Counter top Phase two and three!

   So here is the second and third part of my painted counter tops. I looked up a ton of other peoples work to figure out how to do this and mine looks nothing like ANYTHING I saw online. But I got a lot of good tips. I added shadowing and veining because it just didn't look like any kind of stone to me. The granite look didn't really work out so I decided just to do what I like. I also added glitter into the veining which I'm going to try to photograph tomorrow with my good camera. My cell pics make it look more like real stone than I think they do in person, however they are still pretty and I can live with them for a while. The boy loves them. My Marine doesn't seem to care either way he just wants the kitchen back.

I really liked the iridescent in the granite sample I got so I hunted for a paint. You have to go to the artist end with the good acrylics not the craft section. I ended up buying a tube of iridescent blue acrylic paint (Golden Brand) it's an expensive brand but I had a coupon. Also excellent paints. If they had the color in any other brand I would have gotten it but sadly they do not carry any kind of iridescent paint in the cheaper varieties.
I think it helped add some depth and I really love it... it kind of makes me want to paint my walls blue.... but I don't think my Marine will let me.. maybe I'll hold off on that for now.

I dragged the veining down over the edge and up onto the back splash and shadowed in any areas that stood out to me. This is a really random process, just go nuts. This step really comes down to playing with the paint. At worst you hate it and just re-sponge some color over it. I had to do this to some kitty paw prints in my paint which I was not too happy about.


So tonight I put on the Glaze. I went with the Rust-Oleum Parks pour on glaze. I think I needed another box though. I bought two and it really was not enough, I stretched it a little too much I think and it's not as level as I had hoped. I'm going to buy more next week and add another layer but this coat will suffice for now and it's far more protected than it was. I simply don't like looking at an uneven finish so I won't be able to live with it for long.

I have to say though it really was not as strong smelling as I had feared, it reminded me of hair color but it was not too strong, so a huge plus for indoor projects. I had the window open but I think I could have done without it honestly.

It is VERY messy and sticky this is not a project for the faint of heart. You want to have lots of containers you can throw out, and a brush you can toss because this stuff is a pain to clean. I just don't think you can screw it up beyond repair. You can sand it down and re-do it. I plan on using it again so I know I'll get better every time I use it. Honestly I could probably leave it as is if I weren't so anal about stuff. So here it is glaze all poured!

It's so shiny and wet right now! It takes about 8 hours to dry touch 72 before real use comes in. I'd like to let it cure as long as I can.
Over all this project has taken me 4 days thus far between dry time hand painting and glazing. Of course I touched it up a million times, but still. A few hours a night is all I spent.
I'd say plan for about a week if you plan to tackle this yourself, maybe a week and a half since it takes about 3 days to fully cure, and since I plan to do another coat of glaze it'll add 3-4 more days to my time.
 The glazing took maybe an hour and a half but a lot of that was prepping and mixing. You only have about 20 minutes to work with the glaze before you can NOT mess with it. It almost seemed like less to me. A lot of people suggest a hair dryer for any bubbles but honestly it just got in my way and didn't help much. I just blew on them and it worked. I used a brush to apply it to the edging and back splash.

 I'm pretty excited to use them and My Marine can not wait to have his kitchen back, he has been very tolerant of my insanity and dealing with the whole house being up rooted. But the kitchen will be a little more done... now to con dad into finishing my trim.... ;)

Painted Counter Tops

It's been a while! I have been working on stuff but it's be fixing jewelry and I didn't take any pictures so I don't have much of post for that now do I?
I did however start a new project tonight, Painting my countertops!
They were light pink and loved to stain. here is a picture but I used my phone so they are not the best but I did take them so that is a start!

Pale pink.. and old, they have been though a lot. We plan on re-doing the kitchen but it's not the time so this is my temporary solution until we can re-do everything.
 First I removed the old caulk it was yellow and half gone. I re caulked with the waterproof and paintable stuff. I let that dry. Then I primed it with 123 see below:

 It's hard to tell but it's white now. I let that dry for an hour then I did the base coat black with a gallon I had stored up, it was an opps paint I got for 5 bucks.

 I let that sit for a little while but I wanted to blend it so I didn't let it fully dry, it worked for me this way but a lot of people recommend letting it dry overnight. I have no patience for that kind of thing.
So I grabbed my sea sponge and my paints and just went to town. I used a black glitter paint as my first layer again it doesn't show up very well but you can see where I started on the edge.

 I layered a lot I used a gray glitter paint and a metallic silver and finally a metallic color called black coffee. And I just layered and layered and layered.

 I started to tone down the white and got this look:

It's starting to look like stone, I have some more work to do tomorrow on it, I want to add some more depth and some veining but I couldn't do anymore tonight. I also threw some glitter in there but it totally doesn't show up. And I have to seal it with poly. Since it is such a big project I figured I'd split it up, plus I couldn't wait to post it anyways.

Farmers Market and Antiques

We went to the farmers market today I pick up some interesting items which lead me to ebay
which has lead me to this post. So I see this antique pickle jar made of Vaseline glass and my god it's amazing

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Victorian-Vaseline-Glass-Pickle-Castor-/251432148512?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a8a861e20

People served pickles out of this thing? Seriously? I have an antique butter dish that's an engraved silver bowl on feet. It had it's own knife at some point. I realized what I love about antique things. Our stuff is so boring.
It's efficient and modern and streamlined, also CHEAP. Nothing is high quality and it's all meant to be replaced in a few years. People use to buy things for life, they had one butter dish and they kept it til they died and it went to another family member and so on until we all decided we had no use for a fancy butter dish anymore.
Then you have people like me. I want these items so much it's a sickness. I want to use them all too. I did my best at thanksgiving to use all the fancy stuff I have been collecting. I try to incorperate as much as I can so it's not all clutter but ummm... I have a lot of clutter.
Which I added to today! Hurray!
I found a couple of neat things. I got a Chase a First Act Guitar it came with the box which are good for young kids. I figured his uncles could show him a few things and maybe when he's older I'll do what my parents did for my sister and get him a nice one with lessons.
I also got some ... you guessed it Vaseline glass. YaY!
I don't know why I like it so much, I think it's because it looks so unassuming but it has a secret that makes it different from other similar colored glass because under a black light it glows. For anyone reading this who doesn't know here's a little history:  It became popular in the late 1800's and production dropped around 1940, the Uranium usually in oxide diuranate form the percentage varies but it's usually around 2% it was added as a colorant and the color can vary from almost colorless yellow to vibrant green. The yellow glass is similar in appears to petroleum jelly hence the nickname Vaseline. The green glass is not technically "Vaseline" because it's not the yellow color but it is usually called that because of the Uranium, so technically I bought Uranium depression green glass. Vaseline is easier to say :P  So a true collector of glass won't consider my stuff "Vaseline" but it is Uranium glass and although I like the yellow glass I tend to gravitate toward the green depression glass. And frankly it's all been most commonly lumped under that name.
"Vaseline Glass is not harmful, as the emissions from the glass are just slightly stronger than normal background radiation that we are all exposed to on a daily basis." http://www.vaselineglass.org/

Which is one of the questions my Dad and Marine keep asking.. plus I got my best friend a pitcher and I totally want her to use it for serving and not be afraid of it. I have a cup I keep in the bathroom for water as well. not afraid of it killing me. I'd buy a set of dishes and use them everyday if they weren't so hard to find and cost so much to buy.

I got a black light keychain as a free gift and I love it, I use it all the time to check for Vaseline glass, My dad must think I am nuts because he's seen me use it at garage sales to check. If I think a piece might be I nonchalantly beam my key light on it to make sure I am getting the real deal.
So I bought this jar and was not sure if it was real because I left my keys at home but I really liked the jar so I would have gotten it anyways. It is not Vaseline glass just a pretty green and crackled. I decided to use it for q-tips by my vanity:

These bad boys however are Vaseline glass, they light up like a neon christmas tree. I love the relish tray in it's silver holder. It's sitting on my vanity now to catch jewelry :

And this bird bowl turned out to be an unmarked Fenton so that's a major score a Uranium Fenton! If you don't collect glass you maybe can't understand my excitement, and I apologize for sounding like such a dork. I love Fenton glass but you can't have too much of it sadly because all of it is beautiful.
I had a lovely candy dish that my cats broke but I can't justify spending 40 $ on it when I got my first one for 15. I got all three for $30.00 btw which is a pretty good deal.

I also picked up a necklace because it reminded me of Iris Rainbow glass. I asked the lady selling it what kind of glass it was her response was, "A pretty one?" and she looked at me like I was nuts. I gave her 8 bucks for it and she kept the box. Gotta love the farmers market.

So this is Rainbow Iris glass:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-ART-DECO-Necklace-Silver-Sterling-Iris-Rainbow-Glass-Prong-Set-Stamp-835-/121255769800?pt=Vintage_Costume_Jewelry&hash=item1c3b6836c8 

I'm not sure what era mine falls into it could be 50's, the bail looks older but I can't be sure it goes further back than that. There is not a whole lot of information on it either. Sometimes it's called Rainbow glass, Iris Glass or Watermelon glass, that's about the extent of what I could find. Still I thought it was really nifty how similar they are. It was filthy and I was happy to clean it. A lot of people sell jewelry "as is" because a lot of collectors don't want the patina messed up, But I am not one of those collectors. I love to clean and fix up stuff so it's almost like new all shiny and gleaming. It's a compulsion and I can not control myself. Obviously this is not the case at the Farmers Market, they aren't usually collectors or anything like that.

 All in all it was a pretty good day, my Marine thinks I'm nuts and should sell my finds. I'm not very good at that though, I enjoy finding cool things and getting great deals but I'm not hunting them down to resell them, I buy them because I like them and I want to use them. Besides if you have a piece that is fairly common like some of the Uranium glass I have (basic teacups and a juicer) you won't get very much for it since there are a bunch for sale already. The condition matters too, any nicks, fleabites, chips or cracks forget it.

I did find my pyrex set on ebay and those go for a pretty penny as well, my 5 dollar price was a steal. I also found that barkeepers friend cleans them up beautifully without damaging the color. Mine had a bunch of silverware marks on it that soap and a cloth didn't remove. Barkeepers friend and the back of a scotch brite did the trick though just fyi and didn't damage to color at all. I was hesitant to use it on them but I tested a small area near the bottom and once I realized it'd be ok I used it all over. I love that stuff it's amazing. He thinks I should sell them as well but I refuse. I think once he uses them a few times he'll agree, the vintage pyrex bowls my parents had were the best and I preferred to use them over anything else plus these are bake wear so you can use them in the oven which he will appreciate even if he doesn't know it yet. ;)

The Piano!

Ok everyone keeps asking me for the piano photos, I took them tonight which kinda sucked because.. lighting. It would be better to do it during the day but...
 I made promises, I must keep them.
 I know I posted a few before pictures in my other post however I will refresh your memory and post another one:

Or two....

Clearly this poor thing was in the middle of a work zone, a little background:
   The house we were working on for a long time contractor we know, was abandoned by the women who owned it. She had some bad stuff happen and just up and left the house with everything it and moved to another state to live with her sister. Our guy bought the house with everything in it. It had sat for a year or two, closed up and with water damage. It was a really cool little house actually and it's lovely again.
   The piano was there dirty and musty and it sat there while we all worked on the house around it, so on top of the must and dirt, it also accumulated some paint, drywall mud, and drywall dust.
 First things first: a deep clean. I used some awesome orange to wipe it down and remove all the grime, it also helped with the smell.

Alright now we are getting somewhere! The above pictures are of it clean, just spray and wiped down.
Once it dried I used 220 to sand off some paint spots and even out some finish flaws. I thought I had grabbed restor a finish but I was wrong, I actually grabbed danish oil in dark walnut. This is what happens when you don't pay attention. It could have been a disaster. I won't lie once I realized what I had done my heart kind of stopped because I was not 100% sure how it was going to turn out. Luckily it worked really well, it highlighted some of the deeper scratches in the wood which I really liked and it brought back some life back to the dull finish. I put a coat of that on letting it sit for 30 minutes before wiping it down. I then apply a second coat and let that soak in for 15 minutes and wipe it dry. It was gleaming and I was in love.
I had to let that sit for 72 hours before I could use the wax and feed on it which is why I have not posted this sooner. The cool thing about danish oil is that is seeps into the wood and hardens it just a fun fact, the more you know ;)

 And now for the finished project:

This project took a little longer than the vanity due to the time needed between coats and curing but it was totally worth it. I know restor a finish would have worked just as well because despite all the dirt the finish was not too bad, but I'm glad I got to see what the danish oil can do and had a chance to use it. I really love the way it highlighted the scratches, I'm a fan of natural dings and dents from use so long as they are minor and normal wear an tear, nothing so bad it jeopardizes the piece.


Here she sits in her final home, ready to be tuned and played hopefully sooner than later! I am going to have to rehang my pictures since they were centered over the dresser originally so please forgive all my stuff not lining up quite right. *Sigh part of an evolving house, and I can only get so many projects done at one time!

Anyone know if it's ok for stuff to be on top? I just like how it looks...

Flowers

A quick post of the other mini project I did. I bought these at an antique store and I loved them, the flowers were the perfect shade of gray blue like my room and I just thought they were the coolest things ever. Then I brought them home and my Marine took one look at them and announced that I was turning into a grandma.
WHAAA?! Awww... I love them! Ok I was not totally in love with the gold tone stems but...

  I seriously thought they were cool, the roses are porcelain.  For 12 bucks for the set of three I couldn't pass them up.
Forgive my messy table, this is another project I have to do, When I started and realized it was particle board and not real wood I decided to go another route, and for now it's been my crafting 'I don't care what gets on it' table. I decided to changed the stem up since I wasn't crazy about the gold and hubby called me a grandma I thought it might help take some of that vibe away. I had some silver rub and buff so I figured I'd use that. I started out with my finger but it wasn't the best way to do it for this project. I wasn't thrilled with the solid silver, the one thing I really liked about the original gold was the distressed quality it had. I let some of the gold shine through I actually liked the look it gave it. I grabbed a paint brush and some acrylic paynes gray and got to work.

I really liked the lighting in this picture lol

 I mixed the two and it gave it a steely blue quality that I really liked. I brushed some gray into the areas I wanted to shadow/distress. Again my pictures suck I need to work on that.

You can see it a little better in this picture, on the ball at the end and in the leaves, I went really lightly with the shadowing detail once I got the silver the color I liked. I kind of stippled the gray onto the ball and the stem and then dry brushed back and fourth to blend. It was a small project but still I enjoyed it and wanted to share. My Marine said they looked better this way. I only hung the big one up so far, near my bed for my bathrobe, I am not sure where I want the other two to go yet. I think they may end up near the vanity but I'll have a better idea once my room gets a little more settled. What do you think, are they grammy? Was silver the way to go or what?

Vanity

Oh I am so excited! I have gotten so much done, I'm going to split the projects up into different posts. This is me on a binge of projects.
I was going to post the piano but I used danish oil and I have to wait another day to put the wax on so I'm going to hold out for some finished pics, Plus I am just dying to show off my vanity.

Both refinishing projects have been easy quick ones. I know at some point they may need an all out sand and complete new finish but both were in pretty good shape and I liked the natural dings and dents from years of love and use, also I am avoiding sanding at all costs because I have no where to do it and I don't want the mess in my house.

The vanity was a gift from my Marine and my sister. It is from the 1920's and it was owned by one family. They sold it to my sister because they were moving out of state and didn't think she'd survive the move. I'm so glad they did because I am soooo in love.

First up the stool, I wish I had gotten a view of the top and back because they were rough, the finish actually looks ok in this picture ( I have no patience for picture taking)
I was actually surprised the Restor a Finish blended really well. I honestly thought it was too far gone for it to work there was so much color loss. I thought I might have to use a polyshade but I was glad I didn't. This will need a total refinish but not for a while. I kind of hack recovered it, I couldn't find the staples I know I have for my gun and I gave up looking. Eventually I want to put some actual cushion in this but again I just wanted it better for now.

Ta da!!

Look at her!! So much better. I love the flower detailing on the chair, oh my!

So the vanity itself is holding up really well, and no way do I want to mess with the original finish on this piece. The top has some spots but it's in beautiful shape, all I really did was shine it up with some restor a finish.  But I really want to post pictures of it.

This is before, the drawer was in the wrong place, see if you can spot it!
As you can see the finish is good, you can barely tell in the pictures how much the Restor a Finish really did, you'll just have to trust me. If you have a piece that is overall pretty good just scratched or fading this is totally the way to go, no sanding and you can use it almost immediately. Restor a Finish is a wipe on wipe off product, I suggest using a lint free cloth (like an old white tee) I followed it up with Howard,s feed and wax which again you wipe on, let it set for about 30 minutes and buff it out.

Top view before:

This is after, you can still see the spots but again I wasn't going for perfect here and it's in excellent vintage condition, nothing like the buffet table.

But she is soooo beautiful!! I can't wait to actually use her! YaY!!!!