Finished Stove

Well, I finished the stove. 

I actually finished it a few days ago but I've been staring at it everyday, deciding if I like it or not. When I first finished, I was thinking that this was probably my first major DIY fail. It was definitely not love at first sight like with the finished fridge. 

I have to admit though, it's growing on me. I'm not sure if that's because I actually like it or if I'm just dreading a redo. At first glance I thought it looked like one of those brown stoves from the 70's. The bronze just didn't come out quite as I had imagined. I think my first mistake was buying paint at the craft store rather than Home Depot. The paint said it worked on metal, and it did. Sort of. It just took A LOT of coats to cover. I also didn't take in to account the way bronze would look against the black parts of my stove. I don't like the combo as much as I thought I would. 

For now, I'm leaving it. But in the coming weeks it's very possible that I'll be repainting it. 

First Coat....

Just finished the first coat of copper paint on the stove. And....it's a little scary. As of now it doesn't look very good. I'm still hopeful though. The first coat on the fridge looked pretty rough so I'm hoping that the stove will turn out well too. The metallic paint seems a bit more sheer so I think it may take some additional coats to cover. 

Stove Makeover: Step One

So since the fridge painting went so well I decided to start on the stove today. I bought some copper colored paint at the craft store the other day, it says it's good for metal and is safe for indoor and outdoor projects. I started today by sanding and priming the stove with the Glidden Gripper again. I taped off the stove top and door, though for whatever reason the Frog Tape that I love so much absolutely refused to stick to the glass. I used bleach cleaner and dried it completely but my favorite painter's tape wouldn't stick. I ended up using some orange Scotch tape I had bought on clearance for my daughter to craft with. 

Here's a pic of the first stage. Once the primer is dry I'll start in with the paint. Hopefully I'll have some nice pics to share of the finished project soon!

Glitter Tile Wall

Another room on my small budget, DIY, home makeover list, is my bathroom. We only have the one, I'd seriously sell an organ for a second bath. Well maybe for a second bath and a basement. Organs seem pretty valuable....

But since that doesn't seem like a viable option, I'm stuck working with the one and only bathroom I have. The wall behind the toilet is white tile. Well, I'm not sure what the original color is, from what I saw behind the trim I think it's some sort of a burgundy / gray combo, but when I bought the house it had already been painted white. I've given it a couple more white coats in the last 10 years, the most recent being a couple weeks ago. I also pulled up the old, ugly linoleum and put down tile. Sticky tile, but still. It's a vast improvement and I did it all by myself. (Really REALLY proud of that one!)  I painted the walls a soft green, and replaced the shower curtain. I also used Mdoge Podge to attach some black and white damask paper to the plastic plates surrounding the light switch and electric plugs. It was a huge improvement all around but it needed something...more. 

And then it hit me. 

Glitter. 

The bathroom needed glitter. I decided to add some sparkle to that tile wall behind the toilet. So I picked up some Modge Podge. I have a decent supply, but for this I wanted something extra strong. I bought the kind that says it's indoor/outdoor and dishwasher safe. I figure if it can go outside and go through the dishwasher, it should be good enough to hold up some glitter in my bathroom. I might not have worried as much in any other room (I use Modge Podge a LOT) but the ventilation in my tiny bathroom isn't great so I wanted to make sure the steam didn't ruin my work. 

I picked up some extra fine white glitter. It gave the wall I really pretty opalescent sparkle. I started by cleaning the tile with bleach just to make sure it was extra clean so everything would stick. I mixed some Midge Podge and glitter in a small bowl and started painting. Originally, I used a foam brush but it wasn't working as well as I thought it would so I ended up using a regular paint brush. It took several coats but it's come out exactly the way I had hoped. I love it! Now the only thing left to do is look around for the next thing in the house I can glitter....

Finished Fridge

So it took me a few extra days to completely finish he fridge, mostly because I was putting off the trip to the craft store. I love Michael's. I really do. However...every time I go in there for a few quick things I end up needing to refinance my house to foot the bill. No, no, I suppose it's not really quite that bad but I'm totally guilty of way too many impulse buys when I shop for craft supplies. 

This time I needed white ribbon to finish the board I made to cover the ice maker in the freezer door. I downloaded the Michael's app so I was able to get some coupons to help cover all the things I bought in addition to the ribbon. 

Anyways, I think it came out pretty well. I'm sorry, I didn't take any pictures of the process, though it was really pretty simple. I used a random piece of cardboard, (It was actually part of the box from the new toilet seat I installed in the bathroom.), a couple old tee shirts which I cut up and layered over the cardboard to add a little padding, and a piece of fabric I had laying around. The ribbon I had in my bow making supplies, but since I ran out half way through I had to make that aforementioned trip to the craft store for more. I actually attached everything with duct tape. The ribbon is just woven, over-under to keep it a little extra secure. Th fabric I chose has a grid pattern on it so it was easier to place each ribbon equidistant from the one before. 

Overall I'm pretty geeked about the total transformation. I picked up some bronze paint to do the stove (and maybe the microwave, depending on how well the stove looks) so hopefully the kitchen will start to take shape soon! 

Chalkboard Fridge Success!

I'm super excited to report that my efforts to make my once ugly fridge into a giant chalkboard were successful! 

It's come out even better than I expected. I'm not sure if it was the gripper primer or the chalkboard paint, but I used a brush and there aren't any brush strokes in the paint on the metal. The handles came out reasonably well with the gloss black I used. I also painted over the controls for the water / ice maker in the freezer door. If they actually functioned properly I would probably have painted over them anyway and used a chalk marker to label them just to be cute, but unfortunately the ice maker doesn't work. So I'm in the process of making a ribbon message board to cover it up. I'll post pics once I get it done, I just ran out of the white ribbon I'm using so I won't be able to finish it until I have a chance to get over to the craft store. Michael's is a dangerous place though. I could drop a small fortune there without much effort. If I bring my daughter? Oh no. I'll have to mortgage my house to pay the bill. So I will most likely not be making that trip until Monday when she's in school. 

Ugly Fridge No More...I Hope

I admit it. I'm a Pinterest junkie. I love that app more than I probably should. Recently I've been really into DIY home improvement. My ex really messed some things up. He would start a project and never finish it. Over the 8 years we were married, these projects really began to mount up. I was trying to put into words my reason for feeling like I needed to make some changes around my house after the divorce and my best friend really put it best. He said, " Instead of looking at everything your ex did wrong, now you get to look around at all the things you did right." He couldn't have possibly said it any better. So my latest project is the fridge. It's ugly. The water / ice maker hasn't worked since my ex brought it home. So today I decided to do something about it. First I started by turning off the valve to the water so it won't drip at all. Then I plugged up the hole completely so that no air escapes. I bought s primer that I read about on Pinterest, Glidden Gripper. I covered the entire fridge in this primer. Tomorrow, I'll be painting it with black chalkboard paint. It's a project I've seen online a few times and funny enough, on the Disney Channel show, Good Luck Charlie, their refrigerator is painted completely in chalkboard paint too. So here are the pics of the first step in the process, so far so good. Hopefully the end results will come out just as well. 

The primer dried pretty quickly, but as I was going, I painted part of the handles, leaving a space unpainted so I could still open the fridge. Once the rest of the primer dried I primed the empty section of the door handle. The last pic is of the fridge completely primed.