Tutorial | It's Great To Be Home

Pimp Your Piping

Remember this guy that looked so very sad? Well, now he’s had a makeover and he’s ready to strut his stuff. Take a look!

Can you figure out what’s different? Here’s the “before” pic to give you a frame of reference:

That’s right – I painted the piping!

To me, the chocolate brown piping gives this formerly frumpy chair a bit more structure and sophistication – and wow, was this change cheap! For only about $4, here’s how I gave this chair a major makeover:

1. Pick your victim. In my case, this slipcovered Ikea Ektorp armchair was the obvious choice – the all-white slipcover was pretty blah, and the oversized/overstuffed nature of the chair made it look like a big marshmallow. Bottom line – you’ll get the biggest impact with a piece of upholstery that has piping and could benefit from a little definition. (Of course, this same technique could be used to add pizazz to just about anything you want to tackle.)

2. Assemble your supplies. For this project, you need:

~ fabric paint in your color of choice (you really don’t need that much, a single paint tube should do the trick)

* Note: I used fabric paint because I wanted to be able to wash my slipcovers without washing away my hard work. If you’re painting upholstered pieces that don’t have removable covers, you could probably just use regular craft paint to achieve the same result, but without the washability factor.

~ 1 craft brush

~ small strips of stiff cardboard (I just cut up a few advertisements that I got in the mail)

2. Set up shop. Although this project is cheap and easy, it is pretty time-consuming. Plan on spending at least a few evenings in front of the TV working on painting your piping. Maybe more than a few evenings if you’re like me and get distracted easily!

3. Paint away. I thought the easiest way to tackle the piping was to leave the slipcover on the cushions and chair frame – this kept the slipcover from being too floppy and hard to work with. For the cushions, I just hauled them over to the couch, but for the chair frame I sat on the floor in front of it and painted away. As for technique, this is where your strips of cardboard come into play – I wedged the cardboard between the piping and the cushion fabric so that the cardboard formed a barrier – this let me paint somewhat sloppily without worrying about getting the paint onto the fabric of the cushion.

That’s it! I’m really happy with how this project turned out – this is a chair that I’ve had for 7 years that has never really worked in any of my rooms, but now I feel like it could work anywhere!

The new chocolate brown and off-white color scheme meshes with every room in our house, and it also works with all of our fun pillows and accessories – I could see playing musical rooms with this guy as we switch up furniture arrangements throughout the house.

How about you guys – would you ever consider pimping your piping?

P.S. Thanks to everyone that has already played along and filled out the 2010 IGTBH Online Survey! I plan on leaving it up until Wednesday and then tabulating the results and hopefully posting them before the end of the week. Click here if you want to put in your 2 cents while you still can!

P.P.S. Today is my birthday!! This is the last year before I turn the big 3-0, and I’m excited to see what lies ahead in this last year of my 20s. And thanks for all of the birthday wishes I’ve already received, you guys have put a big smile on my face!

This post is shared with A Soft Place to Land, Reinvented, Between Naps on the Porch, It’s So Very Cheri, The Girl Creative, and The DIY Show Off.

Make A Storage Unit From Salvaged Materials. Step 1: Painting

Would you ever think that these dreary cabinets:

could turn into this?

It just goes to show you that with a little imagination and inspiration, you can turn salvaged materials into something fun, useful and totally unique.

Let me fill you in on the details. As you already know, we completely gutted and remodeled our house from top to bottom. During demo, we made sure to save as many cabinets, doors and random (but potentially useful) things as we could so that we could reuse, recycle or repurpose the salvaged materials instead of just throwing them away. These solid oak upper cabinets from the den were two of the pieces that were able to be saved:

Pretty uninspiring, right? (And please avert your eyes from the disaster that is our garage).

We had two of these babies, so I schemed up a plan to turn these upper cabinets into a single base cabinet unit for my craft room. There were a few steps in these cabinets’ metamorphosis that I’ll fill you in on over the next few days, but first here’s a quick painting tutorial on how the cabinets went from dark and dated to fun and fresh.

This is all you’ll need to get started painting your salvaged cabinets (or any other wood furniture):

~ salvaged cabinets

~ medium grit sandpaper

~ 1 quart oil-based primer, like Kilz

~ 1 quart latex paint, color of your choosing

~ water-based polyurethane, finish of your choosing (I used Minwax’s satin finish)

~ foam roller and paint tray

~ foam brush

~ wood filler

~ screwdriver, pliers and hammer

1. Remove handles and molding. Since I was going to use these upper cabinets as lower cabinets, I removed the crown molding that had been added to the top of the cabinets – it came off easily using the back of a hammer. The handles were also in a funky place for lower cabinets, so I just removed them with a screwdriver. The last step was to remove all of the nails that had been used to secure the cabinets to the wall – they were finishing nails without a head, so they pulled out easily with a pair of pliers.

2. Fill in the holes. Not surprisingly, all of the nails and handles that I removed left behind bunches of unsightly little holes. I just grabbed a tube of wood filler and crammed a bunch of filler into the holes. Don’t worry about being too tidy here because you’ll sand off the excess later on.

3. Get sandy. You’ll want to go to town on your cabinets with medium grit sandpaper to remove any slick finish from the cabinets so that your primer can easily adhere to the surface. This is also when you’ll sand off the excess wood filler for a nice, even finish.

4. Bust out the primer. Oil-based primer is just the ticket for painting wood – it’s super sticky and provides a great base for your paint. Don’t worry that it’s oil-based – latex paint can go over oil-based primer, just not oil-based paint. Funky rule, I know.

While some people swear by brushes, t when I’m applying the primer to wood I like to use a foam roller followed up with a foam brush for any tricky corners or drips. I find that brushes leave behind brush strokes that can drive you crazy, while a foam roller leaves a pretty smooth finish. Here’s what the primer looked like when I tried to use a brush that I had on hand rather than buying a foam roller:

See what I mean? It can look pretty bad without a roller.

But don’t worry about your primer being even and perfect – it won’t be and it doesn’t need to be. All you need to do is make sure to get a little primer on every surface that you’re going to paint so that the paint will stick.

5. Roll on the paint. You’re nearing the finish line at this point! My cabinets took two coats of paint, and in all honesty could probably have used a third coat (sadly, I am lazy and decided to just go with two – still looks pretty good). I chose to paint over the plastic inserts on the cabinet doors because I hated the color but liked the pattern – if I ever grow tired of the inserts, I can just remove them and add fabric, paint them in a cool mosaic pattern, etc.

6. Protect the finish. The last step in this painting project is to slap a few coats of polyurethane on the cabinets to protect the finish from nicks, water rings, or anything else that might hurt the paint. Be sure to smooth out any drips, as they will turn yellow.

See, painting furniture isn’t so hard!! Stay tuned, I’ll be filling you in over the next few days on how to create a countertop for the cabinets with a salvaged door, how to assemble your new cabinetry, and how to customize the countertop with a colorful finish.

Check out steps 2, 3 and 4 for the finished cabinet.