Nightstands Turned Kitchen Island

Here's a shot of our kitchen when we first bought our mobile home several years ago.  

Well kept cabinets, lots of storage and quite roomy. 

The size of the kitchen and the master bath (both of which

 also have large skylights) clinched the deal for us.

It only took a few family potluck dinners to know we needed an island in our kitchen.

 At our first Thanksgiving here, we paired up some old, solid wood 

nightstands from a vintage 80s waterbed set.

We set them up back to back and threw a tablecloth over the whole shebang.

 They turned out to be the perfect height and heavy enough to withstand

 the traffic flow when dinner was served.

Hey!

 Why buy the lumber and build an island when 

we could restyle what we already had?

We took out the drawers and bolted the nightstands back to back

and painted the whole assembly a nice shade of blue with a grey wash.

We used acrylic paint sealed with clear acrylic spray.

For the top we had a precut piece of heavy duty masonite. 

I covered it with pages of an old cookbook using Mod Podge.

LOOK! 

The colors and tones complement the still serviceable vinyl floor.

We sealed the top with brushed on resin (two part Envirotex used for bar tops)

 and we are so excited with the great results!

Ta da!

For the final touch we used the pulls off the original drawers and

 attached them for towel holders.Then I refurbished the drawers for storage with 

red checked contact paper. They are perfect inside our 

brand new kitchen island made from our old nightstands.

This is one of our most popular projects and is a Pinterest favorite. 

It cost us nearly nothing save for the resin which I purchased

 from Michaels with a 50% coupon. I call this a win win!!

No Spray Paint for this Chair Planter

I wanted to make this worn out dining room chair into a garden chair planter, but I knew it needed some help. I thought maybe I would spray paint it bright blue since I'm nuts about that color, but I did NOT want to sand all the nooks and crannies and curvy bits on this chair. What to do? Dry brushing to the rescue!



Here's a shot of the original chair. Curvy and sweet but the peeling varnish makes it unsuitable for a smooth coat of spray paint. So I sanded it just a little to knock the loose flakes off and loaded up my brush with exterior white paint then blotted most of the paint out of it. When it was almost dry I started painting the chair.....




Sweet! Look how it made this old chair look shabby chic and country style and downright vintage. LOVE it!


Here she is (funny that now she's painted she's a female. Whassup with that?)

;O)

I popped the cushion off with a screw driver and now have a perfect receptacle for a planter.


Ooh aah. The lime green trailers and the vinca and the mint and the blue glass balls are perfect together. Even my little gnomey guy is smiling.


And here's another angle. I love how this chair turned out with the wash of white paint! Much less work than sanding and spray painting, and as it weathers in the coming seasons it will just look more shabby and chic. I call that a win win!

Aaand....it goes with my drybrushed kiwi crate table and my whitewashed ladder with the drybrushed baskets. Is nothing safe from my new favorite painting technique?

I'll be linking up to White Wednesday in my sidebar. Come check it out, it is always loads of fun with lots of beautiful ideas using white.