Dresser Make-Over

A few weeks ago my dear friend, Jamie, called me up and asked if I would help her paint a dresser she had.  Of course I was thrilled!  

But before we get into that I have to tell you about my friend.  I have only known her for a few years, but I love her so much!  She will always be dear to me...not only because she is just all around fabulous... but because she took care of my sweet husband when they were in Law School out in Kansas.  We weren't married then so my poor husband was single going through Law School!  Jamie was married to his best friend Johnny, and my hubs always tells me how he wouldn't have survived without them.  So when he and I started dating he introduced me to them.  And later, after we were married, he told me that he needed their approval of me!  Obviously I got it!  

So I will forever be grateful for Jamie!  She is the best!!!

Now on to the dresser!  Here is the before shot:  it was a pretty adorable dresser to begin with, but Jamie wanted it painted in a BOLD color to bring life into the room.

So together we went to Lowes and picked out this beautiful "mustard" color.  The actual name is Bungalow Gold by Valspar.  We used vaseline before we painted, then applied 3 coats of paint.  After we distressed it, we dabbed a bit of stain to the distressed edges to darken those spots.

Here is the AFTER:  

 And I love the mismatched crystal knobs!  Beautiful!

Link Parties:

Thrifty Decor Chick: Before & After, Miss Mustard Seed, Start at Home

Thrifty Thursday: Massive Frame

I go to the thrift store alot!  I'd say a few times a week. And I never leave empty handed! So I thought I'd start a "Thrifty Thursday" to show some of the treasures I find and what I do with them.  This last weekend we took the boys and went with my parents to the classic car show in Scottsdale.  To my pleasant surprise there was a goodwill in the strip mall across the street!  While there I came upon this beauty!  

 These pictures show her true color:  nice and Gold and screaming to be painted!!  I paid $30 bucks for her, which I thought was pretty good considering her size!

And I gave her a makeover!  I used my polar white by Valspar, then sanded her down.  Much Better!!!

Here is a close-up:

 And here she is hanging on my living room wall.  Now I just need to get a picture into her!

Party Links:

Start at Home

Refinished Cabinet

This week as I was browsing Craigslist I came across this "cabinet" (that's what I'm calling it!)  I think it was originally some type of music thing.....Idk!  But it is OLD and SOLID and I paid only $20 for it.   So I thought it might be cute to use as a type of curio cabinet.

This poor thing was in bad shape, but I knew I was going to paint her.

 There were 2 shelves in it, but the top one had no center, and the bottom one had a large round opening it it!  You can kinda see it in this picture.  I ripped both of those out and added some of my pallet wood to create two rustic looking shelves.

Here is the finished product! I used my go-to white color:  Valspar's Polar White in Satin.  I made my homemade chalk paint with it.  Then I just distressed it!  I wanted to keep the shelves rustic looking so I stained them a walnut color instead of painting them.

I am LOVING the way my "cabinet" is looking in the corner of my living room!

Party Links:

Coastal Charm, A Stroll Through Life, Mod Vintage Life, Miss Mustard Seed, Start at Home

Pantry Door Make-Over

When I saw this blog post found here, I fell in love with the door and knew that I HAD to do that in our house.  So I finally got around to it!

Here is the result (once again, sorry I'm not a photographer!)

This is how I did it:

I didn't have a nice fancy door.  Mine was just a plain 2-panel door.  So the first thing I did was add wallpaper to the panels.  Yep, thats right.....WALLPAPER!!  I took a little trip to Lowes and grabbed some of that bead board wallpaper.  I followed the directions and it took about 20 minutes! I only did the front of the door.

The next day I took some black paint and went over the areas I knew I wanted to distress.  When that was dry, I took vaseline and rubbed it on the black paint.  Then I painted the entire door, front and back.  I waited another day to distress it because I wanted the paint to be good and dry!

  I was extremely careful when I was distressing on the wallpaper because I didn't want to scrape off the wallpaper.  When that was finished I took a brown glaze and rubbed the entire door with it.  I did a little bit at a time and wiped off each area with a wet cloth.

This is a picture from the inside of my pantry and the back side of the door.  Here you can see how it looks without the wallpaper and without the distressing because I did neither on this side.  All I did on this side was paint and glaze.

And here is the front after it was all done!

 My mom then fell in love with MY pantry door, so she asked me to do hers.  But because her and my dad are a little more conservative, they didn't want the wallpaper or heavy distressing.  So I just painted and glazed their door.  It looks amazing too!  And she got an added bonus:  I made her a pretty wreath to hang on it (since she had been wanting one of those too)!

Mirror, Mirror

In our previous house we spent WAY too much money replacing those ugly builder grade mirrors in the bathrooms.  So with this new house I promised my husband I would find another way to "change" them.

This first bathroom was a no brainer.  I have had this mirror for over 10 years now.  Some years it hung around the house, and other times it sat in storage.  It was never my favorite, but I remember buying it because I got a smokin' deal on it at Kirtland's Home.  In this house the size was just right for this bathroom.  So we tore down the existing mirror, and hung this up in its place.

I'm sure you've all seen this mirror before......the one from Ikea....its super cheap and can also be bought as a frame.  Originally it was black, and its made of plastic!  Once again I got out my paintbrush and put a nice pineapple yellow color on it with a brown glaze. I hung this one in our little powder bathroom.  Doesn't get much cheaper than that!

The next two were a little more tricky....

The Master Bath

I knew I wanted this mirror to look like a nice wood frame, and I wanted it to be white.  I also wanted to give it the look of 3 mirrors, not just one.  I had seen tons of pics and ideas on pinterest, but I'm not one that really likes to follow tutorials.  If I see a picture of something, I can usually replicate it (but with my own additional twists).  So thats what I did.  I went to Home Depot, found some trim that I liked, some silicone adhesive, and went to work.

The first thing we did was remove those horrible plastic pieces attached to those screws.  We reinforced the mirror by adding more glue to the back of the mirror.

Then we got busy measuring and cutting. This part was super easy because we added the trim blocks to the corners so all of our cuts were straight cuts.  When that was all done, we started gluing using our silicone adhesive- Directly onto the mirror!

We let the glue set overnight before we did anything else to it.  The next step was the caulking.  We mainly did this on the joints where we put the block trim on top, so there weren't any rough edges.

Then PAINT!  I used our same "creamy white" in semi gloss that is on all the other trim in the house.  I didn't snap a pic of this part, but I just slopped the paint all over that mirror! And I mean everywhere! I used No tape!!!  Tape is useless! And when the paint was all dry, I took a razor blade and just scraped it off!

Wanna know how much this mirror cost me?!

$30 TOTAL

YAY! 

OK, last of all.....My boys bathroom:

 While I was browsing Home Depot one day (and yes, I do this often) I came across this little box that intrigued me.  "Tile Setting Mat".  I scanned the directions and thought maybe this would work for the boys' mirror.  It said it works on glass...thats a mirror, right?!  I threw it in my cart and headed over to the tile. 

To my amazement, I found these on Clearance for $2.59!! Seriously!!!  I couldn't believe it!! So I grabbed some of these:

And some of these (not quite as good a price, but decent)

I also picked up some of the little 2x2 square tiles that look like travertine.

The tile sheets come glued to a mesh backing, so I tore them all off individually. I wanted to place them as close as possible to each other on the mirror.

 This is what the Tile Setting Mat looks like.  They are long sheets that I cut to length.

 I started with the 2x2 square tiles and went around the mirror.  

Then I added the glass tiles on top of the others.  And can I just say....this "Tile Setting Mat" stuff is amazing!!! I couldn't believe how good it worked!!! It was so easy too.

So here's a (horrible) picture of how it turned out!

 I had quite a bit of my tiles leftover, and because I was so thrilled with how my little discovery worked, I decided to head back to our master bathroom and throw some up around our tub!

Here are the Before Pics:

And this is After:

Here's a close-up.  I put the tiles directly onto the existing white cultured marble.  I used no grout, however I did cauld around the top where they met the wall, and bottom where they hit the tub.

Together for both tile projects I spent around $100 total.  The glass tiles were a major money saver.  The travertine tiles cost about $9 per sheet.  The "Tile Setting Mat" was about $18 per box.  I only had to use 1 box to complete both projects.

And there's my mirrors! All taken care of! :)

I Hate Curtains!

There, I said it.  I just do.  I have no vision for them, and plus they are SO expensive!! When I look through pictures or browse JC Penny, I love them.  But when it comes to me trying to actually do them...I blank.   BUT... of all the things you can do to your home, its one of the best things you can do (according to me!)  They give your home character, give it that homey, cozy feel to it... more than anything else.  They make a room look complete and inviting.

Sigh!

So I've had to accept the fact that I need curtains, and I promised myself that in this new house I would do something.  I not only had to find some inspiration, I had to find a way to do it the thrifty way.
(Before I get into this, I just have to say that I am NOT a photographer, and I don't have a fancy camera, so my pics aren't the best. Sorry!)

Here's what I've done so far:

Family Room/Kitchen:

I found these panels on clearance at Target and fell in love with the color and pattern.  Our ceilings are super high and I knew they weren't long enough to hit the floor, but because our couch would hide that fact, I bought them!

Pretty easy, self explanatory, and turned out pretty cute.  I put them on a cheap bistro rod from  Walmart ($1.99 I believe)

Unfortunately, this pattern curtain only comes in a panel. I knew I couldn't use panels in the kitchen, but I wanted desperately to use the same pattern since it has that "great room" feel.   I gave it some thought and came up with this:

I simply took one panel, cut it lengthwise down the middle.   I folded in the rough edge and ironed it down.    Then I ironed pleats into it, and pinched them together with rod clips.  This valance is made up of both pieces of the panel.  The middle pleat attaches the two pieces together.  I loved how it turned out! And I didn't even have to use my sewing machine!

 I bought the rods at Big Lots for about $9 each, and the clips from Target (can't remember how much)

 My Mom loved them so much that we did the same thing in her kitchen.  Only this time we didn't use a panel.  She found this table runner at Target that matched her colors EXACTLY.  So we just ironed pleats into it, clipped it, and DONE!  Awesome!!!  Although I was a little jealous of hers because her table runner cost far less than my panel!

Playroom:

Ok I'm really sorry about these pics.  I had a hard time getting these!  Once again, I used rods from Big Lots.  For this room I knew I wanted plain, neutral colored curtains. and the saying goes to "shop at home first".  So I rifled through my fabric and couldn't find anything very neutral.  But I happened to find a white bedskirt stashed away in my craft closet.  I can't even remember buying it, or what I would ever use it for.  But it was the ReMake brand from Target.  So I just cut the "skirt" part off.  Then I took some burlap ribbon and sewed it to the FINISHED edge of the material.  With the ROUGH edge, I folded it over twice and to the length I wanted, and sewed it down to make the loop to insert the rod.  Thats it...Done!

Master Bedroom:

I really struggled with this window!  It is huge, and our ceilings are really tall so I couldn't find anything within my tight budget that was long enough.  So I finally just bought panels that I knew would be too short.  These came in a 2-pack from Walmart for $12, and I once again used the cheap bistro rods.  

I played around with them for awhile and came up with this.  All I did was tie burlap around the bottom part of the panel, then start pulling a little bit of the material up from the top to give it that bunchy look.  So SIMPLE! 

Ok thats all for now!  But I'm going to keep plugging away at them because although what I've done so far is plain and simple, it has already made such a difference to the look and feel of my home!