Hi everyone,
We have been hard at work the past few weeks. Our amazing previous homeowners had a lovely front and back garden with trees, flowering bushes, and other niceties. We are NOT garden people. I have killed many a plant. The boyfriend has actually taken over plant maintenance. He is better, but we still killed a nice viney thing in the backyard within a few weeks of taking ownership. Recently, we realized the yard was looking scraggly, so we tried to hire a guy in the neighborhood to help us out. Instead of taking our money, he gave us excellent specific instructions on what to do ourselves, free of charge. Now, I didn't really want to do it myself, but, it seemed fairly straightforward. We pulled weeds, mulched, trimmed bushes and...voila!
We were rewarded with some beautiful late blooming hydrangeas. And more weeding. Weeding forever. My brother's words before we bought a house: "Don't say I didn't warn you". You did, bro. You did.
We also finally decided to upgrade to some "adult" furniture. We had been using the boyfriend's old classic IKEA bookshelf to store our alcohol and barware. After scouring Craiglist for weeks for a china cabinet that met both of our criteria, we came across a perfect one. Our specifications were glass doors on the top to display glasses (me), hutch area to pour drinks (boyfriend), additional storage for liquor and wine (both). There are a LOT of really old really ugly china cabinets on Craigslist. Similarly, there are lot of Pinteresters remaking old ugly china cabinets.
The one we found was a very contemporary hutch with some antiquing details. It had lighting in the glass cabinets and hutch areas. The seller thought it had been originally from Pier One. He was moving and did not have time to fix it up anymore. He had matched the paint, planning to paint over the antiquing aspects to lose to "farmhouse" feel. He even helped us transport it home after the top half wouldn't fit in the car. Craigslist win. I feel like this is karmic payback for the time I took my Ikea bookcase to a woman with a newborn in Laurel because she couldn't coordinate fitting in the bookshelf and the baby seat. No bueno.
I was able to finish his paint job in our dining room. I do not recommend this technique, as I had to protect it from the cats for a few hours after painting. I painted the top half first, with several touch up coats, and then moved on to the bottom half. I would make sure the cats wouldn't come near it for an hour, then do a touch up coat. After 3 days of painting and touch ups, it was done.
The boyfriend expressed some distress about the "aged" knobs. I thought they were a nice touch to the newly painted cabinet, but I could not win him over. We agreed to spray paint them in an oil rubbed bronze color, in keeping with the original color and the rest of our fixtures in the dining and living room. Pinterest came to the rescue in the form of this post from The Snug. This spray paint was amazing - I am only going to buy Rustoleum Ultra Cover from now on. No leaks, minimal smell, fast drying time, amazing results.
Aged knobs pre spray paint below:
Check out the finished product pictures below. Ah, adulting. Time for more weeding now.
On to the next one.
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