They say that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses, but I wonder if that holds true when items you would typically find in those spaces are used outside! Why not repurpose your bathroom fixtures in the garden?
We had a blank section of fencing at the entry to our backyard that needed a little somethin’ somethin’. Last August when we stumbled upon a garage sale, I decided that the somethin’ was going to be a bathroom light fixture!
Try saying the title 3 times fast; it’s a tongue twister! Reclaimed wood in our area costs a fortune so we worked hard to develop a DIY technique for faux barn board that was just as beautiful but a fraction of the price.
Remember this phone booth that we picked up at the Aberfoyle Antique Market? We’re back with another version!
We’ve done several milk paint projects lately – and there are more to come – so in this post I’m demonstrating a great little hack I developed. Traditional milk paint comes in a powder form that has to be mixed with water. I’ll show you how to mix milk paint fast and efficiently using none other than two items from the kitchen: a milk frother and a coffee filter!
If you’ve ever had to mix only a small amount of milk paint – or you’re using it as a watered-down stain – you’ll know that mixing it can be a challenge. For a project I just completed, both of those conditions were met: I literally only needed to mix a few tablespoons of milk paint to stain a few boards. It’s not possible to use a blender, as I normally would for large projects, because there isn’t enough liquid volume to come into contact with the blade and mix it properly. Hand mixing is slow and stubborn lumps can prevent a smooth mixture.
To resolve those problems, give my mixing hack a try. It’s fast, clean up is a breeze and it’s splatter proof!
For the next two steps, you’ll need milk paint powder, a coffee filter, milk frother, water, a mixing cup (preferably clear), a mixing spoon, a paint brush and a wooden craft stick.
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You’ve seen the teaser: now we’re excited to share with you one of our most interesting projects to date! We’ve got two ideas in store; we’ll show you one today and the other one next week!
The ‘partners in grime’ planter is a celebration of 14 years of DIY. I feel like we’ve come a long way since my husband first raised his eyebrows when he helped me replace all the ‘perfectly good’ door knobs in my house soon after we met. The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks! It wasn’t until he agreed to help me install a little pond beside the front walkway that I realized he really was a DIY wannabe. Little did he know what I had in store for him after we wed! Although we’ve only been documenting our DIY pursuits on Birdz of a Feather for a few short years, since tying the knot he’s become my one and only ‘partner in grime’. We really do enjoy DIY’ing together.
When I came across this galvanized planter set at a garage sale for only $1, I had an idea to create something that was inspired by hubs.
In a previous post, we showed you how to get milk paint to stick to anything! I used a bonding agent to paint right over a lacquered finish on a mini adirondack chair (which you’ll see later). I was curious to see if milk paint + bonder would stick just as well to other surfaces, such as metal and terra cotta.
I look forward to Spring for so many reasons but when antiquing season opens up, we’re so there! A few weeks ago, we were at our favourite antique market in Aberfoyle, Ontario. Today we’re showing you some interesting finds that we’ll be making over and featuring on Birdz of a Feather in the near future (we’ll also show you what we’ve done with a few past finds).
The first thing I came across was this old clock. I had made over a very similar one when hubs and I were on an HGTV show called Trash to Treasure soon after we met! I always thought that if I came across another one that I’d buy and make it over for our own house so this buy was a no-brainer for me 🙂
You know the proverb: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! Well, our house in the burbs has a wooden fence that surrounds it. It’s great that it defines the boundaries, but it’s not so great for privacy. As you can see by the picture below, we have a distracting view of our neighbour’s pool in the back yard. No grass – just a cool, refreshing, inviting pool that we don’t have access to 🙂 As if the sightline isn’t bad enough, noise transference is an issue too.
I always avoid indoor paint projects because of the fumes. Even with low VOC paint, I don’t want to pollute what precious indoor air quality I have in my basement craft studio – especially in the winter months when I can’t even crack a window open. Did you know that there are no VOCs in milk paint? Because it’s truly non-toxic, I get to keep every brain cell so I can keep dreaming up new projects!
When I found out that you could add a bonding agent to make milk paint stick to challenging things like glass, metal and varnished items, that was the icing on the cake. Homestead House was kind enough to send us some milk paint and bonding agent to experiment with when I expressed an interest so when I spied this cute little varnished adirondack chair at Value Village, I knew I had my first test subject to try out!
During the long winter months we grabbed videos from the library and hunkered down for some marathon TV watching on Sunday mornings. One day hubs came home with a series of Looney Toons cartoons – famous for characters such as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Marvin the Martian and Foghorn Leghorn. Did you know that Bugs Bunny even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?!
Hubs is a Foghorn Leghorn fan and has one of those minds that remembers lines from movies and catch phrases (me, not so much!). He was intently on the look-out for one of his favourite episodes where Foghorn Leghorn looses his feathers. Did you ever see that one? If not, here’s a 9-second clip where you’ll hear Hubs’ favourite Foghorn catchphrase.
I’m on a succulent craze and I just can’t get enough of them! Every time we visit a nursery, the first thing I look for are the succulents. That’s because I don’t need much of a green thumb to keep them alive; they don’t need to be watered as frequently as other indoor plants.
At this particular nursery, they had individual plugs as well as the pots shown below. I love to get them as plugs and then grow them bigger in progressively larger plastic pots.
