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??


 

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