During a quick trip home for my Dad’s graduation from college, My Mom dug the shelf out of storage and it made its way way back home with me.

It was dirty and stained a dark color so I knew if I was going to make this work in the new nursery, a change had to be made. Although it didnt have a very glossy finish to it, I started out with a good sanding.

Airplane Shelf Sanded

I followed this up with the same process I used on the nursery dresser.

1. Sanding (picture above)
2. Coat of primer (picture below)
3. Coat of black (no picture)
4. Main color

Coat of Primer

For some reason I didn’t get a picture of the shelf with the coat of black paint on it. I must have been busy.

The main coat of paint was done in an orange and I started off using a sample of the Behr Premium Plus Ulta Paint + Primer.

Coat of Primer

I really hate this stuff. One would think that a paint + primer would cover in fewer coats but that is not the case. After 3 coats, I still was not happy with the coverage I was getting.  So I ran to Home Depot and purchased the sample size of Behr Premium Plus in Flat. This is the same kind of paint I used on the nursery dresser and it covered very well with 2 coats. It achieved the same desired result on the airplane shelf. Cheaper and better in my opinion. I won’t be buying anymore Paint + Primer products. I have never been happy with the result or the  price.

Behr Premium Plus

After two coats of the Behr Premium Plus I sanded the airplane down and distressed it. This is always the part that makes me nervous. Nothing like taking a “perfectly” painted piece of furniture that has received 7 coats of paint and making it appear worn out. If done incorrectly, I may have to repaint!

After the sanding was completed and I was happy with the amount of deterioration that I performed, I brushed on my Rust-Oleum glaze left over from my kitchen painting project and then proceeded to wipe it off with some cheese cloth.

Rust-Oleum Glaze

Below is the end result of the redo. I love how it turned out and it looks great in the new nursery!

Stock Cubby Shelf

I decided what it really needed was a base. Lucky for me I still had some window casing left over from the wall updates I did (post to come soon) so I set out to add the casing to the bottom. I ended up having to use 1 – 2×4 along with 2 – 1×4′s in order to get to the perfect height for my window casing turned floor molding to line up with the bottom of the cubby.

Window Casing as Floor Molding

A few coats of a really dark gray paint and I was albe to get fairly close to the expresso color of the original cubby. I think the subtle contrast in color adds to the uniqueness of the room.

I wish I would have taken more “before” pictures though. We are into our second year of living in this house and didn’t have time to mulch the first year. I am not sure the previous owners ever did.  From here on out, we shouldn’t have to do as much except to fill in a few places here and there.

We used a black dyed mulch. The color starts out nice but over time has already started to fade away. I am not sure if I will spend the money on that next time or go with more of a neutral brown.  Dream mulch would be the rubber stuff.

I liked it but I thought it needed a bit more. I started to do some searching on my own and ran across another one that was like a “car wash” that the kids ran through.

I decided to combine the two and this is the end result. I had most of the materials on hand from a Halloween costume I made the previous year. I did have to buy another stick of 1 inch PVC pipe, two 90 degree elbows, and the adapter for the hose. Total new cost was $6 dollars.

Like most projects, I didn’t get any pics taken while I built it. I always forget until the end. Oh well. Hit me up in the comments if you have any questions.

]]> http://blessed4ever.com/2013/06/11/car-wash-sprinkler/feed/ 0 http://blessed4ever.com/2013/06/07/distressed-dresser-project/ http://blessed4ever.com/2013/06/07/distressed-dresser-project/#comments Fri, 07 Jun 2013 14:19:58 +0000 Tyson http://blessed4ever.com/?p=1116 I have been wanting to distress a piece of furniture for awhile now. We have several pieces in our home that we purchased already distressed but the process always intimidated me.  After getting this gorgeous dresser from Ashley’s folks I decided to give it a try. Oh, did I mention that this dresser actually belonged to Ashley’s Grandma? No pressure to not screw it up!

I wanted to get this project done rather quickly but I also wanted to make sure I did a good job. I started out by doing a real light sanding over the entire dresser. I followed this up with a coat of my favorite primer: Zinsser Water based

After the primer dried, I again went over the entire dresser with some 220 grit sandpaper. Not a huge sanding but enough to knock down any bumps and runs in the paint. After the priming process I covered the dresser in a black paint that I had lying around the garage. The point of these layers is to allow different colors to shine through at the end when I start to really sand it down and distress it.

After the black paint was dry, the real fun began. I was a bit nervous to begin the blue color because I didn’t know how it would go over the black. I could see me doing 4 coats before I finally got the color I wanted. I started out using a foam roller but quickly realized that it wasn’t getting the coverage I wanted. I wanted brush strokes that the glaze could adhere to and enhance. A foam roller’s finish is just too smooth for that look.

The paint I used for the blue is Behr Premium Plus in Interior Flat. I think it might easily be my favorite paint. It went over the black easily and with only two coats! I am currently working on another project using a different style of paint and after 3 coats, my black is still showing through!

Best paint ever!

After two coats of the blue, the real fun was to begin. This was also the moment of truth. I could easily screw up the last week’s worth of painting with a quick rub of my sanding block in the wrong spot! I ran upstairs to check out the other pieces of  distressed furniture we purchased and it looked like they just sanded randomly but in spots that would be susceptible to wear and tear.  So that is what I did too.

I began by sanding down edges and then did a few strategic spots on the top, front, and sides. After awhile, my nerves settled down and I really began to have fun with it. After the sanding was completed, I brushed the entire dresser down with some glaze I had left over from a Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation kit that I had. A quick wipe down with some cheese cloth to take off the extra glaze and I was done!

Ashley and I originally were going to replace all of the original hardware with new pieces but because of the varying hole pattern on each drawer and some custom “key” holes, we decided to just repaint the old hardware with some Rustoleum aged bronze spray paint. The same stuff I used here.

After everything was painted and dry, we brought the dresser upstairs (with the help of a great neighbor) and staged it into the new nursery (which is also going to be a project post soon).

The finished product looks amazing, especially in the nursery, and I think I have found a new DIY love. Distressing furniture is fast, easy, and really hard to screw up which makes it perfect for me! I am not the best painter.

Here is a full visual recap of the process.

This look just wouldnt do

Now that I had the Cozy Coupe, I needed a theme. I have seen Batman, lowrider, and custom colored Coupe’s but I wanted something different. Something original. Right now our little man is into Superman so I figured that would be a safe bet.

So “B” and I started the unassembly process.

We first took pictures of everything to make sure we knew how to put it back together when finished. I have found out with past projects, this is very important. In the day of digital cameras and cell phone cameras, this is very easy to do and well worth the extra time.
After disassembly, I began the painting process.  I used Krylon’s “Fusion for Plastic”.

This paint is specifically designed for painting plastic but I was not impressed. Even after waiting the “7-day” chip proof duration, my paint immediately began to flake off in spots. It says no sanding or priming required. I am not sure if it would have helped though.

Before I painted, I pulled off all of the stickers except for the dashboard. The headlights and taillights were going to be custom but the dashboard I wanted to keep original. So I did my best to cover it with painters tape and then prayed that when I was done and pulling the tape off, the sticker wouldnt come too.

The new headlights are made from reflective tape and the tail lights are from reflector signs. The taillights didnt fit the “opening” that the previous stickers occupied so I covered them with painters tape and used a hole saw to carefully reduce them in size.

After the 7 day “waiting” period, I put everything back together. “B” came down the next morning and was blow away. I know this because he rounded the corner in the living room and said “WHOA!” He spent the rest of the morning sitting in it, eating, watching TV, and driving around the house. Success!

Before and After

Finished product

• built a water barrel stand
• put together the kids trampoline
• built a cover for the concrete waste water culvert
• built a raised garden
• broke the guard off of the circular saw
• mowed the lawn
• weed and feed
• cleaned out new nursery

OK, so not all of those things were good. I really miss having the safety guard on my saw for one. But one small mishap still doesn’t darken the projects we were able to accomplish. I don’t have a lot of ‘in progress” pics mostly because I was too busy trying to get everything done, but the end result pictures give a pretty good idea of what we did.

If anyone has any questions or comments, feel free to drop us a comment below and we can answer them the best we can. Thanks!

The new room is going to be pretty nice and I am excited to start on it. It will be the first room to have the wood trim painted white. If all goes well and I dont lose too much hair in in the process, I will start painting the rest of the house trim white as well.  We are still finalizing further details in regards to color and trim features so be sure to check back on what we decide.

Here is how the room looked when we toured before we purchased. Can’t wait to try and cover those stripes!

Original Room Decor

Project complete.

This was during a pretty extreme midwest blizzard that was happening. A blizzard that had thundersnow!

Here is another quick pick of the amount of snow we received yesterday. It also happens to be a shot of the table I made last summer.

Snowfall over the course of a day