A Guest Post From Our Friend at Shabby Loco

Today we are featuring a Guest Post from Melissa 

at Shabby Loco

Check out her unique & fun style.....we fell in love with her!

Hello erry' body!

My name is Melissa, and I am the proud blog momee of Shabby LOCO. Firstly, I would like to thank Linda and Sherron for asking me to guest post here today with you all. I consider myself to be somewhat of a smartaleck, potty mouther...so when other people can appreciate a "REAL" blog, it's kinda cool!  

I started my blog kind of as a sounding board for the ideas swimming around in my A.D.D head and to show others how to achieve the shabby look that I acquire with my furniture. I live here in Orange County, California (Yes. My breasts are real and no, my hair is not blond.. So there!  ) I am a wife to 1 and mom to 3. I own a loan signing service and in my spare and in between times I refinish furniture and Sail..NO, Not THAT kind of sailing! The GOOD kind! Garage sailing, estate sailing, and yard sailing...you get me? COOL, Well, enough about me....let's get down and dirty shall we?

This piece here, I got from the all mighty, heaven sent site know as "CRAIGSLIST" (insert blinding white light and trumpets!) YES, I have a small addiction.. but who doesn't have their vices!? Anywho, picked this baby up for a steal and got busy! Here is her before..

 (P.S, I am BIG on pictures, I am a very visual learner and I just think that sometimes a picture can say and give so much more detail than my little brain could ever come up with!)

As some my already know…I LURRRRRVE Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and swear by it 1,000%! So with the steps of sanding and priming not necessary..I can get down to the fun stuff!!


I brought her inside..

(YES, I do MOST of my painting inside, ANOTHER plus of this paint, low VOC’s)

Clean her up! I use a 10:1 ratio mixture of TSP and water.

After I wipe her dirty butt DOWN!  eewwwwww…

I take out all the drawers, flip her on her top and get started

(Painting all the legs and hard to reach areas first, (I Feel) saves me lots of time bent over like a damn contortionist, AND I can get to and cover all the little hard to reach areas easier.

For this piece, I used ASCP’s “Pure White”

Now, this paint is puuuuuurrdy darn thick straight out of the can SO. I myself, I like to get my little stirring stick, stir up the paint well, then I put that same stick in a cup of water to rinse it off. When I am ready to thin out my chalk paint, I use that same “Stir stick water” that I have in my cup and thin the paint that way. As you can see, I used half of a grande starbucks cup to paint this whooooole piece. So, the price is up there on this stuff BUT it goes a looong way and you get A LOT of your money!

So, after I painted two coats on her..heerreee she is (Pre-distressing, of course)

I used #120 grit sand paper to rough her up a bit, and I used cabinet scraping tools to do the chipping (IF you don’t have cabinet scrapers, then a paint scraper will work as well.)    

After Chipping and sanding the edges..

I finished the desk by hand waxing it in clear wax for MOST of the piece and then a little dark wax around the feet and drawer handles where it would naturally get more oils and dinged up..VOILE!...

Here’s the before & After

Well, That's all folks!
Thanks for checking out my post and I Hope you enjoyed it =)
See ya' round Shabby LOCO sometime!

~MUAH!

~Melissa~

Thanks Melissa....that was great!  

That desk looks incredible...like original paint!