For the longest time I’ve been wanting to paint a piece of furniture bright Kelly green.  It started when I found this Reed & Barton color glazed silver bowl from the 1960’s in a thrift shop for a dollar.  A dollar for this beauty!

So I wanted to bring this fun color into our home and once I found the perfect piece, this small campaign desk, off to the paint store I went to color match it!  Here’s the  desk I found at (of course) a thrift store for $40 – the hardware alone is worth that to me, but the added benefit was this desk with faux bamboo legs that would tuck nicely into the kids study/art/craft playroom.

Before:

After:

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One thing is undeniable in the DIY and design world, brass hardware is back and lately I’m totally loving it on furniture. As a child of the 80’s I admit shiny lacquered brass fixtures still don’t appeal to me, but I am drawn to the golden glow of real or antiqued brass with its warmer patina.

In the past two weeks, I’ve fixed up two pieces, one dresser and one campaign desk, and both had brass hardware I wanted to reuse.  One set of hardware was real brass, the other brass plate, and both needed a good polish.

Over the last year, I’ve also narrowed down two great substitutes for faking the patina with other hardware that you want to give a golden glow.  If you’re curious how to tell the difference between real brass and brass plate, how to polish unlacquered brass, or how to fake the look of antique brass hardware, here’s how I do it.

Real brass is an alloy of copper and zinc and if it’s not lacquered, will tarnish with exposure to air over time.  There are two methods I use to bring back the mellow antiqued patina, one is Brasso if I have it on hand and the other is natural lemon juice and salt paste mixture.

But first, before you polish, you should know whether your hardware is real brass or brass plate.  Here’s the simple way to tell the difference.  Take a household magnet and see if it will stick to the piece, if it won’t that means the hardware is real brass, like these campaign pulls.

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Hello hello, another fun roundup today, this one in honor of Rhoda’s link party.  I went through the archives and selected fifteen of my favorite Before and After projects from 2011.  Here they are in chronological order, follow the links for the full story!

#1 Board & Batten Storage Wall

#2 Reupholstered Velvet Chair

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Hey all, hope you had a fun Halloween yesterday!  My mister and I spent the weekend tackling a storage solution we’ve been meaning to get to for some time. Up in our little guest studio above the garage (affectionately nicknamed the ‘Garage Mahal’) we finally built ourselves a wall of bookcases to store books and other collectibles. 

Years ago, we set up a makeshift media center in the space with some small wood bookcases and a coffee table to hold our dinosaur TV.  We finally decided to donate that TV and change the wall to serve a different purpose. I’ve been thinking about IKEA’s Billy bookcases for years, but I was always disappointed with their 11” depth.  In October, IKEA release a 15” deep Billy bookcase which finally sold me on the wall to wall bookcase project I’ve been thinking about for years.  At last, it’s finally finished!

So long old media center . . .

. . . hellooooo built in bookcases!

I am in love!  I’ve wanted a wall of built in bookcases for years, people, years!  We finally made it happen for under $400 and in about 7 hours.

We started with four of these 15 inch deep Billy bookcases from IKEA:

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My little sis pesters me about furniture because she’s always looking for great finds and she knows if she gets me talking about old furniture I’ll ramble on for days. Sis has been looking for a small sideboard or buffet, so when I stumbled upon this antique at a thrift store last week for $75, I quickly snatched it up for her. I liked the size and solid structure with its dovetail joints, plus it had no major damage. But it was a little sad looking and definitely in need of new stain, or perhaps even paint.  

I was on the fence about whether to paint it, but thought I’d try to restore the wood first. I had heard about a product from several antique dealers that breathes new life into tired old antiques and doesn’t require the typical strip/stain/poly steps that are required to fully refurbish wood furniture. The product is Howard’s Restor-A-Finish and I thought this latest vintage piece was the perfect candidate to give it a try.

I followed the instructions and used a very fine grade steel wool (level 000) to wipe down the buffet in the direction of the wood grain, then applied two coats of the Restor-A-Finish. I also pulled off the acanthus applique attached to the back because it was bugging me, then replaced the center hardware and broken pulls with new ones lightly coated with Rub N’Buff in ‘Antique Gold’. 

Here’s a peek at the easy transformation that took about an hour.

Before:

After:

Not bad!

I grabbed these three products at my local True Value Hardware to see how well they’d perform on this buffet.

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