Dresser Redo

A long long time ago (February)  I found a dresser on KSL, which is sort of like craigslist, and I sent my husband to pick it up.  I saw it online and said "25 bucks?"  I immediately fell in love with it.  It was a huge dresser with clean lines and perfect for us to use as a TV stand once we acquired a flat panel TV.  I couldn't wait for Andrew to pick it up.  You have to be quick about cheap stuff, so he went and bought it as soon as he could.  He picked it up in a truck that we were renting (long unrelated story) and as he turned the first corner coming home two of the drawers flew out of the truck and crashed on the ground.  It wasn't a hard fix, but when he brought that sucker home I noticed two things.  1.  The broken drawers and 2. It was really ugly.  What had happened to my clean lines?  I had big plans for this beast and it wasn't what I thought it was at all.  So it sat in my garage FOREVER while I sorted through my feelings about the piece of crap.  Then the looming reality of getting a second car and having no where to put it sunk in and I started pondering what to do with it.  People always ask me if it's hard to refinish furniture and they never seem to believe me when I say no, so if you are one of those people who are daunted by the thought of refinishing something read this step by step of this dresser redo (sorry no pics).

1. Fix the drawers - I just stapled them back together.
2. Sand everything - I use my Ryobi Sander which I love.
3. Prime everything- I'm not super picky about primer.  Usually I'll just go to Walmart and pick up a can if I specifically need primer, but where I'm really picky is paint.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE  Behr paint.  I think it is by far the best and I have tried a lot of paint.
4. spray hardware - I used Rustoleum Oiled Bronze spray paint.  LOVE this stuff!  One of the hardware pieces was broken, so I planned on getting pulls to replace the top four pieces of hardware.
5.  Sat and stared at it for a while wondering what color to paint it and what I was going to do with it.
6. Decided on and painted it off white since almost every piece of furniture in my house is off white.  I figured I would find something to do with it.
7. Distressed it with my sander
8. Polyurethane coats - I use Minwax fast drying polyurethane because it is perfect for the impatient crafter.  ie: me
9. Then I was kind of liking it and thinking it would look good in my bedroom
10.  I went to home depot to pick up some pulls and track pieces for it.
11. Came home and realized that the track pieces were wrong and the pulls wouldn't fit.  ALWAYS TAKE THE OLD HARDWARE IN!  Most hardware these days are pretty standard, but back in the day things were not so standard, so the holes for the hardware in this dresser were WAY farther apart than the standard of today's hardware.
12.  Go back to home depot, buy the cheapest knobs I can find that will coordinate with my dresser and new tracks.
13.  Put tracks on and spray the cheap hardware.
14. Fill old holes with wood putty.
15. Sand and paint over those holes
16. Drill new holes and put hardware in.
17. Decide this dresser is not for me and put it up for sale on KSL and Craigslist

Luckily I found the perfect new owners for this beast and they loved it and were impressed with my mad refinishing skills.  ;)

Office Organization/ Do people really buy these things?

If you are a DIYer or a crafter of any kind you probably know who Anthropologie is.  If not then feel free to check out their website.  They have some really cool vintage inspired stuff and I always see Anthropologie knock offs across blog land.  They have some fun things that I will inevitably copy.  For example ...

This awesome DIY Anthropologie shower curtain tutorial was posted on the HGTV website.  

I see lots of fun jewelry or home decor items from them, so naturally I thought there must be other cool stuff that hasn't been knocked off yet so I went browsing.  Well, I'm not ashamed to admit that I was wrong.  Not only was I wrong, I was WAY wrong.  How much would you pay for this?

I'm pretty sure they'd have to pay me to take that?

However, they do redeem themselves by having some very cool brackets and some awesome hardware.  I replaced part of my old nasty wood fence with a new pretty vinyl one, but I kept the panels.  You can see here that they are going to make some awesome craft projects.  

I want to use something like this ...

Anthropologie

with some of my old boards to make something like this.

http://thebrowyblog.blogspot.com/

They will be in my office and house all my crafty things.  Someday soon I hope to show you a finished office for two.  Until then I'll just keep dreaming.

Chair Make Over/One year photo shoot

Not too long ago I was driving down main street in Springville, UT when I drove by a garage sale. I am not a super garage saler, but if I had the ability to wake up at the crack of dawn I would be. I LOVE Garage sales. Well, it was around noon and usually all the good stuff is gone by then, but I saw this old vintage chair as I drove by, so I made my husband turn around, so I could go buy it. She wanted $5 for it, so I bought it. It probably wasn't really worth five bucks because it was SO ugly. It was one of those half plastic, half metal, vinyl seat chairs. It was a little rusted, but otherwise (haha)it was in great shape and besides I was in love. After some primer, some aluminum paint and some aqua zebra print fabric (and a cute baby girl) I now have this amazing desk chair/photo prop.

Look at that cute baby!  She's all mine!  You have kind of a crappy angle as far as the chair is concerned because you can see how NOT good I am at hot gluing fabric to ply wood.  That's right I said hot glue because that's how I roll.

This one is my favorite.  I have it framed and hung and everything.

I love this baby's smile.

Such a pretty girl.  I painted and distressed this little rocking chair too.  You can't really tell, but I posted about it  here.

She wasn't quite sure, but she got into it.

And then she was done and crawling away.

This was Riley's one year photo shoot.  After having three kids we have enough toys and clothes so we were wondering what to get her for her birthday.  We decided on her very own photo shoot and we all loved how it turned out.  Special thanks to Erica from Eyes Wide Open Photography for these wonderful images of my baby girl.

Pinterest

I have a new addiction.  It is a website called Pinterest.  It's a big deal here in blog land and it makes me happy.  If you like this...

This is the Ultimate Smores Anniversary Cake.  It looks way too delicious for words. If you follow the link you will find the recipe at Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body.  I love her already!

and this...

 Is this not THE ULTIMATE KITCHEN?  It's perfect in every way except that it's not mine.  

and this...

 This chair is from the office makeover party at Back on Festive Road.  If I knew where to find it I would steal it.  

and this...

As if you aren't in love with Matthew Bomer!  Thank you GabrielGPhoto for the eye candy.  ;)

then you are the next Pinterest addict. What is Pinterest you ask?  It is a social networking/bookmarking site unlike any other.   If you are like me then you constantly have all these tabs up or windows open on your desktop of projects you want to do or articles you want to read or quotes you want to remember.  You know that if you simply bookmark them they will get lost in the hot mess that is your bookmarking folder, so you leave it open on your desktop until the power goes out or until your kids decide it would be fun to press the glowing computer button.  So, if you're like me, which not many people are because I'm sort of nuts, this is a miracle website.  It allows you to create your own "pin boards" and "pin"  your interests to them.  Hence the name Pinterest.  haha.  It saves those websites with the picture of your choice so that it's easy for you to find what you're looking for in the future.  The best part is that you can follow your friends interests and get WAY more great ideas from them than you could get just on your own.  I downloaded the pinterest button in my tool bar to make it super easy to pin stuff that I love.  Are you intrigued yet?  If not, I'm not really sure why you follow my blog.  This is seriously better than Christmas morning for me.  You should all join Pinterest and if you "like" the painted dresser on facebook and send me your email via private message I will send you an invitation to join Pinterest.  That's right, it's invitation only.  You'll be in the cool club.  Who needs Google+ when you could be invited to Pinterest.  haha.  You could also request an invitation from them which is what I did.  I was not invited into the cool club.  I had to force myself in.  Don't take the road I did.  It was sad and lonely.  Ok, I'm rambling.

I'm BAAAAACK!

Ok all.  After taking a VERY long hiatus I sat down and reevaluated my blog.  I read through all the posts and coincidentally my most recent post talks about how when I get a house everything will change.  Well, I bought a house in February and a lot HAS changed.  My Camera broke and so did my bank account.  haha.  So here we are joining the rest of the world with a super tight budget.  I have to be VERY resourceful when it comes to decorating my house.  I have done a ton of projects recently, but I never take before pictures because I suck, so here's a reel of pictures to see what I've been up to.

 I LOVE LOVE LOVE how this turned out!  It is amazing.  I was planning on selling it when I was done, but I just loved it too much, so now it acts as a sofa table behind my ginormous couch.  LOVE IT!

 Do you recognize that table to the right?  Those are now in my bedroom!  And they look great.  The rest of my bedroom not so much, so you'll have to wait to see them in their new home.  Also, a word to the wise.  If you are recovering bar stools and you have small children Scotch Guard is your friend.  If anyone has a hook up with scotch guard tell them I said that and that they should send me a free can.  ;)

I (cross your fingers) hopefully have an awesome before and after coming up soon and I am really excited to get back into blogging.  I love your encouraging words and I want to see your fun crafty projects so that I can be inspired.  So please SHARE SHARE SHARE!  Leave links  to your awesome craftiness in the comments box below.  I will totally check out your work and come give you some comment love.

I'm partying @

First Items for sale

I'm really excited about this exciting turn of events.  Recently people have been suggesting that I sell stuff that I make and I've secretly wanted to try it out.  So, I decided to give it a try.  I decided to do something that I would put in my own home just in case it doesn't sell.  I bought this chair and table and I LOVE them.  They were both kind of ugly, but I love all the curvy lines and thought I could make them gorgeous.  I think they're awesome and I can't decide if I want them to sell or if I secretly hope they don't.  Either way I have listed them on KSL and I can't wait to see what happens.  What do you think?  Do you like my silly table decorations?  Some day I'll have a real studio, aka garage, and I won't have to paint in my kitchen.

 

Yes my daughter is wearing a pink leopard print coat and yes it's fabulous.  haha

Catching up

I have been doing a ton of projects lately.  My Camera doesn't work when the flash is on, but without the flash it still takes pictures.  I know nothing about lighting though, so getting a decent picture of anything is difficult.

This table is one of two I bought at DI for $30.  They are going to be nightstands when we have a bedroom big enough to house our GINORMOUS bed AND these tables.  In the meantime they live next to my couch.  We have to push them all really close together for them to fit on "the couch wall" which is why it's kind of tucked under the arm of the couch.  I wouldn't normally do that, but it was that or sell them and I LOVE THEM too much to sell them.  Horrible pictures, but awesome tables.  My neighbor even told me she loved them without me even pointing them out to her.  You have to LOVE when that happens.

I have so many projects to come.  I need to get better about posting before and afters, but trust me when I say that everything I buy is hideous and I turn it into something fabulous.  Here's a list of projects to come.

Friend's Green Table
Fabulous Mirror
First Items For Sale (Chair and Side Table)
Headbands, Headbands, and more Headbands
Picture Frame
Reupholstery Project
Kids Kitchen
(Hopefully) Dresser turned Buffet

I'm so excited.  Do you guys have a large to do list for January?  Any pending projects?  Which project should I blog first?  It feels good to be back.  I hope you guys are excited too.