Updates to Big Kid's Room

Ever since I moved into my place, I've felt bad about the kids' room situation.  My home is a three-bedroom with a master and two smaller bedrooms, but as between those two other bedrooms, the one is much larger than the other.  I gave the larger room to my daughter, who is two years younger than my son, only because as the baby, she seems to get "seconds" in many things, and I thought it might do them both good for her to get the better choice.  

My son has made it clear to me that he views this as an injustice and a travesty ... that it is profoundly unfair that his room is so much smaller than his sister's.  I understand, and I feel bad, but short of moving walls, there is nothing I can do.  So, this year, I told him that we would make some changes to his space and asked, again, short of moving walls, what I could do to make his space better for him.  

He asked for a desk and for a place to store his Lego creations.  Easy enough!  I knew that in addition to those things, I wanted to give him more storage and to organize his closet.  I bought a couple of things over the past few months and got them ready, and then on a rainy day off, spent a few hours finishing up the room.  Here are the before and afters:

Before

This picture is pretty old.  But this is the view from the door.  I made the window treatment and headboard myself.  

After

Most of the changes were things I did a little while ago.  I added the print over his bed.  The nightstand used to be in my room but wasn't big enough to hold my workout clothes, so I upgraded the chest in my room and moved this to his.  I did a two-tone treatment on it.   

Before

The dresser wall was pretty good.  I had the one large dresser for his clothes but no other storage.  The big red tub in the corner held his sports equipment.  There was a set of shelves on the opposite side of his room, but it did not hold enough of his stuff.  

After

Yah - this is a lot. A lot of shelves!  But it's all working storage and holds things that he loves and uses  The shelf on the right is the Kallax shelf from Ikea.  The top holds his Lego creations.  In the top cubes, I bought some lidded storage from Target, and those hold Legos and Lego kits.  The bottom cubes hold his cars and trucks, which he still plays with quite a bit.  On the left of the dresser, I broke up one of the three shelves that were once where the desk is now (see below).  This is his Pokemon area.  The top two shelves hold his Pokemon cards and the very bottom shelf holds some games and random toys.  

Before

These are very old shelves from IKEA, and they worked for awhile to hold his toys and books.  But as you can see, he needed more storage and this was the only place in the room where the desk could go.  Luckily, those shelves are narrow and not attached.  So I moved the one to the wall with the dresser, the one into the closet (see below) and left the one here.  

After

And here is the desk!  I found it in January at Target.  It was on sale, I had a $10 off coupon and I used my Red Card for an additional 5% off and free shipping. I think it ended up costing about $45, which is perfect.  I needed a very compact desk and this one got really good reviews.  The chair is from IKEA.  I let him pick it out. I like the print a lot!  The shelf to the right of the desk [barely] holds his books.  I added a bulletin board over the desk so he can pin things to it.  And I had bought the bulletin board/shelf/hook combo at Target last summer and never got around to putting it up.  Oops.  I added his medals.  I also put his name in big wooden letters over the shelf (I cut them off purposefully so his name isn't readable).  Rather than drive myself nuts with nails and trying to get it perfect, I just used the strongest On Command strips to hang them.  Fingers crossed it holds.  

 I don't have a before picture for this section because it was pretty bad - the inside of his closet.  It wasn't *terrible*, but it needed some order, and that's what I added.  The black bins at the top of the closet were there, and they work well to hold clothes that are too big and other things.  I moved his sports bin to the floor and used the extra shelf to hold more sports stuff, his sleeping bag, extra "fancy" shoes, and his suitcase.  I added hooks to the walls to hold his bags and hats.  And his violin is front and center.  

So yay!  One more space checked off my list!  Now, of course, my little girl wants a desk for her room and wants to redo her space.  I told her we would work on that in the Fall.  As for the house list, I think the next project will be to tie up the loose ends in the playroom: I have a few piles left to address and some small storage to take care of.  I also need to get back to some cabinet organization in the kitchen.  But I'm definitely at the point in my home where all of the *big* projects are done.  

Playroom Furniture: Finally Painted!

Hello hello!  It's been on my home to do list forever but I finally did it:  I finally painted the two pieces of furniture in the kids' playroom that I've been meaning to paint forever.  I don't mind painting furniture, but getting started is always a daunting task.  You need the right supplies, you need a well-ventilated space and most of all, you need time to paint and time for the paint to cure.

In this case, I decided to paint one piece white, which, if you know me, you know is not a surprise.  I decided to paint the sofa table the same pale greenish-blue that I used on my little chest in my bedroom.  I thought that color would look really good.  Here are the pieces before I got started:

I had two pieces to paint: (1) the dresser for the TV and (2) the sofa table.  The dresser was my son's when he was smaller.  While the dresser is now too small to hold his ever-growing clothes (no! stop growing!), it's perfect for a TV chest.  And the sofa table was a freebie from my parents - they didn't need it anymore, and I did.  My mom used it to hold her plants, so the top had a little water damage.  Nothing that a can of paint can't fix!!

The process that I always follow for painting furniture is as follows:

• protect:  lay out a huge drop cloth and move your pieces to it so there is enough room for you to move around;
• prepare:  clean off all furniture pieces and make sure they are completely dry before you begin painting;
• prime:  I use Zinsser oil based primer.  I also buy throw away brushes (very cheap ones) and use those and rollers to apply the primer.  I do not have the patience or the inclination to try to salvage the brushes after I've used the oil based primer.  I also wear throw away rubber gloves when I prime.  Depending on the color that I'm covering, I either do one or two coats of primer.  In this case, I went with two coats because I was going light over dark. Primer is a mess, but trust me that it is worth doing two coats of primer in many cases.  You will save yourself a few coats of paint on top!
• paint:  once the primer dries, I then apply my paint.  I swear by Sherwin Williams Pro Classic for furniture.  I painted the chest in Dover White in a semi-gloss finish (three coats) and the sofa table Rainwashed by Sherwin Williams (two coats).  As for brushes, I use a nicer brush for furniture and rollers.  
• poly:  once the paint fully dries, I use water-based Polycrilic to seal the finish.  I do two very light coats of poly and then let it cure for 48 hours.  

And here are the pieces now!

The dresser is my favorite transformation.  I swapped out the old knobs for ones that I had in my stash.  I love how it looks, though I want the pulls to be more gold than bronze.  I think I'll either spray paint them or use a little gold rub n' buff on them. 

I am in the home stretch of the playroom.  I also finally hung pictures and decorated the TV area (which you can kind of see in the "after" pictures above).  I'll be sure to share that soon.  Now there are just a few little things left to do!  

More progress in the dining room - recovering the chairs!

Whoa lookie here!  A house post!  I've done a ton of projects around the house, but have been very lazy in sharing.  And I just realized that my new computer doesn't recognize my old camera ... so until I figure that out, I'm going to have to rely on old photos and the iPhone (using various filters to make the photos a little better).

Do you know how happy I am about my dining room?  The answer is very.  Super mega very.  And today's project pushes it into super crazy mega very territory.  Something as simple as recovering the seat cushions on the chairs made a huge difference.  Here's a shot of the space:

I bought these 6 cane back chairs from my friend Heather years ago.  They were/are exactly the look that I wanted in my dining room.  When I first got them, I recovered 5 of them in a pretty light sage fabric that I had from Ballard Designs.  It worked well.  The last chair (because I didn't have enough of the sage fabric) got covered in a cream fabric with grey coral print.  See - here they are in a four year old photo:

But as my living room/dining room has evolved, the sage wasn't working.  I knew the easiest way to fix that was to simply change up the fabric.  I went with different, but complementary, fabric on the arm chairs and side chairs.

Arm Chairs

I went with a light taupe solid fabric for the arm chairs, because I keep them away from the table, so they need to work with the rest of the room.  The fabric is very neutral and works well.  I bought a new pillow that works really well with the space (and ties into the art above the dining room table).  For the other chair, I moved my pretty geometric printed pillow, which now reads a bit more gold than yellow.

Side Chairs

As for the side chairs, I chose a neutral floral fabric.  I love it.  And it's not too white to render it impractical for the dining room.  

Love love loving this room!  There is but one thing left to get - a rug for under the table!  Once that's done, so is this space.  I may want to touch up the paint on the dining chairs, but that's not really worthy of a blog post.  

What about you? Do anything similarly small but with a big impact?

Dining Room Table - more copy-catting!

Now that my dining room table is exactly the way I like it, I've been inspired to do a little more in that space and finish it off.  I haven't been crazy about the candles on the middle of my table.

They are cute, but look a little sad and forlorn on my table.  You know ... if candles could be sad.  Or forlorn.  So when I found the inspiration photo of the Ethan Allen table, I decide to keep on copying.  I loved this "modern country" dining room and drew my inspiration for my table from it.

via

I really liked those large vases with branches.  I actually coveted them.  But they were $125 and $180 from Ethan Allen and I thought that was crazy.  I found similar vases at Home Goods for $16 and $19.

I found the branches at Joann's.  I had a coupon and they were on sale, so they cost about $20.  They look very real in person.  Though, I had to laugh in Joann's because Big Kid came over and whispered, very dramatically, "Mom, these flowers ... they're ... all fake."  HA.  Yes they are.

I'm very happy with how it turned out!  The table has the leaf in it at all times, and it's in the same space as my living room, so it needed something substantial but not fussy.  I think this fits the bill.

There's not much left: just replace the seat fabrics on the chairs, touch up the paint on the chairs and add a nice sisal or jute rug under the table and chairs.  

See you swoon,

Redone Dining Room Table

Hello! Good morning!  I feel like this blog post needs a little fanfare and trumpets!  I redid my dining room table!  I know!  Every sentence in this paragraph is punctuated by an exclamation point so you know this one is good!  I'm going to show you the finished product right now because no one can wait!

Calming down ... this was another one of those why didn't I do this sooner, this completely changed the look of the room with very little time and money things.  My dining room table is about 10 years old.  The original chairs are long gone, but I really do like the size and design of the table itself.  It has a leaf, which I keep in it all the time, and a farmhouse-table kind of look.  The thing I do not like about it was the finish, as seen in this older picture:

In fact, I've never liked the finish.  It was a compromise on my part and it's just never been my taste at all and ended up being, well, compromising.  Every time I looked at it I would instantly think "gah - red wood - don't like - gah".  So now's the time to fix it.  

I was inspired by an Ethan Allen table.  I loved the two tone - the distressed wood top and the white legs.  It really got my heart racing.

My initial plan was to strip the top, stain it a weathered oak, and then poly the top.  Then once the top was done, I'd paint the legs white.  Things, as usual, did not quite go according to plan.

I started off with the stripper (that's what she said).  I used Citristrip and followed the package instructions.  I let it sit for about 45 minutes and then stripped off the varnish with the little stripper bucket tools.

I ended up having to do two coats of the Citristrip.  Once that was done, I used an orbital sander (on loan from Bill - thanks Bill!) to strip off the rest of the finish.  The sides were very tricky.  For whatever reason, they were coated in some really funky stuff that was impossible to get off. I finally was able to strip them nice and smooth by using mineral spirits applied with steel wool.

I did not enjoy this process.  It was messy and disgusting and tedious and difficult. But once I was done, it looked pretty darn beautiful.

Even with the red legs, I was pleased with the top.   So, a few days later, it was time to tackle the finish on top.  I used one final swipe of really fine sandpaper and then used some tack cloth to get the top super clean.  And then I applied my stain: Minwax's Weathered Oak finish.  I was so excited and applied a kind of small spot and then ... THE TABLE TOP TURNED RED AGAIN.   The table top turned red.  Again.  I said some really bad words and may have thrown the stain rag down hard and then said more bad words.  It was pretty clear that stain wasn't going to work, and any stain applied to the top would just bring out that red wood.  So ... I sanded again and got all of the new stain off.

I needed to make the finish more grey in order to get the distressed l wanted.  I decided to try a liming wax for the finish, which was the perfect distressed wood look that I had in mind.  I saw the finish on I Heart Organizing, which is a blog that I follow and loooooooove, and I figured I would use that same product on the table and it just might work.   It did!  The liming wax made the finish more grey and muted.  It was a bit too grey and too muted, but I knew as soon as I applied the Poly, it would be the exact look I wanted.  And it was!

Once the wax was done, I applied my Polycrilic to seal.  I used a satin finish for a more matte look.  It took four coats, which I thought was a good call given the use the table would get.  While I did that, I started the legs.  I got out my oil based primer and brushed on two coats over the legs.

Once the primer was dry, we added two coats of white latex.  I went with my favorite Dover White (Sherwin Williams) that I often use.  Once the paint was dry, I added  two coats of Poly to them to protect.

And here she is!

Yes and yay and all of those things!  I'll add a natural fiber rug under the table soon - something like a jute or a sisal.  I want to break up the [horrible] grey carpet and make the room look more neutral.  And I would love new chairs, but that's not in the budget.  However, recovering the current chairs *is* in the budget.  Now I just need an excuse to host a fun, yummy dinner party to break in the space!  hmmmmm.

See you swoon,

Finally! Revamped and Organized Jewelry Box

Ahhhh.  I can't wait to share this project with you! It's been something I've wanted to do for years and I finally did it.  I revamped and organized my beautiful jewelry box.  What took so long was my indecision about what to do with the wood finish.  Here it is before:

Now, if you've read this blog for more than a hot minute, you know that I like white furniture.  Nothing is safe: if I have a piece of brown wood, I am painting it white ... or maybe a soft seaglass green.  So, my instinct has always been to paint the jewelry box white, too.  The only issue is it was a gift from my grandparents for my college graduation and is a really good, well-crafted, high quality piece from a family-owned furniture company in farm country Pennsylvania.  And while I know that the finish of the wood doesn't really matter, something in me just didn't like the idea of slapping white paint over that gorgeous wood. 

I bought some liming wax, which I've seen on a bunch of blogs I like.  The process seemed simple enough: use a wire brush on the finish and then add the wax, which would supposedly give a soft whitewash to the wood.  I gave it a try and ... fail.  The dark stain was still showing through and it just looked like it had some cloudy film on it.  I considered getting out wood stripper and taking off the finish, but given how intricate and small this piece is, it seemed like a ton of work, for an effect I wasn't even sure I wanted.  So I went back to my comfort zone.  White paint! Who is surprised?!?

I used a coat of oil based primer and three coats of Valspar's Cream Delight (which I used on the trim on my living room bookshelves).

Just like with any other piece of furniture that I refinish, after the final coat was dry, I added Polycrilic to protect the finish.  I let that sit for 24 hours before returning it to my room. I added new hardware that I found on Etsy at DaRosa Creations.   I love the way they look.

And just like that, the outside was done!  It went from this ...

to this!

Much better.  

And that's not all!  The inside of the jewelry box was a mess.  I generally knew where all my jewelry was, but it was all sort of haphazardly thrown into the different drawers.  I took some time to neaten up the mess.

The first thing I did was go through the drawers and make sure I really wanted everything in there.  Look at all of this:

I decided to add some drawer liners as well.  I had a massive amount of blue velvet in my fabric stash, and this seemed like a great way to put it to use.  I wrapped the velvet around pieces of foam board that I picked up from Target, which I cut to fit the size of the drawers.  The drawers went from jumbled messes to this!

Yay!  I'm thrilled with this project and so so happy that it's finally done.  Now I'm inspired and ready to do paint more furniture - the playroom pieces (which have been on the to do list since January) and the dining room table top.  The legs will go white, but the top is going to get stripped of its cherry wood finish and then limed.  There's always a project waiting in the wings.  

See you swoon,

Kitchen Refresh on the Cheap!

Hello hello ya'll!  I hope everyone is having a terrific morning.

You know my kitchen, right?  I know my kitchen.  My kitchen is perfectly functional, is a very nice size with a space for a table and chairs (which we use all of the time for dinners), and has a ton of potential.  However, the cabinets are builder grade medium oak wood and, having been in a rental for  many years, are pretty worse for the wear.  

As much as I would love to paint them white, I recognize that (a) this is a rental and they do not belong to me and (b) the effort in painting them is really a wasted one, as they need to be replaced and ... this is a rental and they do not belong to me.  Add to that, the trim under the big window in the kitchen is grey.  I'm not sure why ... but it is.  

The rest of the trim in the kitchen is white.  The grey has bothered me.  The cabinets have bothered me.  But I am limited in what I can do.  Still, I put on my thinking cap and tried to figure out how I could make the kitchen easier on the eyes and a bit more "me".  The answer was simple: add cabinet hardware and paint that grey trim white.

The Trim

This was easy enough.  I have a quart of white semi-gloss that I used in the kids' bathroom when I painted that space.   I rolled up the curtains and made that weird grey trim better with a few coats of crisp white.   Easy.  Done.  Why did it take me so long to do this?  Now when I glance over to that window, I smile instead of cringe.

The Cabinets

Sigh.  You *know* these cabinets break my heart.  I am a sucker for white kitchens, but that's just not in the cards.  So I trolled Pinterest for ideas to minimize the oakiness in the oak cabinets.  One of the things that seemed to make a difference was hardware.  Yes, this isn't my house and buying the hardware would be money lost when I eventually move, but I knew I could buy inexpensive hardware and keep the cost low.  That's just what I did.

First, I needed to clean the cabinets.  They were kind of gross and shabby.  I bought good old Murphy's Oil Soap, followed the directions on the bottle and cleaned the cabinets.  They looked (and smelled) great.  Those pictures above are actually taken after I cleaned and polished the wood.  

Then hardware.  I decided to go with simple brushed nickel knobs for the doors and brushed nickel cup pulls for the drawers.  I already had a near full pack of cup pulls in my stash (I had wanted to add them to my first home's kitchen, but we ended up selling before I could).  I bought another pack of the cup pulls at Target. I went with cup pulls because they're substantial and will hide more of the wood.  The knobs are from Lowe's and were $1.60 each - not bad!  They're very simple, and for the look and the price, I couldn't pass them up.  I have 18 doors and 8 drawers.  Total cost for the hardware was a little less than $50.  And I still have a handful of cup pulls left over.  

Installing the hardware wasn't bad (though the cup pulls took a lot longer than the knobs).  It took about 2 hours total.  Here's an action shot that my photographer took while I wasn't looking.

And ... voila!  Look how much better!

Yes, it looks better but it is so much easier to open the doors and drawers!  Part of my frustration with the cabinets has been how annoying it is to have to grab the cabinet doors or drawers themselves to open ... and now, I can simply grab the hardware.

This little tweak has made me so much happier.   The kitchen is done for now.  Depending on how much longer I stay here and how fast I attack my other projects, I may paint the kitchen.  I think a warm white (like Sherwin Williams Alabaster) or a deep dark charcoal (like Sherwin Williams Peppercorn) would look really good in here and tone down the oak.  But that's way down the line, if it happens at all. In the meantime, you'll find me randomly walking in my kitchen and opening the doors and drawers, admiring the new shiny hardware.  Or maybe kicking back with a Hop Devil and thinking about doing that.

yet another picture by my 6 year old paparazzi 

See you swoon,