White and Gold Design

Marianne and Jamie from White and Gold Design are based out of Salt Lake City. They are doing some great work and emailed me with one of their simple DIYs for their new office space.

Jamie says:

"Needing some desks for our new office space on a tight budget, we were inspired by your etageres post and how the spray paint completely transformed the piece. We bought the Vika Amon table top and it has a thick glossy finish that is actually pretty nice. We also bought plus two of the trestle style legs. Total spent $55. 

"We picked up some Rustoleum Metallic Gold spray paint, did two quick coats on the legs and absolutely love the finished product!  

 

"This DIY was awesome because it was so incredibly simple and best of all, cheap. You could buy any size of the table top from Ikea and create a similar look for a console table or even a small dining table. 

"The legs really look like brass and the ordinary IKEA screws that we all hate transformed into nice brass bolts." 

Looks great, right? Marianne and Jamie are a really talented duo! Check out these photos from Marianne's home:

If you'd like to submit a room or project to share on LGN, please email me.

DIY Gold Leaf Art Frame

I love big art hanging over a bed and have been on the look-out for something large and in charge for above our headboard. Recently (actually when I was shooting that IKEA commercial spot), I spied a HUGE frame in someone's cart at IKEA and was surprised to hear from them that the artwork/frame combo was on $50! Not bad at all for 55" of wall decor! I was planning to pick up one of these and replace the print with some of my own artwork.

Then last week at the flea I found the absolute perfect, perfect piece of art for above our bed. It's a vintage watercolor featuring all sorts of lovely blues and greens and some black for contrast.

The only part of the art I didn't love was the heavily grained oak frame (I prefer natural wood frames to be birdseye maple, burlwood or birch).

Since deciding on dark walls for our next bedroom, I thought a gold frame would look lovely here. I love using my trusty gold leaf pen for smaller frames, but this frame is huge - also around 55" wide. Plus, the gold leaf pen can end up looking a little flat (sort of like gold spray paint can) when it's used on large surfaces. Real gold leafing has almost a lightly distressed look (at least when I do it myself!) that actually I love.

It's easy to assume that taking on a gold leafing project will require a big investment for supplies. Not so! This little kit from Speedball has the glue (called 'size'), 25 sheets of leaf and even sealer, for only about $10. That's as much as a gold leaf pen costs! 

The step-by-step is a breeze. It took me about 30 minutes to gold leaf this huge frame, and that includes 15 minutes of size drying time. First, just lightly clean the frame. Remove any gunk or dust. Then run a line of painters tape along the inside edge of the frame to protect the glass. If it's easy for you to remove your artwork, leafing an empty frame is ideal. (my art was backed with kraft paper, so I needed to go the tape route).

Using a 1" foam brush, dip and fill the brush in the size adhesive bottle. It should fit perfectly in the bottle. One dip was plenty for one entire side of the frame. You don't need a lot of glue here. Less is definitely more. Also be careful to avoid any puddling with excess size. Everything needs to dry evenly.

Once the size has dried for about 10-15 minutes and is completely clear (not milky), it's time to start leafing. If you're working with a very small frame, you can cut the sheets down to size to help reduce wastage. I should have cut my sheets in half before using them to make my life a little easier.

There's really no going wrong with the leafing process. You just carefully lay the sheet down, trying to not let the leaf fold over on itself - thought it's not the end of the world at all if it does. Then burnish the leaf into the frame with your finger or a clean paint brush. You can just rub in bits and pieces of extra leaf and it will stick to any amount of the size. You can see here where even the tiniest bit of size got on the frame at the end of a brush stroke, and the leaf stuck to every bit of it.

I went around the frame one side at a time (I'd be leafing one side while I was waiting for another side to dry and get tacky). Once all the leafing is done, and you've filled in all the missing parts and the cracks, use a clean cloth to further burnish and rub in the leaf sheets. This is the best step for me! The gold starts to look finished, and so pretty!

If you would like the extra protection of using a sealer on top of the gold, here's when you would do that. I didn't bother since picture frames don't usually get a lot of wear and tear.

I like to pull out my vacuum with the upholstery attachement on to clean up all the gold leaf specs left over on the frame and on the drop cloth. It cleans up very well with the vacuum, even though you feel like you're making such a mess during the project!

I'm so glad I changed the frame to gold. Much better than that reddy, grainy oak! And see what I mean about the lightly distressed look? I love that.

I'm just itching to get into the new house and paint my bedroom black now.  :)

Brass Etagere IKEA Hack

I love good, clean-lined etageres for displaying just a few pretty things. They're not the most functional pieces of furniture (I wouldn't want to overload these with piles of books), but they are perfect for picture frames, a few horizontal stacks of pretty design books, little boxes and baubles that tell your story and that you want to display, but never know where to put out.

House and Home (Tommy Smythe's apartment)

via

Lonny

Atlanta Homes

If you're lucky, you can find vintage etageres in thrift stores or on craigslist. Sometimes eBay comes through. But buying new will set you back at the very least $1200 and up into the thousands. That's when I was surprised to see in this pretty room by Ana Antunes (via VT Interiors) that these pretty brass-looking etageres were actually IKEA shelves painted gold!

Each of these Vittsjo units was only $70, which is a steal!

While I sort of like the original black version, I'm sure the finish is less nice in person. And I'm really loving the brassy tone Ana painted the frame. You could try gold leafing for a really natural, mottled look, but Rustoleum's Metallic spray paint in brass would work really well too (and would save you about 10 hours of labor).

And can you even handle those chairs? So pretty! Wishing they shipped to the states. :)

Mixing Metals

I'm a gold jewelry person, through and through. It just looks better with my skin tone I think. But when it comes to hardware and metallic finishes for the home, I like to mix things up and throw in some polished nickel/silvery finishes with my brass pieces. I feel like I have an abundance of brass lately and should probably round things out with a few more silvery things.

This lamp has always been a favorite and I'm thinking it might be time to finally try the DIY version - fingers crossed it looks okay!

This basket project from MS Living was gorgeous! SO in love with that finish and want to use these in a nursery project I'm working on. Every room needs some sparkle, but that does mean it has to be a 'glam' look, you know? These baskets still feel very boho.

This new desk from West Elm is going into a consulting client's design plan. I saw some zinc and aluminum-wrapped case goods pieces at ABC a few months back that were about 10x this price. It's a great look and the West Elm price point is much more affordable.

PS I'm also loving rose gold and I'm coming around to copper. These new copper chairs from Blu Dot are like woah.

Reader DIY: Metallic Wall Stripes

One of the best parts of writing this blog for me is getting to share ideas I might never get to use myself, but that some of you might get to try. I LOVE getting emails with photos of your interpretations!!

Caroline wrote in to share a couple photos of a bookshelf she fancied up using this post as her inspiration. Caroline said:

"We're renting a quirky midcentury ranch with plenty of oddities, one of which is a badly-proportioned shelving built-in in my daughter's nursery (it used to be the room's closet). I needed to liven up the space and your stripes were a perfect idea. To make the project really easy, I sourced 3-inch wide metallic gold tape online (they have various colors and sizes). A little measuring and taping later, the job was done! The only drawback is that the metallic surface does reflect the old wall's flaws, but overall it is extremely stunning, adds dimension and brightens the space."

Such a beautiful nursery, right? And I'm loving the tape source Caroline found. The two-inch tape is about $30 for 72 yards and the three-inch is $40. That's pretty cheap wallpaper!

If you have a room or project you'd like to share, email us at jenny at jennykomenda dot com.

The Magic of a Gold Leaf Pen

I found these botanical prints at the flea market and I fell in love with the bright chartreuse, almost neon green matting!

I wasn't the hugest fan of the forest green painted frames (or rather, I didn't like the color combo - I am a fan of forest green in general). So I bought them with the plan to change the frame color. I think black would have looked great, but I really wanted to bring some gold over to the entry console area.

Have you ever used these gold leaf pens? I might be a little obsessed with them. I've been adding gold detailing on furniture and mirrors like a mad woman. It's an addiction really.

I used the Krylon leafing pen to make the botanical frames gold. So much better than dark green! I didn't bother to take apart the frames (they were professionally framed and had kraft paper backings I didn't want to mess with). The good news is it is so crazy-easy to paint frames with glass or mirror. The glass sort of repels the paint most of the time, and 100% of the time you can get off the paint with a little windex and a razor blade.

Also, a couple of you asked about the console. You must be newbies! Here's the post on painting a cheapie dresser with Behr's Billiards Table in high gloss.

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DIY Sunburst Mirrors (using SHIMS!!)

I've been trying to step away from the Pinterest lately (old habits die hard). My motto in helping me conquer the beast is "10% Inspiration, 90% Perspiration." (I talked a little about this in my Alt panel.) But apparently I need to come up for air more often, because there is some magic happening in the blog world that I was completely unaware of.

Look at all these GREAT sunburst mirrors made from those cheapy packets of shims from the hardware store! Most of these finished mirrors are really quite big (22 - 40" in diameter) and the supplies cost less than $30! What the WHAT.

Natalie Roe and her sister, Rachel, emailed me a link to their version HERE. I love the staggered edges.

346 Living

This Old House (do I like this one. Or not...)

Westerman Family (love the gray stain!)

K Sarah Designs (I love how big the mirror is on this one. It feels a little more functional than decorative. PS, love the styling.)

Momtastic (I'm more of a gold sunburst mirror type gal, but I really like this white painted version! And how pretty does it look hanging on top of the canopy curtains? Really cute.)

Did I miss any of your favorite shim sunburst tutorials?