About six years ago I installed laminate flooring in my master bedroom. I haven’t regretted it for a second.

One thing I did to save a little money was use gel stain on the oak thresholds and tread rather than buy new that matched the laminate. As I mentioned, laminate thresholds can be VERY expensive!

I sanded the finish a tad on each piece and then applied three coats of General Finishes gel stain and a coat or two of poly.

Usually gel stain holds up a tad better. I can only assume it has not on this step because I didn’t put enough top coat on it to protect if from constant foot traffic.

I decided the only way to fix this issue was to strip ALL the finish off the step…down to bare wood.

This entailed using my 1/2 mixture (1/2 acetone, 1/2 lacquer thinner). I didn’t want to get the stripper on the painted trim so I made sure to tape it all off with 3 layers of tape and put plastic down to catch any drips.

After stripping all the finish off, I lightly sanded it, wiped it down with a tack cloth then applied stain. I had to apply three coats to get a deep color that matched the floors. I let the stain dry well. This time I used hard-core poly specifically for flooring…three coats( lightly sanding and tacking between each coat)!

Niiiice….

A tiny boo-boo…seems some of the stripper managed to sneak through the tape and muck up the paint…oh well, another “honey do” on my list..

I used the same gel stain process on my bedside table tops when I painted them a few years ago. Brian’s has held up fairly well but mine has not…to many glasses of water and cups of coffee without a coaster!

My plan is to strip all the finish and gel stain off the tops of those as well and refinish them…someday soon!

I ordered new black door knobs for all the downstair doors. I painted the door knobs years ago, then painted the doors black…still LOVE! I used a good metal primer and paint on them and they have held up fairly well but I found relatively inexpensive knobs on Amazon so I decided to order them.

I have installed passage knobs and I am still waiting on the privacy knobs!

Just a few little projects to kill time during my home quarantine…projects I have been avoiding. Maybe I’ll clean out a few closets upstairs. Who knows…I do have a pile of good books I could work through as well!!

I’m kind of a homebody so I am use to being home…but when someone tells me I CAN’T leave, the 5 year old in me comes out!

I shared the china hutch I started HERE.

Not the prettiest piece of furniture I have ever seen but I knew it would be perfect for the space Matt and Hannah have in their dining room…with a little tweeking!

In this post I also shared a few important tips for painting any piece of furniture. Tried and true advice!

First thing I had to do was “find my inspiration.” It doesn’t matter if you are making over an entire room or a piece of furniture…you have to find your inspiration.

In this case I needed to find a similar hutch so naturally I searched Pinterest…I sent several pictures of “french provincial china hutches” to Hannah and she liked this one best (originally posted on 509 Design)…

…beautiful. I love the stained top and the Miss Mustard Seed boxwood green.

The kids did not want doors or dividers on the top so those were removed.

They also decided to paint the entire inside white.

The first thing I did was strip the old finish and stain on the top of the base. Keep in mind that the top and the base where attached pretty tight so I just left them as is and only stripped and finished the part of the top that was showing. I used this process and it literally took me less time to strip and re-stain than it did to tape it all off. I used General Finishes Brown Mahogany stain, then sealed it with poly.

After the the top had dried (a day or two) I taped and papered it well so I could prime the entire piece. I also removed the drawers and taped and papered those so I could just paint the fronts.

Removing the vertical dividers left a gap that had to be repaired…

Pretty simple fix…I just cut a piece of decorative wood from the pieces I had removed and glued and clamped it over the gap…

After primer, I sanded it well, wiped it all down with a tack cloth and then painted…first the inside of the top with satin white. After that dried I taped it off and sprayed the rest of the hutch with Kylon Satin Italian Olive paint….closest green in a spray paint to Miss Mustard Seed’s boxwood. Again, it SAYS it is a “paint and primer” in one but I always prime wood furniture with Bullseye or Kilz.

I mentioned the brass froo-froo hardware in the original post…I honestly didn’t think it would make the cut.

But after some serious scrubbing with Brasso and SOS pads, they shined right up and believe it or not, the kids loved them!

So….here is the final product in place….

The farmhouse table is one I featured HERE. I found the black chairs at the apartments and they just needed a little repair, paint and reupholstery (never featured those), the bench is one I made for Thanksgiving one year, the plaid scarf is like the ones I featured HERE and the candle sticks were used as the stands for their wedding cake! It took YEARS for all this tp come together and now that it has…cute as a bug’s ear!

I know the original brass hardware may be a tad “gaudy” but I love it!

The “gap fix” isn’t exactly perfect, but as my Daddy use to say “You’ll never notice it on a passing train!”

I love how this piece turned out…and it shows what you can do with a pretty, um, not-so-attractive piece of furniture with just a little time and paint…all in all I probably spent less than $20 on supplies!