Tea Staining Wood

Have you ever heard of staining wood with tea? Neither had until I got a free table. 

I loved my other table. It's still sitting off to the side waiting to be sold actually. But the drop sides led to the surface being a little uneven and the top wasn't real wood. When I told someone had an antique that had a bad finish and needed some work that was going to Salvation Army if I didn't want it, I jumped. 

I didn't know what to do with it so I left it as is while I thought about it and made sure the size worked for me. It had lots of scratches and water rings, which made me feel not guilty about possibly painting it. 

I finally decided I'd paint the legs white and stain the top. I found this great looking grey stain that I would stain it with after I got the original stain off.

It was a super super messy job. Note the floors.

I was covered in oak-colored dust. There is something about sanding furniture that helps me find myself. I got lots of great finding myself done and good music listened to. 

This was it when I was done. Isn't it soooo pretty? I wanted to leave it like that but knew I'd need to protect it if we'd be eating on it.

So I got my gloves and brush and went to work

Here it is after getting it all on. It was really close to the cabinet color so I was hoping it would coordinate well

Here it is after rubbing off the stain. I HATED it. Maybe this is someone's cup of tea, but it's not mine. 

So I was back to square one. And I remembered my french doors directly behind the table and realized it'd make my life and clean up MUCH easier if I just dragged the table out there to sand. The grey stain was way harder to get off than the oak for sure. After 2 days of sanding I got the table mostly back to its bare glory. My mom sent me a link about tea stain as a possible idea for the table. 

So I grabbed a glass jar, some steel wool, and vinegar. 

Rip/pull apart the steel wool and pour vinegar over it to completely cover it. Loosely put the lid on and put it in a dry cool place for at least 24 hours. 

While I was waiting the pets and I sanded

Taped and painted

and moved it back in

Again I adored the rough top but needed to protect it. I decided that if the tea thing didn't work I'd sand it and leave it as is. 

Next you brew some strong hot tea. After it's cooled brush it on. 

This was it going on

Here it is after it dries. The top went back to the way it looked before. Here is the "stain" after it's ready. It looks no different. I was quite sure that it wouldn't work since it didn't smell any different from vinegar and was clear. How nice to work with something easy on the lungs!

Here it looks after brushing it on. I knew that it really worked when I saw the marks that it left when I accidentally touched it to the white paint. It didn't come off either! 

Here it is about 5 minutes after brushing it on to one side of the table 

Here it is after 15:

And after an hour:

Doesn't it look good? I love that it's natural and rustic and not 100% painted like the rest of the kitchen

After it dried I gave it a couple of coats of polyacrylic

I love it. It's weathered but slick looking

And it has some really cool looking depth

It was so easy and fume free to tea stain! I will definitely do that before Minwax next time!

Bar Stool Makeover

Since I got this table I've needed a seat for it

I was looking at something like these from Target:

When I remembered my old bar stools:

They were out in the middle of the basement for a long long time. They are really high though. If I wanted to use them something had to change

We don't have a saw but my brother did. I marked 7" up on the stools and my brother came over and chopped

They were a little unsteady with the second set of crossbars not there. But, we needed to trim those down to fit into a narrower place. So we pulled out the traditional saw and got sawing:

Then I made some paint. I wanted this to be another free project and I thought grey would work perfectly down there. I pulled out my old samples from this project and started mixing

This is it  after two coats. I didn't care for how flat it was though and wanted to coat it with poly acrylic 

See how much better it looks with a gloss? (and that we still haven't sold the dumb couch)

My drill battery is having some issues at the moment so I haven't reattached the crossbars so this is the 95% done after-shot! 

What do you think? I'm loving the free makeover!

$18 Master Bedroom Makeover

After writing this post about wanting to redo some things in my house (mainly my bedroom) I couldn't stop thinking about it. This was my master bedroom:

 I got one $14 set of curtains (somehow forgetting I have TWO windows in my bedroom!!!) when I was picking up wedding stuff at Ikea. I'd seen posts like this about people adding some color to them and wanted to do the same. I'll write a post all about the project next, but for the sake of instant gratification here is what the "after" looked like when I decided to not return the set of curtains, but to instead use them to cover my chair… again:

 Then I decided to get rid of the green. As I'd stated in my big plan post I was going to paint this DARK grey and the walls elsewhere a very light grey. 

 I decided that was way too much work and the white was good. I had leftover light grey from the dining room stencil project and the bathroom so I figured I'd use that to cover the green. 

 By last night my room was in chaos and I was out only $14 and was seeing some big changes!

 I was able to exchange some duplicate items from my shower and get the other items I needed for "free!" I picked up these great dark grey flannel sheets

 They have this perfect textured look. Now the room is neutral enough that I can use my old dark green sheets, as well as the Tiffany Blue, and white ones and they'll all compliment the room nicely!

 I also took down these leaf pictures from a friend of mine that I love. I think she got them at Hobby Lobby. She has yellow at her house and I have green. I decided to make them yellow like hers. 

 I started by peeling off the leaves and picking up 3 sheets of $.69 textured scrapbook paper

 Then I used leftover yellow paint from my various projects to yellow these guys:

 Here is the after:

 And here is the complete reveal… Fit for a We instead of just a Me!

 The room is pretty much done by Target. Namely, their Threshold collection which is my favorite thing in this world. I registered and received the cable knit pillow and throw (they can be seen in my living room photos from last week) and the duvet cover. I also used my swap out to get the the lamp and lampshade. 

 Linus loves it and loves that he matches the sheets. We also got a memory foam topper for the mattress. Since I put it on Linus is OBSESSED with the bed. I lint roll it non stop now.

All of it was done for $18 dollars in 24 hours!!!