Home Remodeling - 2/13 - The Idea Room

Apothecary Cabinet

I have the privilege of being a Lowes Creative Ideas Blog team member. As a member, each month Lowes Creative Ideas issues our team a themed-project to create and share with our readers. This month the theme was wide open. We were able to create anything we wanted to for our project! So of course I was super excited. It seems like I have a list a mile long for a bunch of projects I would love to create. Since I am STILL working on the finishing touches on my office (which is taking forever!!) I knew I would use this opportunity to make the Apothecary Cabinet I had been needing.

I had this unused space in the corner of my office that NEEDED something but I was having a difficult time finding the perfect piece of furniture that fit the space perfectly. I needed something fairly narrow so that it didn’t block the doorway (which leads to the kitchen on your right and the other doorway which leads to our living room on the left. But, I wanted to be able to put something that added some color and functionality.

I have been loving Apothecary Cabinets but they are hard to find, the wrong size, or super expensive. So what is a girl to do? Make her own of course! I found an awesome tutorial for building this Apothecary Cabinet from none other than Ana White. Of Course! I LOVE her plans! We made a few changes to her plan because we had some specific needs and I will share those in a later post.

Back in September I shared with you on Instagram(@theidearoom) and Facebook a few sneak peaks of some wood that I was staining. This is the project I was working on! I LOVE the color of stain I ended up going with. I still need to add the polyurethane coating to the top and am planning on getting to that this weekend.

I now have the perfect spot for my Silhouette CAMEO and supplies. I LOVE that I can use it right where it sits and set my computer up on top. It is so nice to have it hidden away and off of my desktop. We also chose not to put a back on the Apothecary Cabinet so that we would have easy access to the computer cords and electrical outlet which was so conveniently behind the cabinet.

And, if you didn’t notice, the outside of the cabinet makes it appear as if there are a bunch of drawers. I would HAVE LOVED to have a REAL apothecary cabinet, but making all the drawers and the functionality would not provide me with what I needed. So I LOVED that Ana’s plans were for a faux drawer front that were actually cabinet doors. Thanks Ana!

Do you have any projects you have been wanting to work on in your home? It seems like there is always something to do around the home. Well, Lowe’w would like to give ONE Idea Room Reader a $100 to get you started on a project of your own. How awesome is that?

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*Disclosure: Lowe’s provided me with a gift card to showcase this project this month as part of their Lowe’s Creative ideas Bloggers team. However all opinions and statements are mine. Giveaway will close on November 5, 2012 at 9:00 pm MT and a winner will be selected via Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to claim the gift card or a new winner will selected. Entrants must be 18 years or older to participate. Limit of 4 entries per person.

October 30, 2012 · Filed under: Giveaways, Home Decor, Home Remodeling, Lowes Creative Blogger Tagged with apothecary cabinet, apothecary cupboard, Make your own apothecary cabinet

Tips for Re-Painting Furniture

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I have finally been getting caught up on all the projects we put on hold over the summer. Today I want to share with you how some tips and pointers to prep for paint when you are repainting a piece of furniture.

We inherited this vanity dresser from some family and have been using it in my daughter’s room for a few years. When we received it had been painted white. The paint job was pretty beat up and it needed to be refinished. We are also in the process of updating her room and we wanted to paint it in a fun color other than white.

There are a few things that you need to know and use to make the process of repainting your old painted furniture as easy as possible.

I used several 3M TEKK Protection products to get the vanity dresser prepped and ready for painting. You will want to use the following:

1. 3M Lead Check Swabs

2. 3M Sandpaper

3. Protective Eye Wear

4. Face Mask

5. Rubber Gloves if you are stripping the paint

6. Ear Plugs

7. ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape

It is always a good idea to test your painted surface for lead. Since we did not know how old the paint was on the vanity dresser we were sanding down we wanted to be sure it was safe to sand the paint down. We did not want to be using or working with any lead based paint or breathing in the dust particles. We used this simple 3M Lead Test from 3M TEKK Protection to determine if the old layers of paint contained lead. You do not want to be sanding down lead paint and breathe in the harmful particles.

For a more detailed explanation of how to use the 3M Lead Test and other important tips for preparing this vanity dresser for repainting, check out the video below.

1. Now that we have determined that the paint is lead free you can go ahead prep your furniture for painting. Remove all hardware. I also removed the mirror since it was just a matter of taking out 4 screws. This makes it a lot easier to paint. I also took out all of the drawers.

2. Now you should be ready to sand down the furniture. We used a hand sander for the flat surfaces and drawer fronts, then used a piece of sand paper or a sanding block for the smaller finer detail work. Sand and remove all loose paint and any blemishes.

3. After you have sanded everything to a nice smooth finish you can do any repair work that may be needed. We glued a couple of loose drawer joints and filled in a couple of larger gouges with some wood putty. Let those areas dry completely and use a finish sander to get them smooth again. Be sure to prime any of these areas with a primer paint.

4. Take a damp cloth and wipe down all the surfaces to remove any excess dust. This step is very important to getting a smooth finish!

Now go ahead and paint away. I will be sharing our favorite tips for painting furniture in a future post.

I am really happy with how the vanity dresser turned out. It adds a punch of color to my daughter’s room. And she can fill it with her crayons and art supplies…and sooner than I want, makeup and hair products…oh boy! I am so not ready for that stage!

We had this fun chair, so I recovered the seat and did some quick paint touch-ups on. I decided for now to keep it white and I think I am loving the white chair with the yellow dresser. What do you think? Should I keep it white or paint it yellow?

And since I know some of you are going to be curious…I painted the dresser with Sherwin Williams White Raisin. The room wall color is Benjamin Moore Rockport Gray with 50% reduction in color.

*Disclosure–This post is a collaboration with 3M DIY. To learn more about safety and preparation, visit 3MDIY.com.

October 8, 2012 · Filed under: Home Decor, Home Remodeling Tagged with

How To DIY a Wood Planked Ceiling

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As one of Lowe’s Creative Bloggers on the Lowe’s Creative Ideas site, I was given the challenge to update my kitchen. The challenge was issued back at the beginning of the year. It just so happened that we were smack dab in the middle of a kitchen re-do. Perfect timing right? So I decided to fulfill my dream of having a wood plank ceiling. In this post I will share with you How to DIY a Wood Plank Ceiling.

{After}

I shared with my readers a few sneak peak photos as we moved along in the extremely SLOW process of DIY home remodeling. And I am so excited to be able to share with you how our kitchen FINALLY turned out. We are not completely finished. We still have a few finishing touches, along with the wall décor to complete, but I am really happy with what we have done so far.

{After}

When school ended in June we stopped working on the house remodel completely so that we could have a “normal” summer when the kids were home and underfoot. And now that start of school is less than a week away, we plan to FINALLY finish up all the loose ends.

{Before}

(I can’t believe how YELLOW my kitchen was…I am so happy with the new look! Funny to think that I LOVED that color not too long ago! But then again I am a person who likes to change things up…if you haven’t noticed :).

{Before}

So for the #LowesCreator Kitchen Project, we decided to install a Wood Plank Ceiling. I have always loved the look of them but wanted to make it a bit “fancier” and paint it white. Part of our motivation for the wood paneling was to cover up a horribly ugly patch job on the ceiling to cover where some wrap around cabinets had been removed by the previous owners. It was pretty bad. We also combined the two lights over the table and centered a new single light over our dining area. Then we had some canned lighting to the space. So needless to say we had a huge ceiling repair on our hands. Planking the ceiling was a great option and actually saved us a lot of repair work.

We ended up using these V groove, Pine Wood Planks from Lowe’s. They were pretty inexpensive for a pack of six, 8 foot long pine planks. We put them up in a staggered pattern so that all the ends would not be lined up for a smoother look and finish. We added a thin line of painters caulk to the back side of each plank and then stuck it onto the ceiling. Then added some nails every couple of feet to secure it to the ceiling.

While my husband and son put the planks on the ceiling, I followed behind them with the painter’s caulk and filled some of the bigger cracks and knot holes in the wood to give it a smoother, less rustic look. The process was pretty tedious but so worth it for the finished product!

After allowing the caulk to fully cure, we primed and then painted the wood planks white. We some crown molding in the dining area to cover up the uneven edges where the ceiling meets the walls. Then in the main kitchen area, we added just a small flat trim molding to cover up the edges as the city scape cupboards had crown molding and it would have been difficult to match up the crown molding on the walls and cabinets.

I can’t believe we are so close to getting things completely finished up and will for sure share with you the final touches when we get them. We did the entire kitchen tear out by ourselves (with some help from our family and our kids). We were originally thinking of just painting our existing cabinets white like we have done with some bathroom cabinets, but considering our home is 30+ years old we decided to replace them. I am so glad we did because as we started to tear them out we could see just how water damaged and rotten several of them had become especially around the sink area. A couple of them just literally fell apart.

We had the cabinets built and installed along with the dark wood flooring. All the rest of the work was done by us. I am planning on sharing several tutorials in some future posts if you are interested in exactly what we did. I am not going to lie, it was really A LOT of work, but I am SO glad that we did it the way that we did! So now you know why I might have been a bit of a crazy person these past several months.

Did you know you can sign up to receive the Lowe’s Creative Ideas magazine on your i-pad or i-phone? There are a lot of great ideas being shared from month to month.

**Disclaimer: I was given a gift card from Lowe’s for this project.

However all opinions and text are mine.