Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Pottery Barn / Goodwill Shelves

Since finding Ana's site, my list to build is 3 million miles long. I know how much things cost to build now, so I refuse to pay for things that are less quality than I could build on my own. Slight problem...I'm an Engineer 50 hours of the week. Time is not my friend.

To help save time on things, when I drop off stuff for donations to Goodwill, I scour to see if there's anything I can just refinish instead of building from scratch.


A few months back I came across two of these shelves.  They're Sophia shelves from Pottery Barn.


For $6.  SOLD!  They needed a little TLC though, so I got to work on refinishing them.  In my head I had a vision of finishing them the same way I did my mail holder, but with the turquoise (that I had left over from my sewing machine makeover) as the underneath layer, and white as the top layer.


First I painted it the turquoise color, and then I topped it with a thin layer of white.  After that all dried, I sanded with my 200 grit sandpaper and was not happy at all with my results.


Not exactly the look I was going for.  It wasn't awful, but it wasn't what I wanted either.  Back to the proverbial drawing board I went.

I decided to mix the turquoise with some of my glaze and a little bit of water and apply it to my shelves.


Too dark!  To lighten it up some, I mixed up some white paint, a little bit of water, and my turoquoise glaze together.


Too light!  Stupid shelves.  From there I started dipping between my turquoise glaze mix and my white/turquoise glaze mix until I came up with something I FINALLY liked.


And because I'm me, and I can't leave well enough alone, I glazed all of the edges.


After I matched that up in the room, I decided I liked the glaze a lot, so I glazed the entire bottom part of the shelves and left the top part with just the whitewash / turquoise color.  I had no idea these shelves would take this long to refinish, but sometimes working with color, and getting the color right is hard.

These shelves went in the someday kids room with the daybeds.  I've actually started calling this room the daybed room instead.  It's the room that my nieces / nephew will stay in when they come to visit, so I loaded the shelves up with things that reminded me of them.  I'm actually missing a picture of one of my nieces...I really need to update my picture selections.  It's on the mile long list.

Here they are on the wall (they're HEAVY!!!).


The tiny little monkey on the left shelf was given to me by one of my nieces as a birthday present.  I've found its perfect home!


I say the word fun a lot.  That little sign is perfect for me!


You know I couldn't leave out a details shot.  I'll end on a few full room shots.





For those of you that want the deets, here they are:
Paint: Behr's Aquatic Blue
Glaze:  Ralph Lauren in Smoke
Any white paint you have laying around.

For the whitewash / glaze mixes, I used twice as much paint as I did water and glaze.  So if I used 4 ounces of paint, I added 2 ounces of water and 2 ounces of glaze.  It all goes really far, so if you try this, don't mix too much!

Next up in this room...replacing the pillows so my living room can have pillows again.  Happy Wednesday!

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I'm linking up to the parties on my sidebar...go see what everyone else is re-crafting!




29 comments:

  1. I think they look wonderful and fit perfectly in your adorable room. Great job. :)

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  2. Glad you persevered and got the look you ended up with. They are perfect! And as a fellow bargain hunter, I like the starting price too. =)

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  3. These are great! The room is really starting to come together!

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  4. Wowzers those turned out great! The color you ended up with in the end is perfect - good job for sticking it out until you were happy! :o)

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  5. hot diggidy dog! looks great and what a steal!

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  6. Love them! so beautiful! And the day beds!

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  7. These are soooo THRIFTY and very PRETTY!!!

    Blessings,
    Linda

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  8. I love these. Saw this posting at Paisley Passions.
    I love all your ideas... definately inspiring me to try and redo some older furniture i have.
    Thanks!

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  9. Love your shelves and your perseverance. And the room looks great with all the color and your decor skills. Your shelves almost match the shelf I made last month, even down to the glazing. Love it!

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  10. Cute, cute shelves. Very nice job. Thanks for sharing.

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  11. They turned out so well. I'm a perfectionist also, so I know what you went through when re-doing them a few times (: And gotta say, they look perfect. Love the day beds, too. I saw them featured on Remodelaholic's blog the other day!

    Stopping by from the Shabby Chic Cottage link up.

    Happy Thursday!

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  12. What a great find!! I am jealous, I never find Pottery Barn items at my local thrift store. They turned out beautiful! Please stop by my blog on Sunday for my Show Off Sunday Party. I would love to share these with my followers. :)

    http://houseofthriftydecor.blogspot.com/

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  13. What a great find - I've been scouting GW for some shelves but haven't been THAT lucky!! And they turned out great - what a FUN color. :)

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  14. Nice finds and I like what you did with them. Followed your link over from Fab Friday. Drop by Atticmag and leave a comment for your chance to win Roxy bedding for Giveaway Friday.

    Allison
    Atticmag

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  15. cute cute cute cute CUTE!!! Love the color!

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  16. Your shelves look fantastic! You did an amazing job! Don't you just LOVE Goodwill!!!!

    S
    xo

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  17. Sometimes it's so hard to get the look you see in your minds eye. I don't know if it turned out like you envisioned, but I love the look!

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  18. GREAT JOB! At least you were willing to keep trying until you got it right! I usually just give up and call it good!

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  19. That glaze looks reeaaaaally good. Very cute shelves and what a steal!

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  20. Okay, that was a SCREAMING good deal! I am still in love with those day beds and now the colors of the shelves make them that much better! Thanks SO much for joining in on Thrilling Thursdays @ Paisley Passions. I hope to see you again next week :)
    ~Lori S.
    Thrilling Thursdays @Paisley Passions

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  21. Woo! What a score and I LURVE how you finished them off in that loverly shade of blue. Yummy.
    Visiting from Anything Related :)

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  22. Hi! I'm your newest follower. So glad I found your blog. I will be stopping by often!
    Love the shelves, and the room. Maybe I can learn from you..would love to make stuff, too. I have just been repurposing up until now..

    Stop by sometime!

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  23. Love the new look of the shelves. Great job! That room is just too cute with the daybeds and all those amazing pillows. Love it!

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  24. Persistence pays off, right? ;) Your hard work turned out really nicely...I love the glazing on the edges. Neat daybeds too! Stopping by as this week's CSI Judge. :)

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  25. Adorable shelves and I LOVE those day beds. Where did you get those beds?

    P.S. Now your latest follower :)

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  26. Hi Cozy Cape - I actually made both daybeds myself! Here's the second daybed post...there's a link to the first one in there : http://mekhart.blogspot.com/2010/08/double-vision-making-another-daybed.html. Thanks for the compliment!

    Thanks for the compliments everyone! Persistence DOES pay off!

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  27. Kara it looks fantastic! Who knew it would take so many tried to get the right color! :-)

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  28. It was worth all the work, the colour looks great! Such a nice daybed room too.

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