Ritzing up the kitchen

Hi Everyone,
It's Sandy here. I'm astouned I'm actually still here...LOL My husband and I recently bought a new house and every single free minute away from our ordinary jobs we've been working on the refurbishments. Hence; no crafty playing time for me :-( Friends & family can already now prepare for a Clinton/Hallmark Christmas card coming their way this year... ;-)

BUT nonetheless I have a project with LLC products used that I can share with you today. :-)

The previous houseowner built the kitchen cabinets himself, and I love the prominent wooden piece above the cooker. However; the kitchen had seen it's better days. It was looking a bit tired and dated:

So I decided to spruce it up and bring in some more light by painting the cabinets white.
For this I used the world famous Annie Sloan chalk paint.

Chalk paint is a water based paint, and the great thing about it is that you can get straight down to painting. No stripping, sanding, or priming is required! It adheres to almost any surface and it's very easy to use and you can achieve lots of  different looks i.e. smooth, distressed, textured, shabby surfaces. And since it is waterbased, if you're like me a messy painter and tend to spill here and there, no worries; since the paint is waterbased you can easily wipe it off with a wet rag. :-)
Once you're done painting your piece, it just needs to be vaxed and you're done!
The wax finish is what seals and protects your piece.

So this is what it looked like after painting and vaxing. Already a huge improvement, but it was a bit dull, so I started thinking about what I could do to make it more interesting and put even greater focus on this lovely gingerbread work. 

That's when I reached for the Americana Decor stencils:

I decided to use two different ones; The French Bakery and Café Paris.
I attached the stencils with masking tape:

 Here's a close up of the Paris stencil after I had gone over it with my stencil brush. (If there are any Annie Sloan fans out there reading this, the colour used on the cabinets is Old white and for the stencilling French linen):

The two pictures on top show how it came out after the stencils had been removed. I decided to shabby it up a bit more though by going over it with a sandblock to achieve the distressed look. It's important to remember to use a very fine grit (I used 240P) and not to rub it in both directions, only in one.

Voilà!!!

Now I just had to do something about those hideous tiles...

They also got the white treatment, but with a SPECIAL TILE PAINT. Please note: I would NOT recommend using chalk paint for tiles. Simply because they are prone to get dirty and come into a lot of wear when wiping them off regularly and I'm unsure how well the vax would protect them.

Thanks for stopping by today.

I hope I have inspired you to use chalk paint and/or stencils in a home decor project of your own.

Hugz, Sandy

Viva Decor Chalky Vintage-Look Paint, 8 Oz

Americana Decor Stencil "Café Paris"

Americana Decor Stencil "The French Bakery"

Tim Holtz Sanding Block/Grip

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