Paint Colors | Beneath My Heart

How I Painted my Vanity with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint

September 4, 2012 AT 9:36 am 47 Comments

September 4, 2012 By traci 47 Comments

Hey, friends!

I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!

Today, I wanted to show you how I painted the vanity in yesterday’s post.

Warning: I am not a professional painter and never will be. Smile

There is no special or secret method that I use.

Basically, I paint, I sand, I seal.

For this project, I decided to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I have attended one of Annie Sloan’s workshops on her American tour, but I have never painted a piece of furniture with her paint.

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Although I have wanted to for a long time.

I have heard GREAT things about ASCP. The qualities I am most attracted to is that you don’t have to prime or sand a piece of furniture before painting with ASCP, and it distresses beautifully.

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If you want to know more about Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, I highly suggest you reading about it HERE, from Shaunna at Imperfectly Perfect. She also sells ASCP, so if you want to purchase some, go HERE.

The color of ASCP I chose is called French Linen.

Product Image 3

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Since I didn’t have to prime or sand, I just began painting with my regular paint brush.

When the paint is wet, it is several shades lighter than the finished color. It will dry into a deep, warm, beautiful gray.

It dries fairly quick. I painted two coats.

Then I sanded the dresser with a sanding sponge on all the raised areas.

It was late at night when I took the next two pictures, so I used a flash. That is why the paint looks like a different color.

After I sanded the raised areas, it was ready to wax.

Before you wax it, the paint looks dry and chalky.

But when you apply the Annie Sloan Clear Wax, that is when the REAL beauty of the paint comes out!

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(For a great video on how to apply ASCP wax, watch Shaunna’s video HERE.)

Annie Sloan has awesome brushes to apply the wax, but I don’t own one. Sad smile So I just used a cheese cloth. I am hoping to buy one of her brushes soon, but they are a little bit pricey.

I was smiling from ear to ear and filling pretty giddy when I was waxing this piece.

Girls, I was falling in love. Ooh-la-la!

I cannot tell you how much I love this color of paint!

The original hardware looks amazing on this piece. It’s old tarnished brass, I believe.

Painting this vanity was exactly what this bathroom needed.

I’m gonna see how the wax holds up to water drops around the sink. I talked to Shaunna, and she said it should be fine. But if I need to, I will apply Minwax Wipe-on Poly.

That’s it!

SUPER easy.

I love ASCP! It’s pretty pricey, though. Over $30 for a quart. But you don’t have to buy primer, which is nice. It was definitely worth the extra splurge on this piece.

If you have any questions, just let me know. I’ll try my best to answer them.

Have you ever used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint?

What did you think of it?

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Filed Under bathrooms, furniture makeover, makeover, makeovers, paint, Paint Colors 47 Comments

A Great Tool To Use When Looking For That Perfect Paint Color! {My Image Inspiration}

March 15, 2012 AT 10:44 am 3 Comments

March 15, 2012 By traci 3 Comments

Hey, friends!

About two weeks ago, I introduced you to a great new website by Glidden called My Colortopia.

In my post, I shared with you how picking out paint colors for my home makes me nervous. I am always afraid I will pick the wrong color.

I also showed you a simple quiz you could take at Well, My Colortopia has another great online tool as well. It is called My Image Inspiration.

My Image Inspiration helps you choose a paint color based on an inspiration piece. It could be a painting, a piece of furniture, a pillow, a photo, or anything else you could think of.

The process is soooo simple.

All you have to do is upload an inspiration picture, choose a section of the photo that you really like the colors in, and then My Image Inspiration generates colors that it picked out of the photo.

Let me show you how I did it.

One of my favorite pictures right now is one I had taken for my blog. (Not because it’s of me! I just love the color schemes in this picture.)

Click on “READ MORE” to see how I used this picture of me to help me pick out some beautiful paint colors!!!

[Read more...]

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Filed Under Paint Colors, Sponsored 3 Comments

DIY Board and Batten Tutorial (in our laundry room)

December 1, 2010 AT 12:12 am 28 Comments

December 1, 2010 By traci 28 Comments

I absolutely love board and batten walls, don’t you?

I mean, they make my heart smile when I see them. ;)

There is something so warm and inviting about them.

I have been wanting to put up some board and batten walls somewhere in my home. Anywhere…

My first choice was Adam’s room. Eli will be moving in with him soon which makes for a perfect excuse for a room re-do, right?

And this is my inspiration photo for their room…

(Pottery Barn)

Why do I show you that when there is no board and batten walls in the picture. Well…it might just be the reason that our laundry room now has brown walls above the board and batten!

I absolutely love it! Brown is the perfect color for a “mud” room, don’t you think?

Several of you have asked me the paint color and it is called Shutter Brown. I got it at Lowe’s and used a Valspar satin finish paint.

Here is a quick DIY tutorial of how my husband installed the board and batten. It is so easy it is ridiculous!

First, he measured about 5 feet up the wall and installed a 1 x 4 around the perimeter of the laundry room. You can put the top 1 x 4 piece at whatever height you desire. We also added a little trim piece to give the top of the wall a “ledge”, but that is not necessary to achieve the look of a board and batten wall.

For our baseboard, we also used a 1 x 4 piece of wood around the perimeter of the room.

Next, we used a tape measure and level to mark lines on the wall every 14 inches apart. We were originally going to run our vertical boards every 12 inches, but they interfered with the electrical outlets. So every 14 inches worked best for us. You do whatever distance you like best. :)

As you can see, we had to draw our pencil lines several times before we found the right distance between boards! In the picture below, we just have the boards fitted in between the two 1 x 4′s, they are not glued on yet.

Since every vertical board will not have a stud behind the drywall to nail into, you need to adhere the vertical boards with “liquid nails”. This stuff is the bomb-diggity!

liquid nails

Put the liquid nails in a glue gun(that is nice and clean like my hubby’s) and squeeze out a strip of the “good stuff” onto the back of the 1 x2 board.

When you place the 1 x 2 on the wall, make sure you use a level to double check that it is on the wall straight!

Once you have that complete, all that is left to do is paint!

My husband used a Valspar interior white paint in “satin” for the walls. He used the Valspar Signature interior white paint in “semi-gloss” for the wood pieces.

I really love the way it turned out! I love how my husband can turn the dreams in my head into reality! He just gets me! :)

And don’t you think my $3.00 pendant light makeover goes great with the board and batten walls? I do!

We are almost finished with the laundry room, but now I need to accessorize. (the fun part!)

I’ll share more soon…

P.S. This is the last week to order one of my Personalized Gingerbread Family Ornaments. I would love to make one for you! Just click on my the picture below, and it will take you to my Etsy shop!

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Filed Under laundry room, makeover, makeovers, Paint Colors 28 Comments

The Inspiration for Painting my Kitchen…

August 22, 2009 AT 9:17 am 21 Comments

August 22, 2009 By 21 Comments

I fell in love with this house in the Summer 2009 publication of Better Homes and Garden “Decorating” magazine.

I noticed how the white trim really stood out against the paint color of the walls.

I have always loved the contrast of black and white.

Look at this beautiful monogram…

There are so many different patterns in this house, but they go together perfectly.

I LOVE this home office with the adorable touches of pink. I need more pink in my house!

Look how beautiful the burlap curtains are in this bedroom…

And I’m loving this chair…I saw an old chair like this at Goodwill that I’m thinking I might could turn it into a real beauty!

Ahhhhh…..touches of pink again!

Wouldn’t you love to blog on this back porch? I’ve seen burlap tablecloths like this one in Ballard Designs magazine…but I know I could make one for a lot cheaper!

SO, I was trying to find a new paint color for my kitchen this summer because I was tired of my yellow walls.

I tried a color called “Oyster”, and I hated it. My walls literally “glowed” when the sun shone on them.

Then I painted my kitchen a color called “natural”. It looked better, but it still wasn’t what I wanted.

When I saw the above pictures in the magazine, I really liked the color of the walls in the living room. I thought if it looked good enough to be featured in a magazine, then it was definitely good enough for my little house. And I thought it couldn’t be worse than what I had.

So I painted my kitchen for the THIRD time. (Yes, I am crazy!)

AND I LOVE IT!

I painted my den, foyer, and upstairs hallway the same color.

The color you ask?

Khaki Shade by Sherwin Williams

When I posted about the cafe shelves in my kitchen, I had several people ask me what color I had painted my walls.

So there you have it.

When I bought the paint at Sherwin Williams, they told me it was one of their best sellers. Yeah, for me!

Here is a picture of my kitchen. I will be posting about more changes I made in th
e kitchen in future posts.

Have a blessed weekend!

Traci

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Tagged My Kitchen, Paint Colors Filed UnderMy Kitchen, Paint Colors, Uncategorized 21 Comments

Painting some doors black

August 11, 2009 AT 12:00 am 19 Comments

August 11, 2009 By 19 Comments

First of all, I want to thank all you for praying for my mom. She has loved visiting my blog and seeing all of your sweet comments. She feels so covered in prayer and it brings her great comfort.

I am staying at her house tonight. My sister and I are taking turns. We joke that we are doing it more for our dad than for mom. :) He likes knowing someone else is here. And I guess I am doing it for myself as well. I just can’t seem to get enough of her right now!

We are going to the doctor tomorrow to find out some more information about the CAT scan she had on Friday. (The one that told us she had cancer.) My sister and I are going with Mom and Dad just to make sure we ask a lot of questions and help them remember what the doctor says. I feel a little nervous.

Life seems so much more precious to me right now. And the little details of life that used to stress me out, just seem so unimportant.

I am thankful to God for opening my eyes to His blessings that I so quickly rush by each day.

Mom and I have been sitting in the den talking and working on our laptops. She hates that I am unable to blog as much because she knows how much I love it. So, since Mom and I had some time to just hang out, she wanted me to post something.

I am going to share with you some of the doors in my house that I painted black recently in preparation for our family reunion.

The first door leads from our kitchen to our back patio.

Here is the before…

Pretty boring, huh? Notice the dirty spots under the door knob? That’s after I cleaned it! It takes a lot of wear and tear with four little dirty boys running in and out of it every day!

Here’s the after…

Sorry about the sun shining in. I didn’t have as good of a picture of the door as I thought I did.

I love it! And I don’t have to worry about it showing dirt!

Here you can see it through the mirror across the kitchen. It truly is striking.

And here is a picture from across the kitchen table.

This picture shows my drop cloth curtains. Can’t wait to share more about those!

The other door that got painted black in our house was the door from our garage into our kitchen. It was WAY dirtier than the other door. It’s the door that we use the most! It’s also the door that most of our guests come through when visiting. It needed some serious help.

Okay, that one was painful to share! OMG’sh that’s disgusting. But I live with 5 boys, cut me some slack!

Here’s what the magic of black paint can do…

I got the shelf at Goodwill for $5.50 and painted it black. The mirror was from GW for $4.50. The shoe box is my favorite thing in the world. I used to keep it in my den, but it has gotten bumped to the garage since I re-did my den. The boys just throw their shoes in there, and they are out of sight! It’s a great little piece to sit down on and tie your shoes too.

I might get a little vinyl wall saying that says, “Welcome” or something to add to the middle of the door. Still looking for that…

But I love the way they turned out.

As I finish my post, I am looking across the room to see that my sweet mom has fallen asleep in her chair. She feel asleep reading from God’s word. Not surprising at all. She is hopelessly in love with Jesus. Growing up, I remember waking up to the sight of my mom in prayer and bible study. It’s where she has always gotten her strength…and always will. I love you, Mom.

Blessings,

Traci

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