Home Improvement Projects

Painting Cabinets

Posted by Cindy Pizzi — No Comments

Are you thinking about painting cabinets in your home?

We have cabinets in our family room and for several years I’ve been planning to paint them. I finally found some time to work on them and finished them this week! Because I’ve had lots of time to think about it I’ve had several different ideas for these cabinets. I landed in painting them blue and adding hardware.

Annie Sloan has several blues and I changed my mind a few times on which blue to use. I hadn’t used Annie Sloan Old Violet before so I bought a sample size and tried it on a smaller piece. I was worried it might have a lavender feel to it and I didn’t want any purple undertones. Although it’s call Old Violet it doesn’t look purple. It’s actually a lovely medium blue that adds some color but isn’t overwhelming.

The cabinets in the family room are the same as the ones in our kitchen. They are oak and were stained a yellow/orange color. I painted my kitchen cabinets and was ready to get rid of the yellow/orange color in the family room as well.

Just your basic cabinets. Time for a change.

I still wanted the top to be a stained wood but I wanted a different stain color so I sanded them down.

I usually sand things outside but obviously I couldn’t do that. So there was a mess to clean up after I blew saw dust all over my family room. 🙄 I tired a couple of different stains and ended up using Minwax Early American. I used 2 coates of polyurethane to seal it and then started painting. Cabinets take some time to paint. This project took several days. There’s a lot of surface space and it also involves taking the doors off and the drawers out. If there had been hardware I would have removed that as well. I know not everyone paints the inside of the doors but I do and here’s why. When I open a cabinet I want it to feel finished. The insides of my cabinets are white so I didn’t paint them.

I didn’t paint the backs of the drawer fronts because they are attached to the drawer and you don’t easily see it like the inside of a cabinet door. If you are painting your cabinets you can decide how you want to handle this.

Next I had to decide on drawer pulls. I debated on adding gold or black drawer pulls. I decided on black because I generally go more traditional. I also felt the black was more lasting. I have gold accents in my home but I think black will be easier to work with as styles change. I’ll be adding the same drawer pulls to my kitchen cabinets. Adding these pulls was also time consuming. Anytime you have to add a couple of holes to furniture or cabinets there’s a lot of measuring and double checking. No one wants to patch a mistake.

A lot goes into changing cabinets but a little paint and elbow grease gives you a whole new look.

I painted these without distressing them. I sealed the halk paint with Annie Sloan Clear Wax. I think the paint color and stain color compliment each other well and fit with the look of the room.

Painting cabinets will take you some time but you’ll save a lot of money compared to the price of replacing them. And you can customize them to get the look you want. It’s definitely worth the effort.

If you’re thinking about painting your cabinets I hope this is helpful. If you have any other questions I can answer, leave a comment below.

Thanks for taking a minute to read my blog. Take a minute to brows around for more tips on painting with chalk paint!

Cindy

Fri
02 ^nd

Decluttering the KonMari Way – Clothing

Posted by Cindy Pizzi — No Comments

Last month I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.

And as it turns out I’m a HOARDER! Not like the people on the show Hoarders (love that show) but I have been hoarding things I don’t need for years!!

I asked for some idea’s on organizing last month on Instagram and I got some good suggestions. Don’t try to do it all in one day, was some good advice cuz several hours of organizing will drive a person a little nutty. I’d never heard of The Flylady before but she’s got some great stuff for organizing and cleaning. A few people suggested I read Marie Kondo’s book so I bought it and read it. It’s a quick read, I read it in 24 hours. It’s simple and to the point and I suggest reading it all the way through before you start de-cluttering your home.

De-cluttering has been something that’s needed to happen in our home for a while. For many of us there are all sorts of reasons our homes get cluttered. For me it’s that I hate to organize, clean and de-clutter. 😂Am I the only one? And busy life always gives me a reason to put those aside for a while. I’ve been fairly good at hiding most of my clutter in closets and drawers but it’s always a reminder that my home isn’t as clean and organized at I would like. And let’s be honest, if your home is cluttered it makes everyday day life more difficult. I am the queen of “I know it’s here somewhere – let me go find it”! Ugh!! I HATE those moments. As the mom in the home it’s almost always on me to be the one to find whatever’s missing in the never ending clutter pit.

Lets get back to my hoard shall we. I’m not actually a hoarder. Really. I’m not. But as much as I think I’m good at getting rid of stuff (compared to an actual hoarder) I still have way more stuff than I should or need. And of all the things I learned from this book, it was that.

I’ll be doing a few posts about the KonMari method (yup it’s a method) but today’s post will focus on clothing. I do want to tell you a few other things about the book so you can understand a little more about the method she uses. Her philosophy on cleaning and organizing is not like anything I’ve ever heard or read about. She’s been learning about, and practicing organizing since she was a young child. She’s come to the conclusion that you should only keep things that “spark joy”. And she has a very specific way of doing that. And some interesting ways of discovering what brings you joy. The reason I suggest you read her book cover to cover is so you can understand how to do this.

I’ve de-cluttered and organized my home lots of times before, but after reading her book I found it much easier to discard so much more than I usually do. She gives you permission to throw things out or donate things you’ve felt guilty getting rid of in the past. She goes into depth on how it will make your life easier to only keep the things that spark joy, even if you find that something you discarded you may have used. There is a trade off to possibly getting rid of something that later may’ve been useful and living each day in a home that is organized with only items that bring joy.

Marie has a specific order of where to start in your home. Clothing is first. She tells you to pull everything of the same category out and into a big pile. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but the idea is to see what you have. So I started with tops.

She wants you to hold each thing in your hand and ask yourself “does this spark joy?”. If it doesn’t, you thank it for its usefulness and discard it. No I did not thank each thing personally for being useful, but I did decide to go in with a feeling of gratitude for all of the things I discarded. Now you should know that only about 2 months ago I went through my closet and filled a bag for donation, but I was amazed at how much more I let go after reading her book, and seeing how much I had all laid out.

Those 2 laundry baskets are just my tops. (I haven’t tackled anyone else in my homes clothing yet. It’s coming!) Next I laid out all my pants, shorts and skirts.

I continued this until each category of clothing and accessories had been laid out and gone through. It does take a while but when you actually pick up each item and hold it, you can determine if it’s something you want or something you just keep holding onto. She does talk about keeping clothing and other items for sentimental reasons and I had some of those. The ones I’d been holding onto that made me smile I kept and the ones that didn’t, I said goodbye to. There were only a few items that I kept that I knew I wouldn’t wear again but that still sparked joy. In fact a few of them brought me to tears when I thought about giving them away. Those are keepers, and I believe there was only 4 pieces of clothing that fit that description.

One of my favorite things about this book was the idea of getting rid of things that I had been holding onto because I felt guilty about getting rid of them. Lots of those items included things I only wore a few times. I always felt that I needed to hang on to those because I hadn’t “gotten my money’s worth” out of it. That isn’t part of my consideration when deciding what to keep and what needs to go anymore. Here’s the pile of just my clothing items I donated, and other items from my closet I threw away.

Amazing! I mean I was really amazed at the amount of stuff I felt good about getting rid of. I actually can’t understand why I ever felt the need to hang onto anything that I don’t love. Or at least use on a regular basis. It felt so good to put this huge pile into my GMC and drop it off at the local donation center.

Ok so lets talk just a little bit about the organizing method of Marie Kondo. First I did not follow all of her rules for organizing. I think as you read this book you will find the things that work for you, which may be following it completely, and not using what doesn’t work. Although don’t tell her I told you to change any of her methods because you will see from her book she wouldn’t like that!

She has a whole folding method that didn’t work for me. I have some of my cloths in an armoire so folding everything and “filing” it away just didn’t work. I did try. It didn’t spark joy! 😉 She has some video’s on Youtube you can watch to see how to do it. I did use her method for my socks and underwear drawer. Here’s my socks.

See how they are all folded and filed away. If you are better at this than I am all of our drawers can look like this. It really does make it easier to see each pair all folded and filed, than rolling them into balls and throwing them in the drawer. I may try to get better at this and try again with my other items.

Here are some before and afters of my closet

I use to have all my shoes in two of those shoe racks that hang from the rod. I like this much better because I can see everything. Part of her philosophy is you should be able to see everything so you know what you have, and then things don’t get forgotten.

Here’s my armoire before and after’s

Gotta get the hubby to work on his stuff. 😉 I also spend an afternoon going through my jewelry. I didn’t take a before picture but I will show you the bags of stuff I donated.

This is a great example of being able to see what you have when you discard the stuff that doesn’t bring you joy. I think jewelry has been the hardest for me to de-clutter because I always think I may want to wear it again. I never do, and it was making it hard for me to see what I did have. I found a pair of earrings I thought were lost because I couldn’t see them in all the cluttered jewelry mess.

Marie Kondo says in the book that it will probably take about 6 months to complete the de-cluttering and organizing. So as I go along and continue this journey I will add more posts and let you know how it’s going. I am currently in the middle of my office/paperwork/book de-cluttering. Seriously I can’t believe the stuff I’m finding there. (this may be why I feel like a hoarder 😉)

In the mean time grab a copy of her book and give it a try. You will find a link at the bottom of the post to purchase the book through Amazon.

Let me know if you have any questions about this or if you have tried the KonMari method of de-cluttering and organizing. I would love to hear from you. And if you want to see more posts like this sign for my emails so you don’t miss anything.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I hope you found this helpful.

Cindy

Tue
02 ^nd

Painting and Staining our stair railing part 3 – Done!

Posted by Cindy Pizzi — 10 Comments

Done! This was a big project but it’s finally done. And I have to say I am very happy with the way it turned out! It was time consuming and a bit frustrating at times, but what a change! Here is the before and after pictures. (I added links to the first 2 posts at the end of this post)

Once the gel stain was on and I finished with 2 coats of polyurethane, I started on the spindles. Taping the spindles off was the time consuming part. I used A LOT of tape. But to get a really clean look it was necessary. Spend the time on this, it’s worth it.

I painted the spindles Annie Sloan Pure White and finished them with polyurethane as well so everything had the same finish. Be sure to use a top coat that won’t yellow the chalk paint. I used General Finishes High Performance Water based topcoat.

Now that it’s done I can say the hardest part was the time it took. Don’t plan on this being a quick project. But as long as you take the time to tape everything off and be sure to layer thin coats of stain as well as paint you will be happy with the results. I really am amazed at how different it looks. And I absolutely love it!

Let me know what you think. If you have any questions about how I refinished my stair railing please ask.

Thanks for taking a look

Cindy

Here are links to the first 2 posts in this series

Painting and staining our stair railing Part 1

Painting and Staining our stair railing part 2

Sun
10 ^th

Painting and Staining our stair railing part 2

Posted by Cindy Pizzi — No Comments

Remember all my complaining about sanding in my last post. I do! And here’s a little more complaining! 😛 haha I sanded for what felt like forever. I used sand paper as well as sanding tools (that’s plural). I sanded so much my thumbprint disappeared and I couldn’t open my iphone with my thumbprint anymore. 😉 Here’s my proof!

I took it down to the bare wood and removed the stain that was there so the new stain would show through. I mixed the 2 colors of General Finishes Gel Stain: Nutmeg and Grey to get the color I wanted.

It mixed really well and I am happy with the color. After a few hours of sanding, Ugh, I put the stain on and let it sit for a few minutes and then wiped off the excess. And that is when I realized that this method wasn’t going to work. The stain worked great on approximately 90% of the area but the small crevices and area’s that are most difficult to sand were not taking the stain. It wiped right off leaving an uneven coverage of the stain. When I tried to sand deeper to get in those small area’s I was taking too much of the wood off and changing the shape of the railings. Time to try something different. One of the reasons I decided to use the General Finishes Gel Stain is because you can apply it like paint and leave it on to dry. So that’s what I did. This makes the stain much darker and you see much less of the pretty wood grain. But at this point I felt it was the best way to go.

The great thing about this method is….you guessed it…NO SANDING!!! Woohoo! I brushed a thin coat of stain on and let it dry for about 12-24 hours. It will be sticky at first and the second coat goes on much better if the first coat is dry. 2 coats were needed because it doesn’t look even with just one. Once the second coat is on you can still see the wood grain but the stain is pretty dark so you don’t get a “stained wood” look. It is more of a painted look. But the stain goes on thinner than paint so it still has a look of stained wood. I wanted the other look but I will say now that 2 coats of stain are on and dry I really like it and am excited about the outcome. Here it is after a day of letting it dry.

As you can see from the close up picture you can still see the wood grain. And once I paint the spindles white I think it will look amazing!! I will be adding a coat of General Finishes top coat to seal it and once that’s dry, I will start on the spindles.

I few tips when applying the stain: Tape off and use a drop cloth where ever you will be staining. Wear gloves because this will stain your skin. I used a foam brush like the one in the above picture, most of the time it was the smaller thin size foam brush. That helped get into the small places. Brush with the grain of the wood. Do a thin coat to get a smooth look and then do a second thin coat to get an even look. Remember to let the first coat dry completely before applying the second coat or you won’t get an even look to the finish.

This has been a learning experience for me and I am sure there are other ways to tackle a stair railing. But once I decided to apply the stain and leave it to dry this project became much easier. Still time consuming and I’m not even done yet, but easier. Let me know if you have any questions. I will be happy to tell you more about my experience. I will come back and show you pictures of the finished product as soon as it’s done.

Thanks for taking a look,

Cindy

here are links to part 1&3

Painting and staining our stair railing Part 1

Painting and Staining our stair railing part 3 Done!

Tue
07 ^th

Painting and staining our stair railing Part 1

Posted by Cindy Pizzi — 3 Comments

Ok! So I’m just going to start off by saying I am super excited and completely dreading this project. For about 2 years I have been saying I am going to redo the stair railing in our entry way. I have pinned countless pictures on Pinterest in hopes that it would get me motivated to start this project. It’s not that I didn’t know what I wanted, because I know exactly what I want my stair railing to look like. So what is it that’s been stopping me you ask?

Sanding!

That’s right – sanding. If you have read any of my posts or talked to me about painting furniture, one of the first things you will hear me say is I hate sanding. Thus – Chalk Paint!! No sanding! But for all of my searching I haven’t found a wood stain that doesn’t require at least some sanding. So….bring it on! Ugh! But really it needs to be done. And here is why.

When we moved into our home 12 years ago all the wood in our home was this yellow oak. The floor, the kitchen cabinets and the stair railing were all this color. When we moved in I was fine with it. It was not my favorite but I liked it enough to not pay the big upgrade prices to have a different wood and stain color. About 2 years ago that changed and it has been my goal to eradicate this color of wood from my home. Every time I walk through the front door I am reminded that I haven’t done that yet! 😉 But that’s about to change.

I haven’t really done much wood staining. I have read up on the different types of stain, and lots of people seem to like gel stain, so I’m going with that. The store I have my booth in, Drab 2 Fab in Lehi, sells General Finishes Gel Stain. So I bought some and tried it out on a piece of furniture. It really is easy to use and I loved the results. I will be staining next to carpet so I am a little worried about the stain getting on the carpet. Gel stain isn’t runny and is a bit less messy so that makes me feel a little better about staining around the carpet. We will see if I can keep from spilling it as I go! heehee Fingers crossed. I will be painting the spindles white. The balusters, the railing and whatever that part is called at the bottom of the spindles will be sanded down and stained. Unless I start to go crazy and then maybe just the balusters and the railing will get stained and the rest painted. Or I will ruin the whole thing and we will have to pay big bucks to have someone come in and redo the whole thing. Praying it’s not that last option! 😉

We had our floor redone almost 2 years ago and we went with a custom color that was a medium brown with a touch of grey to match the grey walls. I don’t expect to match it perfectly, and I’m ok with it not matching exactly, but I am going to mix 2 colors to get the same brown/grey color. So I am going with General Finishes Nutmeg and Grey. I will mix them 1:1 to make it easy on myself. 😉 I actually already tried it out on a small area at the top of the stairs to see what it would look like. Here is the results so far.

I like the color and once I sanded down enough to get the stain to take it was pretty easy. Not going to lie, I tried to lightly sand and see if the stain would go through the finish but it didn’t. They put a good thick glossy coat over the stain when it was originally done. So I have loads of sanding to look forward to. Blah! 😛 I will do my best to endure it! Otherwise I will be living with this orangy/yellow color forever.

I will do updates and complain profusely as this project goes forward! 😉 If you have any words of wisdom or encouragement I would LOVE to hear them!! Tell me about your experience and how it turned out. And come back to see the results.

Thanks for taking a look. Hope to hear from you!

Cindy

Links to part 2&3

Painting and Staining our stair railing part 2

Painting and Staining our stair railing part 3 Done!

Category