A cou­ple weeks ago I grabbed these hefty book­ends at a yard sale for $3. Real­ly the whole day of hunt­ing was a bust but find­ing these beau­ties turned the day around! That real­ly is the joy in thrift­ing and hunt­ing for those unique items. I hope this thrift­ed book­end makeover will inspire you on your next trip to the thrift store. 

When you’re on the hunt I sug­gest look­ing for items with “good bones” I know I prob­a­bly wear that phrase out but it real­ly is the most use­ful tip to remem­ber. Paint, stain and in this case, con­crete can real­ly do won­ders. I loved the curves and the look of old intri­cate cor­bels but I did not love the fin­ish. Grant­ed they are per­fect­ly fine as they are, BUT I am going for that old vin­tage weath­ered look here. 

First things first, you’re gonna want to run to your local home improve­ment store and grab this con­crete crack seal­er by Quikrete. This is the mag­ic behind this trans­for­ma­tion. It makes this book­end makeover a breeze and you will be look­ing high and low for the next item you can give a fresh new look. I have resur­faced a cou­ple oth­er projects using this bot­tle, which I remem­ber cor­rect­ly was in the $10 range. It cov­ers A LOT of ground and should serve you well for a while. I made over this THRIFTED PLANTER into a pedestal using the same stuff!

Next up, grab a sponge appli­ca­tor and maybe an old chip brush you don’t mind throw­ing out when you’re fin­ished. The con­crete is going to hard­en in the bris­tles. Use your brush to dab on the crack seal­er. I pre­fer the dab­bing meth­ods over brush­strokes sim­ply because it lifts the seal­er and will dry with texture. 

You can rapid dry with a heat gun between appli­ca­tions (I typ­i­cal­ly do about 2) Allow the project to cure and hard­en up for a cou­ple hours after your application. 

Y’all that is lit­er­al­ly all there is to it. A cou­ple coats of the seal­er, allow to dry and there you have it! These have so much more char­ac­ter after their refresh and not to men­tion, the authen­tic look of con­crete! All in all, this project cost be a total of $3 since I had the quikrete on hand. Not to bad for some­thing unique to add to your decor.