I'm a Little Tea Cart

I'm in the middle of planning a big 2nd birthday party for my little cutie.  I'm working on 1,258 projects to make my vision come to life.  Okay, so it's not that many, but it's starting to feel like it!  At one point I got stuck on the idea that I needed a tea cart, or more precisely, a white distressed tea cart.  Luckily I found one on Craigslist pretty quickly, but alas it was neither white nor distressed.  No problem, I thought to myself, I have some leftover white paint!  Unfortunately, I noticed that the finish was super lacquery (is that a word?) and would probably need sanding and/or priming to take any paint.  I wasn't in the mood to sand and/or prime, so immediately decided to use chalk paint.  We have a stockist not too far from here, but picking up paint also requires taking my two little bulldozers munchkins downtown into an adorable little shop full of antique furniture and a lot of cute, highly breakable things.  Randomly, as I was plotting a way to purchase the paint over the phone and have them run it out to my car Sonic style, I came across a recipe for homemade chalk paint using baking soda!  I've seen others using grout or plaster of paris but I had baking soda and I had white paint, so there was no need to leave the house at all!  This is how it went...

Here's the tea cart before.  It was in pretty good shape, but it needed to be white.



You can see the lacquery finish here.  It's like a mirror!

Here are the supplies I used to make homemade chalk paint.  The formula according to multiple online sources is 2/3 cup flat latex paint to 1/3 cup baking soda and 2 tbs. water.  Because I had already ruined my cheap measuring cups with my guest room project, I just eyeballed it this time.  I added water until it felt like the right consistency.  It helped that I've used ASCP, but I don't think that matters much.  I mixed it all up in a plastic take-out container (we have a lot of these thanks to the Pho from our local Vietnamese restaurant!).

Here are my thoughts on homemade chalk paint:

- drying time was a little slower than the real thing

- dried a lot grittier, but that sanded off fairly easily

- brush strokes were a little more visible

- coverage was similar- I didn't need to sand or prime!  However, I think the real thing does a better job with bleed through.  I definitely had some bleed through on this piece so there are some brownish stains that came through even after three coats of paint.  Since I was distressing the piece anyway it wasn't a big deal, but I don't think that would have happened with ASCP.

Overall, I definitely prefer ASCP, but for a quick project I could see myself using a diy version again, either with baking soda or one of the others.  How cute is this little tea cart now though??  I love it so much and can't wait to put it to use for the party!  Now, if someone could just come over and join me for some lemon water... my 3 year old says it's "yucky!" :)

Linking up to...

Project Office

Here's our next project...

This pile of furniture is about to become our new desk.  We bought it on Craigslist and I was thrilled to find it because I have a very specific vision!  The first step is some white paint, which sounds so simple, but I have a feeling we're going to hate painting when we're done with this!

Warning: Unattractive room pictures below...

Here's our office as it looks now.  It's not that bad, but definitely isn't functional.  There's absolutely no storage and hardly any work space.  It's also the first room you see when you walk into the house, so it needs a little love.

  

I'm so excited to finally have a place to put paperwork, desk supplies, and my computer!  My husband is set on getting all of the furniture primed today, so off I go... 

Barstool Makeover

At one point we had two cats, both with all claws intact.  We also had a pair of faux leather barstools from Target.  You see where this is going?  This is what the stools looked like originally:

Now imagine the cushions with holes and claw marks all over them and the wood scuffed and chipped.  Not very attractive.  When we moved, the stools didn't quite go with the new kitchen, so I knew it was the perfect opportunity to transform them!  Since the kitchen was mainly black and white and our dining set was black, I decided to spray paint the wood frames black.  Originally I had planned to make slipcovers for the cushions out of a colorful fabric because I really needed to be able to wash them easily.  Unfortunately my first attempt at slipcovers failed, but then my mom mentioned that I would need something to help the slipcover grip the vinyl of the cushion to keep it from sliding (especially important with little munchkins constantly climbing on them.)

I started thinking about re-covering them instead and discovered oil cloth, which is wipeable!  Oil cloth comes in the most adorable designs so I was excited to buy some until I saw this:

WARNING: This product may contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

Yikes.  It's probably not as bad as it sounds, but I was a little leery of putting it on the barstools that we use CONSTANTLY.  That's when I discovered laminated fabric!  I ended up choosing the black and white polka dots and bought a few yards.  Here's how I did it:

1. Unscrewed cushion from base
2. Spray painted bases, first with spray primer, then with black and last with a few coats of Polycrylic
3. Cut circles out of the laminated fabric a few inches larger than the cushions (I think I used less than a yard total)
4. Used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the underneath side of the cushion

I love my "new" stools!  They get used and abused every day and they still look great!  I was a little concerned that the laminated fabric might not hold up, which is why I bought extra, but it still looks as good as new!  Oh, and now we're down to one cat, and so far we've been lucky!

Linking up to...

Craft-o-maniac
Lines Across My Face
Cherished Bliss
Primitive and Proper