Painted Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

Have you priced a kitchen renovation lately? It's very expensive and extremely disruptive to your day to day life. With the economy and housing market like it is, many clients are staying in their homes longer. With that comes the desire to modify and make a space more enjoyable until the market turns around.
That being said, the easiest way to update your kitchen is to paint your kitchen cabinets. It's not the same as painting your walls, but with proper preparation and products, painted cabinets will hold up as well as stained cabinets.
My process takes about 3 weeks, but only 3 or 4 days are onsite. I take your doors and drawer faces with me, to my studio. There, I can sand, wipe down, prime, paint, glaze and polyurethane the fronts and backs and allow adequate dry/cure time between layers. During this time we also work on your kitchen onsite. You can still use your kitchen during this time, although many wives tell their husbands they must go out for dinner! I'll back you up on that if needed. :) Once complete, we return with your doors and drawers and reinstall everything. It's like a brand new kitchen! Most of the projects I do are between $2000-$4000. There have been a few for less and a few for more, but that's the average range. Even refacing is much more than that!

Here are some photos of a recent kitchen makeover. They left the back splash, but did change the counter tops and modify some of the cabinets.

After painting and glazing

After painting and glazing

Before Paint

Before paint

A simple paint and glaze technique, but such a dramatic change! Of course, you can achieve any color or finish you desire. And yes, we can paint over the white melamine/laminate cabinets. I have done many, with great success. If you'd like to see more examples of painted cabinets check out my website http://www.paintingthetown.us/cabinets_furniture.shtml. Here's another site with lots of great before and after cabinet shots. http://www.r2rfaux.com/faux%20wood.htm

Sanctuary of Fresh, White Summer Blooms

I hope you don't mind that I occasionally take a break from writing about painting. I love to paint, but I also love to garden, vegetable and flower, although not so good at the vegetable part. I also like girl's weekends and drinking wine. ( I might start writing about that soon, as well.) Walking around my yard, with these fabulous days we've been having in the Carolina's, I decided to photo the various white flowers in bloom. The gardenia's are my favorite. Their scent is intoxicating! Sitting near a gardenia in bloom, with a glass of Chardonnay as the sun sets, takes you to another world where teens and work stress doesn't exist. :) If you have teens home for the summer you know exactly what I'm talking about! So my husband and I seek out the sanctuary of our back yard that we've spent many hours developing. So today, I'm sharing some of my back yard. I hope you enjoy!

Gardenia

Gladiola

Shasta Daisy

Portulaca

Diamond Frost

Red and Cream Clockface Table How To

In my last posting, I gave you a sneak preview for this post. This is my favorite clockface table so far.  I actually had someone from New Zealand contact me about shipping it to New Zealand! Very exciting for me to have someone on the other side of the world want my little ole table!

So anyone with a round table can paint it with a clockface. This is what my table looked like before.

Before

The top was pretty worn so it was a perfect candidate for painting. As always, I sanded it just to scuff the surface. Next, I rolled on a good quality latex primer, a slightly creamy tint since I was using antique white for my base coat.

I let that dry overnight and then applied 2 coats of a antique white satin latex. Once that dried, I located the center of the table and stuck in a push pin. I cut a string long enough to reach the inner diameter of the red border. With a pencil secured to the string, I lightly sketched a circle. This was the line that I hand painted the red border to. Hand painting is never perfect, but in the end it's fabulous! I blended two shades of red and applied 2 coats to create my red border. You can also see the picture of the actual clock face that was my inspiration for this table.

After several days of dry time, I printed out my lettering on the computer. I used tracing paper to transfer the letters to the table. I used my hand cut stencil for the roman numerals.
These were also hand painted once the letters were transferred. To add a little something extra and to clean up the painted edge where the cream and red met, I used a gold paint pen and my string to create a thin gold circle. Once everything was dry, I used a hard rubber sanding block with sandpaper to create some random distressing.

I loved this effect on a previous table, but after the fact felt like this table was busy enough that it didn't really need the distressing. Oh well, too late to change it back...still learning after all these years!
I used a raw umber glaze to age all the colors and give it some depth.

The top was finished with an acrylic varnish. I blended equal parts of flat and satin so that it wasn't too flat and not too shiny.
The iron base was previously black but needed some touch up. I sand and scraped and loose paint and spot primed. I spray painted the entire base red and let that dry. Next, with a mineral spirits ladened sponge, I began to spray the base black, wiping edges with the sponge to reveal flashes of red. This was the final effect.

Check out the final piece in my Etsy store. https://www.etsy.com/listing/99902582/breakfast-table-clock-face-hand-painted.  It's also available locally at the Dilworth Blacklion in Booth 409, Eeeklectic Town.
Does anyone have any furniture pieces you are tackling this summer? I'd love to see what you're doing or give you some input if you have a project in mind!

Animal Print Silver and Gold Leafed Side Table

You may remember the small turquoise table I did a little while back http://savardstudios.blogspot.com/2012/04/vintage-turquoise-console-and-side.html. I decided to be a bit crazy with it's mate (although now they don't go together at all!). Such a simple, classic mission style table.

..until I finished with it! Now it's a truly, unique, one of a kind (ooak) side table.

Parts of it are silver leafed, parts are gold leafed. The top was transformed with a zebra print stencil. The legs and drawer were accented with leopard print. The entire table was glazed with a warm brown glaze. Once dry, I polyurethaned the table for durablity, two coats on the top. I used an old cabinet knob and upcycled it by priming, painting, silver leafing, glazing, sealing, then finished it off with black diamond Swarovski cystals. Talk about a blinged out table!! Do you think I'm crazy?! I would love to hear your opinions on my furniture transformations.
Here are the step by step instructions for this table. First I sanded the table and wiped it down. I base coated it with a chocolate brown, furniture grade priming base coat. Color here is not terribly important since I'm covering it with gold and silver leafing. A little color peaks through here and there, but not much. It's classic to do a red base an let a little more color crack through. Here's how the leafing size looks going on. It's milky white but dries clear and sticky.
I did the silver areas first. Once they were leafed, I came back and did the gold areas of the table. After all the leafing was complete, I added the zebra stencil to the top only. 

I used a black glaze for this step because I didn't want it to be solid black. A little more sheer suites my taste better.

Next, I added the leopard stencil to the gold legs and gold drawer face. I think I've mentioned before, I actually hand cut this leopard stencil, many years ago using an exacto knife. I really need to get a new one. There are many places online that will custom make stencils for you. I must do that soon.

Once the stencil design was complete and dry, I glazed the entire table with a warm umber glaze. Love the way this gives the foil a slightly tarnished looked with years of aged beauty and dimension. (Wish I could rub it on me for aged beauty :) ) Since I used oil for this, I let it dry several days before I varnished with an oil satin varnish. The finishing touch on this piece was the upcycled cabinet knob in silver leaf and black diamond Swarovski crystals!

So once again, here's the finished piece.



It's heading over to the Dilworth Blacklion this week. It will be in Booth 409 Eeeklectic Town, www.eeeklectictown.com.  It's already listed on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/savardstudios. Shipping on this piece is included. Here's a sneek preview of another clockface table already listed and heading to my booth this week as well. It will be in one of my upcoming blogs!

The Baddest Gym in Town!

So this post is related to painting, in that we did some decorative painting in one of the coolest gym’s in town. This is the Matthews, NC location that houses Carolina Adventure Boot Camp, as well as the personal trainers that run it. My sister in law is one of the owners. I’ve been working out in her “boot camp” Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 5:30 am since October. It was brutal at first (not the getting up early, been doing that for years!), but the physical intensity. But, the plus side is you see results so much faster than easing into it. You get a great sense of accomplishment as you  see you strength and endurance increase. And once it’s done at 6:30 and you have your whole day ahead of you! ( You don’t feel so bad about the bottle of wine, bag of chips or chocolate cake you ate the night before. Who am I kidding, I never feel bad about it anyway…)

So they selected some very simple slate looking vinyl for the bathrooms and hallway. It had very rich color, so from that we quickly decided on some wall colors. We choose a slate blue venetian plaster for the bathrooms. For the main body of the personal training area, we choose a warm goldish terracotta. We glazed the back wall with an iridescent gold glaze. Once dry, we glazed over that with a very warm burnt umber glaze. We also glazed the hall wall with the burn umber glaze. All colors looked fabulous with the flooring and the gym equipment. This is not your father’s gym! It looks amazing and is so inviting to work out in. Makes you look forward to it! I’ll let you be your own judge.

Carolina Adventure Boot Camp, offers women only camps, co-ed camps, personal training, nutritional training and they have a massage therapist onsite. If you are looking for a great work out and wanting to get in shape, check out Maria’s website. I would love to see you out there! http://www.carolinaadventurebootcamp.com/site/index.php.

Black and Gold Crackled Chairs and an Antiqued Green Arm Chair

I love when my beloved clients want to keep an old piece of furniture, be it for sentimental memories or just to upcycle something and save a few trees. Two clients had chairs they wanted to transform. Both were nice, solid wood, but had seen better days.

Jury Chair

The pair of jury chairs where definitely dated but were very solid. I saw a set of 12 of these on Craig's List for $50 each.  http://charlotte.craigslist.org/fuo/2946229121.html.   I think with a cool upholstered cushion on them and some caster wheels, they would make great game table chairs!
Both chairs needed to be lightly sanded and primed. I used a slightly off white latex, stain blocking primer.
The chair with the upholstered seat was to be green with a glaze. I used an interior latex paint in a eggshell finish. I used color 6970, Baltic Green from Porter/PPG Paints.
Since the jury chairs were going to be black and gold crackle I needed to start with a gold base. I used one of my favorite metallic bronze paints. Brushing on metallic paint does leave a brushed metal effect, but since a black crackle was going on top, it doesn't affect the finish.


Once the gold on the jury chair was dry, I applied a crackle size. It goes on milky and dries clear and shiny. It's what makes the topcoat crackle. Once the size was dry, I randomly brushed and stippled the black crackle paint. It's a bit thicker than regular paint, and dries slower to allow for better cracking.
Once the green paint was dry, I was able to glaze it with a chocolate glaze.

After the black crackle dried and the glaze was dry, I was able to add a polyurethane to both chairs. For the crackled jury chair, I used a latex, satin poly. For the antiqued chair, I mixed satin with flat poly to give a more aged appearance. Thought these turned out fabulous!

Beautiful, Blooming Peony

Just had to share a few photos of my blooming pink peony! We purchased this plant many years ago from the Grower's Outlet on South Blvd. It was tiny and in the clearance pile for $5. We planted it, but thought  maybe it got too much shade. We watched it get green, year after year with no blooms. We thought we just got what we paid for. After 3 or 4 years we moved it to a spot with a little more sun, and the next year it had one bloom!! We were so excited! I guess it needed to mature. It's been about 4 years now since we moved it and it gets more blooms each year and the blooms are getting bigger. That last frost affected some of the blooms, but not this one!

So pretty! I hope this reminds you that it is still spring, even though it feels like Summer!