Nicole Transforms A Crib With Caromal Paints

Received a lovely email from Nicole this week -

Hi Patty,
Don’t know if you remember me and my table from over a year ago…but I thought I’d share another project that I did with Caromal Colours!  I always appreciate the many pictures and posts on your blog from enless projects.  They inspire me!  So, like before, feel free to use my photo’s/blog.  I wasn’t very good at getting photos of the process, so these are as good as it gets.  Hope you had a Merry Christmas!!
~nicole brown

To follow her story and see her transform this

to this

and this

head here,  the link to Nicole’s blog entry,

Thank you, Nicole, for sharing -  it turned out fabulous!!!

More Aurastone, This Time Bedroom Furniture Tops…

On my to do list this summer?   The kid’s bedroom furniture -  I’m half way there with Nicks,  Julia’s needed a freshening up and the furniture tops needed resurfacing – they were totally beat up from years of girlie abuse -  makeup, nail polish, who knows what…

I decided to create an Aurastone finish on her tops – you can almost set a bomb off on the stuff and it wont budge.  These were samples we created a few weeks back, in the hopes of coming up with the right idea – notice the bright pastel glitters -  pink, teal, lime sprinkles

cringe…..

Funky, but I could really see her hating this in a year…..  so I decided to keep it lower key.

Start by prepping the furniture – this is a messy process -

You can see the original top and how scarred it is here

getting ready to mix the stone

A couple of layers of brushed/floated on stone mixture-

…I’m ready to create.   I grabbed black and white tints, some cut silver glass, and some black and amber sprinkles – and went to work.  Jules was cool with the idea of it being more cream and black.   The thing with this process is you create as you go – not quite knowing WHAT you want until you see it in front of you -

This was the first set of photos after I started the coloring.    No way was my camera coming out to play in this mess -

I  was liking this much more than the samples….

I layered tints and stains and twisted, and alcohol sprayed, and torched away…

One key to creating a believable  make-believe surface or counter?  Randomness -  areas of this or that,  don’t have your whole surface top be the exact pattern -

This Aurastone is not a DIY product – I’m glad I went to Chicago for applicator training, but honestly, I’d never want to do large jobs with it…  I’m happy using it for small jobs like furniture tops – especially when it’s my own!

It’s a challenge -  requires a lot of prep, smart clean up, and a real knowledge of how to create cool patterning, else your client wont do a happy dance

Once dry, it becomes all crusty and bumpy – that will all go away with a pour of epoxy -

the epoxy is like hot KARO syrup that gets poured  on the surface, then levels off and leaks over the edges -

When the epoxy stops dripping, its time to start cleaning up – peeling away all that sticky paper/plastic /tape mess.  Cleaning up early lets me reveal any drip areas that occurred behind the barriers (yes there always seems to be several) .  A mix of denatured alcohol, Simply Green and a squirt of dish soap made the perfect solution to rid the stickies…

From cleaning up the edges I made some scratch marks that I’ll touch up with paint

The painting part of this update I’ll share in the next post, for now these are the finished tops-

I had to do a second pour of epoxy on this nightstand because the first pour wasn’t enough to level out some heavy cut glass that I had added to a few areas

Now, an UH OH moment

Everything was cleaned up – all the mess,  gone.  I’m waiting overnight for the 3 pieces to dry.  Next morning?  Only the nightstand, the one I’d double poured,  was completely dry.  The dresser was very tacky in several areas,  and the chest had a single tacky area in the center of its surface.

Major bummer…    obviously it wasn’t product failure, for the nightstand was fine.  More than likely what happened was that I didn’t mix the 2 part epoxy as well as I should have – it was a decent size batch – I should have payed way better attention.

Lesson learned, a hard one.

I had to re-order another batch of epoxy – almost $150 bucks -   because both pieces will require another pour (mixed right this time!) to get rid of that fly paper tack…

So…………..   the tops are almost done.   Grrrr….   but pretty, don’t  you think?

Stay away Bella –   no dog  hairs in the drying epoxy!

Cool Lego Walls…

How’s this for a decorative wall finish?

I mentioned the garage sale we just completed… a good start to cleaning house.  In the process of the garage sale prep I created a pile of ‘goods’ to hold behind and instead list on eBay – things like my old Iphone and the kids Ipods and Gameboys.  One big thing?

Legos     Nick started to sort out the mini-figures,  he’s probably got at least 150 of them…

Regularly, large lots of legos sell on eBay for big money… I’m hoping we’ll see at least $1,000 for his lot.  Who would have thought?

Tomorrow evening we will be sorting the legos by color – but first I need to finish painting a small chest for a new client.  I’ll share both later this week.

Repainting Caromal Colours Barnworn Finished Furniture…

That lasted two years…      our refinished basement furniture,  that is. (you can read about the first refinish here)

I’ve been thinking about all the furniture in my house, and what I’ll really want to keep when we move.  Our house now is bigger than I’ll want or need next time around, so no sense paying to move extra stuff that won’t fit next time.

This furniture I refinished a couple years ago, using Caromal Colours textured basecoat paint Chocolate and Cobblestone, would be something I’d not need again – except  it really is a nice large desk workspace -

and it has a nice compact storage unit

My high school age son has outgrown the desk in his bedroom

We got his Stanley youth bedroom set when Nick was a toddler.  I tried to make sure we didn’t buy ‘kiddy’ furniture -  hoped it would last until he moved away to college.

The furniture is in good shape, and I like the design – the headboad is full/queen size, and the nightstand is a larger version (I think it was called a Bachelor Chest) -

I like the chest of drawers next to the desk – but the desk itself is peuny in size,  considering my son is probably 5’8″ and still growing?

So my plan is to garage sale the desk and hutch, and refinish (Caromal) the remaining pieces so they are more ‘current’ for a teenage dude.

I asked him if he’d like to swap his desk for the bigger basement desk – he didn’t like that idea, said the color is ‘ugly’.    Bah.

I told him color isn’t an issue… the paint fairy lives here for geeze sakes!  So we proceeded to figure how just WHAT finish he would want.  His decision?  Peppercorn (black) over Pumpkin (orange)  like this-

(my mother:

Isn’t that going to be  like Halloween?)

Gotta love mothers!

Downstairs we went, to test out the color selection. My son was giddy, exclaiming ,

I get to be in your blog!

(he thinks the sister, two cats and dog get more face time…)

Over the edges of the cobblestone-chocolate furniture I brushed on Pumpkin -  (I’ll explain my madness later)

Let  dry.  Then I brushed over it with Chipping Creme

When dry, I painted the whole drawer with Peppercorn (black)

I have to confess,  the Peppercorn is my fav color… it covers like tar -

I get smart and realize my SON is right next to me, and of course, he wants face time

so I put him to work

Isn’t that ironic how he was also in the post two years ago? This desk is MEANT to be his!   After it was dry, I sanded to distress using 120 grit sand paper. The paint will dull and get powdery looking , but that’s okey – it will LIVEN up later…

Crack open the Toner,  a nice easy to use glaze/stain type product, brush it on then wipe it off with a dry rag-

Oh Nick, love your choice – total dude finish…

So my ulterior motive?  I think I can go right over his existing furniture real easy

- barely using any Pumpkin and  Chipping  Creme on the edges – because the original furniture is similar to that toned pumpkin color that will be coming through the black…  that way it will save me time and money, only having to multi layer (pumpkin, chipping creme, peppercorn, toner)   the green furniture -

Nick likes the finish – so it’s a go.  I’ll repaint this desk and shelf set with Pumpkin and Peppercorn, and will paint the headboard, nightstand  and chest as well, mostly using Peppercorn.    I don’t think we’ll be moving until end of summer so I have some time.

I point out, while we’re admiring the new finish, that he could use his furniture as one large chalkboard, since the textured basecoats work with chalk-

Then again maybe we should just nix the chalk idea…

Are  you unfamiliar with the Caromal Colour brand of paints?

Start here –   distressing paints

For Caromal Colour makeovers

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