The Apple Street Cottage

It's time to finally share the home improvement project that took me most of the summer to complete.  It wasn't a difficult task, it just took  forever to finish, but more about that later... Behold, the new kitchen backsplash: When we moved in last year, the backsplash was painted white - nothing special.  I knew I wanted to do something, but there are SO many choices.  I finally decided on a stencil and paint because it's not permanent and if I hated it all I needed to do was paint over it!  I chose this stencil... ...and then chose a shade of blue called 'Peaceful River' since blue is my favorite color.  I bought a sample can of paint and had more than enough.  The entire backsplash was painted with a stencil brush.  I know lots of people use a foam roller, but, honestly, in my opinion, there is always bleeding of paint with that method.  That may be part of the reason why this project took all summer.  But, I'll get to tha...

As you know, we sold the Cottage and moved.  Did I mention that our buyer also bought most of our furniture?  Yes, she did, and we were in dire need of someplace to put our clothes.  After much discussion, the decision was made to buy an unfinished piece for me to finish.  Since the new place is small, we started out with one unfinished chest of drawers. This is how it was delivered: Yes, I forgot to take that 'before' picture again, so I had to find an image online! The top was stained with dark walnut stain, followed up with 3 coats of satin polycrylic. I know you've heard me say I'm not a fan of polycrylic, but that's for tables that get heavy use.  (If you want to read that sad story, click HERE ).  Since this is a dresser, polycrylic is a great choice. Once the top was done, I primed and then painted the dresser in Silver Lining Chalk Paint.  Before I started the drawers, I brushed some walnut stain on those edges so it would...