Kids Play Time

Some kids play school. 
Some kids play house. 
Some kids play store. 

Our kids...they play "Go pick up dressers"!  This involves phone calls to the dresser owner to schedule the pick up.  Then "teamwork" to carry the dresser (a.k.a. the front door mat) into its designated location in the house. 

Hmmm...wonder where they come up with these ideas?? 

From Beast to Beauty

Have I mentioned that I LOVE Craigslist??  Especially the free section?  This solid pine wood BEAST was left in a vacated apartment.  The guy emptying the apartment put it up for grabs as a freebie and I grabbed it!  Actually, he and I heaved and hauled it.  Then we sucked in our tummies as we squeezed it into the back of the suburban...which had both of the back seats completely out.  It fit, but barely!

 

It is hard to tell from the pictures, but the Beast is about 5 feet wide by 4 feet tall!  Maybe part of the reason the previous owners left it behind was the chewed up bottom corner.  Nothing a little a lot of wood filler and some sanding can't fix!

I had a really hard time deciding on a paint color for this one.  I took my oldest son with me paint shopping and his suggestion (as usual) was black.  "No black son, that's boring."  So, I picked out "my" colors...light gray, dark gray, and teal.  I started out with the light gray on top and a teal/dark gray combo for the body.  And hated it.  Sorry no pictures!  Back to Home Depot with all the kiddos and this time I listened to my son!  I tried painting just the top and leaving the body with the teal/dark gray, but I still didn't love it.  So, top to bottom black.  And I love it!  It doesn't feel like such a BEAST now...now it is an elegant beauty!

I replaced the top three original knobs with black and white swirly design knobs from Hobby Lobby.  The remaining original knobs I used and painted black.  I very slightly distressed and then waxed.

Good choice son!

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Coffee Table Wall Art

I am pretty sure I have about 47.5 projects in various stages in our garage.  I am sooo excited to have finally finished this one though!  It has been sitting there patiently waiting its turn.  Way back in October...OCTOBER???  Yep, I just looked at my picture dates...October.  Three months later...anyway my mom and I set out to pick up a five tiered corner shelf.  It was a bit of a drive and as we were driving I remembered a chair that I had been eyeing on Craigslist that was over in the same area.  So after we picked up the shelf, we headed over and picked up the chair.  The chair owner mentioned that he had a truck full of stuff that he was taking over to the Salvation Army and anything in it was free to me, if I wanted it.  There wasn't much that I could fit in my mom's car wanted, except this coffee table.

 

 

It has awesome detailing everywhere...a rope design on the top, leaves on the sides, flowers on the legs!

 

The top is leather and in rough shape.  There was no sanding out those stains in the lower right corner.  I knew it would need painted.  Actually, the whole thing needed painting.  All the details were lost in the woodiness and I knew would totally pop with some color.

Along with all the detail goodness and leather top, it came with four legs.  Great!  Except something is not quite right with this picture...

Let's take a little closer look...

 Ah ha!  Two of the feet had their ends sliced off.  There should be a rounded foot with nice ridges.  I tried several methods to replace the feet...creating a mold with plaster of paris...and decided that it was a repair beyond my skill level!  So now what to do with my beautiful coffee table??  I think this is why it took three months to complete.  I had no idea.  Then one night I had a brainstorm!  The next day I promptly went out into the garage and took the legs off the table.  Checked out the "new look" and decided my idea would work.  I would make a magnetic chalkboard for our little bare hallway.  I painted the "frame" with several different colors I had leftover from past projects.  I just dry brushed them on for the weathered look.  Then I taped off the edges and sprayed the leather with magnetic spray paint.  After using the entire can of spray paint my magnet did not even think about sticking.  And before you ask...yes, I shook the can...alot.  So, next method - sheet metal.  I bought a big sheet of it at Home Depot and brought it home expecting to just be able to "cut it" with something in the garage.  Nothing.  We have nothing in the garage to cut sheet metal.  Yeah for Hubby and Brother-in-law who went and bought the new metal cutting saw blade, cut my insert, and de-burred my metal!  I sprayed the metal with chalkboard paint, glued it onto the leather and tada!

My magnetic chalkboard!  This hallway leads to the guestroom and half bath.  I thought it would be fun to leave little messages for our guests when they come visit.  How do you take decent pictures in a hallway that gets no light??  And yes, that is a random toy on the floor...

So, how about those details now??

I love it!  And I have plans for the legs too...someday...hopefully it won't be another three months!

 

 

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Sharing the News!

Some of our close friends have decided to adopt!  They have found a beautiful girl in the Congo and have begun the adoption process.  Stop over at their blog to see their journey though this exciting time!

www.pswearebringingyouhome.blogspot.com

 

Library Stairs

Awhile ago I saw these awesome library stairs from Shangri-La Lane and fell in love!

I have never seen anything like them before and I wanted some!!  So I searched Craigslist...no luck.  Ebay had one listing and it was an auction $99 opening bid and $150 buy it now...too pricey!  I really had no expectation of finding a piece like this for myself.  (Bet you know how this story ends!)  Imagine my surprise when a few days ago I opened a Craigslist ad for "Antique Reproductions" and there were my stairs...about 10 minutes from me and for $35!  Whoo hoo!

   You can expect a redo of these in the near future!

Homemade Closet Organizer...Let the Organizing Begin!

I started working on New Year's resolution No. 1 today!  If you missed my resolutions, you can check them out here.  The first closet I decided to tackle is in my boy's room.  Here is what we have been looking at for WAY to long... 

 

 

Yeah, that's embarrassing!  We have lots of big push cars, one year old toys, and then all the small stuff...in a big pile.  I decided that we needed levels.  I would love to put a built-in unit in the closet, but they are too expensive at this point.  So, I made my own!  I went to Micheal's and bought two crates like the ones I used to make the truck shelves.  I wanted legs, but had a hard time coughing up over $10 a leg for the size I wanted.  So I bought two stair baluster's instead.  You know those posts that go between the stairs and the railing.  I also bought four little legs pieces that were less than $1.50 a piece. 

 

Step 1 was to cut the balusters into "legs".

 

Step 2 I drilled holes and screwed on the leg feet.

 



My plan was to have the two crates side-by-side, so to make them more stable I shopped our garage and found a piece of wood for the base.  Step 3 I cut it to size and screwed on the legs.

Step 4 I screwed the crates together and then screwed them both to the base.

I had the same blue spray paint I used in the boys' room for the truck shelves and dresser, so Step 5 I sprayed it down.

Then I not so patiently waited for the paint to dry and for my son to wake up from his nap so I could put it to use.  Here it is loaded up and under. 

 

There is definitely more that needs to be done in this closet, but it's a start! 

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year!!  We have been having some fun family time!  Today was snow day with some friends.  One of the great things about where we live...drive a little over an hour and play in the snow and then drive home and put on t-shirts.  Gotta love southern CA!

I have decided to put a few New Year's resolutions in writing this year.  I usually keep them to myself, that way if I cheat no one knows!  I have a whole bunch of stuff that I want to do/not do, but I decided to just pick a few and keep it simple.  So here they are in no particular order:

1.  Get organized.  Our house has a TON of storage areas and they are totally underutilized.  The closets in all the rooms are a disaster!  So, sometime this year I AM going to get it all under control, put together, and keep it that way!

2.  Update my kid's baby books.  I have completely fallen behind...I don't even think I wrote my youngest's name in his yet...he is ONE! 

3.  Take more pictures!  Our kids are going up so fast and we need to be better about snapping the pictures.  On that note...I also want to organize our pictures.  We have them saved by the day they were uploaded and I want to group them by month taken.  I have started this one, but haven't gotten very far.

4.  Get a blog schedule set and have some interesting content...maybe then I'll have more than 8 followers!  ;)

5.  No resolution list is complete without some exercise/lose weight goal, right?  So, here it is...say goodbye to the last 7ish pounds from baby #3.  Meaning, healthier eating and exercise.  We have the P90X program and we did it for a while after baby #2, but never completed the full 3 months.  So maybe this year?  Oh, and I have GOT to cut back on the Diet Coke! 

Okay, good enough for this year! 

How about you?  Any resolutions??