Goodwill Dresser Turned TV Console

What is wrong with me?!? 

That's exactly what I asked my husband the night I picked-up this beast for $40 from Goodwill:

You see I've spent the past 10 months re-designing our living room, which all started because our previous furniture was all from Goodwill and I felt like we were at a point in our lives where we should be past that. So, I sold our entire living room on craigslist to make room for all the great new pieces I was going to buy. Then I come home with this Goodwill gem; uglier, less expensive, more damaged and more out-dated than anything I had ever bought. Look at that drawer! Even I kind of thought I was crazy.

We were in need of a new TV console for the living room. I wanted something substantial with character and that didn't have open shelves.  Everything I liked was over $2,000 and was complete crap in terms of quality, so for $40 I decided to take a chance on the ugly dresser. We set it up in the living room and lived with it a while before I invested my time into painting it.  Even missing the trim on one drawer, it turned out to work great for us! 

We were able to have a local frame shop make a new trim piece for the drawer that was trim-less. It's not a perfect match but no one can tell! We sanded the dresser than painted it white using our Ben Moore trim paint.

My original plan was to replace the hardware to something more modern, but I fell in love with the details in the original hardware.  I sprayed them with oil rubbed bronze spray paint to darken them from the original brassy color.

The best part is the storage! It has 6 large drawers plus 3 hidden drawers in the cabinet. We are able to store all of our photo albums and lay our place mats flat with room to spare!

Overall I'm very happy with our new TV console. Saving $1,960 by being creative doesn't hurt either.

DIY Bedroom Rug

When I couldn't find a rug to match my bedroom, I decided to paint one after seeing it done on-line.  My duvet cover is very textured, so I wanted something more flat, with a design, but not a busy design that would compete with the duvet.  I decided on thick stripes and used some leftover grey paint from the walls.  It dried a little darker than the walls which I love, as it matches without matching exactly.

 I started with an inexpensive rug from Ikea which is no longer sold (sad because I wanted to make another rug for my living room).  I taped off the stripes using painters tape. I started small incase I needed to change them, then taped across the entire rug.

Although the stripes ended up being even, the tape doesn't appear that way since I placed the tape on either the inside or outside of my line so the tape would lay completely on the areas that would remain white, leaving the entire area for the grey stripe exposed (the larger stripes below).

I applied three coats of paint with a small roller which was almost a quart of paint. I used placed plastic garbage bags underneath so if paint soaked through it wouldn't get on my floor.  After the paint dried, I removed the tape and sprayed the entire rug with scotch-guard to protect the white areas from getting dirty.

Here is the finished product! I love how it completes the room:

Before                                              After

Split Canvas Grain Belt Sign

I had always wanted to paint a picture on multiple canvases, but it seemed so expensive to buy so many canvases.  The vision for this painting popped into my head as soon as soon as I saw the square canvases at Big Lots for only $5 each!  I had to make something with them!  

The photo I used to make the painting is one I actually took myself in Minneapolis.  I zoomed in on the photo to get the size I wanted.

Next, I printed the photo on graph paper and cut it into squares.  I split the picture up into sections, so that I could easily section off the canvases and draw the picture to scale.

 
Before drawing the picture on the canvas, I painted all sides of the canvas a light grey so there would be no white showing.  I then painted the signs in grey tones using acrylic paints.

 I got ansy to see it on the wall, so I made Chris hang it up one night 'just to see how it looked'.  I loved it so much it never came down, so some of the bottle cap edges are lacking definition.  I think it adds character to the painting.  If you look close you can still see the pencil marks I drew.  Chris bugs me that it's been up for years and I've never finished it, but I like it just how it is!

Painted Faux Granite Countertops

Because Granite is expensive and I couldn't live with our laminate butcher-block countertops, I decided to paint the countertops we had to look like the granite I wanted!

Here are some before pics:

First, we had to tape off the entire kitchen since I would be spraying some 'granite flecks' and our cupboards are white.  We also had to move our stove and fridge so we could get to the edges of the counters.

After lightly sanding the countertops, I started with a coat of primer so the paint would have something to stick to.

Next, I went over the countertops with two coats of flat black paint. 

I then sprayed a very light coat of Rust-Oleum  Stone Creations Spray in Black Granite to add the 'granite specks'.  I didn't want very many white specks in my countertops, so I sprayed it very thin.  It only took literally about ten seconds to spray the entire kitchen.

Here's a close-up of the specks:

Once dry, we applied about 6 coats of clear, water-based polyurethane.  Using water-based polyurethane vs. oil based is what makes it food safe.

The final result:

Painting the countertops made a HUGE difference in our kitchen!  The best part is that it only cost us about $40!

 Before                                                        After


View an up-date on our painted kitchen countertops six years later here.

Stenciled Wall Art

I saw a similar piece of art at a gift shop and thought it would be great for my bedroom, but it was over $300.  I knew it would be easy to make and way less expensive. I only had to buy the canvas, which with a Michael's coupon was less than $20.

First, I laid out the saying on the canvas using two sizes of basic poster stencils I picked up at Staples.

Once the spacing was done and I knew it would fit, I traced the letters onto the canvas using a pencil.

Then, I painted in the letters using silver acrylic paint.

It was so easy and I did it all while watching Pretty Woman on a Sunday afternoon!  It looks great in the bedroom!

Bird Themed Easter Dinner

Last year we hosted Easter for a small group. Since I didn't have any Easter decorations, I decided to plan the decor around a set of bird and leaf plates that we had, keeping it simple but still a special occasion.

I wanted to make some unique nest chargers to jazz-up my plates.  To make the charges, I started with a random assortment of red, green, and gold chargers from goodwill, painted them brown, and adhered some brown grass I bought at Michael's using Aleene's Tacky glue.

 Here is a close-up of the grass:

 And the finished product! See the bird?

 Here he is........

 Believe it or not I didn't have napkins or napkin rings!!! I bought these khaki colored napkins at Target, along with these napkin rings that reminded me of a bird nest.  Both also go well with our white square everyday plates.

For place cards, I found a bird silhouette graphic on the web, pasted it into word and typed every one's names. After printing and cutting, I glued a toothpick to the back to hold it up later, then glued the name tag to a heavier piece of card stock and added the gem for fun!

 I found these great mini-nests and eggs at Michael's to hold the name cards.  I glued the eggs so they'd stay in place, and also glued the toothpick into the twigs of the nest so it would stand up.

 

I borrowed this wrought iron bird candle holder from my mom for a centerpiece--it was perfect!