Crazytown

Ya’ll haven’t seen much of the progress we’ve made in our new place, but it’s coming along albeit slowly. I tackled this sad and empty wall above the couch. It bothered me to walk through the door everyday and see and unfinished spot welcoming not welcoming me home.

I knew I wanted a big distressed something or other to go up there and I knew I wanted word. So I immediately thought of one of my favorite quotes of all time, it’s from Steve Jobs and I absolutely love it.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. "

- Steve Jobs

I bought furring strips, they’re super inexpensive at a buck and some change for an 8 foot long piece. I bought 8, and had them cut to 4 feet in length. So my entire project was under $20 since I just bought the furring strips and stencils, everything else I already owned. I used paint I had on hand, it’s a tannish color that I used in our old house on the living room walls. 

I didn’t worry about covering every millimeter of wood since I planned to distress it after all was said and done. Then I used blue paint that I had on hand for the letters. I did go buy the stencils because after freehanding a few sentences it did. Not. Look. Cute. At. All. So I caved and found a pack of stencils for less than five dollars.

Again, I didn’t worry about crisp lines when stenciling because when everything dried I sanded it all to make it look worn. I hung it on the wall and BAM, perfect fit. There were some hiccups along the way, as in, the original plan was for it to be half the size it ended up being, but when I switched to stencils instead of freehand the words took up more room, thus the larger end result. I also put a coat of stain on it after realizing I was going to need to paint over it anyway to stencil the letters on.

This way when I sanded it after painting, the stain would peek through, it much like the technique I used with Ethan's wooden American flag I made. And I'm glad it ended up larger than initially planned because I actually like that it spans the entire length of the couch.

SO thar she blows mate! My not so empty, and now welcoming living room wall.

Chuckin' up the Deuces until Mañana,

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

It's All in the Details

One of the first things I needed to do to our new place was give us a little privacy. Our front door is one of those that once you walk through it BOOM you're in the living room...yeah, annoying, but whatevs as that's not the real problem. It's also one of those door with the full length skinny window beside it - I'm sure it has some technical name but I'm not fancy enough to know what it is.

Now don't get me wrong - I love natural light. I constantly have my blinds and curtains open to let the sun light in, so that wasn't my complain, instead, the freaks trouble came out at night. We'd be sitting on the couch and you'd look out this bare skinny window and see nothing but darkness. Someone could stand and watch us and we'd be none the wiser. And Momma walks around half dressed, as does the brood, so we can't have the entire neighborhood gettin' a little looksie.

Enter - window film.

Sorry for the blurry photo. It's from Lowe's, the window film, not the blurry photo. It didn't cost more than $20, an investment I was willing to make. Installing it was simple enough. I did need Ethan's long arms at one point and Ari was my helper as usual. First we measured the length and width we needed.

And I decided which part of the design I wanted showing. I trimmed it with the nifty little cutter it came with as E and Ari held it for me. Then we used this little kit to apply it to the window.

The texture of the window frost was nice, it allowed for natural light to shine through during the day while blocking the view at night due to the pebble-ish texture of the film. The film also helped hide some air bubbles, seriously you have to inspect it really close to determine if there is an air bubble in the film due to the texture.

From afar it's subtle and simple - you can hardly tell in this photo, it's tough to photograph not only because of the sun but because of the subtleness of it.

And while we are doing little upgrades to the house to make it feel more like ours, Jersey is napping in random spots around the house.

To be a cat for a day. Actually no, scratch that, I enjoy not burying my poop.

Happy Hump Day, ya'll...

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