product review Archives - Flip This Rental

So besides being a crazy youngster that enjoys doing daring things to her rental home without asking her landlord permission, I also enjoy buying old lousy furniture and dumping money and countless hours into it. BUT the final product tends to be somewhat decent so I usually am happy. I bought an old trunk from salvation army for $10 once and turned it into a table. It cost me 3X as much to fix it up but I get a lot of compliments on it so it’s okay.

I’m currently working on an old chair my mom’s boyfriend had lying around his garage, so they kindly donated it to me. I cannot for the life of me pinpoint when it was made and it’s driving me bonkers. I wanted to paint it white, distress it, and reupholster it but I have a soft heart for antiques and decided to restore it. I don’t have a place for it in my house so I’m fixing it up and giving it back to my mom for her birthday.

This is before I cleaned it. The wood is really worn and dirty, and the leather seats are really damaged. Poor thing needs some TLC 🙁 So far I think it’s made of dark walnut?? and that it’s really old?? maybe?

I figured this tag on the back would make it a piece of cake to figure out how old it was, what it’s made of, and how much it’s worth.

WRONG-O.

I searched for hours, dayssss and I can’t find a chair company/manufacturer, leather company, or anything based out of Detroit. Seriously, if you know anything about this chair tell me. Oh, it’s kind of hard to read but the right side says Detroit, Michigan 😉

The first thing I did with this chair is give it a good cleaning with some hot water, soap, and borax. The borax probably wasn’t necessary but I just love that stuff.

He looks a lot better after a nice bath but he’s far from a shiny diamond of a chair. Sorry chair, you’re still a lump of coal. Next I used Howard Restor-A-Finish in Dark Walnut and #0000 Steel Wool to restore the color of the wood and hydrate it. The top of the arms are really faded. There were also several scratches on the wood and the Restor-A-Finish is supposed to hide them really well.

When using the Restor-A-Finish make sure to put a drop cloth or newspaper underneath your project or apply it outside. It’s very oily and I’m sure it would make a mess if it spills. Let me tell you this stuff makes a BIG difference. You almost can’t tell that the wood was so neglected.

I just love how rich the wood looks after using Restor-A-Finish. It really brings out the carved details in the chair as well. This product is really easy to use and a little goes a long way. I almost wish it came in smaller containers because I don’t really know what else I’ll use it on. Maybe that’s an excuse to buy more dumpy furniture 😛

Stay tuned for the next stage in this chair’s makeover. I’m scared to pull all that leather off!

See You Around!

Lauren <3

Every time I go into my kitchen I let out a sigh of disappointment. My kitchen is really tiny, really grungy, and really outdated. I dream of having pretty white cabinets and counters that come clean. Here is what my kitchen looks like now so you can feel my pain and see how tiny it is 🙁

Prepping Cabinets for Paint - A Review of Mean Green | Flip This Rental

One day I realized that I can have pretty white counters and not so dreadful counter tops. I went digging on Pinterest for ideas on how to update cabinets, counters, and backsplash on the cheap. I decided it wouldn’t be too taxing to paint the cabinets since I don’t have a lot of them and the insides are already painted white (although they do need to be sanded and repainted *groan*).

The first step in creating a “work with what you’ve got” dream kitchen is degreasing cabinets thoroughly. This is an important step because if you don’t degrease then the paint and primer will have a hard time sticking and ruin your paint job, even if you sand. It would be tragic to put in all that work and still have it look like poop.

To degrease my cabinets I bought Mean Green Super Strength Cleaner & Degreaser. I usually DIY my own cleaners out of natural ingredients I keep on hand, but I had a feeling I would need something really tough since I was prepping the cabinets for paint. I like this product because it doesn’t have a powerful smell like most cleaning products and I didn’t feel like my hands were going to melt off if I got it all over. The degreaser was a fair price and I will definitely use it to clean other areas of my kitchen as well. The bottle doesn’t say that this specific product is for cabinets, but it worked great.

To degrease the cabinets I sprayed the cabinets one at a time with Mean Green and used a damp rag to scrub off the grime. The hot spots of my cabinets were the handles and along the sides of the doors/drawers. The faces of the doors weren’t too bad in most spots except near the stove and sink. It took me a few hours to do and not too much elbow grease. I didn’t keep close track of time but I would guess that time included trying to take pictures in my poorly lit kitchen. Now my cabinets are clean (but still ugly) and feel so much nicer to the touch.

Now some before and afters!

Before After

You can definitely see an improvement, and what’s left is imperfections in the wood

Before After

You can see the grime in the bottom left corner is gone and the hardware is sparkly clean. Having clean cabinets definitely shows how much abuse they have taken. Even better reason to paint!

This is after I cleaned and you can see the giant scratches and how faded the finish is on the wood

Here is my cat trying to help out 😉 Say hi Eleanor

And finally my clean cabinets in the limelight. What do you think of the color and weird grain of this wood? Are you tackling a similar project? Drop by the comments and let me know what you think!

If you liked this post, check out how I cleaned my cabinet hardware here.

See You Around!

Lauren <3

Tag: product review

Antique Chair Makeover – Stage 1

Prepping Cabinets for Paint – Step 1