That's, like, circa 1993

So, I found some awesome furniture, and I planned to write up an entire post about it but I'm almost done refinishing every piece so I figured I'd spare you that post and just share the final products with you as I get them done. To give you the Cliff's Notes version - I bought two dressers (one tall, one long), a nightstand and a mirror from a sweet couple all for 100 smackeroos, that's what my mom called money when I was a kid by the way, was that just our family's thing or was that like a real phrase back in the day?

That wasn't a rhetorical question... 

The tall dresser is for my room, the long one is being turned into a TV stand for the living room and the mirror is going in E's room. But back to this nightstand, it's going in Owen's room.

But not like that, because it's not the early 90's and I'm blessed with decent vision.

I knew how I wanted to refinish the other pieces I listed above but couldn't decide on the nightstand. So I sat on it for a bit. No, literally I sat on the nightstand, to think of course, but nonetheless I was sitting on it. Then I figuratively sat on it for the next few days. After coming up with a very loose concept on how I wanted to decorate his room I whipped out the paint and got to it.

I patched up a hole on each drawer because I switched out the hardware and the replacement hardware only needed on hole per drawer. Then I simply painted the base white and the top ORB, yet, I didn't stain it, I was trying to work with what I had on hand and I had me some oil rubbed bronze so I got to bronzing. I was bound to run out of stain one day, especially since I love that ONE color so much that I use it over and over and over. 

Once everything dried I simply popped on some silver pulls to go with some other silver accents that'll be in his room. It's all in the details, folks. And there we have it. My baby's new nightstand.

And for an easy before and after comparison:

BEFORE

AFTER

The top looks almost black in these photos but in person it's a perfect oil-rubbed bronze finish, a rich shimmery brown. And my apologies for not having a fancy photo of it all gussied up and in his room with a lamp or a stack of books on it, those photos will have to wait, and I'll tell you why Monday, now I gotcha on the edge of your seat - huh? Well, sit back, because we're easily excited around here so it may not be as exciting to you as it is to us.

Finally Friday,

Lor

Another One Bites the Dust

Another project I did almost a month ago and just now got around to posting about is Air’s nightstand. I’m not typically one for furniture with curvy lines but I got it for free as a hand-me down when I was a poor college student struggling to make ends meet, can’t complain about that. I left it as-is at the time as I was far too busy to even think about doing anything to it. It sat in my living room as an end table for a while, then it became my nightstand, and after the boytoy and I built our new nightstands it got moved, yet again, to Ariana’s room. But the dingy wood finish had seen better days and the stain wasn’t jiving with the style I was going for in her room (I forgot to take before shots but imagine a dark cherry wood color with a few nicks and scratches). So I simply sanded it, painted it white, slapped some poly on it, and called it a day! Super easy and just what my beautiful girl needed.

You can see I decorated it with this cherry blossom tree lamp that I had been eyeing at Kirklands for a while. My friend Sara brought me to Kirkland’s for the first time a few months ago and I was in heaven. It’s like Pier One, just not as expensive. I only go there when I’m prepared to spend money because I’m terrible at “just looking.”

You can also see the photo of me and her from when she was only a few months old, I popped it in a frame I bought a few years ago at Target during Valentine’s Day.

And on the bottom shelf is a cute little textured/canvasy basket filled with some of her many books. She absolutley loves reading, always has, and she likes to read before she goes to sleep so almost every night when I check on her before I go to bed she’s knocked out with a book open beside or on her – it’s so cute.

And since she is such a little avid reader I bought her this white reading lamp from Ikea. 

It’s been sitting in the box for almost three months because since it’s wall-mounted I’m waiting to mount it until I get her headboard done since it’ll be going right next to her soon-to-be-made headboard.

Her room is coming along slowly but surely. Watch, as soon as I finish up in here I’ll find out that I get to PCS with Seth this Summer, which is exactly why I’m not painting any walls. Ce la vie!

Lorri

Nighty Night

Guess what?! We finally built our nightstands! And they are proportionate in size (unlike our old ones) to our other massive bedroom furniture! And they're purdy! And they hold a lot of stuff without looking crazy cluttered! Call me crazy for being excited about those things. It reminds me of the time I asked for a vacuum cleaner for my birthday and when I received a Dyson I was so excited that you would’ve thought I won the lottery. That’s the day I officially knew I was an adult – when vacuum cleaners got me giddy and they made the top of my birthday list.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

See?! Excited.

So yeah, we (yep, I coerced the hubby to help) made ourselves a set of nightstands. We made it out of the base of a massive dining table that we owned when we lived in Pcola. I didn’t want to take the table with us when we moved to Destin because 1. It was no longer my style (I owned it for at least seven years) and 2. I had my eye on a new one. But when we moved I realized I couldn’t buy the new one I had my eye on because our new place was too small, therefore that purchase will have to wait until we move yet again. BUT! When giving our old table the boot we kept the “legs” of the table. Instead of the typical four legs, the table had two big pedstals as legs, so we we just unscrewed the table top and kept the two pedestals because I figured we could use them as bases to nightstands. And that’s just what we did. I forgot to take a photo of the bases before we started but you can catch a glimpse in them in this 'before' photo I took when I was refinishing our dining table, it's the dark wood base behind the table on the far right of the photo, it's somewhat hard to see:

After standing in the lumber aisle of Lowe’s for 45 minutes (slight exagerration) the hubby picked out the plywood we would use as our table tops. When we got home he simply used his jigsaw to cut two 36-inch circles in the wood. You should’ve seen us trying to draw a circle on the wood as a guide for him to cut around – it was humourous, we held a string to the center and failed, had the other hold a string to the center and failed, and then we finally got smart and nailed the string to the center and BAM – it worked like magic.

Then we sanded, painted, and applied a few coats of poly. I called myself saving time by using a primer-paint-in-one, but I will never, ever, ever do that again because it took more coats then I dare count (perhaps the brand I used was just wrong but I loooooathed it). I have always used a separate primer first and then painted and the technique works great so I should’ve stuck with my usual method. Lesson learned.

Then, the hubby simply used screws to attach the table tops to the pedestals and viola! We were in business. Note: Make sure you countersink the screws so that you don't have big lumps where the screws are.

Not too shabby, eh? And yes, my curtains are too short but since we don't plan to live here for more than a year I refuse to buy new ones and have just been working with things I had from the old house.

It's difficult to get a good photo of that wall because the opposing wall is really close (the room is tiny) so I can't zoom out enough to capture the the bed and nightstands, but hopefully this helps you get an idea of what we've got goin' on (oh, and forgive the random heart balloons, this photo was take on Valentine's day, yes I'm a month late posting about this). 


Our room looks so much better just with that simple change. But if you’re like me you’re thinking that the roundness of the nightstands and the curviness of our current headboard adds up to a whole lotta curves, which is nice but not typically my style. But fear not, we’ve got our eye on this killer headboard from West Elm:

Source

So once we take the plunge and purchase it the angles of the new headboard will breakup all the curves we’ve currently got going on with the nightstands. But that’s no time soon – I still have Ari’s room to finish before moving on to anything else major. And truth be told, the only reason we built our nightstands right now is because I needed my old nightstand (which I failed to take a 'before' picture of, bad mommy) to refinish for Ari’s room. And I couldn't imagine giving up my nightstand without getting one to replace it! I'm pretty sure I'd fail to function without a nightstand - it holds my magazines, books, glasses, jewelry, lamp and phone charger on it, sheesh, I sound like I belong on Hoarders. Oh, and it holds my basal body thermometer because I've fine tuned the art of charting...damn me and my baby fever. 

So there you have it mother (and everyone else of course), the nightstands I was telling you about and have taken forever to show you. I feel like I'm on a building/refinishing/sanding/painting spree. It’s just that I’m on a roll and want to keep moving while I’ve got the momentum.

Hugs,

Lor