What Would You Do With This?

This, week, on What Would You Do With This Wednesday I'm featuring a question from fellow blogger Karyn from CanDarBry Garden. Karyn bought some fabulous pieces second hand, but now she's wondering what she should do with them, so I had her send me photos of her purchases.

First, she bought this cool mirror, and no doubt, she won't have any trouble figuring out what to do with such a fabulous piece.

 But along with the mirror, Karyn got a harp. No, it isn't a musical harp. It's the name given to the piece that an antique mirror would hang from. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Karyn should hang the mirror on the harp, between the bolts where it belongs. Great idea! Except this mirror doesn't fit that harp.

So, Karyn needs our help in coming up with a creative way to use that harp in decorating somehow. Okay, okay, don't harp on me. I'll give you some more pictures. (I couldn't resist a pun or two).

The harp

 Close-up Detail

 I know one of you has a brilliant idea out there. So tell me your idea in 300 characters or fewer on the MckLinky tool below. And feel free to link up to your blog so we can visit you. Karyn will choose WWYD winner next week based on the idea she likes best and I'll post the name.

Sorry, I can't afford prizes, but I'm happy to tweet your name and send you some blog traffic! Special thanks to Jill S. for the winning idea for the furniture refinish.

Do you have something you'd like some What Would You Do ideas for? Shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment and I'd love to feature your item. 

You can follow Trash to Treasure Decorating on Facebook now too. See the link in the sidebar. 
 

More Hardwood Floor Treasure

Yesterday, I posted about the hardwood treasure beneath the horrible carpet in my house. Here's an updated picture of how the room turned out.

Before

After

It's a small room, but so peaceful. As you can see, I decided to paint the damaged closet doors white. Even with stain blocking primer, they took multiple coats of paint. I'm thinking they had been oiled with something like Liquid Gold in the past. I painted all of the trim white and the walls a light green color. 

Can you believe that the only cost in this makeover was paint for the walls and trim and polyurethane for the floor? That's under $40 to make over whole room!

My mom found the comforter set at a yard sale and it matched the walls perfectly. The decoration above the bed is just an old window with a string of artificial berries added. Trash to treasure decorating sure leaves more room for other treasure in my budget!

Treasure Under the Carpet

When we bought our house, we inherited some of the worst carpet! I think buyers had passed over the house for several years mostly because the house was so badly in need of a face-lift. Since we had several months before we had to move for my husband's job change, we had some time to go up north on weekends and work on updates.

On one weekend, we decided to tackle the pea soup colored carpet. It was in all four bedrooms. This room had both paneling and the pea soup carpet. Eww. Someday, I'll do something about that paneling, but for now, it's not a bad room for a teenaged boy. By the way, yes, that's paneling in the ceiling too!

  This bedroom had peeling wallpaper and the awful carpet. I didn't take the world's best before pictures since I took them on our tour with the realtor before we closed on the deal. You can see a little bit of the carpet on this picture.

 There is no nice way of describing this carpet. I couldn't get it to the trash fast enough! But in the process of getting rid of it, I discovered it held a treasure.

 My friend Brenda came to help with the destruction renovation one weekend and I was working in another room when I heard a scream from the room she was in. She had pried up a little corner of the carpet and found the hardwood floor beneath. (Above, she is helping my son rip the old wallpaper off.) I thought she had found a mouse or a giant spider, but I was thrilled to see the wood! We found this hard wood in another room as well, and I found out that it's under half of my living room (future project there). I was so excited!


I sanded and varnished the wood floor and it's beautiful. When we had the carpet installer put new Berber in the two rooms that didn't have hardwood underneath, I had him cut away a little patch by the front door to help create more of an entry way feel. 

Eventually, when the rest of the carpet in that area wears out, I'll be sanding some more floors. In the meantime, I gave it some good coats of varnish and enjoyed the treasure that had been hidden beneath carpet for 30-40 years. 

Some of the best trash to treasure decorating changes are already right there under our noses!

Friday Blog Hop #9

Do you ever have weeks that go way too fast? I'm having one of those! So, I'm keeping my post short and sweet today. Did you have a terrifically creative week? Then my tired brain needs your fabulous inspiration ( I know my readers will love your ideas just as much as I will). Share what you've created, decorated, updated, and blogged about this week by linking up to:

Follow Blog Hop #9

Blog Hop guidelines:

1-Add a permalink to your specific post not the home page of your blog. We don't want to have to hunt for your brilliant idea. Be sure to check that the link works after you post.

2-Add a short title for your post. This could be your name or blog name if you'd like.

3- Link back to this post from your blog, or send a link to your tweeps on Twitter (mention @trash2treas).

4-Check out the links and leave some comments on the sites you enjoy.

That's all there is to it! I can't wait to see your links and ideas. Never used MckLinky? It's super easy. You don't need an account or any software. Just click on "you are next" below and type a title for the post (or your name) and add a link to the location on the web. It's that simple!
 

What Would You Do With This?

I need a furniture makeover!

On today's WWYD with this Wednesday, I'm asking for your advice on updating some of my furniture. I just got a new TV cabinet, and I want to turn the old one, a cheap pine armoire into a cabinet for my sewing supplies. I'm planning to install a pull-out shelf inside for my sewing machine for quick mending, but I'm trying to figure out what to do with the outside. I'm tired of the aged pine and it's getting pretty beat up. 

 I also have another smaller cabinet near this one that needs some updating as well and I'd like to make them match.

 

  

What would you do with this? What kind of finish would you do? I have a pickled finish on my faux fireplace which is on the other side of the room, so I've thought about matching this:

 

But then I also like the finish on my new TV cabinet:

When you collect your furniture at thrift shops, you get a hodgepodge, but I love it. You can see that the mirror above the smaller cabinet has a cherry finish and I did a faux cherry/mahogany finish on my built in hutch, so maybe I should do that?

One more thing. I have two 20-year old lamp tables in the living room that were wedding presents and it's time to update them. The finish is ruined on one. Maybe I should make them match the cabinets since they all live in one big living room, dining room, bonus room space. 

 

 

I know, that's a lot to process! Now can you see why I'm overwhelmed with the decision? So what would you do? Which kind of faux finish would you do on the cabinets and the lamp tables? I'm pretty good at creating faux finishes once I have the idea. And I've stripped and refinished furniture too, so toss as many ideas as you want to. I can handle them!

 

Tell me your idea in 250 characters or fewer on the MckLinky tool below. And feel free to include a link to an idea that you've already done on your own blog, or just link up to your blog so we can check out your other great ideas. I'll name a WWYD winner next week based on the idea I like best. 

Sorry, I can't afford prizes, but I'm happy to tweet your name and send you some blog traffic! 

3-9-2010 Update: Contrats to Jill S. for the winning idea. I think that the lighter finish would keep the large pieces from feeling too heavy in the room. I'll be priming with black, painting with white and then sanding to distress. Honorable mention goes to The Prudent Homemaker for the great idea of replacing the knobs. I forget how much of a difference that can make. Thanks everyone!

Before and After Built In Hutch Makeover

Last week, I showed you how I painted a laminate counter top and I promised to show you how I updated the built-in hutch that surrounded it. When we bought our house, I absolutely loved that it had this built-in because it allowed me to get my good dishes out of storage and actually use them. Our old house had no where for good dishes, so I had them in storage.

But, I wasn't in love with the 70's yellowed oak, or the giant brushed brassy knobs. I didn't want to paint the wood because I liked the grain, so for a while, I was stuck with this.

And then I had some inspiration. I figured if I could make some wood look pickled by whitewashing it with white paint, why not try to darken the wood with darker paint? So I got out some of my craft paints. Yes, that's what I used, bottles of acrylic craft paint. Using a disposable plastic tray, I put blobs of different colors in the tray: black, burgundy, chocolate brown. Then I added some water to dilute the paint and make it more like a wash. I dipped a brush into the color and started painting it onto the surface. I made sure that I kept it a little bit streaky so that I didn't lose the look of wood grain. The color was sort of a mahogany (reddish brown). 



In other words, I was trying to tint the wood, but not to fully cover the wood with paint.

This is how it looked right after I painted it. I hadn't found new handles yet, so it still has the ugly brassy ones.

 

 

Once I got the paint wash on, I sealed everything with several coats of an acrylic polyurethane. This protects the finish from scratching (without it, it would easily come off) and it adds shine. The craft paints dried to a more dull color so the poly coat added brilliance. The can says you can't use this acrylic poly coat over paint, but it works fine. I saw it on TV so I figured I could do it too.

I found handles at a local building supply and salvage shop. I know you can't see it i the picture, but the bottom of the sliding glass doors is a brushed silver. The new handles were a brushed silver and I got the whole bag for around $5. I have lots of extras too.

After I finished everything, I realized that the hinges on the doors were still a brassy color. So I got out a can of silver spray paint. I sprayed a little on a small artist brush and quickly brushed it over a hinge before it could dry. Then I kept spraying and brushing until they were all lightly coated with silver. this way, I didn't have to remove them, and I was able to tint them to match.

I was so excited with the outcome! And it cost me nothing since I already had all of the supplies in my basement. You can see from the original picture that I also painted over the paneling that surrounded the build-in. In fact, I plastered it with a special texture paint for paneling. My whole house is becoming one big trash to treasure makeover!

This week, I'm linking my blog to these other blogs:

• Trash to Treasure Tuesday at Reinvented 
• Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch 
• DIY Day @ A Soft Place to Land

Ideas for Canning Jars & A Friday Blog Hop

Canning Jar Ideas

My readers had some great ideas for ways to use old canning jars on "What Would You Do With This?" this week. I thought I would show some things that I've done with canning jars. You'll probably recognize a theme in my decorations. Yeah, I know. Mostly I make candle holders. That's why I asked you guys for some new ideas!

 

These are three different ways to use canning jars and mayonnaise jars.

• The one on the left, I purchased at a yard sale. There is a muslin primitive snowman inside and an artificial pine branch. The top is a clear flower pot votive holder. 
• The middle one was a gift from my sister. She primed the jar with a bonding primer like Zinsser and then used acrylic paints to do the background and snowman. It has a blue flower pot votive holder on top.
• The one on the right, I made. I purchased the snowman when Christmas ornaments were 75% off. It had a string at the top (since it was an ornament) and I cut that off. Then I hot-glued the snowman to the bottom of the jar and sprinkled some fake snow (the Styrofoam kind) in the bottom. I put a flower pot votive in the top and tied a torn fabric ribbon around it.

I made this candle holder from an old blue canning jar. I used a clear votive holder in the top that flares out a bit (just enough to catch the rim of the jar). I've created it as a memory jar. I put sand in the bottom and then put shells inside that I picked up along the Pacific ocean in northern Washington last year.  The big shell on the outside was too big to fit inside, so I drilled a small hole in it and tied it to the outside with variegated ribbon.

 

This is a lamp that I made from a 2-quart antique blue canning jar. I filled it with spools and sewing notions. To make the fabric balls, I just tore strips of quilting fabric and then wrapped it around small Styrofoam balls, securing the end with a straight pin. The lamp shade was also wrapped with torn strips of quilting fabric. 

I've created candles from goblets and canning jars (jar not pictured--I gave them all away as gifts). To make the candle on the left from a glass or a jar, insert a small clear glass votive holder inside the jar. Then fill the jar around that inside candle holder with coffee beans. It looks like the cup is filled with beans, but really it's filled around the inside holder. Put a tea light in the holder and when you burn the candle, the coffee beans will give off a light scent.

The jar on the right is for gift giving. I've used small organza bags and filled them with flavored coffee beans to make sachets. They can be given as a gift and the recipient can hang the coffee sachets in the car to smell like a coffee air freshener. 

I hope you were inspired by the jar discussion this week. Now it's time to tell me what else inspired you this week. Tell me what you've featured on your blog by linking up to:

Follow Friday #8

I'm so amazed by all of the great ideas out there! Until this week, I didn't really know what a cloche was, but thanks to the blog hop, I do now. Check out this sweet trash to treasure idea using a candlestick that came from Joan at Anything Goes Here.

 

Picture from Anything Goes Here

I can't wait to see what you share this week in the Friday Blog Hop. The creativity out there is so inspiring! Here's how to link up:

Blog Hop guidelines:

1-Add a permalink to your specific post not the home page of your blog. Be sure to check that the link works after you post.

2-Add a short title for your post. This could be your name or blog name if you'd like.

3- Link back to this post from your blog, or send a link to your tweeps on Twitter (mention @trash2treas).

4-Check out the links and leave some comments on the sites you enjoy.

That's all there is to it! I can't wait to see your links and ideas. Never used MckLinky? It's super easy. You don't need an account or any software. Just click on "you are next" below and type a title for the post (or your name) and add a link to the location on the web. It's that simple!

I'm linking up too! I'm linking this post to:

• A Picture is Worth 1000 Words for the 2nd Time Around Party See more great recycling ideas. 
• Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple