Painting Furniture with Porch Paint

Every once in awhile I get crazy...okay, a lot of the while, and I paint stuff. This time, I used some leftover porch and floor paint to give our dining room table a makeover. 

We used Glidden's porch and floor paint to paint our floors. I've heard that oil-based paints aren't tint-able, but guess what? This paint is! It also has polyurethane in it, so you don't need to add a protective coat after you finish painting. So I thought to myself, "Self, use the porch/floor paint to paint the dining room table!" 

So I did. I didn't prime or sand the table. Here is what it ended up looking like:  

I loooove it! I have two tips for working with porch and floor paint. 

One, apply the paint in thin coats on vertical surfaces. Otherwise you end up with something like this:

Not awesome. 

Two. If you apply the paint thickly on a level surface, that's okay. It's great actually! But if you decide to apply a second coat you must be sure that the first coat is fully cured. Otherwise you end up with this:

Not awesome. I ended up scraping paint off the whole table top and a couple of the legs with a straight razor and re-doing them, but I love how it turned out! 

A Little More Color

One more painted ceiling down!

 This color is by far my favorite. Check it:

Before:

After:

Woop!

"True Turquoise."

I am so loving it.

At the suggestions of my little sister and sister-in-law, I am going to paint all of the ceilings in a color of the rainbow. Don't worry, some will still be white.

I decided to paint the entry way ceiling a green, and the craft room ceiling a light lavender.  Then our house will be a rainbow for real!

Also, my awesome brother-in-law came and helped My Honeypie do this:

OMGOSH!

We have kitchen cabinets!

I know this isn't typically how a piece like this is used...I'm pretty sure they are used on top of another set of cabinets, but it works this way for us. Plus, our kitchen is going to kind of be a mess of different cabinets as we piece the kitchen together. No matter! I'm painting them all anyway. Of course.

Paint all the things!!!

Fetch Yes.

OhmigoshohmigoshohmigoshOHMIGOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS WEEKEND!

YES!

We will be moving into our house!

*Jump in my hoopty hoopty hoop* <--celebratory dance.

I’ve been working the [paint] pole for the past week or so (along with my sister-in-law, Ruth). I am happy to announce that two rooms upstairs are fully painted! Don’t get too excited, they are just “antique white” for now.

 I will admit that I am a super huge paint snob and *hated* the paint when I put it on the wall cuz it looked yellow.  I mostly got over it cuz My Honeypie told me that I didn’t have to paint our room that color, and it looks fine in the pictures, so whatever.

Photo Dump!

Baby's room

A plan is formulating in my head for his room--I'm thinking blue/orange stripes and cute little jungle animals to match the quilt I made him.

Next:

Third room

Also, if you didn’t know already, my little sister Cassie found this supa huge snake upstairs in our ‘master bedroom’. She came running out of the room into the teeny hallway and said, “ALISHA! There’s a snake in your room!”

I thought she just saw the end of a mouse’s tail or something, because we’ve seen them running around and they leave their little paw prints in the sheetrock dust. (If you’re gonna be up in someone’s house like that, you need to erase the evidence. Stupid rodents.)

Anyway, so I walk in there and BOOM! Four foot long black snake. WtHEck? I used to pick up snakes all the time in Utah because I knew which ones were okay…except for that one time I accidently picked up a baby rattlesnake. Whatevs. I don’t pick snakes up here. Until I learn them! Turns out black snakes aren’t poisonous, but they are fetching huge. And they like mice which we guess that’s why it was in the house.

He was so not happy to be picking that up

Seriously though? Ticks freak me out way worse than snakes. WAY. I have to wear rubber gloves and hold my breath when I try and get them off our dog. They are disgusting, parasitic, greedy, little arachnids and I feel like they’re crawling all over me whenever I talk about them. So I’m done. Bleh.

I Shall Love You Today

"I shall love you today and tomorrow, my love
And in all the tomorrows there are.
I shall love you as long as there lingers a song,
And the sky has a single star.
In the spring when the wind is a gentle breeze
And the rain and the roses are here;
In the summery days when the friendly rays
Of the golden sun appear;
In the lonely lap of the autumn months
Where the beautiful leaves must fall,
And again in the night when the fields are white
In the folds of their wintry shawl.
I shall love you while ever a mountain stands
And the waves of the ocean pass,
And until the sands of the farthest lands
Have run through the hour-glass.
I shall love you as much as my heart can love
Wherever, my love, you are.
I shall love you as long as there lingers a song,
And the sky has a single star."
-James J. Metcalfe

This has just become my new favorite poem. It's so lovely! One of my sisters-in-law just had a baby shower and I used this poem to make a mixed media sumthin'-sumthin' for her and her little girl on the way.

It started as this

then this...(her girl's color was purple)

and a bunch of this mess (not including the syrup)...

That is why I so need a craft room.

The poem. My Honeypie suggested and carried out the burning of the paper:

Some lace-y type remnants, a button, and a star bead that I've had for like, five years. The bead is kinda hard to see, it's that little gray thing off to the upper left of the button.

And we ended up with this:

Haha, I couldn't resist. He just didn't want to be in the picture.

Now, I know these aren't the best pictures, but I was going to be late and I still had to get my face on! Basically, you get the idea--Mixed media gift poem!

 

Rock-a-Bye

So remember how I got this awesome rocking chair for free from my wonderful sister-in law?

[caption id="attachment_201" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Notice the hole in the seat. Her husband's bony fanny broke it. Twice."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="priming"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="primed!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="painting"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="painted!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_266" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Done!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_267" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Colors!"][/caption]

To fix the seat I just measured the existing seat and cut out a piece of plywood (leftovers from our roof) and nailed it on. Instant seat!

Things I would do differently:

• Buy a better paint brush. It's so annoying when the little brush hairs come out all over your chair. Ew.


• Lightly sand the rocking chair before painting, just to have a smoother surface. Usually, I sand before I paint, but I have come to *loathe* sanding. I thought the wood was in pretty good shape so I skipped it this time. Although it worked out okay, I think it would have been prettier sanded. Sigh. This means I have to go back to sanding.


• If you have something to fix--like the seat--fix the seat first and then paint. Ugh. I just can't help myself. I love paint!!!


• Buy a really big cushion for the seat. Just because the seat is 17 inches across it doesn't mean an 18 inch pillow is the best choice. Even if it is the cheapest and 50% off.  Boo!

Seeing as this is my first major attempt at making a piece of furniture prettier I'm pleased. Plus, I learned a lot! Yay! That means I hopefully won't ruin these:

I got four of these bad boys for a whopping two (yes, 2) dollars at a moving sale! Fifty cents each!! I drove by in the morning and they wanted $12.75 for each which isn't bad considering what a brand new bar stool costs, but I didn't have any cash on me. I went back later that afternoon to see if they were still there and they were...and so much cheaper!

Holla.