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Painted Tile Backsplash in My Kitchen–A Year Later

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Christy

First of all, we have a giveaway winner. Thanks to all who entered the giveaway for the vinyl house numbers, and congratulations to Kathy S., who said, ”Love following you on Pinterest..such a neat idea!!!!! Would love a set of these house numbers!” Well, girl, it’s your lucky day. Check your inbox because I just messaged you. To everyone else, thanks for playing. We’ll do another one soon, okay?

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If you’re like me, sometimes you wonder how projects hold up over time. Remember in late 2011, when I decided to paint my ceramic tile kitchen backsplash on a whim? My reasoning was that it was going to be torn down and replaced anyway, so why not try to paint it first? I had nothing to lose, after all. It’s been almost 18 months since then, and I’m happy to report that it still looks great and I still love the look. The photos above and below were taken today, and the backsplash still looks terrific.

If you haven’t read the saga of my kitchen redo, Part 1 is {here} and Part 2 is {here}. If you’ve been following for awhile, then you know that the finished product caught the eye of Bonnie Broten, editor at Better Homes & Gardens Kitchen + Bath Makeovers, and the kitchen was photographed for the Spring 2013 issue. I announced that big news when I showed you my pantry redo {here}. By the way, the magazine is due out on newsstands literally any day now, so keep an eye open for it!

When I finished part 1 of my kitchen redo, the tile backsplash was its original brown/tan color. Here’s how it looked:

It was okay, but not great. Our previous home, in North Carolina {here}, had white subway tile in the kitchen, which I loved. I planned to take this tile down and put that up, but then I decided to paint it first, just in case I liked it and could save myself some time. I’m so glad I decided to give it a try!

Here’s the after, part 2!

I talked about the process in Part 2 of my kitchen post, and here’s the section about painting the tile:

“After I painted the walls, I turned to the backsplash. I read up on painting tile, and decided that I really had nothing to lose, because I was already planning on taking the backsplash down. Why not try to paint it first and see if I could save time and money? The brown of the tile really clashed with my countertops–they have some brown in them but they’re really more gray. The warm and the cool tones right next to each other really bothered me (my husband thought I was nuts about that, although he admits that he likes the result).

First, I scrubbed the tiles really well. TSP works great, and I also used rubbing alcohol to degrease the tiles. Next, I had to wait a day or two before priming to let the grout dry (I HATE to wait to start a project!). I tried to sand the tiles but they were too hard to really get roughed up by the sandpaper, so I was sure to use a primer for glossy surfaces that specifically mentioned ceramic tile (Zinsser Bulls-Eye 123; although sometimes I use their oil based primer in the gold can, too). I primed with one coat, and then applied two coats of oil-based paint. I bought a quart of Behr from Home Depot, tinted to match White Dove at half strength. I used a brush to prime and paint–you really have to work a bit to get the paint into the grout and a roller just wasn’t cutting it. Plus, I have some decorative tiles that needed extra attention. While I think I should add a clear coat at some point, I’m really happy with how it’s turned out, and I’ve been able to wipe splatters off without removing any paint.”

Here are a few more “after” shots, taken today.

I have NOT put a clear coat on top of the oil-based paint, and I haven’t needed to. I chipped a tiny piece of paint away when a silver platter hit it, but I filled that in with some extra paint and it covered it beautifully. To clean it, I just used a damp sponge, although if I have a lot of splatters I use a spray cleaner (I make my own or use Method ones) and the abrasive side of the sponge. Splatters and grease wipe away easily and the oil-based paint is incredible durable.

The bottom line is that if you want to paint your tile, then I think it’s an incredibly fast, easy, and inexpensive way to change things up a bit. Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Before and After, DIY, Kitchens | Tagged backsplash, ceramic, durability, kitchen, painted, tile | 9 Comments

Dining Room Update–Painted Curtains

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Christy

I posted on my dining room back in October {read that post HERE}. It’s the first room you see when you walk into my house, and it was my least favorite. I couldn’t allow that to happen! So, I sold the rug and window treatments on Craigslist, painted, hung open shelving, turned two art prints into chalkboards, recovered my piano bench with gray chevron fabric, painted an old metal stool metallic silver, and stuck shelf paper on the door panels of the serving buffet. Phew!

The lady who bought my window treatments through Craigslist was super-nice. She liked the way I had decorated my house, and wound up being my very first decorating client. Hi, Tina!

As a random aside, the stuff I sold on Craigslist more than covered the cost of the paint and supplies I bought to redo the room. This is a very important point, and I’m throwing it in here specifically for the benefit of my dear husband (who reads all of my posts) and who probably wonders why I have to redecorate rooms more than once. See, honey, it didn’t cost a thing!

Here was what I started with:

Dining room “before” at 11 Magnolia Lane

And here is how it looked when I was done with it. Harley is sorry he ripped the antique hooked wool rug.!

Dining Room “after” at 11 Magnolia Lane

The only thing that was left was window treatments, but as Christmas was coming at me like a speeding bullet train, I had to put them on the back burner for awhile. Here was what we stared at for a couple of months:

Window area in dining room at 11 Magnolia Lane

Part of my goal for this room was to make it look more casual. Dining rooms are rarely used anymore for very formal dinners–the way we eat and entertain has certainly changed over the last few years, hasn’t it? I decided that the horizontally striped painted curtains that I’ve seen all over Pinterest would be a great, inexpensive way to add visual interest and tie the room together.

I bought the cheapest white panels at Target that I could find ($15 for two panels). In hindsight, I should have spent $30 on the fabric that was a smooth cotton duck because it’s easier to maintain a line that doesn’t bleed, but that’s okay. I was after quick and cheap here, not perfect!

Using painter’s tape and a level, I taped stripes that would be approximately 9″ thick. I wanted a gray stripe at the top and the bottom, to ground the drapes, so I did the math accordingly. I also put a big “X” in the middle of the stripes that I needed to paint so I wouldn’t get mixed up (this has been known to happen on rare occasion). Note that the stripes don’t look even, because the tape goes inside the line on the stripes that stay white and makes those stripes look smaller. Does that make sense?

Dining room drapes taped for painting

Then my daughter and I painted for awhile (!). I used Fawn Brindle by Sherwin Williams–remember, I used half-strength Fawn Brindle on the dining room walls, so this was slightly darker. A contrasting color stripe would have been cute, too, if I was using an accent color in this room. Yellow, anyone?

Dining room curtains--painted in stripes

It took those suckers awhile to dry, and when they did the dried paint was stiff! I used the wire drapery hangers (Hobby Lobby, $2) to hang them onto the curtain rings. You’ll see that I kept my heavy black rods and rings when I sold the original drapes on Craigslist–oftentimes the drapery hardware is more expensive than the window treatments themselves!

Even though the stripes aren’t quite perfect and there’s some bleed-through, I love them. A $30 fix was exactly what I was after. Since we’ll be renting this house when we move this summer, I won’t feel bad leaving $30 window treatments behind if the tenants want to keep them.

Here are the after shots. I actually really like the way the sun shines through the stripes.

Striped painted window treatments at 11 Magnolia Lane

Dining room at 11 Magnolia Lane

If we were going to be here longer, I’d buy a new rug–maybe jute or seagrass–and paint the table and chairs, but for now I’ll wait until we’re in our next house. The movers always mess up my furniture, anyway, and the dining table might not even survive the next move.

That’s it–what do you think? I’m always amazed and you can really, truly, paint almost anything.

Thanks for stopping by!

christy name pic

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Posted in Before and After, DIY, Home Inspiration | Tagged curtains, dining, drapes, painted, room, striped | 12 Comments

Progress in My Dining Room–Open Shelving and Chevrons!

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Christy

Sneak peek of the “after”

**There’s still time to enter our giveaway for a hand-stamped silver necklace from Pure Gratitude. Click {here} to read about it!**

I’ve been working on my dining room over the past few weeks. It’s the first room you see when you enter our home, and it’s always been my least favorite. I had two goals: to make it more welcoming and casual. Right now, we only use our dining room two or three times a year, and I’m convinced it’s because it’s such a formal room–and we’re not really formal people!

When we moved in, the walls were a deep chocolate brown and the trey ceiling was faux finished with a brown and gold treatment. The window treatments were lovely, but made the room really dark, and the paint color sucked all the light out of the room. I also wasn’t a fan of the chandelier. Here’s a “before” picture I dug out from my house hunting pictures.

Last summer, I scored a Ballard Grande Claire chandelier on Craigslist for $100, and sold the old one on Craigslist for $100. That worked out well, huh? My sweet husband painted the walls while the kids and I were away (“Camouflage” by Benjamin Moore) and we lived with it like this for about a year, but it wasn’t exactly right:

The week of Halloween, I reached the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I sold the drapes on Craigslist (and they went FAST) and rolled up the antique hooked wool rug that our sweet rescue dog ripped last month. He didn’t mean to, but he was chasing the cat and skidded out. I think the room looks better without it, anyway.

I painted the walls “Fawn Brindle” by Sherwin Williams, but mixed at only half strength so it would be lighter. We have that color in our living room/great room so I wanted there to be a slight contrast with the rest of the downstairs. The painting went quickly because the bottom half of the walls is wainscoting and two walls are open to the living room.

Next, I decided to install open shelving over the buffet. I used Amy’s idea from her kitchen, and built my shelves from stair treads and corbels (both from Home Depot). At my store, they were in the same row. Here are the corbels I used:

I spray painted the corbels and the stair treads and hung them. In hindsight, I’d put them a little lower to make them more functional for storing dishes and serving pieces, but then I wouldn’t have had room to put the silver platter on the wall, and I really like it there. Read about how to hang silver platters easily {here}.

The next thing I did was to add a little chevron shelf paper to the doors of the buffet. I bought a couple of rolls when Amy found them at TJ Maxx and used them to redo her pantry and her butler’s pantry. LOVE the chevrons, and I should be able to just peel the paper off if/when I change my mind.

I pulled these two prints off the wall (I bought them at a thrift store in Virginia when we lived there) and decided to turn the gorgeous frames into chalkboards. Here’s the before:

And the after:

I hung the two frames on either side of the shelving–I’m a big fan of symmetry! Oh, and chalkboard art is TOUGH–but I’m going to keep practicing.

I moved the guitars upstairs and had a free corner to the right of the buffet. I decided to bring in a little antique metal stool that hasn’t really had a home in this house. It was painted celery green but I gave it a coat of metallic silver to make it look a bit more industrial. Here’s how it turned out:

Now we’re ready to have small visitors come to dinner!

Hobby Lobby is selling gray chevron fabric right now, so I bought enough to cover the piano bench:

Now, it’s not done yet. The windows are bare, although my plan is to buy plain white panels from Ikea or Target and paint stripes on them.

Here’s where we are so far:

Vintage decanters on the buffet serve as my bar area:

My mom and dad’s wedding announcement always gets pride of place:

If you’re really observant you can tell that I continued to tweak the styling and things aren’t in the same place in all of the pictures. Here’s a wide shot:

See Harley in the corner? He’s really sorry about the rug!

I left the ceiling brown; I had debated painting it a deeper gray, but with the antique bronze/gold of the chandelier and the brown wood of the furniture, it worked to keep it the way it was.

Here’s the BIG question, though, and I need everyone’s advice. I am seriously considering painting the table, chairs, and buffet. The table was seriously damaged in our last move (thanks so much, Atlas Van Lines!) and I’m going to have to take it apart anyway to try to repair the pedestals. The tabletop is damaged, too. So, I’d love your feedback on whether or not to paint; if so, what color (white? gray?), and also your opinions on different methods. I’ve never used chalk paint and hear it’s the bomb. Thanks in advance for your input, and thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in DIY, Home Inspiration, Real Spaces | Tagged chalkboard, chevron, Dining Room, gray, Grey, open shelving, painted, silver | 18 Comments

Stair Redo with Painted Treads and Beadboard Risers

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Christy

Because I have my entire powder room ripped apart right now and it’s nowhere near ready to show you yet, today I’m sharing a project done by good friends who we met when we lived in Virginia Beach–Steve and Robyn. Despite several moves (all on our side ) our families have remained close, and most recently Robyn visited us so that we could run the Country Music Half Marathon together. Or, more accurately, we both were running the same course on the same morning, but she managed to finish it in record time and I just managed to finish!

Here we are post-race, with the gorgeous Nashville skyline behind us:

And because she’ll probably be annoyed that I shared a photo of her looking less than her usual glamorous best, here we are the same night (after blissful showers and a big nap!) enjoying a post-run margarita:

But I digress, because we’re talking about stairs here, and not margaritas, right? That’s a shame…

Steve and Robyn decided to get new carpet in their house, and as so often happens, one change led to several must-do projects. As they ripped the old carpet off their stairs (they were completely covered in carpet although I don’t have a before picture), they realized that they wanted to go with a different look. I had sent Robyn a blog post written by Miriam at Prudent Projects (read it HERE), and it gave them some inspiration to get to work on their stairs! They wound up with a dark espresso brown banister and treads, and crisp white spindles and beadboard risers–gorgeous! Here’s what they did to get these fabulous results:

1. Yanked up the old carpet (underneath they found MDF stair treads, but they did have a nice bullnose, or round, edge on the front).

2. Hung sheets to protect the doors to as many rooms as possible from sanding dust (this was a smart step and one that I usually skip, I’ll admit).

3. Sanded, sanded, and sanded the treads, banister, and spindles.

4. Caulked the edges, where the stair treads meet the wall and the banister.

5. Primed the stair treads with gripper gray primer and also primed the banister and spindles with regular primer.

6. Painted the banister with this lovely dark brown paint from Home Depot:

And below is the color match formula if you’re interested:

Here’s the banister before (hi, Steve):

And after:

7. The spindles got a couple of coats of white (just regular white latex off the shelves). Robyn said that everything got one coat of primer and two coats of paint (either dark brown or white). She also said there was a lot of painting and repainting around spindles to make sure that white areas were only white (with no brown smears) and vice versa. I don’t doubt it!

8. Next, the stair treads got two coats of espresso brown. Robyn reports that they sent the kids to sleep over at her mom and dad’s house that night, and she and Steve ate sushi and watched a movie downstairs while the treads were drying in between coats. You could also paint every other stair so that you could still climb the steps two at a time during a project like this, although that doesn’t sound quite as much fun as dinner and a movie!

9. After the treads were painted, they added the beadboard to the risers. They bought one of the big sheets (I think they’re 4′ x 8′) and Steve cut them to fit on his table saw. They adhered them with glue, and while they did caulk around the edges, they didn’t paint the beadboard–it was already white and Robyn said they didn’t need to.

It took the two of them three full days to complete this project, due to the multiple coats of primer and paint and the detailed painting work required. However, they’re so pleased with the results. They did add a carpet runner to protect their hard work–plus, with two kids and a dog, the stairs are in heavy use all day long. Let me know if you have any questions for Robyn and I’ll have her answer them.

Here are a few more “after” shots–I love the way she styled her steps!

Great job, guys! I’m almost inspired to rip up the carpeting on my stairs and see what I find! Thanks for sharing your project with us, Robyn and Steve, and thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Before and After, DIY, Home Inspiration | Tagged bead board, beadboard, cottage, painted, redo, risers, stair, treads | 15 Comments

Kitchen Redo Reveal–From Darkness to Light!

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Christy

**If you’re visiting us from my guest post on The DIY Showoff, then welcome! Thanks, Roeshel, for featuring my kitchen and laundry rooms on your blog today. If you’re a Magnolia Lane follower and haven’t checked out DIY Showoff yet, then you’re in for a real treat.**

So, I finished this project in August, but I’m just now writing about it. I think it’s because the project itself wore me out so much that I didn’t even want to think about it anymore, much less write about it. It’s still not completely finished, either, and that’s probably part of my reluctance to reveal since I consider it a job undone. I’ll tell you all about what I still need to do at the end of the post…you’ll get full disclosure here! Prepare yourselves, though, because this is of necessity a long post, with lots of pictures.

The background info is that we moved in June, from North Carolina to Tennessee. My husband is in the military, so moving is something that we do often and well. However, since we were living in my *dream house* in North Carolina, this was a harder move than usual. (FYI: If you’ve been following us for any amount of time, all of my pre-June 2011 posts will feature the old house) In hindsight, I realize full well that I was completely spoiled and that all other houses will be second-rate from this point forward. My husband didn’t quite have to drag me out of there by my fingernails, but a few tears were shed!

I miss you, Old House!

Our new house is just fine. It’s about 90 years newer and while it’s not my “forever house,” I realize that we are incredibly fortunate and blessed to have such a lovely place to live. I’ve spent the last few months beginning to make it our own.

Our new house–slowly but surely we’re making it home.

OK, here’s where we get to the deal-breaker. Again, I was spoiled, but here are a couple of pictures of my OLD kitchen:

The kitchen in our old house was my dream kitchen.

We loved the built in banquette around the eating area.

The Sub-Zero fridge was kind of nice, too (sigh).

I’m missing the pictures of the beautiful French doors out onto the screened porch, but I have to stop here, or I’m going to get misty! Again, I was spoiled. This was NOT a contractor-grade kitchen, by any stretch of the imagination. Now, let me show you the photos of the kitchen in our NEW house, and you’ll understand why I had to take immediate action!

Forgive the mess on the island; the home inspector was here that day.

Dark, dreary, and dated–what else could you want? (this is the previous owner’s decor)

I liked the rest of the house, but I hated the kitchen. I like everything to be bright, white, and light-filled. I hated the dark cherry cabinets (I know, some people like them, but they’re just not my thing), the tons of potlights (not even a chandelier over the breakfast nook), the black appliances, and the backsplash. I did like the countertops (Corian and granite) and the hardwood floors, though.

So, I knew that I was going to paint the kitchen cabinets, and I also knew it was going to be a really hard job. I didn’t give you a 360-degree view of the kitchen, but there are cabinets around the fridge area and in the island, as well as a built-in desk. All told, I have 27 cabinet doors and 20 drawers. I figured this wouldn’t be a weekend project, and wow, was I right. It took me five weeks! Oh, and Amy and her kids came to visit for a week and half in the middle. Only a very, very good friend would put up with the kind of mess we had around here, and she even helped me sand!

I am so Type A that even looking at this picture makes my teeth hurt!

There are tons of great tutorials out there on how to paint your kitchen cabinets, so I won’t go into great detail, other than to say that I read them all first and I didn’t cut any corners. I used Zinsser’s oil based primer (in the gold can) to prime and Benjamin Moore’s Satin Impervo oil paint in Dove White (two coats) for the cabinets, and I’m really pleased with those choices. I brushed the cabinets rather than spraying them since I don’t know how to use a sprayer and I was born holding a paintbrush, but in hindsight I’d probably pay someone to spray the doors. Mine look good, but it would have saved me days. I also thought about glazing them (and still might, one day, once I’ve recovered) but haven’t yet.

Failure to plan is planning to fail!

I also came up with a plan ahead of time, since one thing I wanted to do was add trim, molding, and feet to make my cabinets look more custom and built in. I used my miter saw heavily for this project, and this blog post by Diane at In My Own Style was so helpful in my planning. I trimmed all around my island and at either end cabinet on my walls, and added feet under the sink and the cooktop.

I bought all of the trim at Home Depot, and the “feet” aren’t really feet. They’re in the no-miter molding section, which is funny because I cut miters all through this kitchen but still bought the no-trim pieces just because they’re decorative. I used Liquid Nails and finish nails to hold everything in place, and I painted the trim and feet before I put them into place.

Once all the hardware is off, you remove the cabinet doors (label them so you know which ones are which) and wash everything down. Then you sand, wipe down again, prime, sand, wipe down again, paint, sand, wipe down again, and finally–paint again! I put my doors on cans but obviously they took a LONG time, since they have to dry thoroughly before you can flip them and paint the other side. My family is so needy, too–they expected me to cook and feed them during the month that this was going on! Once you’ve rehung the doors and drawers, you just have to put on the hardware and caulk (I used two tubes of caulk–you can see every gap when your cabinets are white!).

The dining room is a great workshop!

I ordered new hardware from Amazon (brushed nickel knobs and pin pulls) and sold the old ones on Craigslist. The hardware was incredibly reasonable on Amazon, plus I got free shipping, and no tax, which is a big deal in Tennessee where sales tax is 10%. I also bought a new bridge faucet on Amazon for under $200 and threw the old one away (contractor-grade with a nasty big water filter thing stuck on it). We had a devil of a time getting the old faucet off, for some reason, but once the new one was on, I was thrilled. Ignore the backsplash, it’s going away soon.

Brushed nickel bridge faucet

Brushed nickel bin pulls

We also sprung for a new French-door stainless steel refrigerator and a new stainless steel dishwasher. We sold the old appliances on Craigslist and probably covered the cost of all that Satin Impervo paint I used! That stuff is expensive, by the way. Good, but expensive.

I also painted the walls. They were blue, and while I like the color and kept it in my laundry room, I wanted to continue to brighten up this room. The screened porch is right off the kitchen and blocks a lot of the light, so I wanted to help it along any way I could. I painted the walls Old Prairie by Benjamin Moore (I used their Aura paint and it gave me single-coat coverage over the blue without primer), but I think I’m going to repaint them in BM’s Camouflage when I have the time.

Last, but not least, I ordered three of the recessed-to-pendant light adapters from Ballard Designs (they were on sale–score!) to put over the island and the table to define those spaces. I chose the seagrass drum shades to add a little texture, plus I thought they’d coordinate with the rush seats on the counter stools. I also hung a balloon shade that I already had over the sink. So, drumroll please, here is the reveal:

Ahh, much better!

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The counter stools are from Amazon, and were a little less than Ballard was charging for pretty much the exact same ones. My four mismatched kitchen chairs are from Goodwill; I painted them a few houses ago so they’d all “match.” The antique oak pedestal table is off Craigslist–my grandmother had one just like and it weighs a ton. The hooks on the island are from Hobby Lobby. I was tempted to add beadboard around the island, but realized I’d probably have to buy a table saw to get that job done, so I bagged it (for now).

The island–topped with black granite.

You can see the completed trim work on the end cabinet below–not bad, if I do say so myself!

I added “feet” under the sink and the cooktop areas.

I decided to mix the hardware up a bit in the desk area, so I put up these “B” knobs that I found at Hobby Lobby a few years ago (but they still have them if you’re in the market). They move with us!

I’ve never met a “B” I didn’t like!

So there it is–my new kitchen, otherwise known as “what I did for my entire summer vacation.” I mentioned that I still have things to do, because of course, it’s never really done. Here’s the short (haha) list: get the pantry organized and awesome like in our old house (read about that here), repaint the walls in Benjamin Moore’s Camouflage, figure out a window treatment for the sliding doors that lead out to the screened porch, replace the black wall ovens with stainless (as soon as I find $2500 sitting around), run a gas line to the kitchen and change out the ceramic cooktop for a gas one, take down the ugly black exhaust hood (that isn’t even vented to the outside even though it’s on an exterior wall–grrr!) and replace it was a really cool custom one, put glass panels in a couple of cabinet doors, add under-cabinet lighting, find a wine fridge on Craigslist that fits next to the desk, and, last but not least, take down the backsplash and replace it with something white (subway tile? marble? pressed tin?). Do you see why I consider it only half done, with a to-do list that long? Thanks for sticking with me through such a hideously long post. I feel much better now that I’ve gotten it all out, though, and I hope you’ll hang around through the rest of the updates. I have to hurry–we’ll be moving in another year and a half!