A Thing or Five

Thanks so much to everyone who has left comments about the buffet.  After I hit the publish button the other day, I remembered a thing or five that I had planned to include in the post.  Not enough coffee before publishing.

The paint came from Sherwin Williams.  I know Kim has blogged about this before and many of you may already know this, but a quart of SW is only $5.  If you register with SW, you get an additional 10% off every time you buy their paint.  Not bad for little furniture projects when you are used to paying $10+ a quart.  Also, they gave me the fan deck, key word, gave.  I had to pay $12 for the BM fan deck.  Yes, there is a small difference in quality, but again, small projects.  The other thing I liked was this great little quart container with a handle on the side.  This is so much easier to work with than the usual quart can.  The only thing it lacks is the usual hardeners, so a protective topcoat is recommended.

Can you see the scratches on our kitchen floors?  Grrr.

When I paint furniture, I usually use a foam roller where I can and a paint brush everywhere else.  This time I tried using a foam applicator and loved it the result.  The finish was smooth and flawless and the foam was able to fit into the smaller crevices on the buffet.  You can purchase bags of these applicators at the craft store.  If you already know this, I don't mean to insult your intelligence.  I've been painting furniture for years and had never tried this.

About the hardware...if you like old brass and want to preserve what you have, it cleans easily with Twinkle.  I have also used Bar Keepers Friend, and it works, but after trying both, I prefer Twinkle.  We found it at Lowes in the cleaning products aisle.

A couple of you asked about the white jar on the buffet.  It didn't always look like this.

Inspired by the pretty bisque lamp bases in Ballard Designs, I decided to give mine a makeover.  A coat of primer and a couple coats of white spray paint later, you see how it was transformed.

So, any big plans this weekend?  Have a great one!!


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