The Interior DIYer

#DarkRomanticLuxe

Value Village #ThriftieNominee2019!

I do not like award scenarios whereby you have to ask friends, family and members of the public to vote for you. I don’t mind voting for other people when they ask, but something deep down inside of me turns inside out at the thought of asking people to vote for me in any way. It’s probably something to do with social pressure and me hating ‘popular people’ when I was growing up.

As I was perusing Instagram on Thursday morning, I saw an update from Value Village about their Thriftie Awards and I was immediately like, hold my drink. Value Village are having their first annual Thriftie Awards this year and to become a nominee, all you have to do is nominate yourself and share a post on Instagram about why you should receive the award. Where do I start and remind me again – who’s holding my drink?

I’ve always been aware of shopping secondhand. My mom would bring us on occasion thrifting, but the older I became and the more aware I’ve become of the environmental benefits of thrifting and the more I’ve consciously chosen to buy secondhand pieces.

I would confidently say at least 85% of our our home [including decor, furniture, clothes and accessories] is secondhand and a huge part of that is from Value Village and essentially, my entire blog is proof of that. My dream is to renovate a home of our own and all the renovations we make to be secondhand pieces we find online or on the side of the road or thrifted. Next to nothing new [within reason. I mean, mattresses. I won’t be running too quickly towards a mattress that I find on the side of the road].

Today I’ll be sharing on my Instagram stories ALL OF THE THINGS WE OWN FROM VALUE VILLAGE in an attempt to solidify and prove my nomination as a #ThriftieNominee2019. There’s a lot. So much that I had to record it all in advance last night while Robert was putting Cora to bed.

I hope you find it encouraging to go out and make your next purchase a secondhand purchase. It’s the main reason I share all my treasures. That, and to brag about what I found.

I’ll be spending most of my day manifesting receiving that tiny golden shopping cart. I already know exactly where it’s going to go.

#DarkRomanticLuxe

Curbside find – antique dresser

On my way home from work last Friday I saw something on the side of the road that caught my eye. It was dirty and dusty but beautiful and had the word “FREE!” written in chalk on the sidewalk underneath it.

I called Robert to help me carry it inside.

“And where is this going?”, he asked.
“In the living room. The TV is going to sit on it”, I replied.
“But we already have the TV on something. It’s on the hutch”.
“That hutch is going into the bedroom – where we need it more!”

Honestly, why don’t men catch on quicker to intricate plans that we’ve devised and formulated entirely in our heads over months and never shared with anyone? It’s really not that hard.

I mean look at it. There’s no way I was going to let it stay one moment longer on someone’s lawn. It’s beautiful! It has sweet carved flowers and scrolls across the dresser and on handles. It’s difficult to see, but in places the flower details are stained red and green, but they are long worn down and faded.

I have no intention of touching-up the scratches or distress marks for the time being. We all have our scars and shouldn’t feel the need to hide them. And for what it’s worth, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in painting it.

#DarkRomanticLuxe

Fusion Mineral Paint Faux Marble Fireplace

This blog post is a Partnered Project.

I don’t want to admit how long I’ve been working on updating our fireplace but it’s getting close to 2 years at this point. I painted the fireplace white when I painted our living room burgundy in November 2017. When we first moved in the walls in our living room were a blueish shade of grey, the picture rail was a second shade of grey, the fireplace was two shades of beige and the ceiling was a lighter shade of beige. It’s a horrible before photo below, but this is the best one I have …

Considering the unusual shape of our fireplace, I thought the best way to highlight it would be to paint the fireplace and the mantle white against the rest of the burgundy walls. It was around the same time I painted our dining room hutch makeover in ‘Coal Black’ that I thought about painting the inside of the fireplace a dark colour. Along with Coal Black paint, Fusion Mineral Paint sent me their dark grey shade of Ash. It would be perfect for the inside of the fireplace as it was beautifully dark without being straight up black. Fusion Mineral Paint also sent the sweet shade Little Lamb grey which I immediately knew would be perfect in faux marbleizing the fireplace.

For a long time I didn’t know exactly how I should paint it so I got stuck [anyone else get stuck thinking for so long that they get more and more overwhelmed by a project?]. For about 6 months our fireplace sat half-painted, until only recently when I finished marbleizing the fireplace [overwhelming work schedule + a toddler transitioning into a threenager], but I’m really happy with how it turned out!

A very last minute decision I made that really brought the fireplace together was to paint the tiles in the same Ash paint as the inside of the fireplace. Fusion Mineral Paint adhere’s perfectly to tiles, especially in this situation as it’s not a high-traffic area. The tiles weren’t in great condition to begin with and weren’t historic to the property, so I took a chance and painted them. It really pulled the fireplace together and made it look like a complete unit. I think so at least!

It was quite a surprisingly easy process faux-marbleizing our fireplace with Fusion Mineral Paint. Despite it being quite a bumpy surface, I think it still looks relatively convincing. At the very least, it looks better than it did before. I also took some step-by-step photos of the process and I’m hoping to be able to put together a tutorial for exactly how I did it. There are a lot of photos and I figured it would be overwhelming to have them all in one blog post.

I’m hoping to share a tutorial in the coming weeks about exactly how I faux marbled our Fusion Mineral Paint fireplace. A huge thank you again to Fusion Mineral Paint for partnering with me on another makeover project and for sincerely having such incredible and versatile paint.

DISCLOSURE – while this post is not sponsored, I did receive this paint free of charge from Fusion Mineral Paint in exchange for a blog post. I only work with brands that I like and of course, think you will too. Thank you for supporting the companies that support The Interior DIYer.