Medicine Cabinet

Let me preface this with, I promise you, we are not hoarders.


I found this simple wall medicine cabinet at my parent's and knew it just needed a little love. So, I stripped the paint (which after that entertainment center I was ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work, but the paint just turned to goo and slopped off.)


This project was where I really needed to be sure to just stick to the plan. First I primed it being sure to especially hit those little detailed areas. Then I painted it a dark grey. I read in a bunch of places that you're suppose to choose a base color that is similar to wood so when you scratch off bits of your crisp white paint it'll look like wood underneath ... but, the pictures I saw looked more like grey and I loved it! Thus, the grey. So here's my personal problem with distressing. I painted it this wonderful dark grey and loved how it looked (stick to the plan, Libby.)


For the next step, I used a good old candle to rub wax on the edges and high traffic areas. This makes it so when you paint over it, your clean white paint comes off super easy. Too bad it was so hot out that my candle started to melt. After using a paint brush to brush away any chunks of wax I added my final white coat. It took FOREVER to cover all that dark grey, but it was worth all the coats.


After taking a sand block and a table knife to chip away all the places I wanted the cabinet was ready to go. Now, I still need to build shelves for the inside, but I was thinking, "wouldn't it be adorable if this was more of a first aid looking medicine cabinet and my shelves on the inside could actually be a wine rack?" Well, that still all needs to be accomplished. I made my red plus sign out of just a plain piece of wood, some painters tape and distressed it with just a fine piece of sandpaper. But, even though the mirror is in pretty bad shape, I think I like it better just plain. Either way, my plan is to put this piece up in the little shop, so keep an eye out for it! xo libby

Old Shelf to New Entertainment Center

I've been dabbling in figuring out how to refurbish and distress furniture and here is one of my first creations. I found this shelf in my folk's backyard (yes, I promise we are not hoarders, but there are gems waiting to be discovered throughout my parents's house, garage, basement, yard.)


This one was quite the task. It had already been "kind of" painted and sealed, thus I learned alot about paint stripper. Boy does it burn if you get it on your skin. Rule number 1? Always wear glove and long pants. I was really surprised by how nice some of the wood underneath all that paint was, but sadly some of it was also really bad. Whenever I do a project like this I always have a big plan, but at each step I questions it. (Do I REALLY want to paint over this? Do I REALLY want to distress that nice crisp white paint? Stick to the plan, Libby.)


The paint stripping took most of the time, but once I got it primed it was ready to go and now it's just ready to be put into place. My dad helped me out and drilled holes in the back for all of those messy cords to go through. I have a large sheet of glass to put on the top shelf, but other than that all it needs is my TV and some old school Nintendo systems to decorate it.