Next!

Am I the only one who actually looks forward to taking down the Christmas mess, I mean decoration.  After Christmas day, all of my lovely decor that has been up since the beginning of December is now starting to wear on my nerves.  Including the fact that all of my girls toys are scattered all over the living room, and the pretty wreath that I made is now dry and brittle and shedding all over my mantel.  It all has me a little excited today to get it all back to normal.
Anywhooie, I’ve been obsessing just a little bit about our kitchen.  Not much has happened since we moved in 4 years ago, we haven’t really had the funds.  But I’ve been doing a lot of research and realized you don’t have to be Donald Trump to have your dream kitchen.
Here are some colors that have been bouncing around
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Battenburg, Storm Cloud Gray,and Wythe Blue
I fell in love with this color pallet when I saw them on this house.
The gray I want for my walls is darker though.
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I can’t wait for a weekend with out any interruptions so I can at least start priming my cabinets.  I will just have to continue to be patient because I know this is a long project I am about to embark on.
Have a wonderful New Year!! 
What are your plans?

Merry Christmas to me

It took 4 years 3 months and several days for us to finally update our corroded, old faucet.  For some reason it just took a back seat to all the other stuff we were replacing.  Yet I always longed for a new one. With some gift money from the folks I went ahead and splurged on a new faucet.

I'm so excited because this signifies the beginning of our kitchen update.  We tend to take baby steps when doing any project around the house.  Take our basement for example.  We started it about a year ago, and have yet to finish.  But the kitchen will be done faster, because I care a little bit more about it.
Getting this faucet off included two trips to Lowes, and a visit to my neighbor to borrow some tools.  The bolt holding the old faucet was so corroded that it just crumbled into bits when the hubs tried to unscrew it.

Yuck and double YUCK!
 ahhhh.....

 Next comes the counter tops, I'm looking forward to showing you what I will do.  Until then you will just have to guess...I will also be doing the cabinets and the walls.  Hopefully be starting in the new year!

Have a safe and happy New Year!

New Favorite

~SOLD~


This cute little dresser came to me unfinished and sad.  Thankfully I didn’t have to sand very much because the wood was pretty raw already.
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I used a color called Redstone Blue Spruce
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I strayed from my usual dark walnut top, to a lighter shade.  Which I think is beautiful!  There are all sorts of pretty faults in the wood.furniture 408
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Clean Brushes with Hot Vinegar

I pinned this a while ago from This Old House, but had yet to try it out until last week.  I wasn’t going to post about it until I was sure it worked. Because let’s face it, hot vinegar? 
Who would of thunk it. 
So I took a pot full of vinegar and brought it to an almost boil on the stove.  You could probably use a microwave as well.  Then I poured it into a canister I had and let the brushes soak for about 15 minutes.   furniture 403
This is a brush that had been sitting outside for a while caked in paint. 
And here is is after about 15 minutes.  Probably should let it soak for at least 30 minutes.
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I also tried it with a brush I used for stain and it didn’t work as well, nor did it work for the wood finish.
But this is a very cheap and environment friendly way to clean paint off your brushes!

Bin Pull Dresser

~SOLD~

It’s a cold, blustery day here in Atlanta, and I was unable to move this monster into my house.  So I had to stage it outdoors.  This was fun.
With Christmas coming it’s getting harder to finish projects, but I’m finally done with this one and think it turned out great.  Considering it went from   hot, chunky, 80’s mess~to soft, delicate, welcome to this century….furniture 395
The top was badly scratched so I had to sand it down and re-stain it.
I really like the separation of the dark wood going through the middle.  This piece would be perfect for any bedroom.  Or even serve as a buffet for a dining room.
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DIY Wreath

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This wreath was practically free to me.  The only money I spent was about $2 for the 18” wire wreath frame.  I clipped the branches off the evergreens around my neighborhood.  And I had the burlap on hand.  I’ve been seeing these simple, beautiful wreaths all over the place and figured I could make one just as easy.
First, I gathered different sizes of branches from the trees.  If you don’t have any trees around to clip from, a lot of Christmas tree farms will give away the clippings for free.

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I used some flower tape and the wreath frame to begin placing my branchesblog 009blog 010
I went around the whole frame, tucking and taping the branches the way I wanted them.  It took me a total 15 minutes I tell ya!  Easiest project ever!
blog 017 Wrapped some burlap around the top and tied a bow.
Brought in a mirror from my dining room and all the other decor I already had.  Total cost of my Christmas mantel this year, roughly $2.
I hope this inspires you to decorate using existing items around your home, instead of spending unnecessary moolah on new stuff.

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Winner of the Shower Curtain!

According to Random.org the winner of the vintage shower curtain I made is

Comment #4
Andrea!

Andrea said...
I'm a follower and I love the shower curtain!

Congrats girl!  I will be sending it in the mail promptly.

Vintage Sheet Shower Curtain Give Away!

Thank you all who have been there supporting me and sticking around while I’m still adjusting to balancing my new life with two babies.  Unfortunately sometimes the blog and my work suffer, but I’m still here and continue to slowly work on new pieces.
On to the give away…
When I had the idea to make a shower curtain from a bed sheet, I got two sheets that I liked to see which one would work best. 
I made this one first, a fun vintagy floral pattern.
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But ultimately I settled on the second one I made, because it went better with the bathroom.
So now this other one is just sitting and waiting to be used,  and I thought a reader might be interested in it.   If you would like to have this for your bathroom shower, please leave me a comment and be a follower.  (USA only please).
It’s a standard size shower curtain, not absolutely perfect, but looks fine once hung.  It has button holes at the top.
The give away will go until Monday November 21st

Antique Wardrobe

~SOLD~
This piece came from an impromptu yard sale a few weeks back.  While driving down the road I saw the sign in the yard and did the drive by thing where you go reeeeealy slow and see if the people have any furniture.  You know you do it too.  How excited was I when I saw this piece near the end of the drive way.
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I must add that it was near the end of the day and they were starting to pack up.  I grinded to a halt and jumped out of the car asking how much they wanted for it.

From the looks of the picture it appears as if I did a crazy thing by painting this beautiful wood. But in reality the wood was in bad shape and needed serious cleaning. 
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It was extremely difficult to get a good picture of what this color look like in real life.  It’s Wythe Blue by Benjamin Moore.
i Love the original hardware!
This is the truest pic I could get of the color.
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Bathroom Vanity Re-do

I’ve been making a lot of progress on my girls bathroom re-do.  I’ve finished painting the walls, hung the shower curtain and painted the vanity.  Next I would like to put a frame around the mirror and hang some new pictures. 

Here is the vanity before
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I added some bead board wallpaper into the middle of the cabinet doors to give a more custom look.
I got it from here 
Pink knobs from Hob Lob
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I also did the side as well.
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I need some advice as to whether or not to spray paint the hinges.  I was thinking of a nickel color?
Full reveal of the bathroom soon to come!

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Winner of the Poster Print!

Between having a whiny, sick 2 year old and painting the bathroom, and all the other stuff I had to do today.  I finally got to the winner of the give away.

I went to Random.org and entered in all 8 of the comments :)  And it generated this~

 

The winner is Comment #1 Cassie!!!

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 1”

(This is all I could copy and paste from the site)

 

Yay Cassie!!

hoooray!

Vintage Sheet Turned Shower Curtain

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I’m redecorating my girls bathroom.  It’s been the same since we moved in 4 years ago, and I wanted something a little more girly and sweet.  I’m not quite finished yet, but I did whip up this cool vintage sheet into a shower curtain.
I really love the look of the Shabby Chic shower curtains, but not the price tag.  And if you’ve ever look at and felt them, they almost look and feel like an old bed sheet.  Soft and worn.  So in my mind I thought “I can go to the thrift store find an old sheet and make one!”
And that’s just what I did.
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 blog 007 Do you see the blue color on the wall?  That’s the new color, I’ve been a little under the weather the past few days so haven’t been able to finish.  But today I’m feeling better, maybe do a little work in there.  Also painting the cabinets and getting new hardware for them.
Final reveal soon to come :)
Total cost: $3 compared to $29.99 for the Shabby Chic one.

If you have a sewing machine, this is pretty easy to do.  
I lined up the new one with the old one, pinned and cut it the same size.  Then sewed up the rough edges, and sewed some button holes at the top.  I didn't even know I had this feature on my machine but I figured it out and made them then cut them out.  You could also use some grommets.

400 Followers Give Away!

First I want to say thank you to all of you who follow along with my little ol' blog.  It has been so much fun getting to know some of you.

 I have reached 400 followers recently and I wanted to reward one of you with a cool gift.  A poster print of your own photo from uprinting.com

Poster Printing is one of the sought after service in the Online Printing industry. It offers photo enlargements for the artistic and crafty customers.

One (1) Winner will receive a 18”x24” Poster Print


Semi gloss OR high gloss
1 business day print turnaround time *Free Shipping
Restriction: Limited to *US residents 18 years old and above only.




Here's how to enter- 
(Optional)
1)   I would love for you to follow along on my blog :)

or
2) like/follow UPrinting on Facebook and Twitter or sign up on GiveawayBlogs.com
or
3) Leave me a comment telling me what photo you would have enlarged if you win.
The contest will start today and end Oct 27th. 
 


This giveaway is sponsored by UPrinting, no monetary compensation was given and I will receive a poster for hosting.

My Front Door

I'm getting a little trigger happy with my paintbrush.  It seems I want to paint everything in sight.  It’s just so amazing what a little paint can do to freshen up, in this case my front door.
There are lots of painted front doors for the out side but I rarely see a painted door on the inside.  After painting our basement door, I got inspired to do another.
Here, the door before with some paint already applied.
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And after
blog 003I also used a little stain on the trim so it would stand out a little more.
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What d’ya think?
This was my inspiration photo
        I loved this turquoise color, but I just used what I had on had and mixed up a paler version
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How To: Stain a Dresser Top

Here is a step by step tutorial of how I stain my dresser tops.  If you don’t know how to do this,  this post is for you.
                                               This dresser had one of the worst tops that I had ever worked with
                                                            It was covered with water rings and scratches.furniture 380
Step 1:  Some may not choose to do this, but I find it makes the sanding part a little easier.  I choose to strip off the old varnish first.  I use Citristrip I get from Lowes.  It’s a better alternative to those stinky strippers of yester year.  And it works great.  Follow the directions on the bottle and get a good tool for scraping off the stuff.  It gets pretty messy so wear some gloves.
After you scrape it all off and it’s dry move on to the next step.
Step 2: (You must have a sander for this part)  Sand the heck out of it with some 60 or 80 grit paper.  I recently got an orbital sander and it works great.  It will take a bit of elbow grease, but it will be worth it in the end.  I also highly suggest you get a nice breathing mask, it’s probably not a good idea to be breathing in that dust. After this sanding part, go over it again with a 120 grit to get the top smooth.
Step 3: Make sure you clean the top of all dust.  I just use a wet rag and wipe it down several times.  Allow it to dry completely.  Then if you want a more even distribution of the stain, I recommend using a wood conditioner.  I use Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner.  Follow directions on can.
Step 4: Get the stain you want to use, I use Dark Walnut by Minwax.  Use a good quality brush and begin to paint it on with the wood grain.  Allow it to sit for as long as you want.  The longer you let it sit the darker it will be.  However try not to let it completely dry.  You will want to wipe off some after 15 min or so.  If it’s not dark enough for you, do this process again.
Step 5:  Once you achieve your desired color, allow it to dry.  You can also brush some polyurthane on top as a protective coat and to make it shiny. Clean your brush right away, because the stain is a b*%$@ to get off when it dries.
So there you have it.  My basic 5 steps for achieving a beautiful dark stained top like the ones you see here.
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