What Dresser?

As we were driving down the road this morning I saw what appeared to be a side-of-the-road dresser.  I turned to Hubby and excitedly asked "do you think that dresser is free?!"  Hubby's response "What dresser?"

On our way home we passed it again and I nearly shouted "there!  That dresser!  Do you think it's free??"  Hubby looked at the dresser, looked at me and sped by saying "it looks like someone through it out the window!"  It did too.  It was face down with the drawer pieces in a pile.  I still wanted it.

Probably an hour later I was still thinking about the dresser and told him "I can't believe you didn't want to get the dresser."  Hubby's response "What dresser?"

Sigh...

A Dresser for My Nephew

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday with family and friends!  We went to Arizona and spent our time with Hubby's side of the family.  It was a fun time!  I had one super quick furniture redo before we went and it came with us...a dresser for my nephew.  Hubby and I found this one at a yard sale for cheap and it was in decent shape.

And yes, you read that right Hubby went to the yard sale with me.  There's hope for turning him into a junker yet!

Anyway, I have seen some really awesome stripes painted these days on chairs, desks, and dressers and I thought this dresser would work with stripes.  I did check with my nephew and brother-in-law to make sure they were okay with my idea and they said go for it!  I kept the dark wood top, sides, and feet, but freshened them up with Old English.  The drawers and the lighter wood I painted cream and then taped off and painted red stripes.  The red matches his Arizona Wildcat themed room...Go Cats! 

I think it could go nautical also.

I was kinda nervous about his reaction...he is 16 and I my "cool" and his "cool" are not on the same level most of the time.  :)  I think it passed the test though!  What do you think?

Linking up to:

Party Time!

Today was the Christmas party at our son's preschool...book exchange, cupcake decorating, fun time!  This was the first year I was responsible for a teacher gift.  I wanted something fun and unique.  So I headed over to my favorite store, Hobby Lobby, and bought:

3 wood plaques
3 red knobs
1 bag of wood letters
1 can of chalkboard spray paint
Everything else I had on hand

I was making three of these - one for our teacher and two for a friend's teachers.  I do not have any "during" pictures since I was in a bit of a rush.  I sanded the plaques and stained them a dark walnut.  Then I taped off the edges and sprayed them with the chalkboard paint.  After they dried I cut the knobs down (I did not want them sticking out the back), drilled holes in the plaque and two of the wood letters, put some hot glue in the hole, and pushed in the knob.  I picked out some letters and hot glued them on the other side.  Then I tied up some chalk and jingle bells and hung them from the knob.  On the back I mod-podged a picture of my son and his teacher and wrote their names and the year.  Here it is all put together and ready to go:

We gave it to her this morning and she seemed to really like it!  What do you think?  Hmmm...future Etsy store??  :)

Linking up to:

 

 

Milk Paint, Pink Glass Knobs, and a Dresser I Love!

Remember this little treasure I found and wrote about here last month?

I finally got around to fixing her up.  Here are a few more before shots so you have a real good idea what I was working with!

I was hoping to stain the top, but I just could not get it nice enough so I ended up just painting the whole piece.

She even came with cobwebs and a few other nasties once I took her all apart!

This was the bottom of one of the drawers.  How does this happen?

The piece had been painted green at one time and then repainted brown.  The man I bought it from said they had kept it outside...nice.

I did not take any during pictures since I was a mess and did not want to even touch the camera.  I stripped as much as I could and sanded as best as I could...I am pretty sure they painted this with tar.  I could NOT get it all off.  If I had it to do over I would have just sanded it smooth to start with and been done.  Oh well.

I decided to try milk paint on this piece since it is all the rage in blogland.  I went with Miss Mustard Seed's Luckets Green.  For those of you who have no idea what milk paint is, it comes in a powder form and you mix it with water.  It has a lot of color variation and may or may not chip off for the antique look.  You can add a bonding agent so that you can control the distressing, but I did not use it.

So...Luckets Green...or blue...or yellow.  I had a really hard time with this color.  It seemed like the paint started out more blue green and then as I painted along it changed until it was almost a mustard yellow.  I loved the blue green and hated the mustard yellow.  After a lot of mixing and remixing I finally got it how I liked it.  I then added a dark brown metallic glaze.  I love the way it pulled out all the details!  Final step was to wax.

Oh and somewhere in the middle of the painting, glazing, and waxing, I replaced the bottom of the drawer with the hole.  I also lined the drawers with some super cute fabric. 

Last step...add adorable knobs!  And here she is all fixed up...

(Some day I am going to learn how to take magazine worthy pictures!  Until then this is as good as I've got)

Adorable knobs...

Can you see all the color variation and texture?

Love these legs!

Super cute fabric!

 
I really love the way she turned out!  I have listed her for sale, but for a ridiculous amount of money fairly high price in hopes that I can keep her.  She looks great in my daughter's room...

Why list her for sale if you want to keep her, you ask?  Just in case there is someone who loves her more than me...

Linking up here:

Miss Mustard Seed

 

Primitive & Proper

 

Funky Junk Interiors

Pink and Silver Vanity

Another freebie from a friend!  Thanks friend!  ;)

She was a little banged up and a little scratched up, but overall not too bad.  I had an oops paint in pink that I thought would work great.  I followed up with a silver metallic glaze for a bit of shimmer.  I kept the original handles, but spray painted them silver.  I think she will be perfect for some little girl!

Linking up to:

Miss Mustard Seed

 

Domestically Speaking - Power of Paint

Little Side Table

 

Sigh...well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!  I now have the sinus infection.  Ugh, I have never had one before and it feels like someone bashed me on the right side of my face.  I am promised that in a few days I will be feeling better.  I hope so!

Anyway, here is a little redo that I did right before Thanksgiving.  This table was given to me by one of my old neighbors, now my mom's neighbor (mom's in our old house).

It's not really old, just boring and she did not want it anymore.  I cleaned it up, painted it cream and added a stencil to the center.  Here it is now...

What do you think?  Not nearly as boring, right?

Linking to:

 

 

Miss Mustard Seed

Progress Report

I promise some posts soon, but we have been hit by the bug...or bugs.  Here is our progress report:

Me: cold: in progress, hopefully the end is in sight
Hubby: cold: in progress, worse now than before
Oldest: ear infection: antibiotics in process
Middle: ear infection & nasal infection: antibiotics in process
Youngest: bronchitis: antibiotics complete & rosiola: rash almost gone

I am pretty sure we have reached our quota for the year (as in until Nov 2013!!) and we are allowed no more sick days!!

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Today is the day.  The whole family is arriving in a few hours and will be here for the long weekend!  I have spent the last few days shopping, cleaning, and baking my dish towels rolls.  Yes, I really did.  Mom and I were testing out a Thanksgiving roll recipe.  The oven was supposed to be on warm, but with my gas oven that means cook apparently.  I only wanted to give the rolls a nice warm place to rise.  The directions said "cover with dish towel and place in a warm spot."  Instead of the smell of baking bread, we had the smell of charred linen.  Of course I was doing this at nap time and so when the smoke alarm went off in the front of the house and our security alarm went off (they're connected) in the back of the house, I had three screaming kids.  All kinds of wailing!  Needless to say, I bought some frozen rolls and those are what we will be eating on Thanksgiving!

I am really bad about the holiday/seasonal decorating, but I wanted to do a little something and I found the perfect thing on Shanty-2-Chic.  They have all the instructions and free printables for the banner and I just put it together...

I was really wishing for a better center piece though.  Especially since that plant goes on my living room side table.  I had decided I wasn't going to worry about it, since the table would be covered in food most of the time anyway, and then this arrived from Hubby's boss!

Perfect!

I love the fall colors!

Now we are ready!  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!!

 

One Man's Junk is Another Man's Treasure

I finally got up the nerve to try out my paint sprayer.  How exciting, right??  No!  What a joke.  The first time I tried it nothing happened for about five minutes and then I got splatter.  I had to use my roller and brush to clean it all up.  Oh, did I mention that I was doing this on the top portion of the china cabinet?  I was hoping for a quick paint job.  I decided maybe I didn't have enough paint the first time, so I filled up the container the second time and got...yep splatter.  Big fat drops of paint and little drops of paint everywhere.  What a mess!  I told my mom about it and she looked up the reviews and most sounded just like my complaints.  I cleaned it up and took it back hoping they would refund me even though I had used it.  When I explained what happened to the cashier she told me "your not the first to bring this back.  Lots of people have returned it with the same problem.  It is junk, but we can't tell you that when you buy it."  Lesson learned.  I'll stick to my brushes and rollers.

After the paint fiasco on the top of the china cabinet and learning that it would cost more to replace the shelves than I spent on the whole piece, I decided to junk the top and sell the bottom.  All the lady's I have talked to like the bottom alone better anyway.  Check out the bottom here.  So I posted my first free Craigslist ad for this...

"Free" is a magic word.  I had five people call to get it and it was gone in less than 24 hours.  It amazed me to hear how excited people were about this piece of junk.

Speaking of excited, after I posted my free ad I had to browse around Craigslist and I found this awesome antique dresser for super cheap.  Not free, but close.

Good thing I got rid of my junky piece so I'd have room for this beauty!  ;)  I'm pretty sure Hubby and kids looked at it and saw this...

source

Me on the other hand...I saw this...

source

If it turns out like my vision, I may have to keep it...I really love the wheels on the feet.  (Don't tell Hubby)