A New Doorway

I have loved the idea of chalkboard paint since I was a kid.  But since most homes in the Southwest have textured walls it never seemed like such a great idea.  Plus the color option weren't so great.  Well fast forward 15 years: still living in a house with textured walls, but the color options have improved greatly (thanks to Rust-oleum) and we have a door that needed some love and had a smooth surface.



After some convincing, Husband was on board to paint our door that leaves to the garage with chalkboard paint.  And since our Montana likes to scratch at the door when we come through the garage, the door was needing some TLC anyway.

 

We decided on Rust-oleum in Latte from Home Depot.  I taped around the deadbolt lock and door handle with masking tape, wiped the door down with a little dish soap and warm water.  

The directions recommended rolling the paint on with a foam roller, and I used a short-handled angled paint brush to cut-in.

The door required three thin coats, letting it dry for four hours in between each one.

This was our doggy-proofing device: baby gate plus a chair.  The directions said to let the paint cure for 72 hours...which we did.  At that point you take a piece of chalk and rub it over the entire surface of the door and then erase it.  Now the surface is ready to be a fully functioning chalkboard.

Now I put our schedule for the week on the door (cause Husband has a tendency to forget things).  It took a few tries to figure out the best chalk to use.  I wanted colored chalk initially, thinking it would show up best on the door.  Blue, purple, green and red all looked horrible.  You could only see it if you were right up on the door.  So far yellow, orange and white show up the best.  I'm completely perplexed by the idea, but whatever. 

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the added bonus to our little painting project!  Montana no longer scratches at the door when we are in the garage!  I guess humans aren't the only ones who don't like the sound of nails on a chalkboard!  Haha!  Bonus!

$20 Well Spent

Last week I shared with you our first sale on Craig's List, and now I have something even more exciting to share with you.  Our first purchase from Craig's List.

Isn't it beautiful?!  It was on sale for $20 from a guy about 15 minutes from our house.  Living in Phoenix, that's saying something.  We brought it home and I immediately got working.  First I wiped it down with some bleach water.  Who knows what this guy was like! ;-)

It also looked like there had been stickers in some spots.  I soaked those with water and then gently scraped them off.  Easy squeezy!  After it was dry, I sanded it down.  Husband was nice enough to follow my sanding and wiped everything down again.

My next step was to stain it.  I used the leftover stain from this project.  And then it sat there to dry.  And lucky for me it was colder than it should have been in Phoenix, so what should have dried in about 24 hours took more like 72 hours.

So mid-week I used a super fine sandpaper to sand it down a little in between coats.  Then I started in on the second coat.  Luckily it was still colder than it should have been and I had to wait another 72-ish hours for it to dry.

While I was waiting for the stain to dry, I headed to Hobby Lobby to look for some new knobs for the drawers.  I wish it had been one of those awesome weeks when their knobs are 50% off, but it wasn't and I was too impatient to wait.

These are what I found.  While I was there I got some pretty wrapping paper to line the drawers with.

And after patiently waiting for the second layer to dry I put on the new knobs and lined the drawer with my nemesis, Spray Adhesive.  I was going to put Mod Podge as a protective layer, but it just wrinkled the paper and made it look dumb.

Anyways here's what the dresser replaced.

And here is the final product.

I'm so totally in love with this dresser.  Never mind that I spent more on the knobs from Hobby Lobby than I did on the dresser itself, I think it is beautiful.  And since this was my first furniture project and my first purchase from Craig's List, I think it is just awesome!

It's About Stinkin Time

Do you remember our Summer project?  It was doing a budget makeover on our bathroom.  We started on Memorial Day Weekend with replacing the vanity lights and painting.  We continued through the summer with other projects (found here and here).  In September we tackled the cabinets.  This was easily the most drastic change in our bathroom.

And now, after months and months of waiting, it's finally time to show the whole bathroom.  How excited are you?

 

 

It's been about four months since we finished and I still love it.  But, I think we'll switch out the window treatments someday...maybe Roman blinds?

Linking to Centsational Girl

Playing Catch Up

Last year Husband and I did a few projects that never got posted, due to my lack of posting.  Oops.  So I'll have a few posts from 2010 scattered with projects from this year.

Husband has a chest that once belonged to his late uncle.  He used it as a TV stand.  I had no qualms with the chest itself, but it didn't work as a TV stand.  It was too low and had no where near the storage we need.  So a few months ago, we purchased a new TV stand with lots of storage, and moved the chest into our bedroom.  And we gave the old chest some much needed love.

 

Here it is.  In desperate need of some TLC.

 

This is  what it looked like after we took out the drawers, sanded it down, and wiped it down.  We had to fill the holes from the old handles with wood putty.  I'm lacking photos on the process, sorry.

This was the next step: staining.  I didn't follow the directions.  I put the stain on and then we waited till it was dry enough to put another coat on.  It came out super dark, but I think it's beautiful.  Next, using spare wood, foam purchased with a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby, and other left over supplies from our headboard (including the fabric) we made a cushion to fit on the top of the chest to turn it into a bench.  We made the cushion the exact same way as our headboard last year.

 

And here is the final product.  Kinda.  I have drawer handles sitting on a shelf in the garage.  We have yet to put them on. 

The chest now sits in our bedroom in front of our window.  But it may not stay there--I'm trying to convince Husband that we should rearrange our room.  Stay tuned...and maybe soon I'll get those handles on.  (And yes, I know you aren't technically supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, but this is my blog...and Mom, you're not supposed to be grading this!)





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The Twenty-Eleven To-Do List

With the start of the New Year, I am thinking about all the things that I want to get done on the house.  And it...um...ambitious.  It definitely won't all get done this year.  But here it is:

Living Room

• new flooring
• stain tower shelves to match TV stand
• paint walls
• replace one love seat with two arm chairs
• replace horizontal blinds with curtains

Dining Room

• new flooring
• replace chairs
• new light fixture
• buy a buffet table
• buy large mirror to go above buffet table
• paint walls

Master Bathroom

• new window treatments
• buy extra towels (tan)

Master Bedroom

• new flooring
• hang the bedside lights we bought ages ago
• find art to hang about our bed
• buy a few new throw pillows
• paint walls

Guest Bedroom

•  replace desk with dresser
• new flooring
• buy a mirror

Guest Bathroom

• make a frame for the mirror
• paint the cabinets
• add drawer handles
• buy extra towels (gray)

 Craft Room

• buy/build a new desk 
• new flooring
• more storage
• organize (this is a major one, since this room tends to look more like a junk room than a craft room)

Garage

• epoxy floor

Backyard

• xeroscape the backyard
• fix up patio for Spring and Fall living

Oh geez!  This makes me tired just looking at it!  Stay tuned to see our progress on all these projects.

Lesson 130- White Washing

Starting Memorial Day weekend, Husband and I started our bathroom update.  Doing a full bathroom renovation was definitely not in the budget.  But I figured we could update the bathroom fairly inexpensively.  And thus started our summer long project of working on the bathroom.  But our summer quickly filled with lots of plans and our bathroom extended beyond Labor Day weekend into fall, but we still had summer temperatures, so I think it should still count.

This was the last major step we did in our bathroom.  It is high impact and I love the way it turned out!!!  Here is the before picture

We removed the doors and the drawers and got to painting.

 My strategy was to go nice and slow, with lots of drying time in between coats.  Husband's strategy was a bit different.  Let's just say one of us had a better strategy, but I won't tell you who cause I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.  But it wouldn't be my feelings that were hurt...

Once I was certain everything was dry we (and by we I mean Husband) put the cabinet doors back on and put the drawers back in.  While things were drying I also went through everything we had been storing in there and threw out a bunch and got the rest nice and organized!  We also attached silver knobs that we bought at Home Depot (I think.  I can never remember because they are literally just across the street from each other.)  And here's how they look now.

 

I LOVE it!!!  It makes such a difference in our bathroom and I think it's beautiful.

Lesson 124- Mini Cake Plate

Last time I went thrifting I found these...

I used the candle for this project and the vases were used for this project.  So all I had left were the little plate and the matching cup.  Immediately when I saw these on the shelf at Goodwill I knew what to do with them. 

I put a little Gorilla Glue around the rim of the cup.  

 I put the plate upside down on the counter then the cup upside down on the plate making sure to have it centered.

Gorilla Glue works best with some weight while it dries, so I put the heaviest book we own on top.  I allowed it to dry over night.

Once I was satisfied that it was completely dry, I took the book off and flipped it over.  My favorite thing about the plate is the edging.  I can add ribbon to it to update it for different seasons.

Ta Da!

Lesson 119- Pottery Barn from the Dollar Store

I know this isn't the most original idea, but I love the way mine turned out.  I may make 23 more.  Or maybe not, maybe just 17. 

Remember I bought these two candlesticks from Goodwill a while back?

I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to use them for, but I was certain that it wasn't going to be candlesticks.  Then I discovered a random vase in the back of my car.  I have no clue what it was doing there, perhaps cleaning my car should be a post.  Someday... gosh I'm rambling today. 

Anyways...I decided to turn the vase and the candle sticks into some hurricane vases.  I bought a third candlestick and two more vases in different shapes and sizes at the dollar store. 

I put a thin layer of Gorilla glue on the top of the candlestick, flipped the vase upside down, and carefully placed the candlestick holder in the center of the base of the vase.  Next, I put a super heavy book on top, being very careful to balance it without letting the candlestick holder slide around.  Kinda tricky.  I kept the book there for about 12-ish hours.

Then I filled them up with some Halloween decorations.  The largest was filled with a bag of candy corn.  But don't eat them!  I first sprayed them with acrylic sealer.  This way they don't get sticky, don't attract bugs and I can keep them for a couple of years for decorating.  I like decorating with them, but think they're too gross to eat.  In the medium one I put some Spanish moss, that I had from this project, and some plastic skulls from the Dollar Store.  In the little one I put some silver glitter spiders I found at the Dollar Store too.

Thank you Potter Barn for being so inspirational!  And thank you Dollar Store for being so affordable!

Lesson 107- Wedding V

My parents gave me a fairly small budget (compared to the *average* wedding) for our wedding.  And although they did give me some wiggle room, I had to be creative on how the money was spent.  My two biggest expenses were the venue+food and drink and the photographer.  Looking back I have no qualms about the money spent on either.  This week I’m going through some of the projects I competed to stay on budget.

Not wanting to get too tangled in the Bridezilla syndrome, I opted for the Real Simple planner for our wedding plans.  One of the pictures of a ‘real’ wedding featured a cupcake stand built by the bride’s father to resemble a tiered wedding cake to place cupcakes on.  I loved the idea.  We cut out the picture and gave it Husband’s dad along with a paint sample of the paint I had used for this project.  With creative reign, this is what he designed.  So, I can’t take credit for this DIY project, but I just had to share it with you.  Beautiful, don’t you think?

One of the reason—besides my total love/obsession—for choosing cupcakes as opposed to a traditional cake, it I’d heard it was more economical.  One Saturday I my mom and I visited with a baker in town.  Her portfolio was certainly impressive, especially considering we live in such a small town.  And her prices were also astounding, but not in a good way.  At this point I was already well over my budget because of my choice in photographers.  But to spend almost $600 on cupcakes was just a bit much for.

I mentioned this to one of my dear friends who was recently married and eager to help.  She offered to bake all my cupcakes.  What a gift from God she is in my life!  My dear friend made over 100 cupcakes free of charge to me.  And her husband make cupcake toppers with our monogram using Photoshop.  For the top layer of our ‘cake’ we had an oversized cupcake that A even created an oversized cupcake wrapper to go around it.

*****

For favors I opted for a candy buffet.  Originally I thought we would use black, white, and pink candies.  Then I decided it was really more hassle than it was worth.  Plus the color restriction really put a damper on yummy candies.  Plan B: bulk candy shopping at Sam’s.  I think we spent about $125 on candy from Pixie Stix to M & Ms, to Gummy Bears, to Ring Pops, to Reece’s Pieces, LifeSavers to mini chocolate bars.  They were all arranged in vases purchased at IKEA.  And let’s just say the kids (and grown-ups) loved it!  We purchased little favor boxes at Wal-Mart and decorated them with heart stickers and placed those on the table too along with little scoops I found online.  

 

I also made little signs to go on the table saying “A sweet ending to a new beginning”.  A little cheesy, I know.  But if you can’t have some cheese on your wedding day, when can you?  And that was our stress-free candy buffet.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little budget-friendly wedding projects.  I know there was nothing too unique or extraordinary about it, but it worked for us.  And more importantly we loved our wedding and the opportunity to share the day with our family and friends.

Come back the rest of this week for more wedding DIY projects!

Wedding Stationary

Card Box

Guest Book and Centerpieces 
Ring Pillow and Sand Ceremony