2020: Favorite thrift store makeovers

I played around with cement a few times in 2020. One of my first experiments was with this paper mache chicken.

I found her at a pay-by-the-pound thrift store, and since she was feather light, I tossed her in my cart and brought her home.

I thought her distinctive shape might make her a good candidate for a cement skim coat makeover.

When I was cleaning my basement, I decided to throw this faded old striped drum shade into the garbage.

Then I had second thoughts and fished it out of the trash can.

My “Curiouser & Curiouser” pillow started life as a tote bag.

As makeovers go, this one should have been simple. I just had to remove the handles, sew a zipper into one side, and stuff a pillow form inside. But as a crafter with minimal sewing skills, I struggled.

Despite my stupid mistakes and wonky stitch lines, the pillow looks great. (As long as you don’t look too closely.) 🤣 

This handmade thread box was a thrift store find. I’m sure lots of shoppers passed it by because it was so beige and boring. I spiffed it up with some chalk paint and grain sack stripes. (You’ll have to read the post to see how pretty it is inside, filled with colorful spools of thread.)

When my son moved out after college, he left this old particleboard desk behind. I didn’t love it, so I decided to give it a makeover with some black chalk paint and a cement skim coat on the desktop.

I bought this dark, dingy secretary desk for a song at a thrift store — and then spent years dithering over what to do with it.

It was too French and too formal for me — but I was too nervous to start hacking it up and painting over the dark wood.

This summer I finally forced myself to get on with it. And I couldn’t be happier with the results.

If this furniture pediment looks familiar, it’s because it was originally attached to the secretary desk I posted about in No. 4. After I hacked the pediment off, I tossed it out back, thinking it was destined for a date with the Cestkowski Family Fire Pit. But when the shiny veneer started to chip off in the rain, it got a reprieve.

What to do with a hopelessly dated Early American style jewelry box?

Remove the frilly trim, give it a cement skim coat, and change out the hardware, of course.

My bleached wood office chair was more of a makeunder than a makeover.

I sanded off the shiny finish, then wiped the chair down with bleach few times. The bleach stripped most of the dark color out of the wood.

Pretty sure I’ll be bleaching more wood in 2021.