GORGEOUS SHINY THINGS

So my big chic tip is paint. I know, boring. But it is a completely underrated tool, and I'm surprised how many people are afraid of it. Nowadays there is a paint and primer for everything, AND if you screw up and hate the color it is an easy fix. And it can change your life for around $35 a gallon, well so can tequila I suppose, but we are talking good change.

It is seriously my answer to (almost) everything. For example, we moved into our current house...an original 1964 ranch, and when I say original I mean original. I was seriously expecting Alice to be hiding in the closet with Sam the butcher. We decided to take this reno slowly, really think out what we want. Well I'm impatient, and since we weren't going to be knocking down any walls or ripping ugly out out I decided to renovate with paint. In short, put lipstick on on pig. Anything that would hold paint or primer was fair game. So here is a quick "what is possible" with paint...

Lets start with a completely dated yellow brick fireplace with black and gold doors. Oh, and lets add dark wood cabinetry and paneling into the mix too...

Kilz Primer, (can't live without it) some black high heat paint to fix the fireplace doors, and a little regular latex for the walls and trim and that "dirty den" feeling is gone...

Lets move into the kitchen. There is a lot wrong with it, but lets pick on the countertops. They were

cream Formica with brown edge. I know, they were nuetral, but they had a few chips and stains. We are going to redo this space in a few years, but in the mean time I decided to paint them. Rustoleum's Countertop Paint. I'm telling you they make a paint for every surface. I did a Cararra marble finish on them. See how here. Next I top coated them with 3 coats of latex polyurethane. They should last me 3-5 years if I recoat them yearly...

Furniture gets to get in on the action too of course. I love vintage pieces because they are in general really well made, and you can feel good about them not ending up in a landfill. I loved this piece I found at a thrift store for small money...

It got a coat of primer and 2 coats of a sea green I mixed from leftover paints I had on hand and its a whole new dresser...

Now just painting your walls a solid color can change things dramatically. But if you have a little patience and faith you can do wonders. This is my entry when we moved in...

I have a sick addiction to really expensive wallpaper. I have "painted" my own papers to feed that addiction. The great thing is you have complete control over your palette and scale. I have always loved the look deGournay and other classic wall murals that depicted birds and blossoms so I decided to use it as inspiration to make my own. I picked the colors I wanted and then pumped up the scale to give it a funkier feel in my retro space...

And lastly, tile.

There is a great primer called XIM that sticks to everything... glass, laminate, and tile.

We have a sunroom that had harvest gold and brown tiles. Here is the thing. We can't use this room much because its literally 110 degrees during the day. We hope to one day put our kitchen renovation out there. In the meantime I have to look at this room throught those giant double sliders, so I wanted it pretty...