Family Room

Black Painted Shelves

Nice and neat - black painted shelves (they were a honey oak color left over from our appartment days long ago) with storage baskets and painted metal and wood (garage sales, of course) storage bins to hold family room clutter and keep the shelves looking nice and clean.  A trick here - we placed clear shelf liner on the shleves, on top of the dry paint, since the humidity sometimes allows books to stick to painted surfaces.

Before.  I realized that I had taken no pictures when I went looking for a 'before' shot, since I never really liked the shelves. - This blow-up from the background of a Christmas picture will have to do.

Sanding with my helper - SANDING IS SO IMPORTANT - when starting a new paint project I am always tempted to skip this step, I never want to do it, but it is SO IMPORTANT!  NEVER skip sanding.

Black painted television cabinet

TV cabinet - painted black.  This is an old cabinet that I really do like the 'bones' of, but the  color was just not doing it for me any longer.  A quick sand and paint fixed it right up.  I especially like how the television disappears into the black background - so when it is not turned on it's almost like it isn't even there - It gives the family room that class and elegance that I have been looking for.

Before - a nice piece of furniture - just a bit outdated.

Floating Picture Shelf

A floating picture shelf.  My dad built this for us out of scrap wood.  The decorative molding was part of a bundle I bought at a garage sale for $1.00 - the bundle had 10 strips of wood and we used two, paint was left over from the bookshelves/television cabinet project.  Therefore - this project cost me 20 cents!  (and YES, I DO know how lucky I am to have a super handy and willing father with a pile of scrap wood - he makes so many of my crafty dreams into reality)

All of the picture frames are from garage sales - 25 cents to one dollar each.  The wood letters were 25 cents each.   I looked for black and white frames, but a few were just so pretty with detail that I bought them anyway and then painted them.

The 'bones' of the shelf - dad attached 4 wood pieces to the wall, used the others to build the 'box' with the top and bottom pieces of wood, which I pre-painted.  (then I only had to do touch up once the shelf was up on the wall -much easier than painting the whole thing on the wall.)  The molding was added to the front and sides, with a piece of quarter round molding on the back to close the gap between wood and wall so no paper will slip through.