

Hello, My Beauties!
I have a super fun, super glam and funky makeover for you guys today!

 

I am part of the Fab Furniture Flippin' Group and this months

Makeover was "Icing on the Cake"

Our sponsor for this months FLIP was

 D. Lawless Hardware!  It's a family owned and operated company that specializes in hardware, catches, casters, and even wood appliqués.  He has amazingly low prices as well as the wonderful customer service. They have some beautiful  hardware that can be the "Icing on the Cake".

 Here is the piece I started with.

I picked up this piece for $10 at a barn sale from another mom who had the Best intention of making it over, but just couldn't get around to it.

You can see that structurally it was sound..just outdated in the white and golden oak.

Plus the top was very beat up and her son had even etched his name in the top :)

 I started by sanding the top down a bit to get some of the deep grooves out.

I don't mind distressed but sometimes its nice to smooth things out a little.

I then painted the base in a General Finishes Gray milk paint.

You can see here, the first coat going on.

 I gave the base a couple coats of gray the top ONE coat and then decided to do some General Finishes Java Gel stain on the top to add dimension.

When all that was dry I painted another layer of silver paint on the top to give a bit more POP, FUNK, and GLITZ to the top. When that was dry I lightly distressed the top so you could see the multiple layers beneath it.

 Here is a close up of the finished top, with the hardware I chose to be the ICING on the CAKE for my piece. I chose the GREEN CUT GLASS KNOBS to accent my piece.

I have always loved the way vintage greens and grays play off each other and give such a fun and classic statement.

I hope you enjoyed this fun and funky makeover and I hope you will pop on over to see what all my bloggy friend have done with their pieces.

Contest Details -

Submission Deadline: Saturday, Aug. 22nd (12 am EST)

Theme: “Icing On The Cake"

Sponsor:  D. Lawless Hardware

PRIZE PACKAGE: 
1st Place - $200 Gift Certificate
and this month...a 2nd Place prize of...
$50 Gift Certificate

Please be sure to stop by our lovely hosts this month to view their "icing on the cake" pieces! 

Evey's - Icing On The Cake Buffet

Michele's - Icing On The Cake Homework Room Cubby

Stacey @ Anastasia Vintage

Charlotte @ Ciburbanity  

Carrie @ Thirty Eighth Street

Entrants participating in this month's competition can link up their furniture makeovers to any of the above Fab Furniture Flippin' Contest hosts blogs by submission date. 

So come back often to see what's been linked up...

If interested in participating in this contest going forward, please contact Evey at info@eveyscreations.com or Stacy at info@anastasiavintage.com. We'd certainly love to have you!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disclosure

I have received product for this post but all  opinions I share about the products in my post are 100% my own .The post contains sponsored links from D. Lawless Hardware

http://houseofhipsters.com/2015/08/found-foraged-linky-party-38/#more-3813