Mantel/Cabinet Update

One of the easiest ways to update my house is with paint. I've mentioned that the house is entirely white, not a single ounce of colour. Along with the rest of the white is this ugly yellow wood. It can be found in several places.

These places include my fireplace, my cabinet thing at the top of the stairs, and in the kitchen. The kitchen is for another post. The mantel and the cabinet are my top concerns. By painting these I brought my living room from the 1960's straight into the twenty-first century! Whoot.

Found a picture of the colour! That's the finished mantel under the paint can,
And that's the paint I used!

I used General Paint's top soil. I found a colour swatch on the internet but it doesn't do the colour justice. Truly the colour is like an expresso black. This colour was chosen because black is what most of my furniture is. Our TV stand, our book case, our chest, etcetra.

The key thing to painting furniture is to SAND SAND SAND!

Srsly. No really. If you don't sand, it'll peel. And then you'll have to do it over again. Which will SUCK! So sand. I used these handy dandy sanding blocks on the mantel. It was super easy.

I found on my mantel some of the areas that I didn't sand well enough started to peel and chip and I've since had to address that. Since working on the cabinets, I've decided that it's really important to prime. If I was to do this project again, I would take the time to prime, and I would recommend to anyone to prime. I have started working on the hand rail and I primed that after giving it a sand with the rotary sander.

Look at that gloss disappear!

The problem with the paint I choose was that it was a clear paint and required a few too many coats. Which meant that I needed on average 4-5 coats of paint to get the true colour I needed.

Two coats in. 

3 coats in. 

My process was:

1. Sand.
2. Paint
3. Paint
4. Sand
5. Paint
6. Sand
7. Paint

I know, it's a lot of sanding, but it's worth it. 

I don't have final pictures of this project either! I will get those to you ASAP! 

Anyways, I've decided that this isn't finished. The top isn't wearing as nicely as I wanted it to. So last weekend I picked up some gloss at General Paint, and I'm going to put a glossy top coat on it. I needed it for the hand rail, so might as well spread the love! One day when I get it all cleaned up and I have a moment, but I've got my kitchen in disarray right now! 

Fireplace Facelift

We had one of these horrible fire places. Horrible in that it is constructed of little yellow bricks and this horrible mantle. Case and point is illustrated in the poorly taken iPhone photo listed below.

It just looks like blah. Just blah. 

Doesn't get any better when you get up close and personal. 

Now, my mother was coming up the following weekend to help us paint (EVERY SINGLE WALL IN THIS HOUSE IS WHITE). I wanted a little project to pass the time before she arrived. So one rainy  Monday I found myself making the trip to Home Depot after spending the Sunday evening browsing pins and blogs. From my undocumented scour of the internet I had learnt a few things:

1. I'd need to clean the fireplace
   I have to admit I kinda skipped this step. I did buy a big metal brush, but I couldn't find the tsp at the Home Depot. So, I did scrub the inside with some soap and water, but I wanted to paint that day and I didn't have time to dry!
2. I'd need to prime the fireplace, if I wanted to use it, the primer would have to be heat resistance.
   I ended up just getting a regular primer, because lets' be honest, I don't want my house smelling like campfire. That scent is reserved for the outdoors only. 
3. Brick soaks up paint, so I'd need a lot of paint.
   I knew this going in, but when I got to Home Depot this slipped my mind and I only came home with a small can instead of a galleon of paint.
4. And, I'd need a coarse brush.
   Some sites had suggested a cheap one. I did buy one good one and one cheap one. Just buy a good one. Cheap ones loose their brissles in your paint and it looks like shit. Plus, I hear a brush will last for years if you take good care of it. 

So with that in mind, I bought a high quality CIL primer and got to work priming the fireplace with my square brush (no angle).

This was my finished product --- Two things will be noted--- THIS TOOK ME FOREVER!
And about half way through, I smartened up and started using my little 4 inch rolling brush with a coarse thick foamy on it. This really helped with the flat areas and getting the job done 'quicker'. I did two-three coats in the inside of the fireplace in the attempt of ensuring my soot would be covered up and not seep through and tarnish my all white fireplace.

All coated in primer! 

Now that it's all primed up, it was time to paint it. I thought it was already looking great, but it needed to look better.

Now this is where the fun begins!

It took one ENTIRE quart of primer to prime this sucker, so I knew I needed more paint than the little quart I picked up. I ran to General Pain instead of Home Depot (because of proximity) and picked up another similar white to the one I picked up. So with two quarts of paint, I did some mixing, and then began my painting process. While I stopped at General Paint, I also picked up a little 1inch brush to use with getting into the nooks and crannies a lot better.

My two paints! Similar shades of a blue/grey white. I hate how complicated White is.  

Mixing paint. 

Ready to go with all my handy tools, except my rolling brush.

If I thought priming took forever, painting takes forever. The brick sucks up paint like its nobody's business. Plus once you thought you had it, you really didn't. I ended up painting it about three times. Even now I see spots I need to patch. and mixed. It was a matter of checking every corner of the brick and more! 

Slowly begining to make progress! It's looking better.

Oh, and some cuteness, just because!

this is my puppy Caper, he's such a great help!

And this is the final job! I have started working on repainting on the mantel. When I get a moment to clean my living and get everything figured out, I'll post a picture! For now this is all there is.