A Few Before and Afters

Happy St. Patricks Day! In my family, we have a few Patricks – my dad, my brother and my nephew are all named Patrick – and my son’s middle name is Patrick too. I’m waking up my little guy this morning with a bagel covered in green cream cheese! He’s either going to love it, or think it’s disgusting. Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at your house? Other than that, I’ve been keeping pretty busy over here – I’ve put together a few of the little projects I’ve worked on lately – a couple of furniture before and afters.

I have a pretty large collection of silver platters. I’ve been planning to use them for something like this…

Silver Platter Plate Wall via House Beautiful

Most are in good shape, but this one was a mess.

Silver platter before

Even though that says it’s the “before”, that picture was actually taken after I tried to clean it with a silver polish. It was stained and damaged beyond the typical ways to shine it up. So, I painted it using silver spray paint, after priming with Zinzzer spray primer. It’s a little dull, but it looks much better than it did.

Silver platter after

I plan on using these platters above the kitchen cabinets, so no one will be looking at them up close. I thought it was a great way to make this platter usable. Don’t worry, it is not real silver. I have one or two more that are much like the before picture – I was thinking of using a color or two to add some color to the plate wall. Turquoise or navy, maybe white. The possibilities are endless 🙂

Next…

I found two chairs in the garbage a few months ago. Can you believe someone would throw these away?!!

Chair 1 – “trash” chair before

That chair was not painted yet, and it was taken apart. Just a few nuts and bolts later, it was perfect.

Painted “trash” chair

That one was painted and distressed a little. Both were in excellent shape – nice and heavy too. They both were missing the seats though, so my husband cut out the seats for me and I upholstered them to match the chairs in our dining room. Then I primed and painted the frames in black and put them all together. I love them.

I know the chairs don’t match, but I love the dining room now. Every single thing in that room is thrifted. I think if I totaled everything I paid for the things in this room it would be about $150 – including all the stuff in the china cabinet!

Can you spy Elvis, our cat, in that picture? Little bugger! I didn’t even realize he was there while I was taking the pictures!

I purchased this boat shelf off a Facebook  group… only it was a wine rack before. I don’t have a picture of it from before my husband took the wine racks off and a few of the shelves, but this is what it looked like when all that stuff came off. It was a mess. It sat in the garage until I finally got to it a few weeks ago.

Boat shelf before

I filled in all the cracks and crevices with wood filler and glued all the parts that were starting to crack and come apart. Then I sanded it down and primed it with Zinzzer primer. Then painted it using an outdoor spray paints.

boat shelf after

It is perfect for all our sunscreens and bug repellant and outdoor candles. We have the ping pong paddles and pool table do-dads in the bucket on the bottom, but I plan on putting towels on the bottom shelf once it’s hot enough to swim again.

I have to say that my favorite posts are furniture before and afters – I find that they inspire me more than any other kind.

You have to check out this makeover too – it’s a gorgeous faux bamboo china cabinet.

What kind of projects have you been working on?? Thanks for stopping by!

Eliesa