March 9, 2018 by Tracy Evans

Fresh Look for a French Country Secretary

Thank goodness for paint. Many pieces of furniture destined for the landfill have been saved by those of us who love to rescue such things, thanks to the miracle of paint. And once rescued, our treasures can be painted and re-painted as our homes change, our color pallets change or we move to a different home altogether. Such is the case in this post where my second-hand secretary got a new lease on life for the second time.

I paid $45 for this beauty at my local Habitat Restore several years ago. It was a little tattered, and the fretwork was so damaged that it couldn’t be saved. It also had a few pieces that needed to be re-glued, but ohhhhh how I loved this piece of furniture!

It was a clear choice for me to paint it black after I originally brought it home since it was going to live next to my black kitchen table. I loved how sophisticated and formal it looked. Here’s the piece after I painted it black. It was beautiful!

Now we fast forward. I moved to a different home where I wanted to create a more relaxed atmosphere, and after several months of indecision, and switching to a curb-find kitchen table that I painted white, I decided the time had come for the secretary to become white too. If I hated it, I could always paint it black again. Right?

I love stripes when it comes to interior design. Stripes on walls, stripes on furniture and stripes on upholstery just make my heart sing! So my makeover had to involve stripes. I love the calmness of French Country design, and I wanted something subtle for this piece of furniture. My goal was to remove it from its just-another-painted-secretary status.

I painted it White Duck by Sherwin Williams, but I wanted to leave the interior black for contrast for my white dishes. There was a chance this piece might end up in my bedroom at some point, and my bedroom furniture is also White Duck. That made the main color choice an easy one.

Now for the stripes. Grain sack stripes are my new-found love, so I searched the internet for dimensions that would be appropriate, although there are different styles of this type of stripe. I had zero luck finding measurements, so I played around with some printer paper and tape to come up with stripes that felt right to me. So for those of you who would like a guide, I ended up using a 2″ stripe down the center, a 3/4″ space on both sides of the large stripe, and then I decided on 1/2″ stripes on the outer edges. Here are my samples—neither of which I used, but you get the idea.

I wanted to add some stenciling in addition to the stripes, and since I didn’t want to experiment with a design directly on the secretary, I made a mock-up out of cardboard. First I cut the cardboard to the size of the area of the desk I was wanting to paint, and then I painted it White Duck. I then drew the lines for my stripes.

I needed three different shades of a similar color for my design, so I chose light, medium and dark colors from my SW Color-to-go samples. If I had used only one color for all three areas, some of the areas would have disappeared where parts of the design overlapped. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

I painted the stripes on my cardboard with the medium shade (SW Agreeable Gray) without taping them off, but when I painted the actual furniture, I used green frog tape to get nice, straight lines with no bleed-through. I must admit when my skeptical self first heard about frog tape, I thought it was just a gimmick to get people to spend more money since it’s pretty pricey. But after using it, I highly recommend it because it’s much better for striping than regular blue painter’s tape.

I then started stenciling. I only wanted to use certain parts of the stencils, so I put tape over the parts I didn’t want transferred. I used the lightest shade for the vines (SW Worldly Gray).

So here’s what I had after adding my first stencil.

And for the second stencil that I purchased at Michael’s, I used the darkest color (SW Anew Gray). This step makes it more obvious why I couldn’t use just one color for this project. You can see in the next photo, how my stencil overlaps my stripes. If I had stenciled the letters in the same color as the stripes, the letters would have disappeared.

After I finished, I taped the cardboard sample to the desk to see if everything looked the way I wanted it to. Yep. Good to go!

Now I was ready! I repeated all these steps again, but on the actual piece of furniture this time.

I loved this piece painted black, but it’s more appropriately painted white in the less formal style of my current home.

Unfortunately, the decorative painting doesn’t show up too well in the photographs taken from farther away, but I hope you can see well enough in the close ups to get the idea.

It’s amazing how changing the color of this piece from black to white brightens up the space. I also re-painted an armoire from black to white at the same time I painted the secretary, but haven’t jazzed it up just yet. More about that one later…

This post was written by Tracy Evans who is a Journeyman Painter and Certified Home Stager/Redesigner. If you enjoy gardening, you may want to pay a visit to her gardening blog at MyUrbanGardenOasis.Wordpress.com.

How to Fix a Warped Cabinet Floor

I’m guessing most of you DIYers out there are familiar with the idea of installing self-stick floor tiles on the floors of kitchen cabinets—usually inside the cabinet under the kitchen sink. That’s a space that can get pretty gruesome over time.

I had been wanting to tackle this in my current home, but my cabinet floor was warped. I’m guessing the kitchen sink had a leak when the previous owners lived here. When I laid a level across it, I could see a dip of almost a full inch at its lowest point, and I knew the tiles wouldn’t adhere to a surface that dipped like a cereal bowl.

I decided since I couldn’t install the tiles, I would cover the cabinet floor with non-stick shelf paper. Not one of my better ideas. It quickly became just as ugly as it was before I tried to spruce it up. Plus the shelf paper wasn’t a solution for the warped floor. You can’t really see the dip in this picture, but here’s a before picture anyway just for kicks. You’ll just have to trust me that it was nasty under there.

So one day, a light bulb actually appeared over my head in one of those little white clouds. (Not kidding.) I had an idea. I decided to search through my stash of scrap wood for some skinny pieces to fill in the divot. Then I could cover the scraps with a thin sheet of plywood, and then I could cover the plywood with those fabulous self-stick linoleum tiles.

Since there was a divider in the center of the front of the cabinet where the doors close (you can see this in the above photo), there was no way to install a single sheet of plywood big enough to cover the whole floor. But I just happened to have two pieces of plywood that I could cut down to fit through the two cabinet door openings, and could piece them together to cover the cabinet floor.

Here’s a picture of the darker small scraps on the floor of the cabinet that are placed in the dip. I just kept layering pieces in the low part until it was level with the rest of the floor. Then I laid a piece of plywood that I cut to fit, over the top of the scraps (on the left side in the photo). The other piece I used to finish the floor is the darker piece that is leaned up against the side of the cabinet on the right in the photo. I used 3/8″ plywood that I had leftover from another project for both the scraps that are filling the dip, and for the actual “sub-floor” placed on top of the scraps.

Next I laid down the second piece of plywood to complete the cabinet floor. The colors of the two pieces didn’t match because one of them was stained and one of them wasn’t, but they were going to be covered with tiles, so no biggie.

I had to tack down the plywood in a few places since the pieces were a little wonky from being stored in my garage.

Here’s my new mini “sub-floor”, so nice and flat now! I was pretty happy at this point because I could see this was actually going to work.

Here are the amazing, kick-butt self-stick linoleum tiles that I bought for $2.00 at a garage sale this past summer. In case you’re not familiar with this type of flooring, think of each square as a sticker on steroids. You just peel a sheet off the back to reveal the sticky back side of the tile, and simply press it into place.

I had no prior experience with these tiles, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to cut using a utility knife against a straight edge. I laid the tiles on a scrap piece of wood while cutting so as not to cut directly against my floor. I started in the front/center of the “floor” and worked my way back.

Here’s my finished project. My hope is that if there’s ever a leak in the sink again, that these tiles will protect the floor somewhat. The tiles, with their slick finish will also be easy to clean.

It’s so nice to have a clean area under the kitchen sink. The bathroom vanities are next on the list!

This post was written by Tracy Evans who is a Certified Home Stager, Certified Redesigner and Journeyman Painter servicing the Central Illinois area. Feel free to visit her website at www.HelpAtHomeStaging.com to view her portfolio for more before and after pictures of her projects. And if you enjoy gardening, you may want to visit her gardening blog at MyUrbanGardenOasis.

June 13, 2015 by Tracy Evans

How to Make a Simple Custom Stencil

When I agreed to make one of those super-cool flags out of an old pallet for my friend, Sam, I knew I was going to need a stencil in the shape of a star. I also knew the chances of me finding one the perfect size and shape for my project were pretty much zero. So I got creative and made one myself for free. Here’s how.

The first step is to go to Google Images or another search engine, and find a shape of whatever you’re looking for. I decided for the flag pallet I wanted a classic, simple star shape. I found one I liked, and then copied and pasted it to an open page so I could edit it.

I played with the cropping until I got the star the size I wanted, and printed it. Or not. I was highly disappointed when I went to my printer, only to discover it spit out a blank piece of paper. But where there’a a will, there’s a way.

Since I was too impatient to start my search for another star on another site, I decided to trace the image right off my computer screen by covering the star with a post-it note. The outline showed through the paper beautifully.

Then I ever-so-gently traced the star with an ink pen. You could also use a pencil, but I would caution against a felt-tip pen or sharpie since the ink could bleed through onto your computer screen. Now that would be very bad.

Next I went into my recycle bin, and found some light-weight cardboard. (Gotta love Pop Tarts.) A soft-drink carton or cereal box would work too.

I then cut around the star with a sharp craft knife, being sure to press hard enough to cut all the way through the cardboard underneath. Be sure to protect your table so you don’t cut into it. That would be bad too.

Then you remove the cut-out from your cardboard.

And there’s the stencil! (This picture is of the back side of the Pop Tart box.)

This is a great way to create a custom stencil that’s specific to your project. The internet has many shapes that can be copied. And since stenciling requires a relatively dry brush, the cardboard will last a very long time. I’ve had stencils I’ve made for past projects that were literally used hundreds of times. Happy stenciling!

(If you would like to see how you can make your own flag pallet, click here.)

June 13, 2015 by Tracy Evans

American Flag Pallet

When my friend, Sam asked if I would make her an American Flag pallet, I was happy to comply. Not only because she’s been my friend since kindergarten, but also because of what she’s been through personally.

Sam’s son, LCPL Retired Jared Poppe, lost both of his legs while serving in Afghanistan on June 7, 2011 at the age of 21. He deserves more recognition for his incredible sacrifice than I can possibly give him here, as does Sam for all she went through as a military mom who nearly lost her son. Nonetheless, I would like to dedicate this post to Jared, to Sam and to all of our dedicated troops and their families.

Here’s Jared after recovering from his injuries.

Needless to say, this project is a very special one.

If you’ve spent any time on Facebook or Pinterest, you’ve probably seen a host of creative uses for old pallets. I’ll be the first to admit this fabulous idea isn’t mine, but I’d like to share my version of a flag pallet anyway. Here it is…

Fortunately, I have access to an endless supply of pallets that are headed for the dumpster because of my job as a painter. You pallet-loving DIYers may be thinking, “Boy she’s lucky to have super-duper access to all those pallets! She could make tons of flags, sell them and become a millionaire.” Negative.

It’s not easy to find a pallet that has slats running in the right direction for the flag stripes, and many of the pallets are too big to fit in my little 1994 Maxima work-mobile (a.k.a. Maxine). Guess I won’t be rich any time soon.

After days of keeping an eye on the mounting stacks of pallets, I found a nearly-perfect one. Maxine could handle it, and the slats were running the right direction! (Hear angels singing, “Hallelujah”.)

It was a little bit too square for a flag shape, so I decided to cut some slats off the bottom to make it more rectangular. Sam suggested cutting off two of the slats so it would have seven red stripes like an actual flag. Kudos to you, Sam for being politically correct with our flag. Removing two slats was perfect.

I didn’t like the idea of having gaps between the slats, so I recycled the slats I removed from the bottom by cutting them to fit behind the spaces. Since I didn’t have enough wood for all the gaps, I used some baseboard I found curbside.

Here’s where the cut slats were going to be placed. This is the back of the pallet.

Since the flag was going to be heavily distressed, it didn’t require a persnickety paint job, and the edges of the cut up boards didn’t need to be painted because they weren’t going to show.

Next I painted the edges of the slats white.

Then the red paint went on the face only of the pallet slats. Again, I didn’t put the paint on heavily, and left some of the rough areas without paint on them.

Here you can see the white edges of the red slats.

This is what it looked like after removing the tape.

Next came the blue. The colors were bright at first, but I toned them down later with a coating of stain.

I made my own stencil using a star shape I found on the internet (see how to make a custom stencil here).

Next I sanded some of the white paint off the slats that were cut to fit the back of the pallet, and applied stain to age them.

After the white slats were distressed, I flipped the pallet over and screwed them on the back to cover the gaps.

Next, I covered the rest of the flag with a walnut stain to further distress it after removing bits of paint here and there with sandpaper. I also stained the sides of the palette to make it look more finished.

I liked the idea of having both red and white stripes, rather than just red stripes and open spaces.

And there you have it!

The paint colors were all from Sherwin Williams; Agreeable Gray (for the white), Fired Brick (for the red) and Downpour (for the blue).

Once again, a heartfelt thank you to Jared, and to the countless men and women who serve this country.