$1 Room Refresh - Today's Project

Here's a room refresh that anyone can do for ONE dollar! I did this project after I hung up a few things in our rental, and I love the pieces, but my vision for the new house is to have a Scandinavian-chic, black-and-white--and-pops-of-color look going on.

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Wanting to create a black and white theme, the natural wood frames on these pretty glass pieces won't work. Speaking of which, the wooden TV console table seen below will be in my husband's office, not in the main area of the new house. I'm hoping to stock to high-contrast b&w, metal, and colorful accents throughout the farmhouse. I figured I may as well start now prepping things for the farmhouse, so I got to crafting.

First of all, let's look at the "BEFORE" of the project I'm starting:

There are a few things I did to update the look above, including finding and customizing a piece for the empty area - stay tuned for that post next week! Previously, I had painted the initial teal (it came unfinished.) The project I am going to show you today, however, only costs about $1 and can change the entire look of your space!

And the project is (drumroll....) Change all the wooden frames to a chic and modern black color! Because these pieces are glass set into wood (non-removable), there is no simple way to reframe them myself, plus that could get expensive quickly. So I decided to refinish the existing frames, using simple, $0.99 acrylic paint you can most likely find at any craft store. I happened to use DecoArt brand, but there are several cheap craft paints that would work. Because these frames are not removable, I wanted to be careful not to get paint on the glass, which is one reason I used acrylic paint instead of spray paint; it is easy to scrape off glass compared to spray paint, and I could use a small brush if needed to be detailed.

Okay, let's get started.

Important note, this project will only work as directed with wooden frames. If your frames are metal or plastic, different methods or materials may be needed.

STEP ZERO: Haha yes, there is a step zero, because there is a step I couldn't do but you may be able to. Step zero is, remove the frame IF POSSIBLE. In my case, the frames were not removable.

STEP ONE: Sand and dust the frames. Lightly sand the frame with any sand paper. I found a leftover piece of sand paper in our garage, that is actually supposed to go on an electric sander.Sanding the wood removes any finish that might hinder the paint from bonding to the wood. Then, make sure you wipe down the frame with damp towel to remove any dust that would cause texture and bonding issues with the paint.

Now that you've quickly sanded and dusted the frames, you can move on to the next step.

STEP TWO: Protect the glass. This only applies if you can't remove the frames. This is a really good trick for those pieces that you can't take apart but want to refinish.

Slide glass between the frame and the glass. Usually, there is a paper-depth space that enables you to do this. Of course, in MY case, the frames were glued closely to the glass and some of the paper didn't slide under, leaving me with some spillover paint that I had to remove later. BUT I am still including this tip, as it works most of the time. Just be aware that it is not 100% foolproof, so make sure you are not experimenting with anything terribly valuable or irreplacable. As for the typical glass insert, it can easily be cleaned up later.

At this point, you could spray or hand paint the frame. For the reasons I mentioned above, I chose to hand paint with acrylic paint. It's also super cheap!

STEP THREE: Paint the frames. It surprised me how fast and easy this was to do. Also, the paint dried super quickly. I did two coats.

STEP FOUR: Clean up the edges if you're like me and mess it up a bit as you try to pull away the paper. I DID promise I would share my mistakes along with successful tips.

So remember when I said the paper didn't quite slide under the frame as it usually does when I use that trick? Well, because the paper was butted up the frame and didn't have wiggle room to pull out neatly all the way around, the paint stuck to it and the edges of the paper remained stuck to the frame. Even the edges that did slide under got stuck a bit. NOT TO PANIC. This was easily fixed (just not the first way I tried.)

SKIP THIS STEP, for real. Haha. Mistake alert: I attempted to use a steak knife edge to pull out the paper from the frame's edge. Why? Because it was the closet blade to the project as I worked in the kitchen. Not really a great reason. The knife's blade was too wide and started scratching my freshly painted frame. Oh dear. PLUS it's probably unsafe, so I don't advise doing this at all. Time to try something else.

Ah, got it!

I used a box cutter to trim away the paper. The razor has a finer edge, which worked better for working the paper out from under the frame in the spots it actually did slide under. This looked worse than it really was, the entire paper-edge-clean-up took only a few minutes for both pieces I painted.

PLEASE, just be very careful when using a box cutter and make sure you retract the razor blade when you're finished. I know, I know, mom advice.

STEP FIVE: Let dry and hang up your "new" art! I really love my new look. The black sets up the colors in the art nicely, and the black frame creates a sharper contrast which will work nicely in the farmhouse when we move in. Granted it still feels far away, but when the house is ready, it will be exciting to know that some projects are already done!

Here is the other frame, and sneak-peek of the mirror piece above it that I custom made - Check it out next week!

Ta-Dah! Here are all the finished pieces together. Stay tuned next week for a fun, step-by-step on how to custom create a small framed mirror like the one I made above.

One bottle of acrylic paint was enough to paint both frames with plenty to spare, all for $1.00! I estimate that perhaps as many as 6 or 8 frames could be painted with one small bottle of paint, depending on the size of the frame, of course. Simply changing the color of your framed art or photographs can make a huge difference. You could also have fun and use multiple bright colors, if you want more of a funky look. It's such an inexpensive way to update your look, and you can always repaint in the future anytime you want to refresh your style.

That's it for now, I hope you give this little project a try and tell me about it in the comments!

With Love,

Molly

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