A fellow serial DIY'er...

I want to thank Brandi for sending over her DIY projects.  They are awesome!  This is a long post, but I can't leave out any details.  I love all of her creativity, DIY talent and her beautiful home.  I think you will too.  Make sure you click the links to visit Brandi's blog for all of the details and even more DIY eye candy.

Kitchen Before/Afters:

When we looked into buying the home, I was HATING the kitchen.  It was screaming BUILDER GRADE. The kitchen had never been painted and the countertops looked horrible.  And it was begging for a backsplash.

We chose to paint the kitchen orange and do the “antique glazed” look.  We painstakingly painted the cabinets a linen color and then glazed each one of them. We added some crown moulding to the top to give it a more “high end” look.  Then we added hardware to the doors and drawers.  Finally we changed out the countertop and put in a Travertine backsplash on the diagonal.  I couldn’t be happier… well, now that’s not entirely true – I want to change out the white appliances for stainless steel ones – but that will come later on down the road.

Nightstand Makeover

Before:

After:

Closet Overhaul!

Before:

After:

Fireplace Before & After:

The night we closed on the house, I immediately started pulling up carpet and smashing the tile surround on the fireplace. 

The hubs built the mantle and we used slate tiles as the surround.  Total cost for the transformation?  $36.00!!!

  As you can also see, we replaced the carpet for hardwood – a steal we found discount supply store for $1.50 sq ft… I am still convinced they had this priced incorrectly! HA!

Beautiful Bathroom vanity Before & After:

This is still a work in progress (its never ending).  But when we bought the home – there was carpet in the master bath.  GROSS!  We hated the vanity… okay we pretty much hated everything about the bathroom. 

We decided to take out the original vanity and put in an antique dresser with a sink on top in its place. 

After months of searching for the PERFECT one, we found this small dresser at Goodwill for $60.00.  We sanded it down, painted the body black and stained the drawers a mahogany color.  We also stained the side insets the same.  We added glass knobs and kept the beautiful brass locks. 

We found the sink and faucet on Overstock.com for $120.  Can’t beat that! 

The hubs had to modify the drawers to fit the plumbing, but I am extremely happy with the way it turned out! 

We also ripped out the carpet and put in black and white tile.  Now it has an antique feel to the bathroom.  I am loving how it turned out!!

DIY Bed

Before:

After:

Beautiful Reclaimed Barnwood Shelving:

Before:


After:

Thank you for sharing all of your beautiful DIY projects, Brandi. Everything you touch turns to gold! lol I love the barnwood shelves, the kitchen is amazing, the bathroom might still be a work in progress to you but it's gorgeous! Congratulations on doing fantastic work!

DIY Project Parade & Playing Sublimely

I'm honored to show off this beautiful chandelier for Amy at

Here is her tutorial/before and after photos.  It's stunning!  Note the finish she did!

How to make your own Niermann Weeks: kinda

Oh how I love the look of a Niermann Weeks chandelier, and oh how I hate the price of them. My friend Karen who is one of the most fashionable ladies walking the planet, got me thinking about how to create the look of a Niermann Weeks chandelier. She is a girl after my own heart and loves to decorate fabulous for less. I have told you before that I am a "faux, faux finisher". I pretend a little with decorative finishes, but I had never experimented with applying any products to a fixture before. So I gave it a shot.

Here are a few finishes I liked from the Niermann Weeks collection, all priced over $5,500:







Here are a few of Brooke's table lamps from her Giannetti lighting collection, love the finish of these as well:








And this is what I wanted to transform into something lovely: a $25 brass consignment store find. I liked the lines of it, and it was large enough to go in my foyer.

Everything I used was products that I had around my house (Faux Effects plaster), but you could use regular plaster and tint it any color you wanted. I scooped the product up in my hands and smeared it all over the chandelier. My first plaster color was a bronze shade. I let that dry and then I repeated the exact same "technique" with a neutral color plaster (I am using that term loosely as my five year old helped me cover the chandelier in plaster with her hands). Once both layers had dried I sanded it a little by hand to let the darker shade underneath show through.
We did change out the glass because I wanted an "old look". We replaced the plain glass with "seeded glass" for a vintage feel. I considered not putting any glass in it at all. I think that would have been a nice look also, but ultimately the "seeded glass look" won me over.
Then my cute carpenter risked his own life to hang my creation. He is a good man.Isn't she lovely.

Can you see the finish and texture?

The seeded glass reflects specks on our walls at night...it's dreamy.

I love not having to spend $5,500 to get the look I want, and I love Karen for convincing me to try this.

Thanks for sharing your Gorgeous transformed chandelier, Amy!  I love the beautiful finish you did - and now I'm on board.  I want one too!  You're the most fantastic talented faux, faux finisher!  :)  

And to the rest of you:  Pop over to

and see more DIY inspiration!

~*~**~*~

Show off your DIY projects too!

If you'd like to link YOUR DIY project post to The DIY Show Off Project Parade:

1. You must use the button above and link to this post to share the linky love.
2. Include your name or blog name and project title. Add your permalink (not your blog url, but your DIY project post url). Feel free to link a Past Post, just invite your readers in a current post with a quick note.
3. Or email your link to thediyshowoff@gmail.com and I will add it for you.
4. If you notice your link has disappeared - pleaseadd the link back to The DIY Show Off to your post today with a quick note to your readers about the party and try again! I love when everyone participates and readers check out everyone's links, but I think the return favor of linking back is the nice thing to do so everyone plays fair and enjoys all of the projects and links. Also - this blog party is for DIY projects only. Links not related to DIY will be deleted.