From Dresser to T.V. Console

Remember back when I posted my very first furniture project. It was a bedroom set makeover, and the catalyst that sent me from buying new matchy-matchy furniture into finding furniture that just needed a little lovin' and "elbow grease" (which is a term that has always sounded gross and unsanitary to me.) to look pretty again.

Anyway, that bedroom set had a good life after I made it over, but eventually I started making changes. The first change had to do with the mirrors, which I made into part of that Christmas wall gallery. After Christmas was over, I decided to transform them back into mirrors and use them for the mirrors on my makeup vanity and they are now living happily ever after on top of the vanity. I sold the nightstands because they were too low for the new mattress set we bought last year. I did keep the armoire for our bedroom TV and have so far left it alone, but as far as the dresser goes, I ended up deciding not to put it in our new bedroom. The space would have been too crowded between it and my vanity, so we moved it to our basement where it sat untouched for several months until I decided it would make a great TV console. Not a super unique idea, but I wanted something to fit our board games, along with space for the miscellaneous crap I hide when it's time to clean up for company, and I had already sold our existing entertainment armoire so we were using a shoe rack from Ikea as a replacement.

After I decided what I wanted to do with it, I got to work (after much procrastinating). Since I like that "eclecta-cottage" look (a term that I should really trademark...), I decided to chalk paint it and distress it, because what's more awesome than making pieces of furniture look like they have been through a war? I chose the same color as my dining table, Sherwin Williams, "Watery"

Here's some before shots, which you probably remember...

before makeover #1

before makeover #2

The first thing I did, of course, was paint it using the chalk paint. After I did that, I used an orbital sander to distress it so that the previous paint color would show through (Actually, I planned to sand the original paint off and then paint the areas I wanted to distress black, so that color would show through when I distressed it, but I was too lazy.) I had never used an electric sander before, but it turned out to be quite fun, so much fun that I got a little carried away on a few areas...

As you can see, I stayed with the original hardware, which I decided to spray paint flat white, to give it the "lighter-fresher" look that I'm going for in the house. Originally, I didn't think to distress the pulls, but I did drop a few of them so they kind of distressed themselves and it ended up working out.

Then, it was time to make a shelf for the electronics to sit on. At first, I wanted to take just the center drawer out, but the DVD player wouldn't quite fit, so I decided to take the other two top drawers out.Then, I took out the little drawer glide thingy's and sat some spare particle board on top so I could put all of the electronics on those. After the shelf was in, the mister used some weird attachment on his drill that looked like a big circle, cookie cutter, thingy to drill the holes in the back for the cords. He was just about finished when our drill started smoking before meeting it's demise, so he had to punch out the rest of the hole by hand.

probably should have had him drill those holes before I painted it to avoid the extra distressing...

I did plan on adding some whitewashing and a little bit of glaze, but I got too impatient so I didn't. I didn't put a protector on it either, which I may, or may not, regret some day. However, I think it works for now and I'm pretty okay with how it turned out (even though I need to fix it so the ugly cords don't piss me off every time I look at them).

So there you have it.

One Post, Two Little Projects.

While I've been busy with dance competition season (which, thankfully, is almost over), swimming and gymnastics lessons, trying to get us settled into the new house (I'll post a few pictures, soon.),and working on getting all the paperwork ready for my trip to Africa, I've completely forgotten that I also needed to post about a couple of my recent projects! Don't hold your breath because they aren't all that awesome, but they do include dressing up one of Diva's bookshelves, a second redo of the kitchen table that I refinished quite a while ago, re-purposing my old dresser, and making a totally cool headboard (okay, the last two aren't finished yet, but I am hoping to get the dresser done this week and the headboard done before the year is over).

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably already seen the pictures, but since I know there are people who still aren't on Instagram (cough, cough...my sister), I'll go ahead and post them here to give you all a little break from all of the posting that I will be doing about my journey to Africa.

Project #1 is hardly worth mentioning and I think we've all seen it a million times on Pinterest so I'm not even going to watermark it, but since it technically does qualify as a restyle, I'll post it anyway.

I simply took Diva's boring white bookcase and added a little shelf paper that I got from Target to the back to give it a little something extra. It was very quick and really easy, though I do advise having a credit card with you to smooth out any bubbles and also that you take a deep breath when the pattern doesn't line up perfectly between the two, or more sections you have to use to cover the back.

I didn't take a "before" picture, but I'm sure you can picture the white back that it used to have.

Project #2 was a quick restyle of the kitchen table that I had previously redone clear back in 2012. When I say quick, I mean it. I literally did it in two days, just a few days before we moved into the new house. I didn't really plan on it until I realized that the extra paint I had left over from painting the dresser (which was also painted in the same time frame) would would also look cute on the kitchen table and because I had already decided that I needed to replace two of the chairs, one due to the Tyrannosaurus Rex incident the week that I finished the table the first time and one because I just couldn't find any chairs that would work with it (Surprisingly enough, it's hard to pull off mismatched chairs!), I figured I may as well give the table a new look, too. So I slapped some paint on there, decided it looked pretty good, and kept going. I also put about five coats of polycrylic on it to try to protect it from the ridiculous amount of wear and tear my family puts on furniture.

Here's what it looked like after the first time I redid it:

and here's what it looks like now:

The ladder back chairs were already white, so I didn't need to do anything to them, but the other two chairs are"new" ones that I found via Facebook. They are actually the very chairs that inspired me to go to Africa. They were originally a dark aqua blue, which didn't look quite right with the table, so I decided to paint them white. Only this time, I had a friend of my sisters paint them because I needed them sprayed to match the other ones, and there was no way I was going to spray in my new garage!


For the table, I used the chalk paint recipe that I always use mixed with Sherwin Williams "Watery", which is a great soft blue from their coastal collection and goes with the whole cottage-like atmosphere that I'm trying to create.

Destructo's "Garage" Bedroom REVEAL!!

I've been meaning to post Destructo's room reveal for quite a while and finally decided  that I better go ahead and stop procrastinating and get it done today, so here you go:

The story of Destructo's bedroom makeover.

If you haven't noticed already this house is infected with the color beige, which I consider to be far too boring so, of course, the first thing I had to do in the room transformation was to turn the yucky beige walls into walls that resembled a garage. 

I wanted the "garage"walls to have the "look" of cement with some texture to add interest to them, so I picked up two cans of flat paint, one in light gray and one in dark gray, from  Sherwin Williams along with glaze which I had tinted with black. Then I went over to Lowes and picked up some venetian plaster and this little spatula thingy:

I thought it would be a pretty easy thing to do, but there were a few little issues that I had to deal with:

 Fail #1: After watching a few "how-to" videos on YouTube, I realized that venetian plaster was going to take way too long and decided to take it back. I did not want to re-experience the P.I.A.of Diva's Polka Dot bedroom EVER AGAIN.

Fail #2: Instead of the venetian plaster, I got this great idea (again,from YouTube) to buy tissue paper to create the texture I wanted, which I planned on putting on the walls and then painting over. 

However, once again, I realized that there were some issues that I hadn't taken into consideration. 

1.The tissue paper was even messier than I thought it would be (which is usually the case, though).
2. The tissue paper kept ripping all over the place and wouldn't stick to the walls in the way I wanted it to.
3. Studly reminded me that we were still renting and that maybe this was not going to be seen as very cool by our landlord, who had given us permission to paint, but not to go all "Jen-Style" with it.

(Yes, I swore like a sailer during this failed attempt.)

So, after two fails, I decided to go with a 3rd option:

I painted the walls with the lighter flat gray paint and then mixed the tinted black glaze with the darker shade of gray. I couldn't remember the ratio the guy at Sherwin Williams told me to use (Okay, I probably wasn't listening too closely when he told me...) so, I just kind of eye-balled it...because I'm super detail-oriented, like that.

When I applied the glaze, I tried a couple of methods in order  to get the textured look. First, I used rags, but the glaze dried too fast on them, making it hard to "blend in" with the wall paint. Then, I decided to use plastic bags, because I've learned from previous experience  that paint does not dry very fast on plastic bags. This method worked a lot better (and a lot faster) for me and soon the walls began to look like this:

I noticed after I was finally finished with the walls that the white baseboards were a little too stark against them, so I went ahead and painted those black. I wanted to paint the bedroom side of his door and the closet doors,too, but Studly convinced me that I probably shouldn't ( Dang him and his practical mind!).

I also changed out the outlet covers and found this really cool light switch cover (which was entirely too expensive, but I just couldn't resist):

The next part was constructing the garage door that I had pictured in my mind for the last couple of years  for his room, which you can read about here.

 After I was finally finished with the painting and the garage door had been assembled, it was time to find a new bed for him. His first bed was one of those Little Tykes toddler size car beds, and he was totally heartbroken when he grew out of it, so I decided to see if I could find him a twin size one and thanks to the magical workings of  KSL (what most people here use instead of Craigslist). I found one for pretty cheap and we went and picked it up.

After that, it was time to find some storage solutions for his 92 billion toys. I found a toolbox at Lowes that I really liked that could be used as a toy box:

Then, I remembered the lovely sibling rivalry that exists in this family and realized that there was a strong possibility that one of them could end up locking the other one in the "toy box" and nixed the idea. 

Instead, I went with the alternative solution of wire garage style shelving and these bins:

Destructo did already have one of those cubical storage units to use for storage as well, but the problem was that it was the maple color and the bins didn't match the new colors of the room, which didn't really work for me. I was going to sell it and get another unit in a different color, but then Diva asked if she could decorate it with duct tape. Being the cool mom that I am, I threw caution to the wind and told her she could. I figured that it was probably going to end up in disaster, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to express her creative side. 

I'll admit, I totally underestimated her:

She used silver duct tape for the insides and front edges, black and red stripes on the sides and then did a checkerboard pattern in black and white on the top. I personally think she did a pretty awesome job!

The next piece of furniture to go in the room was the dresser that I had redone, which you can read about in this post:

After the furniture was in place, it was time to accessorize:

First, we had to make sure this included a picture of his own daddy's car:

Then, we used a bunch of tin Mustang signs from his room in one of our other houses, so I used those along with a couple more and  a lamp I found at Hobby Lobby and a metal figurine of the running pony, (which if dropped on your toe, really freakin' hurts!):

 ...and now, for the best part of the blog post: The Before and After shots!  

Goodbye, ugly beige!

 

Hello,  Jr. Mustang fan's little piece of heaven (on a budget)!

 

 

The shelf on top of the dresser still needs to be hung...

My favorite part of the room is the poster you see above, though. It may seem like an ordinary poster, but it holds a very special meaning for our family. In fact,  I'm actually getting pretty teary as I am writing this part of the post. 

As you can see, the poster (which I'm sure Studly would like you to know is in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the Mustang.) has several signatures sprawled all over it. These signatures, are from all of the members of our Mustang club who were part of the club back then.

 However, it is one signature in particular that makes this poster so special:

The signature is our friend John's, who was a founding member of our Mustang club and a great friend, who passed away last year due to cancer. He was a genuinely nice guy, who was also a great husband and father and we feel so lucky to have known him. We miss him and his "signature style" of  long-sleeve tee shirt and shorts all of the time and hope he's up there doing some wicked burnouts in some tricked out Mustang as we speak (although it's probably more like 12 in his case).

Destructo's "Garage" Bedroom Pt 2: The Garage Door

Before I reveal the entire room, I thought I would give the garage door in Destructo's room its own little post in order to explain the process of how we built it a little better, so here we go:

When I finally figured out that I wanted to make Destructo's garage room look like an actual garage, I knew that in order to make it look like a garage, we would need the one essential thing that all garages have...a garage door.

So, off I went down the aisles of Lowe's again in search of the material I was going to use. As I passed through the back aisle, I took a long look at the service garage and realized that I had just passed the perfect "garage door" material. It was the corrugated metal sheets that were in the roofing section:

Of course, I thought I was pretty much a genius for coming up with this totally unique idea all on my own, until I found a few google images and realized I wasn't the only one.

{Why does this always seem to happen to our best ideas?}

Anyway, aside from the corrugated metal, we also purchased the metal tracks alongside it, in order to keep the sharp edges from sticking out on the sides and then wood "spacers" so it didn't sit directly on the wall, leaving huge gaps and not fitting in the tracks correctly.

We needed 3 sheets in order to make the door work on the wall and each sheet needed to be cut down in order to fit on the wall. For this, we used tin snips...and there was only a little blood shed (corrugated metal can slice like a razor blade.)

Assembling the door was pretty easy. First, we drilled the wood spacers onto the wall:

Then it was time to fit the metal sheets over the spacers and drill them into the spacers:

After we finished with that, we attached the tracks onto the walls, which I had spray painted the same color as Destructo's dresser, and crammed fit the edges of the metal into the tracks.

You can get a better idea of how we assembled it at the bottom of the picture:

It was coming together quite nicely. 

But, there was one last thing we needed to do to finish it off, and that was to create the "roller" at the top of the door. We ended up using a 5 inch heating duct, which was already the length that we needed, and 6 inch caps for the ends. I wanted to spray paint that red, too but apparently, that would be too unrealistic (said the guy that has worked in a warehouse for almost 20 years...) 

 ...and here's the car, parked safely in its garage!

Destructo's "Garage" Bedroom Pt. 1: The Dresser

(This is part one, of my three part post on Destructo's bedroom re-do.)

As some of you know, we have been working on Destructo's bedroom for several a few months now and I am pleased to report that it's finally done! We decided on a car themed bedroom, but not just any car, it needed to be a Mustang car bedroom.

Why would we "customize" his room to be solely Mustang territory, instead of just cars in general? Well, If you don't already know, Studly not only loves cars, but he eats, sleeps and dreams them. He especially loves Ford Mustangs. Fortunately for him, Destructo has inherited some of that same love for cars. Thus, this is the 3rd of three car themed bedrooms, and the 2nd of Mustang themed bedrooms. However, I have to say I love this one the most, which is good because it definitely took the most work!

I'd have to say that one of my favorite pieces in the room is his dresser.

Originally, I wanted to get an actual Craftsman Tool chest, like the one that Studly has in the garage:

However, that was definitely NOT in our budget, so I had to get him this dresser, instead:

Sure, I had already removed a knob, but at least I remembered to get a "before" pic, right?

 It was an Ikea "Tarva" Dresser for about $80 and didn't exactly say, "Hey, I totally go with a car themed bedroom!", so I had to fix that.

First, I took off the knobs and puttied the holes then sanded, puttied, and sanded some more.

I

After I got done with that, it sat for a week I got right to work and spray painted it with some primer and then Rustoleum "Apple Red" in a gloss finish.

The next thing I had to tackle was the "handles". At first I was going to use these handles from Lowes:

However, they were pretty expensive and didn't give the dresser a very authentic look, so I had to look for something else that I could use and I finally found it after walking up and down almost every aisle in search for anything that resembled the "handles" you see on the tool chests. I found it in the flooring section. It was a simple aluminum flooring threshold that fit the profile I needed perfectly. It was also just over $1, which made it even better! I picked up three of them and went on my merry way.

The "thresholds" were about 3 feet in length, so we just cut them to the length of the drawers with some wire cutters and then I spray painted them black. We also wrapped a little duct tape around the ends of them being that they were aluminum and the edges were still sharp enough that I was worried about someone cutting themselves on them. Then, we just screwed them on. It was pretty simple and it gave the "look" that I wanted.

I take such great pictures of shadows.

 The dresser was starting to come together, but we still had to do a couple more things to make it look as much like a tool chest as possible. Mainly, we needed that "Craftsman" badge that you see on all of their tool chests, which I found one on eBay for about $8.

After we got the badge on, we only had one final thing to do, and that was to saw off the legs of the dresser and replace them with casters, just like we had done on the ottoman.

...and that was it!

It was probably one of the easiest and cheapest projects I have ever done!

"Move your butt, Harley!" (She likes to photo bomb)

Here are a couple more pictures sans dog butt:

 I can't wait to show you the rest of the room, including the coolest wall treatment that I have ever done!