A Quick Table Fix Up, Curtain Dying and Dollar Store Rings

Here is a look at some of the things I fixed up and brought over to my brothers house.  If you haven’t seen the before and after home tour pictures, be sure and do it!

(After Photo!) 

I spotted this little guy at the thrift store for 10.00.  The top was very scratched up (it wasn’t solid wood) but other than that it seemed like a great find.  I bet you could set books in that area underneath – wouldn’t that be fun!

The steps were very simple:
1.) Sand down top (I didn’t get it to the bare wood but I did roughen it up quite a bit)
2.) Spray (or hand paint) with a grey primer
3.) Spray (or hand paint) with a few layers of the color of your choice!

This is my sand job – I guess we’ll see if it holds up, I’m sure it will.  For 10 bucks I didn’t want to spend forever sanding and being that it was laminate it also made it harder to sand down.  Just be sure and clean up ALL the dust with a damp rag before you begin your painting.

Here he is! 

Not bad for a total of 10 bucks!!!  I think my brother really liked it.

Next up, my funny (kind of) curtain dying project! 

I found these curtains for 3.00 but they were yellow and I wanted them brown so my first thought was maybe I could “tea dye” them.  I soaked them in a tub of tea for days!  I used empty bottles to push the curtains down so they would be fully covered by the tea water bath. 

There was only one container (the BLEACH container) that actually held bleach not water.  (You might be able to tell where this is heading!)  When I realized that the tea just wasn’t doing anything I began to pour out all the “water” containers and realized, as I was pouring, it was bleach!  Panic stricken I ran to the bathtub and tried to rise off any bleach that might have been on it.  Miraculously, it didn’t seem to do too much damage!

Next up – I bought good old brown RIT dye.  I only have a front loader washing machine and I thought I had to do it in a top loader washing machine so I got up enough nerve to ask my in laws (who own a top loader) if I can dye my curtains BROWN in their nice white washing machine.  They are so great – they said yes!  And this was the end result! Phew – it worked! 

Next up – the curtain rings!  Since I only paid 3.00 for the pair of curtains I wanted to find super cheap curtain rings.  I thought, why not just use shower rings!  I found a them at the dollar store and bought 2 sets and spray painted them! 

Honestly, I’m not sure if they will hold up (cheap plastic and spray paint usually chip off) but since I was on a STRICT budget I did what I could do!

There you have it!  Some of my fun cheap fix ups on my brothers home!

    ~CreativeJuicesDecor~

Linking to YHL - Curtain dying is shown in their new book!