Hi everybody! I’m Melina and this is my first real foray into sharing my many DIY projects and all the funky little details that go along with them. I regularly post my finished projects on Instagram (find me there under the name Little Pint Restorations if you’re interested), but I find that a simple before/after post doesn’t quite do justice to the often arduous process that got me from the BEFORE to the AFTER. And while my Insta is technically a business account, I hardly confine it to DIY posts. They’re everywhere to be sure, but they’re usually scattered about among puppy pics, shots from the latest vacation, the occasional selfie and an embarrassing number of food posts (hey, I like to cook and sometimes it’s fun to show your work). So obviously Insta serves me well but the chance to have a platform dedicated solely to DIY is super exciting and gives me a chance to share my work among a sea of fellow DIYers. So first off, a little bit about me: I’m 25, born in Idaho, raised in Virginia near DC. I’m a graduate of James Madison University with a BA in Psychology. I’ve lived in Charlottesville with my boyfriend for two years, since my final year of school. I got into furniture restoration a couple of months after coming to Cville, when my boyfriend came home with a few pieces of furniture that had been liquidated as part of a home sale. Among them were a giant birdcage (which I actually gave to my mom and she flipped it into a now gorgeous standing light), a few cheap folding chairs, an old trunk, and a little flip-top vanity desk. Our goal was to either toss or give away most of it, but there was something about that little desk, with its choppy white paint job and too-small hardware that called to me. It had such great bones and a lot of character that just needed to be annunciated a bit more than its current state allowed. So I took it on a one-off project that I figured I’d attempt to sell through Craigslist once I finished. I bought my first ever pint of Annie Sloan’s chalk paint, clear wax, brushes, used my first ever drill, and eventually made my first ever furniture sale. None of it, as it turned out, would be the last. I was immediately addicted to the idea of taking unwanted furniture and turning it into something new and beautiful. Fast-forward a couple months, I had a cabinet fully stalked with various colors of various chalk paint brands, more brushes than I knew what to do with, and about ten finished projects under my belt. A few months later, I was regularly consigning pieces to some local shops while selling others online (and first experimenting with Etsy). Cut to about a year later and I had a name: Little Pint Restorations. I had a FB business page, took on my first ever client job, and was well past the point where I could keep track of how many pieces I had worked on. Two years into my little profession and my business and skill level continue to grow and to adapt. In this time, I have learned many techniques, met many challenges, and discovered so many great artists who inspire me to keep up my work. If I have a goal for the future, it is to one day turn my furniture-flipping into my main profession. As of now, I do all of my projects at home in my tiny workspace, which is ALWAYS a mess, and always stocked with projects in various stages of completion. I absolutely love what I do and am so happy to get to share my work with all of you!