My Faux Chimney Stack Cover Makeover

Sooo, we had lived in our home for 19 years and it was time for a new roof.  What an adventure that turned out to be!

My daughter had just had some surgery the very week all this occurred as well and was trying desperately to rest and recuperate to no avail.  You'll see why in a pic below.  

Here is the before photo that I remembered to get after the roofing had begun.  

 (Before)

(Google Maps View of Before)

This is a different sort of painting post in that I had the roofers bring down the faux brick (painted metal) chimney cover that I absolutely abhorred.  Every single time I drove into the driveway or viewed my house  from any type of distance, this thing just taunted me.  It was awful.  The fake bricks were faded and it was rusty to the point it looked like it was oozing rust from our vantage points. I asked them if they could bring it down off the roof for me and they agreed they could after they got to the point of removing the shingles around the stack and assessing that it was indeed possible.

I searched far and wide for updated options and could not find anything that would work for us with our setup.  I drove through multiple neighborhoods checking out what others had over their chimney stacks.  Obviously, the newer builds were all good in that they had actual brick, but most of the homes with fireplaces like mine built in the 1960s had either already removed their faux cover or still had the same one as we did looking equally awful as ours.  They certainly don't make these types of covers any longer as far as I could tell online or I just wasn't hitting on the right search terms, so off to Home Depot I went.

Try as I might, I could not find any spray paints in various gray and black tones so I wound up going with brown tones.  I bought a cream color, a tan color, a brown color, and any shade I could find in between, as well as a primer and a sealer.  All were cans of outdoor Rustoleum spray paint.  I had no idea if this would work, but I just had to give it a go.

Here is a photo of one of the reasons we were so miserable during this week.  Yup, that is a giant boombox atop the chimney and we had Five Finger Death Punch heavy metal blaring into our home through the fireplace.  I had to ask them to move it, but we could still hear it.  I have shared stories with many others who endured a new roof.  We all laugh about it after it is over.

I first primed the stack cover in a rust-prevention primer and then proceeded to spray random swaths of each color onto it. I also sprayed a piece of cardboard making little pools of color in a sort of camouflage pattern.  I then ran over the painted swaths with a foam roller and also dipped the foam roller into the various pools of color I had created.

The roofers, whenever they took a break, decided to watch incredulously, especially when I was spraying random swaths of paint directly onto the cover.  I think they didn't believe in my methods at the time.  Today, however, they have called my husband up asking me if I would be willing to do this for other people!

Luckily, as I blended with the foam roller, it turned a grayish color!  I used the cream colored spray paint sprayed into a cup and then used a small paintbrush to paint on the faux grout lines!  I am tickled over this one and smile now whenever I look up at my rooftop!  I decided to use the darkest shade of brown that I had available to paint the tops of the various levels.  I figured if I had gone with the cream color to mimic grout, the rust that will inevitably appear again one day would be super obvious.  This dark brown buys me some time before touch-ups are required! 

(brownish/greyish tones)

Here is the after, sitting atop my house!  I hope this post helps just one more person who is stuck with an eyesore of a faux chimney stack cover!  Note how it looks more gray up on the roof in contrast with the charcoal grey shingles!?  Perfect!

I think the two super dark bricks in this photo make it appear that there are missing bricks but in actually are a reflection of light that my camera captured just so.  Look to the pic where the stack is on the garage floor to see how the bricks look all up close and personal!

The Violet 6-Drawer Drop-Well Vanity

(Before) 

The above photo is the actual photo provided to me on Craigslist.  I drove 2 hours away to pick this one up!  I am in love with these dressing tables/drop-well vanities!  I had some damage to where the center shelf in the dropwell portion was loose and it needed to be repaired.  I also needed to utilize some wood filler for some damaged areas.

I have no idea what the label attached the back must have once read but so wish I did!  I was so excited about the scalloped mirror and looking forward to accenting the two pieces that locked into the mirror just below the mirror wings and you'll see why later because they aren't pictured here!  I am totally all about the flourishes!

The center portion of these pieces is usually damaged and irreparable.  This is why you see so many people cut the center portion out turning them into two separate end tables or nightstands.  I beg of you  to please, please, please try to keep the piece intact and repair it!  If it stands even a remote chance at a repair and you are unable to repair them, please relinquish the piece to someone who can!  I beg of you!  They are so so so gorgeous!  The unique historical value with these pieces is just too valuable and beautiful to completely lose out on!

The center shelf on this piece was indeed broken.  This is due to people picking the piece up by placing a hand under this very fragile shelf.  Do NOT use the center shelves on these pieces as the point onto which you grab for lifting!  You are surely weakening it each and every time you do this. This particular piece was super duper heavy!  The safest way to move it around was to completely remove the mirror altogether.  The mirror itself weighed around 35 pounds! 

 (Evidence of a prior staining repair attempt & shelf separation)

 (More missing veneer)

This piece had a high gloss poly on it which I decided to rough up a bit prior to priming it due to it's dark finish.

 (light sanding scuffing so paint can better adhere)

I was getting tired of the blues and grays and decided to go Old Violet in Annie Sloan Chalk Paint with this one.  I didn't regret that decision!  I also threw in some strategically placed bits of Provence and accents of Old White and had used a little Paris Grey in the center of all surfaces to go from dark to light starting dark on outside and lighter in center.  I also used black wax and clear wax having put the black wax around all the edges of every surface.  I also decided to lightly distress the entire piece! The black wax gave it a bit of a smoky industrial feel, so I also chose to go with some industrial-influenced drawer pulls.  I love how it turned out!

 (glimpses of the Provence color)

 (Here is the side mirror lock panel! Isn't it gorgeous!?)

Here is a pic the new owner sent me of this piece in it's new location!  You can see it perfectly matches the color in the background!

Oh, how I am missing this piece!  Why is it so hard to part with them!?

Antique 4-Drawer Vanity-Dressing Table Refinish

I was just driving down the road minding my own business coming back from getting strawberries from a strawberry farm when I saw this piece sitting outside in someone's dirt driveway.  I did a double take and decided to pull on in!  As I pulled in a man came around to the front and I asked him if it was for sale!  I got it for $85!!

It needed a lot of work and attention.  It had what appeared to be a suede-type finish on the drawer fronts and they were so dried out and shriveled that I knew it just had to be painted to salvage it. The top hadn't been well tended to either over time as you can see above.  It had missing laminate in some spots and a broken applique.

I started with a good washing and then sanding.  This little fella decided to pop out of the deepest and darkest crevice of the drawer cavities at one point.

I primed this piece due to the dark finish it already had to try to prevent color bleeding through and then I painted it a Duck Egg blue, Old White, and Paris Grey from the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint line.  I decided to accentuate certain features, as well as the legs, with the white and gray colors.  Chalk paint is not easy when trying to apply carefully, as it is designed to be applied haphazardly so if you are wanting to detail a piece, be prepared to become part contortionist and for lying on your back on floors after lying pieces down on their backs. I went with the Paris Grey around the mirror as well.

I decided to put new drawer pulls on this piece that I had bought at Hobby Lobby that were too white initially, so I slapped on some Old White to better match this piece and painted the insides of the drawers the Paris Grey.  I finished it all with a clear wax after some very light distressing. 

The mirror also had some minor desilvering marks due to it's age.  

(Mirror desilvering)

Here is the finished piece! 

Desk and Antique Piano Stool to Vanity Set Makeover

(Before Photo with Drawer Handles Already removed)

My daughter needed a makeup vanity and I needed her to have one because our single bathroom just was not allowing both of us girls to operate functionally in our home.  I was also sick and tired of Mr Fix It griping so much about her messes but as a fellow girl, I could relate having grown up in a series of single-bathroom homes as just 1 of 5 females. My poor Dad was the only boy in our house!  He comes from a family of 3 boys and 1 girl and 2 if you count his mother, but he also had a large home with more than one bathroom since his dad was a doctor and his mom was a neat freak who had one of those fancy "master bathrooms".  

This piece had wooden drawer handles glued on that we removed before deciding if I would move forward on this project.  They popped right off with a little effort!

I am not sure what this piece had been through, but it had multiple layers of paint on it, one of which seemed to be an oil-based blue color that I finally had to resort to sanding the remnants off near the end and after too-numerous-to-count applications of paint stripper. It sure did have an interesting paint job on it by the time I picked it up!

 (Needs some repair on the bottom left center support)

I feel in love with the unique edge of the left side of the piece because it made the piece feel lighter allowing me to envision it in her room; the pull out writing surface, which I figured would be perfect for my daughter's items such as her curling irons to rest upon as she got ready; and the tiny little heyholes on each drawer.  Her room was a grayish color and accented in all blingy things with mirrored or crystal-type accents and the color white.  I also needed to have it tie into the twin-sized headboard I had already redone for her.

Now that I had chosen a piece to become her makeup vanity, I needed to find a seating situation that would work for her.  I remembered the antique piano stool I had bought some time back that I had been avoiding because it was stinky, very heavy, and I worried it could scratch up our newly refinished hardwood floors! Mr Fix it had a rubber pad protection idea so we went for it!

 (All original from 1800s with missing chunk out of circular trim on the right!)

(Rusty, stinky and covered in spider webs)

(These gouges were pretty extensive)

(The original stuffing and red velvet material!)

(Found the source of the stank!  Wood chips and straw!)

Any of you who like to collect antique items know exactly what smell I am talking about when I talk about the stink.  I wish I could describe it accurately but all I can say with certainty is that it triggers my gag reflex and makes me wretch like nobody's business.  Once I removed the deteriorating red velvet material and emptied the smelly wood chips and straw onto the pavement, I had to call in Mr Fix It.  It smelled so strongly and badly that I couldn't even pick it up to discard it.  He's my hero!

It took a bit of time to remove all of the little round tack nails that held the "cushion" into place because they were flat and I was trying to ensure I didn't cause any damage to the structure during the removal.  The decaying velvet material being stuck behind each one helped to enable me to fit a putty knife just under them enough to get a good leveraging start.  I just loved admiring each and every one fully aware they had a story that I would never know.

(Ugh, that blue just wouldn't budge!)

I fell in love with the natural wood but unfortunately could not get all of the blue oil-based paint to come off, not even with sanding, so I had to repaint it.

(Sanding stage)

After sanding, I prepped the piece with primer since I was going with a white final coat.  I didn't want to risk any pre-staining hidden under the oily blue bleeding through.

I then painted this piece in layers using first an Annie Sloan Duck Egg Blue, then French Linen, and finally Old White and distressed down to the bare wood in spots. It rurned out that top was made with multiple planks that made distressing prettier!

(the top surface also covered in plexiglass)

I then covered it in a clear Annie Sloan Wax and painted the decorative legs on the left in a shiny chrome spray paint, which I do not recommend if using furniture wax.  If you touch the wax and then the shiny chrome-painted surface, it will dull the finish and leave your fingerprints behind!  I then had to clear coat the shiny surface to protect it.  Now that the Annie Sloan line carries a pretty shiny wax, that would be the way to go!  They didn't have this when I refinished this piece!

Mr Fix it custom made a plexiglass protective topper for me as curling irons and other hair and make-up tools were bound to stain and scratch and my daughter's nickname is Ragamuffin.  We knew she could destroy all this hard work in a matter of minutes and we were right.  The very next day there was a warp mark from the flat iron she left on.  I then showed her the pull out shelf and reminded her it was there.  I have been waiting for Mr Fix it to drill some holes in that pull-out shelf to better accommodate the hair tools!  I think I will remind him about this again now!  Over time there is also nail polish on the plexiglass. She is such a stinker.

For the stool, I used the shiny silver spray paint on he heavy cast iron legs after cleaning and brushing away as much rust as I could and painted the column the same way I painted the vanity after fixing the broken ring on it with some wood filler. I created a new cushion with regular and more comfortable firm foam. I could not sand out the gouges on the ridged edges of the seat base without entirely losing that detail so I embraced it because that sort of damage works so well with Chalk Paint and distressed finishes!

That neat little edge you see in the stool before photo where the flat nails held in the red velvet came in handy for getting creative with a blingy border to top off the stool!  I bought some rectangular little tack nails that looked like teeny tiny railroad spikes and nailed them into place.  I bought the blingy trim from Joann Fabrics!

(the decorative bling)

Here is the final set with shiny new chrome keyholes and blingy knobs!

Now that my daughter has grown into being a total make-up girl, buying it all willy nilly style, there is a huge make-up mirror on top and drawers full of make-up!