Put Down the Debit Card and Step Away From the Furniture

I have a problem ya'll. I looooooove to shop. I don't love to shop. I loooooooooove to shop. There is a difference. If I see something that I have to have but don't buy it initially, I will think about it so much that I will go back to the store for it. And if it's not there when I go back for it I daydream about it. I am 100% serious.

Before going forward with this post, let me remind you that this is a place for hugs and sharing, not for judging, so stop analyzing my shopping issues and just work with me here. Please and thank you.

So as you know, we moved a month ago. And when you move you don't typically purchase more large items (think furniture) until you're in your new digs. That is, unless you're me. Which you're not. Sorry.

So yes, I'll just admit it. I purchased more furniture in the month before our move than I have in the last year. Sorry, again, to my lovely friends that helped me move. And I vow not to buy anymore furniture at least for a month. Scout's honor. Actually, I take that vow back because I know I won't honor it.

So I was perusing Craigslist when I came across this desk.

I had this desk when I was a kid. I remember my parents allowing me to pick out furniture for a bedroom makeover when I was a kid and I immediately starting browsing through the JCPenney catalog. I guess I was a strange child because I loved looking through that catalog every time it arrived in the mail. So I was tickled when I came across the above look alike desk - I just had to have it. Ari needed a desk for her new room anyway so I went for it. I contacted the seller, he was asking $50 for it. I offered $40. He took it. Drop it low! Actually, no, don't do that.

The desk was in good shape, I had to touch up the paint in one spot but with a few coats of white paint it was good as new. The hardware was next - I ORB'd 'em. And ta-da! She now has her super cute desk in her new bedroom - Jersey likes to sunbathe on it.

Oh, and I owe you a post on the desk chair that you see (ignore the pair of jeans hanging over it). I used one of our old dining chairs as my starting point and the whole makeover as FREE - woot! More on that tomorrow.

Lorri

Television Stand Complete

Remember the furniture I bought a month or two ago? And remember the dresser that I turned into a television console? And remember that I told you I'd show you a better photo of it when we were all set up in our new house? Okay, no more questions, I promise. Well, here she is all settled in our new home.

Ain't she a beaut? All grayish-blue and distressed - she's the stuff dreams are made of. I originally planned to paint it white then distress it, but when at Lowe's buying paint I gravitated towards the grays and the lighter blues. Then Ari spotted the Valspar sample pots and the rest is history. I bought two and they weren't even $3 a piece and I still had some left over so for less than $6 we (yes, Ari helped) painted the dresser, orb'ed the hardware, distressed it a bit, and called 'er done.

It sat like that (photo directly above) for a good couple of weeks - we still lived in our tiny 1300ish square foot apartment in Destin and had no where to put it, so it lived behind our sectional all awkward yet yummy.

When we moved to our new place a few weeks ago I realized I still hadn't cut the holes in the back of the dresser for the cords. Ooops. So our electronics sat all oddly on top of the dresser next to the television until I had the patience to cut the hole, which took all of 10 minutes but let me tell ya, when you have a house full of boxes, three kids, school starting, and a full-time job, you're not exactly too worried about making your TV stand look cute right away.

Instead, I did other somewhat important things like put beds together, and dig out sheets, and wash clothes, and take actual showers instead of bathing with nothing but baby wipes - oh don't you worry, that story will come soon enough and it actually deserves its own post.

So last week I finally emptied the last living room box, organized the contents of the TV stand, and cut some damn holes.

It was super easy, I simply used our jigsaw and cut holes large enough for all our cords to run easily through yet small enough so that they aren't visible from the front of the unit. And yes, I cut the holes right there in my living room. After I took the above photo I quickly sanded around my cuts and vacuumed up the little bit of sawdust left behind. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

So there you have it, our $25 craigslist dresser turned television console.

Budget Breakdown:

Dresser (found on craigslist) - $25
2 sample pots of paint - $6
brushes, poly, sander, jigsaw - $0 (already owned)
wood used to hold electronics where I removed the top two drawers - $3

Total for Television Console Makeover - $34

I'd call that a success,

Lor

Dresser Turned TV Console

Okay, so remember the plethora of furniture I bought? Well, I finished refinishing the long dresser last night. But we aren't gonna use it as a dresser, instead I'm turning it into a television console. I'll give you a visual of the kinda-sorta 'before' prior to getting any deeper into my blabbing.

It's not a true 'before' photo because about halfway through painting I realized I didn't get a photo of the dresser before I started so I quickly snapped a photo of the drawers that I hadn't touched yet so that ya'll get a better idea of what she looked like before we got her all painted and pretty.

I was drawn to this piece because of the detailing (is it called moulding?) on the front of the drawers.

Mama like. And originally I planned to paint it all white and then distress it but I decided to go with a blueish-grey since our couch is a creme color and I wanted the console to be the focus, especially with it's purdy drawer fronts. I still distressed it after painting it and I sealed the top with poly but I left the drawers unpolyed because I actually won't mind if it gets more dings and scratches on it to add to the distressed look and in my house they are bound to get a little more roughed up over the years thanks to my basketball team otherwise known as my children.

My plan was originally to put the two top drawers on hinges so that we could open them in a downward motion and access the electronic equipment. But when I bought the hinges and went to put them on I realized that the way the dresser was made prevented it from allowing the drawers space to fold down (I hope that makes sense). So I opted to simply take the two top drawers out completely. Then I unscrewed the drawers thingies on the inside of the dresser (sorry, I don't know the real name of the thingies). I did this so that I could get a solid piece of wood to use as a spot to put the electronics on.

I orb'd the hardware (I liked the unique style of it and thought it added to the vintage look but wasn't digging the '90's brassiness of it) and voila!

It proved difficult to capture on camera 1. the true color and 2. the details of the distressing. That probably has to do with the fact that I currently have the big honking piece of furniture slid in a small little space (so small that I can't even get a straight on shot of the bad boy) and there is no natural light in this area so the lighting is terrible.

I plan to line the drawers with simple drawer liners. For now they look like this:

Not too bad - right?

For now the piece isn't getting much use besides Jersey laying on top where the television will eventually go, he is going to be very disappointed when we move in a couple weeks and he is no longer able to lay on top of it. Maybe he'll just protect it by playing Guard Kitty and laying in front of it like he is here:

And you can see that we've begun packing. Ugh. My house is covered in boxes and chaos, but two more weeks and we'll be outta here - woot!

And just for fun, here's another photo of Ariana posing like Jersey in front of our newly refinished TV stand, which she helped my paint by the way.

She even put on a serious "Jersey face"...I think she nailed the look. Jus' sayin'...

So there it is, our new tv stand. When we are all settled in the new house and we are actually using the tv stand for it's intended purposes I'll do another post so that you can truly appreciate the awesomeness of it. Ha.

This dresser turned TV console is the second of four pieces I bought a few weeks ago. The nightstand redo is here. And next week I'll show you the third piece, I just need to do a few finishing touches to it over the weekend. 

Update: I finally posted some photos of our new tv stand all set up in our new house. Click here to check it out!

Lorri

Pop Goes the Boys' Room

I admit it. I have totally neglected the boys’ room. Partially because I knew our current digs is temporary and partially because I didn’t have a vision for the space. Well, thanks to *sound the trumpets: dun, dun, dun, duuuuun!* Pinterest I found a solid foundation on what I’d like to build the style of each of the boys’ rooms around, but the problem is that they currently share a room *whomp, whomp, whomp, whooooomp* (I really need sound effects for this post). So I’ve decided to simply get started on a few small projects that will work in the shared space for the next few months as well as work for their own individual rooms when they get ‘em. 

You can check out the boards I have for E’s and Owen’s rooms on Pinterest to get a better idea of my starting point, but to be honest, a lot of the design for their rooms is simply stored in my head.

I’ve recently started to dig distressed, unperfect looking art and furniture so for E’s room I envision the focal point to be a huge piece of art hung above his full size bed. To be exact, I want to do a painting of an American flag but give it a distressed look. I also want to do some sort of wall-mounted shelves to display his knick-knacks on. And this kid has a lot of display worthy items, namely Legos. He has a future in architeture, I tell ya. So in addition to the shelves I plan to one day make I was keeping an eye out for other awesome, vintagy pieces that I could turn into a cool display piece.

In comes Craigslist. Holla!

It’s hit or miss with Craigslist when it comes to finding neat-o things. But when browsing the site one day I came across this:

It’s an old pop crate. A Pepsi bottle crate to be exact. Super cool. And with a price of a cool 20 bones I had to jump, I didn’t even barter with the guy, I wanted it thaaaat baaad. What’s even better was that the guy actually had two of them that he was getting rid of. Can I get a 'what what'?!

The crates are old so they already have that rustic look that I’ve been envisioning. So all I did was give ‘em a good wipe down and slap some poly on it.

Now don't let the sentence "all I did was give 'em a good wipe down" fool you into thinking that this was a ten minute process. The bottoms of the inside of the crates were filthy with...I guess it was dust. It looked like it had been sitting in someone's basement for years and just collected layers upon layers of dust on the inside. So I washed them with water, sprayed cleaner on them, scrubbed, rinsed, and repeated about three or four times. Then I had to let them dry for a day and a half to make sure they were totally dry before putting the polyurethane on them. And the poly just helped to warm up the color of the wood, so they still have that rustic look.

Four screws later and I’ve got myself some spiffy looking shadow boxes.

 

I love the vintagy, worn look. And the PEPSI on the sides.

Gotta love the power of Craigslist. And poly. And 20 dollar bills. And pop. And all things distressed.

Xo,

Lor

Dressing up A's Dresser

If you know Ariana you know that she is one independent, borderline sassy nine year old. And when I bought a dresser for her room she had very strong opinions on what color it should be (I bought it on Craigslist so it needed refinished). So, what color did she pick?

Purple.

“Um, negative,” were the exact words I told her when I heard she wanted a purple dresser. And I didn’t say it because I thought it was wacky to paint a dresser purple, I mean, I’m the same woman that painted our dining chairs teal (the picture below doesn't really capture their true color). 

It’s just that I simply could see her growing out of the PURPLE PHASE! Which meant we’d need to repaint it years down the road, and that’s not something I wanted to do. So I made a command decision and decided to paint it white and let her pick out the hardware.

I painted the dresser and we were happy with the result.

Don't judge me - that photo was taken right after we moved in, hence the boxes and chaos and photos leaning against the wall. 

But now, a year and a half after our initial purchase of the dresser I’ve decided to…drumroll…repaint her dresser - the exact thing I was trying to avoid.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the look of crisp, clean white. But against the white walls (which I could paint but don’t really want to since we are renting and I have no clue when we’ll be moving) it just, well, disappears. So Ari and I came up with a happy medium; I wanted the dresser to be able to work even when we move to a house where I do decide to paint her walls and I also wanted the look to be one that she would enjoy for years, while all she cared about was some color! So we decided to leave the base of the dresser white and paint the drawers with a bright, bold color.

The colors of her room are magenta, teal and bright yellow. And since yellow is reserved for her accents such as her lamp base, pillows and other accessories, I decided against it on the dresser. Besides, I have my eye on this killer rug (you can soooomewhat see it in the pic below) so when I eventually make the plunge and buy the rug it would just be too, too much yellow in the room if we went with yellow drawers.

Source

So that left teal and magenta. She wanted magenta and I, too, was favoring magenta since 1. When we eventually move I plan to paint her walls a cool color (think light bluish-gray) so the warm magenta will be more asthetically pleasing against the contrasting cool wall tone and 2. I love that it’s so damn bright and cheery and it will totally pop against the drab white walls we’re currently too lazy to paint stuck with.


I'm sure you noticed in the first photo of her dresser I taped a few paint chips to it. I did that because I was torn between three colors (the darkest one on each chip) and wanted to see what they looked like throughout the day (from the sun beaming through the window in the early morning, to noon and in the evening). I learned to do this after I painted Ari's walls yellow in one of our old houses and they turned out beautifully, except for a few hours everyday, midday when the sun made it look as though Big Bird threw up all over the walls. Lesson learned.


So after a few months of procrastinating (I was scurred to make a decision), I went with the darkest color on the middle paint chip, although the picture (like the one of our dining chairs) doesn't quite capture its true color.

So I broke out the dreaded sander and got to work.

A few coats of Berrylicious by Valspar, followed by several coats of acrylic to seal the finish and make the surface wipeable and I had myself some seriously pink dresser drawers.

When we bought the dresser it was obvious it had seen better days. If you look, a small piece of the trim is missing (which I've yet to replace) and the finish looked worn. But those two things didn’t deter me from buying it because first and foremost it’s solid wood, which is hard to find these days. Most pieces I found at furniture stores had a significant amount of laminate or particle board on them so I figured I’d look at flea markets and on craigslist for an old school dresser that was quality made, since they just don’t make ‘em like they used to. And at $50 asking price, which the hubby talked down to $45 (hey, every little bit counts), we were sold. I figured we’d just go to Lowes and get some paint or stain and fix 'er up. And that's exactly what we did.

So do you wanna see the whole thing?

Boom! Snazzy, eh? Again, ignore the missing trim, I put that on Seth's honey-do list. And ignore the mess on top of the dresser, her room is a work in progress.

So there you have it folks. My baby girl has herself a very, merry berrylicious dresser. And it looks mighty sassy (kinda like her), if I do say so myself.

On a roll,

Lor

Table Redo (Part 1)

I stained a table. Can I get a 'what what'?! I stained a flippin' table! And I am shamelessly proud of myself. 

You'd think I built the thing from the ground up based on how ecstatic I am about it, but I've never stained a table before, hence my giddiness. 

Let me start by saying, I'm no stranger to repurposing old things with the intent of making them 'new' again. Partly because it's tough to find well-built furniture nowadays. As a kid, I remember my parents always having heavy, solid furniture that lasted decades. Now, you walk into a furniture store and half of the pieces are laminate and particle board. So I love going to a second-hand store or browsing Craigslist and finding a solid wood piece of furniture. Not only do I get a quality piece of furniture but I also get to do something good for the planet. I'm all about reducing waste. So if I can buy an awesome dresser used rather than consuming a new one, I'm game.

When we moved a few months ago, I donated some of our old dining room furniture to GoodWill. I intended to buy a new table and chairs that I had been eyeing at Home Place Furniture but it was too large to fit in our new space so we opted to go tableless while we figured out a solution. 

We finally decided to wait until we PCS to buy the table I had my eye on with the hopes that our future home would have a bigger dining room. But we still needed something in the meantime. With three kids and holiday meals coming up a dining table is a MUST! 

I didn't want to 'settle' on a table that I didn't like simply to use it for a few months and then trash it once we move (that would totally go against my recycling mentality). So I wanted to find something that we could still use after we move when I came across this beauty:

Okay, so 'beauty' doesn't quite describe it but dammit I saw potential, plus it's solid wood. Score! 

Oh, by the way, forgive all the horribly shot photos in this post - the lighting was terrible and I was too impatient to wait for the sun to move.

If you've been in my home you know that I like dark wood and I like white. But this table was originally a birch-ish color (I think I just made up that term). I'm not one for the light wood look, although I'll admit I did go through a phase about 5 or 6 years ago where I loved the look, therefore Ethan's room and my living room were full of birchy (is that still not a word?) furniture. Fast forward six years and my style has evolved dramatically, as have my living room and E's room. 

So the first thing I wanted to do was stain the table top a dark color. I was diggin' the white legs but they were beat-up (don't believe me? Check out the picture below) so I decided to redo them. Can you guess what color I chose? …Yep, you guessed it: white! I thought the contrast of the white and dark would be appealing and fun. 

So I sanded and painted and sanded and painted and sanded some more. You'll have to take my word for it when I say that it's looking pretty fantabulous (unlike the 'before' pictures above) but it's not quite done. I'll be back tomorrow with a play by play and pictures of my end result! Let me get one more 'what, what' on three. One, two, three...

Xo,

Lor