Fun with Before and Afters

To me it's fun to look back on completed projects to see from where they started and the sometimes excruciatingly slow gradual progression to completion. It is challenging and exciting to transform the butt-ugly and unused to something that is not only functional, but also beautiful.

We recently found a Barzilay stereo cabinet from the late 60's that looked like this:

 

(um, yeah, that's DIRT inside that cabinet)

(the back side)

Not bad,loved the clean lines and geometric design of the front panels; it's oak and raw wood, which is great because I didn't have to strip it or do much sanding; the stereo components had been pulled out but there were three great soft-close hinges on the lid. I removed the hinges to use on other projects and glued the lid on for stability, replaced the back panels, and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Before long I had it ready to paint. I was short on time so I spray painted this piece and it took four cans, but it turned out GREAT! 

Other Before & Afters:

  

A subtle change by using champagne nouveau spray paint. On top of gold finish, this color takes on a silvery look similar to mercury glass, a bit difficult to see the color change in the picture.

A cheapy dresser, probably bought from an unfinished furniture store becomes a cutie pie with so much sanding I thought my arms would fall off some sanding and new pulls: 

I had a FIT over these lamps, and the look on my husbands face was absolutely hysterical when I bought them, but they were $5 for the pair so he didn't mind TOO much and yes, the sockets were hanging loose:

Some epoxy on the socket and some paint and voila- 

GORG!! 

(I'm still working on the shades.)

Antique walnut mirror with beautiful carved details needed some TLC.

The top was in perfect shape.

The bottom had a broken piece, which I glued back on and stained the teeny crevice to match. I painted this piece, too, in the good 'ol stand-by "Heirloom White" and it came out beautifully:

all taped up & ready for painting...

placed in its temporary home...

Not everything that I work on gets a coat of off-white paint. Sometimes I go with my inner bohemian and have some not-so-serious FUN:

This mirror must have been a stunner, but several of the carved wood pieces that had been attached to the wire leading from the cast metal basket of flowers at the top were broken or missing.

I painted the whole thing a light aqua blue and added paper flowers & butterflies to help hide the empty areas.

Super cute for a nursery or little girl's room.

Hardly an heirloom piece, this mostly press board china cabinet got a future's-so-bright makeover:

first coat of paint (didn't get the "before" pic for this one)

detail view once complete 

and now it's all lit up inside (and papered!)

Stairs that face the front door are about to get a facelift!

All taped up and base-coat painted a different color on each step, all the hues have a unifying gray undertone and are used elsewhere on the main level- gray, taupes, wheat, and gray-blue. 

Stenciled in two alternating designs, lighter in some areas for a bit of a weathered look.

Back/family room stairs were not left to their own devices, either!

Base coat painted (in opposite color order from the front steps)

And a closer view of the stenciling.

Some home projects Before and Afters:

Blah Blah Blah entryway with some seriously DARK navy blue backed grasscloth:

After an entire day of using a combination of WallWik awesomeness AND this other stuff:

and doing this:

Yes, umhmm, those rips in the dark paper DO look suspiciously like a crazed and angry person's fingernail-scratched areas where I tore down the grasscloth bit by teeny tiny sombeachin' bit. That is what I had to do in order to get to the paper part under the grass, so that I could use the 

and THEN I could scrub, rinse, rinse, rinse, clean, rinse, and rinse the walls some more so that it could dry for painting. 

IT.WAS.A.VERY.LONG.DAY

The next day was exciting because I painted the base coat- Benjamin Moore's November Rain, a light gray-green that looked almost sea green in certain light conditions. I stewed on this one for a while, studying it, staring, sometimes glaring, mulling it over, not really sure if I loved the color. I decided I'd paint the design like I did for my client's dining room last year, only double the design, and then maybe I'd be happier with the base color. I was. I am. 

Here's how it turned out:

It went from dark & dreary to light & fabulous and it only took a couple bottles of chemicals, a few days, several fingernails, and many colorful words. Oh yes, and a little paint. No problem.

Other re-do type deals:

(Mantel before)

Enter a starburst mirror made of sticks and a candle mirror, by MOI

A coffee filter wreath I made, tied with handmade antique lace onto an old window.

Since this picture was taken, I've rearranged and am a little happier with the vignette, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE my antique mercury glass decanters from England and the cute candle holder I painted that I'll hang somewhere (someday)...

There it is!

My first starburst mirror was a trial run for making more of them and I'm glad I did a test because I learned a lot from making this one. I'll know better next time how to arrange them on the back of the mirror to get the more full look I like. I may make a couple more, smaller ones, to go on the wall over the mantel, and get rid of the window, but for now I'm happy with it.

Grandbabies and projects have kept me hopping this spring & summer, and now I'm itching for some cooler weather. Bring on some AUTUMN I say! While I wait to be able to BREATHE fresh, non-humid air, I'll share some more projects. And next time I won't wait so long between posts. :-)

Do you enjoy looking at your (and other folks') project Before & Afters? 

Processing... Progression

Seems to me that most everything is in a perpetual state of "Processing. Please wait." First thing that pops into mind when thinking of that familiar phrase is computers. Those cutesie little icons that are round and have the little "rotating" petals (or whatever they are) are supposed to help us be more patient while we wait for a computer to DO.SOMETHING.ALREADY! (I'm really good at waiting, you see...). 

Sometimes I think it would be nice if I could have some of that tv magic we've all grown accustomed to, in which we see multi-faceted situations, projects, processes, and people all tidied up and packaged with a neat little bow in the span of about a half-hour or hour. Serial killer murder cases are dramatically and perfectly solved all the way from plotting the crimes to sentencing the perp, in little increments of time between singing household cleaning products, scantily-clad extraordinarily skinny (and strategically, surgically "enhanced") women, and couples holding hands while sitting in separate bathtubs in exotic locals. On HGTV and other channels, we can watch how folks completely transform very seriously poor living conditions into perfectly appointed spaces in a half-hour. Some of them claim the work is done in a DAY, some a weekend, but all are edited and completed for our viewing within the alloted time frame that makes for  what has become standard entertainment. THIS.IS.NOT.REALITY. If they really DO complete all these painting, sewing, staining, and construction projects in such short periods of time (one or a couple of days), I speak from experience that anything that is placed on a table that was painted a few hours ago is going to STICK to that surface and cause damage to the finish when moved; sewing takes time if you do it well, and watching someone sew a straight seam down one side of a pillow cover or window treatment is indicative of about 1/16th of the work involved, and so on.

As for how it REALLY works, it can take a full hour to vacuum if needed, scrape all the gunk off a piece of old furniture, use Goo-Gone or whatever chemical aid, and just wipe it down to prep it for repair, sanding, and priming before even beginning to paint or stain it! Not to mention curing time, which is extensive for anything with a horizontal surface. We're talking WEEKS of curing to do it right.

On a larger scale of progression, I've been working with one of my clients now for over 6 months. We have sold nearly all the furnishings on the main level of their home and replaced them with new pieces that more appropriately suit their home and lifestyle. It is still in process, and it will be for a very long time. We began with the family room, powder room, kitchen, and breakfast room, and have since increased the scope to the dining room, study, three guest bedrooms and baths, and the master en suite. It is a large project.

We started with this:

Now it looks like this:

I papered the backs of the built-in bookshelves in a paper-mosaic style. There are some metallics and many different textures and patterns in the papers. A lot of this will be covered once books, photos, and accessories are in place, and that will temper the "busy-ness" of it a bit, as we plan to use very simple and clean-lined pieces. 

Closeup of one of the shelves of the built-in. Obviously, the shelves have not yet been properly accessorized.

I painted the side table lamps in a hammered copper paint. They were the brightest lime green glass lamps I've ever seen, but they were the right scale and shape, so paint them I did! I intend to embellish the shades, of course.

On the other side of the large leather sofa is an antique sideboard I re-did for the space:

This is a great piece of furniture! The style of it is different from anything else in the space, and it suits it perfectly for storage and serving. The sideboard's large drawers, flatware tray, and medallions on the doors are papered and antiqued, and it is distressed. I painted the hardware antique copper and hand-rubbed the finish. Facing the kitchen island, it is the perfect height, width, and length for serving desserts, finger foods, etc. while entertaining. It is a focal point of this area of the house. Accessories for this piece are still in-the-works as well.

Here's a sneak preview of where we are in the dining room PROGRESSION. Before my clients owned the house:

The way it looked before I got hold of it:

Previous homeowners had put faux painting techniques in nearly every room. The dining room had some light gold feathery effect. The color of the walls and ceiling in this room did absolutely nothing to highlight the architectural details of the space. If you try really hard you can ALMOST see the teeny little brass chandelier hanging way up there next to the ceiling, about 5 feet above the table!

The first thing we did was change the chandelier to an appropriately scaled fixture for the space and to hang it 30" above the table. We found a brass one the homeowner liked and I painted it in an oil-rubbed bronze finish and we covered the chain with a cord cover. Given the homeowners' penchant for saturated, warm colors, we went in this direction:

then I added the hand painting to one wall:

This is a simple technique of tracing around a template on the wall with a pencil, and then following the lines with a paintbrush in the exact same color as the wall, but a higher sheen. It takes some time, but worth it. The effect is stunning and the homeowner gasped and became very emotional when she saw it. 

Now we temper the dark walls a bit more with the right lighter-color elements such as the window treatments:

Latte color fabric panels in a light-to-medium-tone beige, with an allover embroidered floral and vine are a nice transition from the deep Turkish Coffee walls to the almost white blinds (homeowner wishes to keep the blinds as is). The vine mimics the shape of the hand painting on the focal wall and I had the seamstress add a border of horizontal stripe fabric to the inside of the panels, to temper the very feminine pattern of the main fabric and give the look of two layers of panels, although there is only one (not including the lining, of course), for budget purposes. Crystal bead trim runs the length of the panels between the two fabrics as well as dangling below the stripe fabric-covered buttons that accentuate the goblet pleats just a little bit. The two 21" curtain rods are in a golden bronze finish. Hopefully I can get some better pictures soon. :-)

There is still much work to be done here, but we now have the most of the basics in except the sideboard I'm painting for the room. The plan is to paint the ceiling a soft gray-blue between the beams, add a ceiling medallion at the canopy of the light fixture (canopies are always too small!), recover the shades and add crystal bead trim to them, replace the chairs at the ends of the table with upholstered chairs, and recover the seat cushions on the existing chairs in this fabric, which is a bit difficult to see well in this picture:

Again, a similar shape as what I painted on the wall, and repetition of our colors of cream, browns, gray-blue, and a little bit of gold.

We have a very large mirror with a mirrored frame awaiting placement on the focal wall, and some accessories will soon follow once the sideboard is in place. The mirror will obviously reflect light and will brighten up the room more. We will also then create a tablescape that will almost complete the room, with the exception of perhaps a live ficus or other tree and/or some plants and maybe an upholstered bench on one wall. In the meantime, we're IN PROCESS on the other rooms as well, slowly but surely working our way through. 

I recall seeing children's tshirts that read, "Be patient. God's not finished with me yet," and I've heard the cute song on the Christian radio station with the same message. Maybe someday it'll sink in! Methinks there are applications of that plea that extend far beyond little ones who put their jelly-laden fingers in places we'd rather they didn't. As for me, I prefer the term "PROGRESSING," rather than "processing," or the much over-used "evolving." I am thankful that I'm in a perpetual state of progression in every way, personally and professionally- that means I'm still learning and (hopefully!) getting better in my wisdom, patience, and ability to love and serve others.