Sunday, January 20, 2013

{DIY} From trash to treasure: reinventing old entertainment center shelves


Hey Y'all! Hope everyone had a {FUN} relaxing weekend. As this is my very first blog post (yay!),I'm going to share with you my most favorite DIY project to date. 
 I scored these awesome old entertainment center shelves a while back. It was love at first sight. Yes, they were hideous, but with them being made of real wood, the possibilities were endless.

For the painting/staining/sanding:
I started by sanding the doors down with 60 grit sand paper and then went over them with an off-white latex paint followed with another light sanding. Next, I took brown acrylic paint and diluted it with water. Now, when doing this, you really want to be careful to not add too much water as it will make the paint too thin. Then, I took a paintbrush and brushed my "stain" on and in certain places I let the paint sit longer to really soak in and give it that aged look. For some reason, this is where people tend to freak out and feel they have "messed" up their project! No worries, the messier the better (to me, at least). Finally, after the paint had dried, I gave it another good sanding where I wanted it to appear more aged in places, like the corners.

For the photos:
For the final step, I put mod podge on the back of 8x10 photos to glue them to the wood, then another layer of mod podge on top to seal in the photos.

That was it! I purchased the old shutters for $6 bucks a piece at a local flea market and spray painted those bad boys black to contrast to my wood photo art. Total cost for the whole project? $14 dollars! That's what I'm talkin' about!













 

 
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed :))
 
{XOXO
  Amber}
 
 
 

12 comments:

  1. What a great step by step description! You make me think I could actually do this...well maybe! :)

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  2. Thank you! I'm sure you could do it. Trial and error! Feel free to email me with any questions.

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  3. Are you going to show us how to re-do or paint our funiture? I heard you did a great job on yours.

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  4. Thank you! Yes, next time I will try and do a break down of the actual tutorial that way viewers can visually see by pictures, a step-by-step process on how to achieve certain looks.

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  5. Very cool. Love that style of frame...color simple line. Nice to meet you Amber!
    Deb@LakeGirlPaints

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    1. Thanks, Deb! It's nice to meet you, too! Feel free to link up with me for Moonshine Monday!

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  6. Just beautiful. Glad I found your blog. I am following you now!

    Sumaya

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  7. Thanks, Sumaya! Feel free to link up with me for {MoonSHINE Monday}! Have a great day :)

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  8. Beautiful! I love the "stain" effect you gave them!

    Jenna @ http://rainonatinroof.com

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    1. Thanks, chick! Feel free to link up for MoonSHINE Monday!

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  9. These turned out great and what a darling little boy! Thanks so much for linking up at Transformed Tuesday. Hugs, Peggy~PJH Designs

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