Before & After: Magazine Rack and Pedestal Bowl

This post's title is absolutely misleading! I have no "before" shots to show you. You are going to have to use your imagination, but I assure you it won't be difficult.

You see, both of these pieces were simply dark brown stained pieces before I got hold of them. The magazine rack I purchased for $5 a couple of years ago at a church rummage sale, mainly because I liked the cloverleaf cut-out. I always intended on painting it but only got around to doing so this past week. In my defense, I didn't know exactly where I wanted to put it in my house until just this last week, so I didn't know what color to paint it. But I'm working on decorating my older daughter's bedroom right now, and it seemed to be a good fit. We needed something to keep her 1,001 American Girl catalogs from papering the room, and we needed it yesterday! So, location decided, we just needed to agree on a color. She has her old baby glider in her room, which she uses as a very comfy reading chair, but it is a small scale pink gingham. Someday soon, I'd like to have it reupholstered, but that is not in the cards for at least a year so for now we have to work with the color. To de-babify the chair, and to make the reading nook a little cozier, we moved my favorite re-done footstool in from my room.

It has a lot of pink in it, which works well with the chair, but the pattern is so bold and modern that it helps balance the preciousness of the glider's print. Once the footstool arrived on the scene, we realized that the magazine rack was destined to be bright, glossy, cherry red.

And here is the after shot:

I simply used spray paint for this update, and we are both very happy with how it turned out. Now I just can't wait to pull up that old blue carpet in her room--fingers crossed that there are hardwood floors underneath!

And for my second show and tell, I offer you this pedestal bowl.

Again, no "before" shot, but it won't take much to imagine it all a dull brown. This re-do was done without a plan. I was very bored one day and had only a few moments, so I custom mixed a dark grey-blue color using some leftover acrylic craft paints that I had laying around and added some calcium carbonate to make it chalky. It was sooooo chalky and dull, so I added a thick layer of finishing paste wax. It didn't seem to help the finish much at all, and in fact, it lifted off some of the paint, so I set it aside for awhile. Then tonight, I dug up some polycrylic for another project I was working on and decided it wouldn't hurt to try putting a layer of that over the wax. I actually loved how it looked after that. Glossy but not high-shine, and it brought out the richness of both the brown and the grey blue paint. I show it here in my sitting room, but it is now living up in my bedroom holding all my bracelets. I never wear my jewelry because it is always tucked out of sight, but this should remedy that somewhat.

I feel so good that I knocked out these two projects and can cross them off my list. Plus, they are both going to help me and my kids be more organized. Win, win! Next up, my most ambitious painting job to date: a re-do of an old French provincial desk for my daughter's room. I'd love to get it done before school starts up again but only time will tell if I can pull that one off. We shall see!