Grandma's teapots get a modern makeover

 I absolutely love the shape and style of old teapots. However, with years of them sitting in storage, no amount of cleaning or polishing with special polishes brought them back to their original shine or glory. So, I painted them! Using a heat resistant paint reserved for barbecues and propane tanks, I taped off the openings and any non-metal components like wooden tops or handles, took care to remove any components held on with small bolts and set those aside to paint separately. Because the paint is heat resistant, you can use them without fear of paint bubbling off when serving your favourite tea. I've been using my 'experimental' pot for 6  months now and it still looks as good as new.

If you're going to try this technique, make light even passes with the paint from 18" away as to not let the paint drip or pool on the pot. In other words, be patient! You can go over it a few times allowing the paint to dry between coats. High-heat resistant paint dries quite quickly so it's very easy to put 3 light coats on within half and hour. Allow it to dry then flip it over and paint the underside in the same manner. The paint really shows off their details and I love the black pot. Very gothic looking! The white set with cream and sugar would have made a perfect addition on the Alice in Wonderland tea party set, don't you think?

50's Television cabinet turned Liquor cabinet

 So this was a very cool project. The television had already been gutted from this 1950's cabinet I found in a thrift store, which made my job turning this into my liquor cabinet much easier. The construction of this old motorola cabinet is solid and in really great shape and the size is perfect for holding up to 20 bottles of liquor for a complete bar. The bottom, where the speaker had been is a great showcase shelf for your better glasses.
The handles are actually original! I love them. With some steal wool and a little elbow grease, the chrome handles came back to their original shine.
One thing I loved about this cabinet when I set my eyes on it was the logo at the bottom. I just had to save it. So, I masked it out with some green painters tape. I just had to save that for the history of the piece.
To make this cabinet NOT look like a giant black box, I painted it with a matt black paint, then I masked out a wide stripe and painted it with a high gloss black. It really set off the tone of the piece.

The mirror makeover

Before and after (ignore white sheet reflection...
it's hard to take photos of mirrors!

Many beautiful dressers out there are missing their mirrors, and vice versa. The reason? It's an outdated look so they were removed for aesthetic reasons. So we're finding these poor, lost mirrors and have found they make great mantel mirrors due to their sheer size and weight. They often have a nice shape and are made of nice solid woods, not veneers that might be chipped or peeling away from the frame. So if you need a nice mantel piece or you want a large mirror in the bedroom - not necessarily over the dresser but an accent piece above your headboard - or even in the bathroom, these mirrors are perfect.
Duna & Gertie found that you can paint on the mirror surface with an enamel paint but in order to keep it from peeling, the glass needs to be prepped. We bought a glass etching kit which was more or less a paint that dried to look like the glass was sandblasted. Waste of money, as you could barely see the etching, however the glass conditioner to prep the glass turned out to be a real saviour for our mirrors.

The mirror was completely covered in painter's tape. Then, a freehand drawing in black marker ran around the edge of the mirror. It's nice to be able do it this way because if you make a mistake, peel the tape, cover that spot again and continue until you get the art you like. Use a stencil, or hand cut your own as we did.
After using a very sharp exacto knife to cut out the drawn outline, the image was removed to reveal the glass. It's here that we used the glass conditioner with a Q-tip to condition the glass to take the spray enamel. This is where it gets tricky. Once you spray paint the image carefully with light even coats, you have to start removing the tape carefully while it's wet to make sure it doesn't peel off from the mirror. But it's worth the effort as you get nice clean lines in your image.

We loved the shape of this mirror,
our bird and vine motif is hand-drawn
so each piece is a one-of-a-kind!

Vintage Suitcase table

We first started collecting suitcases to make cat and dog beds but then we saw another blogger with a suitcase table using a hard suitcase. So, of course we had to give it a try! The only problem with the blogger's table was no reinforcement. So, it didn't look too stable and we wanted to make sure this thing could hold up to some wear and tear and sturdy enough to hold a lamp and alarm clock.
So, it's got a 1" ply board cut to size to fit the inside. The mounting plates are vintage ones so are really nice solid ones (the new ones just don't compare!) which we painted with a tremclad black gloss and found these great legs off of an old crib complete with wheels so those we painted white to match the trim of the suitcase. Great thing about this is you can screw off the legs, put them in the case and move on to the next spot! Convenience, portability and totally cool!
We've donated this one to my son's school trip raffle so we'll see what interest we get for it!

The old Album storage cabinet switcheroo

My 'partner in crime' and I love to hit the thrift stores, second-hand shops and rummage sales for some unique pieces that have done their duty as what they were built for but need an update to be used for a current need or they go to the dump where we're desparately trying to save them from!
So here's one I've almost completed and think looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself. :)
Back in the day, we had 12" vinyl records, in cardboard sleeves. That's right. Try explaining to a teenager today what 'You sound like a broken record' means and well, that's why I say 'back in the day'.

We found this diamond in the rough at a St. Vincent de Paul second-hand store and we immediately picked it up, happily paid for it and placed it in the van. A great find!

No one needs an album storage cabinet anymore, unless you have a collection you just can't part with, but with the growing popularity of vintages and spirits and the need to store them was the idea behind the new life and new purpose of this great cabinet.

Here she is before, sanded and ready for her makeover!

Check out the before. We saw potential in this baby!

First, a rough sanding to take all the finish off making sure there was no shine left to it. Then, a smooth sanding to give it a smooth surface for painting, using a tack cloth to remove any dust. After 3 coats of high-gloss white enamel (you need to use a 'hard' paint to avoid chipping from getting bumped around so avoid latex for walls, get the right stuff for furniture - more expensive but totally worth it in the end) and using painter's tape, I taped off random widths and created some striping with a high-gloss black enamel.

Old album cabinet becomes new Wine and liquor cabinet 

After that, using my hand-lettering skills I learned in college years ago (I had the BEST 1st year teacher in college doing EVERYTHING by hand.Thanks Vinnie!) I created and hand-drew the lettering and then applied a silver leaf. It didn't work out as well as I had hoped so will add some fine brushed outlines to the letters to give them a smooth-edged finish.

All that's left to do is to add the 'x' boards for the wine storage on the right side and a little shelf to hold wine glasses and tumblers in the middle section.

'Almost finished' wine and liquor cabinet

A good photograph of the final finished product to come! Yes, I'll use a good camera and proper lighting for that one. These pictures were shot with my iphone so a little to be desired!

So if you have a dresser, cabinet or bookcase in the garage screaming for an update so you'll bring it in to your house and actually use it, there are loads of possibilities!  The next post will be a dresser with mirror and cool tree design on the front. Check back soon for that makeover!