My YouTube channel is finally here! Guys - I have been working on video content for a year now. I would film small clips of myself decorating or explaining wine to you, but I eventually deleted them and decided not to share because I thought they were low quality. I finally decided, who really cares if my videos aren't award-worthy? I'm going to film and share them anyways. ;)
I found a dresser on Facebook marketplace for FREE! I was the first person to contact this lovely lady and somehow scored this amazing find! I loved the way it looked when I got it, but the top of the dresser didn't match the original wood, there were paint drops in odd places...overall it needed some love. I decided to chalk paint this piece.
Ya'll...confession time....this is my very first time using chalk paint. I watched a few videos and read a few articles and decided I wanted to make my own tutorial. Everyone has their own style, and I wanted my paint to look slightly aged and dimensional.
I started off with two paint colors: an off-white and a light gray. I ended up purchasing a third color that was about 5 shades darker than the gray color, in order to achieve the distressed look I was going for. Once I was finished with my paint, I took a sander to the edges of drawers and the sides of the dresser to, once again, achieve an aged look. In this video tutorial, I will show you how to sand, paint, add dimension, and finish a piece of furniture using chalk paint.
Ahhhh Memorial Day. It feels like the unofficial first day of summer. Usually my husband and I go to the lake or the beach for the three day weekend, but we have been traveling so much recently I needed some time at home.
I am a sucker for holidays because it's a great excuse to host friends and decorate the house! This year I decided to spend the holiday out on our porch. I recently slapped a new coat of paint on it to brighten it for the summer. It was so drab before...the dark red floor and brown siding made the area feel like a cave. Ever since we (I) painted it, its been so bright and airy.
Rather than using cheesy decor covered in stars and stripes and super bright colors, I decided on soft pops of patriotic colors. I wanted to add at least one element of the flag, so I decided on red and white striped napkins. I found a full set of these hand-blown blue goblets at HomeGoods (shocking, am I right??). I love adding gold accents to almost all of my home because reflective elements add shine and make the other room items glow.
I added height to the table arrangement by using large glass hurricanes and pillar candles. These are great because they are functional as well as beautiful. When the sun goes down, you can enjoy a candlelit conversation.
I think someone is a fan of this space ;) .
You can save up to 30% off Pottery Barn by using code: SAVEMORE this weekend only. My napkins and placemats are from Pottery Barn and linked below!
Recently, I began updating my husband's office. He works from home so I really wanted to create a nice environment for him that was masculine and timeless. Let me just tell you, it was BAD before I began working on it. He had a rickety desk with no drawers, a matching printer stand that wobbles every time he would print something, mismatched artwork, and a multi-color poster of the United States that looks like it belongs in a kid's room.
His current desk chair was given to us by a family friend, and was somehow missing a chunk on the armrest. It worked well for a while, as it is comfortable, but it was such an eye sore. With my current obsession with the decor from Patina Farm, I really wanted to get him a great looking leather desk chair. They are so timeless and comfortable. My hope was to purchase a chair I found on Wayfair that had the perfect aged look to it. That was until I found this chair on Facebook for only $25...
This chair is 100% genuine leather, has a brass base, and is 40 years old. SCORE!
The picture on the internet made it look like the color was much more rich than it was in person. Although the color looks halfway decent in this picture, in person it was super outdated ('80s) and looked like the color of mud....not a good look.
The chair needed some love.
I started doing research and found that you can actually dye leather furniture. I couldn't find very many good tutorials on how to do it and one of the brands that many bloggers talked about from the past is no longer existent. Ergo, more research on my part.
There are 3 basic things you will need to dye a piece of furniture:
1) Deglazer (essentially this is acetone)
2) Leather dye
3) Sheen finish
My first task was to pick a color. I had a lot of anxiety over choosing the color because I didn't want the chair to be too dark. The swatches in the store were painted on a raw piece of hide, so how would it look on my already dark chair? The sales person suggested mixing two dyes together to achieve the color I wanted, but I ended up going with the color medium brown. Lucky for me, the dye remained true to color.
I am so happy I ended up going to a leather store instead of ordering them online because the colors looked so much different in person!
For my project, I ended up only needing one, 4 oz bottle of the dye, one bottle of deglaze, and one bottle of the sheen.
Here's the chair mid-dye...looking pretty good if I do say so myself.
And the finished product!
HOW TO DYE LEATHER FURNITURE
Materials:
Deglazer or acetone
Leather dye (they come in 4 oz. and 32 oz., this project only used 4 oz.)
Sheen finish
Rags
Dye applicator (my brand came with one)
Drop sheet or paper
Rubber gloves
Instructions:
For my project, I wanted this chair to look like a true antique piece, so I distressed the chair before I dyed it. To simply dye the chair, start the video at 3:15 to see me select my dye color in the leather store.
This video was taken from clips of my instagram stories while I was dyeing the chair.
