Saturday, August 29, 2009

... a little help from my friends....

This summer my love for reading design blogs has returned with a vengeance. After spending the last 12 months immersed in renovating a little 1930's stone house from top to bottom, I am thirsty for inspiration. The blogosphere never disappoints with the wealth of shared creativity and generosity of bloggers .

Kitchen renovations have been at the top of my viewing list lately... although deficits in attention cause me to linger on ALL posts pertaining to design.

Anyhoo... on a budget with 2 in college and trying to get my mojo going... I was elated when I stumbled upon the Southern Hospitality Blog and sweet Rhoda's post about staining a banister with a polyshade product. As Rhoda says "The beauty of Polyshades is that it’s stain and poly all in one." Well the banisters in my house are fine... but my kitchen table was in serious need of an UP-DO as evidenced in this picture.




Oh wait.... it is so icky.... I kept a tablecloth on it and didn't take a before picture. BUT.. go ahead... use your imagination to picture a honey-colored 1970's era LOVELY piece of furniture.

I used the polyshades black stain... no sanding , no priming, just took the tablecloth off and cleaned off the surface a bit. So with one coat of a $7.00 can of black polyshades stain... this is my result :









I am so happy with the results! Even got an exclamation (positive) from the college princess when she saw it. I also spray painted the chairs white... they were turquoise.

Thank you Rhoda and thanks to all of the design bloggers out there who inspire us with their wonderful posts. Hopefully I can inspire someone with my little project.

This project motivated me so much that I have since painted the kitchen cabinets and the walls... TWICE .... but that is a different post!

8 comments:

Rhoda @ Southern Hospitality said...

Hey, Diana, so glad you tried this one too & liked the stuff. Your table looks very nice.

Polyshades comes in black now?? It did not last time I checked. Did you find it at Home Depot or Lowes?? Glad to know that.

Daryl at Vermont Cottage said...

This looks great! Thanks for stopping by my blog by the way! I love your house and am so identifying with being on a budget while kids are in college...

the gardeners cottage said...

Hi Diana,

Oh I love how this came out. I love the contrast between the table and chairs. It looks so crisp. Love your whole house and it is a challenge to decorate/garden and put people through college!

Janet

for the love of a house said...

Hi Diana! So glad to see you are back to blogging, and that you didn't melt when back in Austin;)! Your table and chairs look great!
joan

cotedetexas said...

let's see the kitchen pictures - I can't get over the table. I want to go do that to something right now!!!

Maria Killam said...

I love what you did, so stunning!

Kathleen said...

A 1930's stone house sounds so perfect. Lucky you.

The table looks good. Nice work.

Living It At Home said...

Wow! What a transformation! You did an excellent job! I love that you painted the chairs white. Great contrast!

Thanks for visiting and your sweet comments!

~jamilyn