cost
$5
time
about 2 hours
difficulty
★★★★
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Graphic designer Christy Kilgore has an eye for color and loves to combine complementary hues for maximum impact. So when she found a metal box and table base on the side of the road in Charleston, Illinois, she decided to bring them home for a makeover. Working with outdoor spray paint (Krylon’s Pumpkin Orange and Blue Ocean Breeze), Christy decided to paint the top and bottom different colors and combine them to create a side table that would bring bright color into her home—as well as some extra storage.
cost
$114 (including cost of dresser)
time
20 hours
difficulty
★★★★
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Furniture rehab partners Lauren Zimmerman and Nick Siemaska both work in creative fields in Boston, with Lauren in advertising and Nick working as a musician. Being surrounded by the arts in their everyday lives inspired this talented team to branch out and start making over furniture in their spare time. With this project, Lauren and Nick used contrasting shades of gray paint to give this aging dresser a new life. After removing a stubborn coat of varnish on the dresser’s exterior, Lauren and Nick filled and sanded the drill holes in each drawer left by the original hardware. A coat of gray-blue paint was applied to the frame (Glidden’s Wood Smoke) and a lighter gray (Glidden’s Natural Linen) was used as an accent on the dresser’s side and drawer fronts. After the paint dried, Lauren and Nick drilled new holes for orange pulls they found at a local salvage shop.
cost
$300
time
a few weekend afternoons
difficulty
★★★★
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Designer and decorative artist Brett McCormack knows his way around a can of paint. Looking to update his prewar New York City apartment, he turned to paint to create the serene, sophisticated feel he desired. Using a mix of paints, he created a faux marble top for his table, achieving a high-end look for a fraction of the cost. With black and brown spray paint, Brett updated and coordinated a pair of $1 tag sale lamps to mimic the look of oxidized iron. “I love the visual weight they have and wanted to emphasize their unique silhouette.” He also painted the apartment’s floors a light gray color (Benjamin Moore’s London Fog) to give the appearance that the furniture was “floating on a cloud.”
cost
Part of a $20,000 home renovation
time
3 months
difficulty
★★★★
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Industrial designer and design and process manager for Heath Ceramics, Christina Zamora recently completed the partial renovation of her Oakland, California, home. Looking to create a fully functional, minimalist kitchen, Christina worked closely with her builder, Jon Norton, to customize every detail of her new kitchen, from the kiln shelves (used as a kitchen island) screen-printed with oxides on the front to the backsplash/counterbox that serves as extra storage. The result is a space that works for Christina’s family and blends effortlessly into their modern home.
cost
$50 to $75 (for cutting the metal)
time
1.5 hours
difficulty
★★★★
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For Jessica Lynch, a daily hike can prove to be an inspiration for a DIY project. After finding a large piece of scrap metal in the woods near her home on Guemes Island, Washington, Lynch got the idea to cover her fireplace with this free find. She power-washed the metal and had a contractor cut the piece to a perfect fit. “I’m really attracted to this worn piece of metal with its rivets, dents, and faded paint colors, and knew before I even built my house that it was going to make its way somewhere into the plans.”
cost
$1,000 (including the dresser and materials)
time
40 hours
difficulty
★★★★
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In Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, the restoration team of Chroma Lab—Alicia Cornwell and Tony Bevilacqua—made this 1940s dresser “seaworthy” with a sleek ocean-themed design. To convert the drawer pulls from two holes to one, they used wood putty to fill half the holes and then sanded them smooth. They used a custom blend of seven shades of blue paint from Benjamin Moore and Mixol Universal Tint to paint a wave pattern that transformed this dresser into one of their most talked-about pieces.
