Champagne taste on a beer budget?

Hi everyone! 

So I’m going to do a post on being thrifty! Iv been doing a bit of up cycling recently on some items of furniture and just want to share some ideas on how the have and make fabulous expensive looking pieces but in a shoe string budget.

Firstly I just want to apologise for not having more consistent blog posts, iv had a few changes in work so have been quite busy the last two weeks but I will vow to do more posts even if there just short and sweet. 

I will start to do some ootd posts too! 

So the reason why I started to up style furniture is because after buying my first house I seen all these fabulous French furniture pieces in the shops but unfortunately the price tags weren’t anywhere near my budget but I still wanted pieces that looked fab and not to waste money on items I didn’t really want.

In my older blog post on the interior workshop I attended is where I got the idea to paint furniture. I was introduced to the fabulous Annie Sloan chalk paint! 

So one rare Saturday that I had off I headed into town and picked up a tin for €27 from a shop called the find on Cows lane in Dublin City centre.

I picked shade cream to start off with. 

So I had my heart set on a china cabinet to store my growing tea cup collection! So I trawled adverts.ie and donedeal.ie and found this beauty and haggled and got it for €50! 

Chalk paint is really simple to use but I recommend mixing with a small amount of water for the first coat to make it easier to spread, I used a brush but you can also use a roller for larger areas. 

Below is a pic of the first coat. 

It dries quite quickly and watch out for drips, I left this until my next day off work and gave it a second coat and pulled the old wallpaper out and replaced it with some wallpaper I had left over from my living room. 

And taa data this is how it turned out. 

I’m not the best at wallpapering but I gave it a bash, I could of done decoupage on the inside but that’s a whole new skill I want to master! 

I also want to share another thrifty find which is this tear set that I got second hand for only €25. 

I have been wanting a fancy occasion chair for my living room but again brand new was too expensive and I love the fancy ones that are in Laura Ashley, so I found this little gem on adverts and I painted the arms and legs cream to match the room. 

I got this chair for €50 and I got this table also for €20 and painted it in the cream chalk paint.

After painting all the items I still have nearly half a tin left of the Annie Sloan paint. 

I bought some gold paint and I am going to get some of the French stencils off eBay and finish this table, I will post the finished look on my Instagram @daintydressdiaries. 

Now here is another fab thrifty find, I adore the Paul Costello collection from dunnes stores and have a few of the items from his home collection and iv always loved his bed linen collection but found it to be a but expensive for me but I got a brand new set off adverts for €25 as it didn’t match the ladies room and she had no receipt so she just wanted to sell it on! One mans junk is another man gold! 

 My new kitty seems to approve lol, the gold throw I already had so it matched the duvet set perfect, that’s also another tip I learned, if you keep your room accessories to similar colours then when you go shopping or see something and worried it won’t fit in just stick to the colours off the room and it should match in.

Sometimes when I go shopping I get overwhelmed and end up buying things that just don’t work when I bring them home so I’m trying to stick to the colours of the room. 

I will keep ya posted on any more pieces I do, my next mission is to learn the art of decoupage which I’m going to do a class as don’t want to mess up an item, also I don’t really distress my items because I don’t want to mess them up as I’m still only a newbie to furniture revamping. 

So don’t be afraid to buy second hand and save pennies and don’t be disheartened if you can’t afford things you really love because you can still have a fabulous home but without spending a fortune. 

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2 Comments

  1. Ralph
    January 15, 2015 / 9:48 am

    I bought some gold paint and I am going to get some of the French … champagnedress.blogspot.com

  2. The dainty dress diaries
    January 19, 2015 / 10:17 am

    Aw that's fantastic. Let me know how you get on xx

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