Weekend Projects.

Michael & I spent the majority of the weekend working on our house; more specifically, our office project. The office is about 90% finished, so I won't share pics of it until it is finished & stuff is moved in; however, I will show a few just because I'm soo excited! 

Not only did we work on the room, but we worked on some things that will go in the room. Our focus was staining an old office desk Michael found for me & creating some DIY artwork for when the office is finished. 

Ok, time for some pictures & tutorials :) 

Woo. Progress!

Alright, I will start with the Staining Tutorial. Not sure how many of you have ever stained before, but this was my first time staining furniture. Found out, it wasn't hard at all!

First, I went to Wal-Mart & picked out the stain I wanted to use on the desk. Preferably, I like darker wood, so I went with a stain called Ebony by Minwax. I also bought a polyurethane semi-gloss clear coat to put on afterwards, which was by Minwax as well. Since my desk had a clear-coating already on it, it was necessary to sand that off and expose the real wood. The instructions on the Minwax canister said to use 220-grit sandpaper, so we had to buy that as well. The cost for those three supplies were $12-$15.

 The original desk before any work.

Here it is after we sanded it completely. As you can see above, we taped off the surface that is on top of the desk so the stain would not touch it.

Working hard or hardly working? ;) 

p.s. WEAR GLOVES! The stain can make your hands look pretty nasty if you're not careful. && do this project in a well ventilated area. 

Finished product.

Loved the result! It was exactly what I had in mind. It is very important to keep an old t-shirt or cloth handy in order to wipe off any excess stain that does not get soaked up by the wood. If you don't wipe it up, it can look very blotchy. We used a sleeve off an old t-shirt to spread on the stain, but you could use a rag or paintbrush specifically for staining.

After letting it fully dry and letting it sit overnight, Mike put a coat of the polyurethane on it today & it looks great! Cannot wait to get it in the office :) 

Any other questions you may have, just ask! I loved the outcome so much, that I will be staining some end tables I have laying around. 

The second project we complete yesterday was a DIY painting. I am loving the ever-so-trendy Chevron pattern! I was thinking about decor for the office the other day & thought to myself, "I have to have something Chevron in that office!" While buying my office chair yesterday, I picked up 2 14''x18'' canvases & a 57 cent bottle of black acrylic paint. I already had foam brushes and masking tape at home, along with an assortment of other acrylic paint colors to choose from, so I was set!

Just a warning. Making a Chevron print anything takes more thought than what one would think. I had to utilize Mike in this project. We measured it out in order for the lines to be perfect. We came up with 6 rows of 3'' sections & then made little guidelines of where to place the masking tape. Oh, a pencil, masking tape, scissors, & a ruler of some kind is essential for this project! 

After what had seemed to be forever, I finally had all the tape placed where it needed to be. It was time for my favorite part....painting :) 

I had originally planned on just keeping the colors black & white, but after much discussion with Mike, we figured that some color would do it well. 

Finished product :))) We absolutely LOVE it! Some of the paint leaked through the tape at points, so today I touched up the white parts with some white paint and fixed it. This is just one of the canvases. I plan on doing the other using the exact same color scheme just to give it some uniformity. Very anxious to get these up on the office wall! 

Well, this is what my weekend looked like :) Hope yours was just as great!