Before and Afters Archives | Page 34 of 51

Before and Afters

Adding Details to Drawer Fronts with Paint

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post brought to you by Frog Tape. In the craziness of getting ready for Lucketts, I did manage to take some pictures, so I could go back and share how I did some things. Now it’s time to start pulling some of those pictures out to put tutorials together. So, here are the details of the design I came up with for the Dried Lavender dresser. When I started working on the dresser, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to turn out. For those of you who stress about a plan when you’re working on pieces…there’s no need. It’s okay to plan, but it’s also okay to just start and let the pieces develop as you work on it. I started out by stripping the finish and painting the piece in Dried Lavender, one of the new MMS Milk Paint colors that will

June 1, 2013 35 Comments

Before and Afters

Happy Ending & French Settee Makeover

A few weeks ago, my mom called me, excited about a message that was on my Facebook page. “Did you see the comment from Albert Crombie’s family?” I had to think a minute. From who? Oh yes! The bag!! As soon as I was at a computer, I looked at the comment. “Hi! I just saw a post from your blog back in Aug. 2011 about a WW1 mail pouch you found at a yard sale. It was my grandfather’s, Albert Lufkin Crombie! My dad was his only child. Do you still have it?” If you’ve read my blog for a while, you may remember this mail pouch that I acquired almost two years ago… At a YARD SALE! For $10.00!!! I wasn’t sure what I would do with it, but I felt like I needed to buy it and try to find the family it belonged to. I

May 29, 2013 64 Comments

Before and Afters

Say hello to “Dried Lavender”

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times, there are a lot of new things I’m working on behind the scenes. One of those things is new colors for the milk paint line! Well, Lucketts is the perfect time to test out those colors “in the real world” on a piece of furniture, so I’ve been doing a lot of “testing”! Here is the first new color I’m introducing… Dried Lavender The names of my paint colors are all inspired by things I love or use in my home, so Dried Lavender fit perfectly. I’ve sold it out of my space at Lucketts for years… …and it’s in some of my more famous pictures… When milk paint customers and retailers started asking me for a purple, I knew immediately this is the direction I would go. I mean, I’m not really a purple person, so a grayish, smoky purple is about

May 13, 2013 70 Comments

Before and Afters

Kitchen Reveal & Sources

It’s finally done! Well…you know what “done” means in my house. It means I’m done with it for now. Although, aside from changing paint colors and/or accessories, I don’t think there’s much more I can or need to do to this room. I’ve always been drawn to white cabinets with dark counters (wood or black) and a wood or white floor. Now I have it! Here’s a tour… As I was going through the list of things we’ve done to the kitchen, I realized that almost all of the materials used for this makeover were free. Well, not free, but traded for advertising on my blog or promotion through a post. I’ll try to give you a rough idea of costs, though, so you can get a realistic idea of executing this look (or parts of it) in your home. With the exception of laying the floor tile, we

March 26, 2013 161 Comments

Before and Afters

Master Bedroom Reveal

Today was the due date for all of my bedroom project tutorials for HGTV.com, so I spent the morning taking the “beauty shots” for those articles. They will be available on HGTV.com in a few weeks and I will link to them when they are live. Here’s how the room looks now… Here are some makeovers featured in the room… My $25 yard sale side table before… …and after…. The antique store chandelier (I think it was $55)… …assembled and rewired with spray painted candle sleeves… $35 yard sale night stand/chest before… …and now… $65 antique store French chair before… …and after… And the entire room as it looked in January… …and now… I am still planning to tweak a bit more. I would like to paint the lamp bases cream and recover the shades. The bases blend in with the wall fabric a bit too much and I

March 20, 2013 106 Comments

Before and Afters

First Painted Nightstand Reveal

Those who have missed my furniture makeovers lately are going to enjoy this post! There’s a lot more furniture painting around with corner with the Lucketts Antique Market fast approaching, but one of my freelance articles was to show a specialty paint technique on a pair of nightstands. Right up my alley! And it just so happened I wanted to paint the nightstands in my master bedroom. Here’s the “before” of the nightstand from my husband’s side… I bought it for $35 through a connection I made at a yard sale. It’s not really a night stand, but it’s the perfect size for our bed, which is on the high side, and provides lots of storage. I actually liked the piece as it was, but it looked a little orange in the room and blended with the floor a bit too much. Here’s how it looks now… As I

March 19, 2013 96 Comments

Before and Afters

Painted Cabinets

In June of 2011, I painted my kitchen cabinets. I had been itching to since I first walked through the house that became our home. Several things stopped me. Number one was my husband. He just wasn’t ready for me to paint over perfectly nice wood cabinets. Number two was that we had two babies 19 months apart. I was willing to refinish floors, paint walls, slipcover furniture and start a business, but painting the cabinets was a bit more than I wanted to tackle. So, I settled for painting the walls a pale yellow to brighten up the space and waited for the right time to make my move. You know the move. The “Hon, I’ve been thinking…” conversation. (Nothing like a toddler in underwear streaking through a photo shoot. This was a common thing when my boys were smaller.) I finally got my chance when I

February 27, 2013 76 Comments

Before and Afters

Grain Sack Chair

I’m still plowing through my list of freelance articles (all 30 of them), so today I worked on a tutorial showing how to reupholster a small armchair. See that yellow French chair under the window? That was my subject. It took a couple of hours to get her all stripped down and ready for a nice new look. I decided to leave the wood frame as it was. It was a pretty, dark wood and there really wasn’t a reason to paint it. (See…I do leave some things alone! Well, I did reupholster the chair, but you know what I mean.) …and here it is in all of its grain sack glory… …with a little surprise on the sides and back… The full tutorial will be available on HGTV.com in a while and I’ll link to it when it’s live. I also still

February 27, 2013 89 Comments

I’m Marian, a painter, writer, and lover of all things creative. From art and antiques to home projects and everyday life, I share my journey in hopes of inspiring you to embrace your own creativity and make beauty in the spaces you live.

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