Zebra Drink Cart

The zebra bar cart used as staging that I will tell you about in this blog.  This fireplace was a solid white when I bought the house, and the floor was blonde laminate,  yellow walls now gray with new texture and new 5 inch baseboard.  This is what I do for $$.
 

Judy here again.  I've been busy on a project this week, making a cat house/bed out of a hexagonal side table. HOWEVER, that is not what this is about. 

A few years ago, I discovered that the Ladies Center here in Amarillo takes donated furniture, clothes, baby supplies, art, purses, lamps, almost anything, and sells them really cheap.  I forget what I went in looking for, but I found a cute little book cart.  I had been watching Flea Market Flip a lot, and I had seen a lot of bar carts being made out of lots of different pieces of furniture, and when I saw that book cart, I thought:  bar cart.  Not that I needed one, as I don't drink; but I knew it would work for staging (and I'm using it right now in my house in San Antonio that's for sale) or I might sell it. 

I also knew that I had been wanting to do something in zebra print.  I found a small zebra painting on line, and got myself a canvas and practiced doing a zebra print on it, and yes, I could paint zebra print.

Needless to say, I bought the book cart, and took it home. 

As you can see it was wood and brown.  This was my first attempt at chalk paint.  I bought white at Michaels and started painting the book cart.  The reason I chose it was that it said you would NOT have to sand, and if there is one thing I hate doing, it is sanding.   Let me tell you that it was not a good experience for me.  I hated it.  I hated the look it created, all bumpy, dull and looked as if it needed sanding, which defeated my purpose of using it.  I read online that you are suppose to buy a wax to put on it, and I didn't feel comfortable with that.

So I lightly sanded the chalk paint which I had put 2 coats of on the book cart, and I then repainted it with my  white semi gloss paint I keep on hand for touch ups on my trim.  I liked that look much, much better.  I put several coats of white.

Chalk paint.  Yuck.
 

Semi gloss interior paint

Next I looked at my zebra canvas and copied that on both sides of the cart. 

Just before I tried the paper, see it on bar.

 Then I bought zebra wrapping paper and tried to decoupage it on the shelves, but that was disastrous.  Too flimsy; wouldn't stick, didn't go on smooth like wallpaper would have.  SO I TOOK IT OFF.  I had a carpenter over working outside, and he had seen what I was doing  While he was outside, I decided to just paint the zebra print onto the shelves like I had the sides.  I looked at the paper and my canvas while doing it.  Took about  thirty minutes.  My carpenter came in and said the paper looked good on the shelves as he saw the paper hanging off the bar.  I told him I had painted it, rather than using the paper, and he was so surprised.  He said it looked just like the paper!!  Success!

Just the top painted, but see how I tried to get stripes on sides and top to look like they are continuous.



Close up of how the zebra painting looks.

Next I painted the edges of the shelves black.

Next I spray painted two coats of clear gloss (Rustoleum brand) on all of the cart to give it shine.  Finally, I thought I was through, but someone told me they'd be interested in buying it from me if I added some "BLING".  So I went to Michaels and found some little strips of tiny rhinestones that are self sticking and came back and scattered them across the top and down the sides.  Since that day, my littlest grandson got hold of it while it was holding my t.v. in the converted garage I stayed in while remodeling the house in San Antonio, and picked some of them off before I saw him, so it is now missing some of the rhinestones, and if I ever decided to sell it; I'd have to get some more and put on it.  I never did send the new picture of it with rhinestones or bling to the lady.  I think I just wasn't ready to part with it.

This is it in the converted garage I lived in while remodeling it. 



Black front


 

All in all, I probably spent less than 3 hours working on this project; one of the quickest and cheapest I've done.  I got the book cart for $15 and I used paint I already had on hand.  I bought the wrapping paper and glue for decoupage, and I bought the rhinestones.  That's it.  That's all that I spent.  I think its elegant.

Garage Sale Bargain Becomes a Profit Getter.

Judy here.  Today I want to tell you about a very recent project and a very recent success story. 


My daughter's family went to Corpus Christi one weekend while I was in San Antonio working on staging the house I am trying to flip.  I needed something for the sun porch to show what a neat place it is.  I saw a garage sale down the street from her house, so I walked down, and the first thing I saw was a pale yellow coat tree.  Now I've wanted one of those for a long time, mostly for my laundry/mudroom.  I asked the price and the lady said $10, and I said sold.  Then I spotted a patio set, (3 chairs, a lounger and a table).  I asked the price on that and they said $35.  Again I said sold and I ran to the bank to get $45 cash to pay for my purchases, and the gentleman at the garage sale helped me deliver everything to Tera's house.  I put the patio set on her front porch and the yellow coat tree inside her front door. 

 

Patio set

The first thing I did, was leave it sitting in Tera's room for a few days and looked at coat trees on pinterest and online for several days as I continued working on the house.  I brought my semi gloss Walmart white paint (right off the shelf, not custom mixed) home from the flip house.  I started painting the sides first with a 2 inch brush.  I did two coats on the sides.  The next morning I sanded a large scratch that was on the front of the tree about 12 inches down from the hooks.  It sanded off really easily using sand paper.  I then started painting the front below the mirror and figured out quickly that the trim would have to wait until I had a smaller brush.  After I got two coats on the front, I added another coat to the sides, and then I got blue tape and covered the mirrors on the edges and the hooks.  I started painting the top area around the mirrors and hooks with a tiny art brush and soon realized I needed the hooks off.  So I removed them and put the screws in my pocket.  Later when I bought material I took the screws out of my pocket at Walmart (yes I wear the same shorts every time I paint) and bought silver ones the same size.  I left the hooks on the wood cover of the bench portion.  I then got two coats of paint on the top part of the front where the mirrors were. 


Next I painted  the bottom of the bench with two coats of paint, and another on the sides.  I put extra on the sides because that is where there will be a ton of wear from people bumping into it. 


After the bench dried, a couple days later I took a drop cloth outside and Tera helped me move the tree to the yard.  I bought two cans of Rustoleum 2x white gloss paint.  I then painted the bench where it was wood colored and the top of the hutch that was wood colored.  Then I put a coat of white spray all over the tree to seal my semi gloss.   After it dried I sprayed the bottom of the cover too. 
After it dried I moved it back into the house.


  Tera then gathered all the hooks and sprayed painted them silver (she already had the paint from our flip house last year that we used on all the hardware. That's why I bought silver screws at Walmart).   Later I sprayed a clear coat of gloss on them to seal that silver paint from coats being hung on the tree. 

The next day Tera and I moved the tree to the garage.  I covered the mirrors with brown paper and I then sprayed the whole coat tree with Rustoleum 2x with  two coats of Rustoleum 2x Clear Gloss. 

Then  I went to Walmart and bought a yard and a third (48 inches) of a gray geometic print material, some pillow stuffing, some fabric glue, screws  and some tacks and upholstery pins.   I delayed over the weekend thinking about how I was going to do this pillow.  I have to admit I did NOT do as professional a job as I wanted to, because I was pushed for time, as I was leaving town the next day to return to Amarillo where I live.  So I traced the bench top off on a piece of brown paper and transferred that to some cardboard.  Cut it out and started folding the stuffing over and over the cardboard, around and around.  Once I had  checked to make sure it would fit the bench (not covering the portion where the hinges were)  I took the material and wrapped it around and around the pillow I had just made.  Then I folded in the ends like a gift wrapping and squirted fabric glue underneath the material folds to hold the folds in.  Next I TRIED to use upholstery pins to tack the pillow onto the bench, but the wood was too hard and after I bent several upholstery pins, I gave up and took regular tacks and got one in each front corner.  Lifting the rest of the pillow up, I squirted fabric glue all over the bench and pressed the cushion back down.  I left it to dry and it appeared to work.  I hope it holds up under use.  If not, the buyer can try something different.  I then put the hooks back on and took blue tape off mirrors and washed them.

 

The finished product. 

Yes, I did say Buyer.  I had to go back to Amarillo, so I asked Tera to either get the tree to the flip house and put it in the entry hallway or try and sell it, as I doubted Jerry would want to come to San Antonio with the truck and bring it home.  Tera did put it on 5 Mile Thursday, and today (Sunday)  she texted that a lovely lady in New Braunfels bought it this morning for $130.00.  I had spent $10 on the material and supplies, used paint I already had, and bought 2 cans of white spray paint, for a grand total of $20 on supplies, and with the $10 I paid for it, $30 was invested in the piece.  With this sales price, Tera and I split a nice little $100 profit.  It won't pay the house payment, but it will buy me another project and a dinner out with my husband, and possibly a movie too!

I'm happy, but now I need to find me a coat tree in Amarillo to do this to so I can have my dream tree in the laundry room here in Amarillo in my own home.