It's makeover time again

Here's the next installment of my furniture makeovers. This credenza started off as a pretty shabby buy from craigslist. It was originally a dull white, with cup rings, burn marks, and a sticky texture that turned to crazy glue anytime we put something on it. The inside was a strawberry shortcake pink--enough said, right?

My "before" picture is in two parts, because I didn't remember to take out the camera until I had already removed the credenza doors.



And I can't believe our place was that disorganized just a few days ago! We've come a long way since then, thankfully!

And here's the "after!"



I opted to not strip the paint, in order to save time. But if I had it to do over again (and if I had a work area that I did not also live in), I would probably get rid of the previous layers of paint, to get a smoother surface overall. But, I'm happy for now. I painted the interior a satin white, and the exterior a satin gray (à la Martha Stewart paints). I sealed the fresh paint with a clear, water-based Minwax wood stain. It adds a nice shine, and should hopefully deter the surface from turning into crazy glue again.

I still need a knob for each of the doors, but I'm waiting until I find the perfect one. There are some really cute knobs at Anthropologie I have my eye on. What do you think? Any favorites? Email me--I'll keep you posted!

EAT

I've been working hard on finishing a lot of our furniture, since we moved. Everything is stuff that we already owned, but we're trying to spruce it up and give our pieces some major makeovers for our new place.

The first project was our kitchen table and chairs, which I've been wanting to change, basically since I painted them a year ago.

Here's a before shot of the table (this is actually a picture I took for craigslist, in the hopes that someone would take the table off of my hands....didn't work).


And here it is after many hours of work....



It was a long process that started with stripping the paint. I tried a few different varieties of these horrible chemicals, and discovered that the Jasco Premium Paint and Epoxy remover is the way to go.

After the paint was all gone and I had sanded everything with my new power sander (yay!), I stained two layers of Minwax's Jacobean stain.





Once the stain was finished and dry, I commissioned Ted to cut out 11 inch letter stencils, for the table top. After many attempts to find the right stencil paint, I selected a white stencil paint and brush from Michaels.

The final step was to polyurethane two layers on the table and legs, to protect the stain and stencils.




I'll post more about the new chairs and other projects soon.

Chair-do

Okay, so it's been a reeeally long time since I've posted an update. We just moved into a new condo in North Hollywood, and we're still continuing with our normal work/school schedules, so the process has been slow. And rather than buy new furniture to fit our new place, we are updating pieces that we already own. I have a lot of projects up my sleeve, and here's the first one:

I originally bought this chair at the Salvation Army for next to nothing. It was super ugly. I forgot to take a picture of the original monstrosity, but you'll just have to take my word for it. The first picture I remembered to take was after I primed the chair with a white spray. Also note the hideous fabric on the cushion...



The next step was to paint (using a sponge brush) the whole chair. I used Martha Stewart's White Calla in a satin finish. (Sorry, I also forgot to take a picture after this step). To finish it off, I covered the dry paint with Briwax in Tudor Brown. This gives the piece a really cool patina, and it looks a lot more interesting than just plain white.



Here's where I need your help...I originally bought an Amy Butler fabric to use on the cushion. But after the brown wax, it doesn't seem quite right. I'm thinking now of using something like the fabric at the French General Store, here in LA. Let me know what your thoughts are, and I'll show you the finished project...eventually.

Merci

We're finished with our summer traveling and back in LA for awhile. Anguilla for two weeks, and France for five weeks...it's a hard life!

And since everyone should have received their wedding "Merci" from us, from France, I'll post some pictures of the card-making process.

I chose some plain postcards in a light blue and embellished the fronts with cutout hearts in a natural colored linen. I then sewed the hearts onto the paper, using a machine (similar to the wedding invitations from a few months ago!)



Next I stamped each heart with a cursive "Merci" in red ink. I like the action shot for this one!



To give each stamp texture, I dusted embossing powder over the wet ink.



And lastly, the embossing "gun" to finish the process...this basically melts the embossing powder so that the stamp now has a raised texture to it. Then we said "bon voyage" to our postcards!



And I couldn't finish this post without leaving you an image of one of the many beautiful views from where we were staying in France. This particular shot was taken at sunset on my birthday! Happy day!

Housewarming

My good friend Rachel just moved into a new apartment in Los Angeles. I wanted to give her a housewarming gift that would be useful, but of course I had to make it. She had mentioned the other day that she needed an apron, so I got to work. I love the combination of fabrics here. It reminds me of something from Anthropologie. The pattern is from Anna Maria Horner's "Seams to Me."



I also appliqued fabric shapes on a new set of chocolate brown towels. It's an incredibly easy process, and it makes them look so much more interesting!

Supplies:

• Bath towels

• Fabric

• Interfacing (the thin kind that feels like paper, not fabric)

• Thread in a contrasting color

The first step is to decide what shape you want to cut out of your fabric. I chose a pretty vintage Japanese print that already had little diamonds in different colors.

Using the steam setting on your iron, press the bubbly side to the wrong side of the fabric. After it cools you should feel that it thickens and stiffens the fabric. Now cut out your shape.

Note: Rather than iron on the entire interfacing (and waste fabric), I chose which colored diamonds I wanted to use, and just ironed the interfacing on those, and cut them out individually.



At this point I usually press the shapes one more time, to make sure that the interfacing has really "applied" itself. Again, let the shapes cool and peel off the interfacing. You should have a slightly sticky residue on the back of the fabric.



Place the shapes where you want them on the towel, and iron once more to set. Now they are lightly glued to the fabric, so they won't shift while you're sewing.

Play around with the zig-zag setting on your machine until you get a stitch that you like. I like to clearly see the thread, so I used a stitch width of 2 and a stitch length of 1, in a contrasting color. Work your way around the shape, and don't forget to backstitch at both ends!

Veggie Tales

A few weeks ago (months, for some) I planted some seeds and plants in my backyard. It's so much more fun to eat veggies when you've grown them yourself! Here are my first pickings.

Some of the zucchini were used in Okonomi-yaki that my amazing husband Ted made yesterday (that's a savory Japanese pancake, by the way). They're my absolute favorite, and he makes them a lot. We've adapted our own recipe, depending on what vegetables we have on hand, and what we're in the mood for. But here's our basic recipe:

Ingredients:

(Pancake)
2 oz. self rising flour
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup super dashi
pinch of salt
1 egg
1 scallion, chopped
1 cup thinly chopped zucchini and cabbage

(Sauce)
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. Ponzu sauce
1 1/2 tsp. sake
squeeze of lemon juice

(Topping)
Japanese mayo
pickled ginger
dried bonito flakes

Combine the flour, milk, dashi, and salt in a bowl. Add the egg and stir. Next add the scallion, zucchini and cabbage and mix to combine. Heat a non-stick frying pan over moderate heat, and add the batter, like making a regular pancake. Wait for the bubbles to appear, then turn over to cook on the other side.

Combine the sauce ingredients.

Serve the pancakes hot, topped with Japanese mayo, the red sauce, pickled ginger, and bonito. (This picture is just half of a pancake, since they're so huge!)

And here's the recipe for my favorite sweet, lemon sponge pudding. A great way to use the many lemons from our tree (sorry, my own picture didn't turn out well)!

Table evolution

We finally have bedside tables! Thanks to Britt at cucumbersome.com, who thought of this design and inspired us to make our own bedside tables, we now have actual furniture in the bedroom. These started off as some very unexciting Ikea cabinets, to which we added a base board of wood, four legs, and then embellished the front and sides with mouldings. And then came the paint! We chose a really pretty minty green that looks great with our chocolate colored duvet. Check out the evolution of the tables in the pictures (I thought I had taken more pictures of the steps, but these were all I could find in the end)...