Nite and Day

In one of my recent romps to a local thrift store I found this vintage side table that I felt would make a great nite stand for our room.  While redoing the kitchen I have slowly started to also weed out the old in our bedroom and try to make it a bit more "grown up".  The room is painted in blues with one gray accent wall.

Here is where the side table turned nite stand started:

Please forgive the junky looking room.  That is quite literally my junk room, it's where all my projects to be done sit until I am ready to work on them. I believe I paid $7.99 for the table, short of some chewing on the back left leg it was in great condition.  With a bit of sanding and some paint that Will mixed for me I think she turned out great.

After:

I sprayed the hardware black then distressed it a bit.  I'm not big on to much distressing, at least not in our bedroom.  I leave that to the rest of the house lol.  This was my first time using polyurethane (Minwax), I'm not sure if I did it right or not. However I knew I would need something on it to protect the paint.  Regardless I love how she turned out,  Will did a great job mixing the colors.  He used Antique White (color place) with just a dab of Stone Ebony Black (Better Homes) and it made the most perfect gray.  I have a desk and a dresser to repaint and I think for one of them I will be making some DIY chalk paint.

Linking up to:

From Trash to Treasure...ish

Bought this desk organizer/remote controller caddy awhile back at Goodwill.  I had originally bought it to help my mom make some rhyme or reason to her desk, instead she put all the remote controls to our TV, DVD player and such in it.  I'm sure one day it will make it's way to her desk instead.

Before:

After:

I think it turned out pretty good & it matches our walls perfectly. There were screws in the back so I took it apart as much as it would allow and spray painted the inside first.  This was actually a bit of a pain to paint, had to be oh so careful about not mixing the colors.  It happened a couple places, but they aren't very noticeable.

Paint Used:
Krylon Ocean Breeze (blue)
Krylon Almond (brown/tan)

Before & After

I thought I'd share a couple of my thrifty finds that I gave a new look to.

Before:

After:

It's the grey, white & blue striped bottle

Before:

cute find @ the local Goodwill. .99 cents a piece

After:

 

I like how in all three pictures the wall color looks different lol.  Silly flash.

as you can see I sprayed them a lighter color (Ivory) from Krylon, then sanded them a bit to give them a nice shabby look.  I really like how they turned out.  The bottom one is my favorite.

I literally had a spray painting debate in the middle of Goodwill when I bought these.  A lady came up to my cart & saw the plaques.  "ooh I love those" and I smiled & agreed I too liked them.  She then asked me what I was going to do with them.  I told her spray paint them a lighter color & then sand them a bit.  She got very vocal "oh no no no, no paint" as if I was a 5 year old.  She said the darkness was what made me so lovely.  For her maybe but for me it was the design.  I do not really like dark things & are living room area is shabby & light.  I was actually angry at the woman, don't look in my cart and then ask me what I will do with something if you aren't expecting an honest answer.  If she like them so much she should have put them in her cart, instead she walked past them.  So in this telling I suppose I'm just trying to state some like dark & some like light.  I notice a lot of people get upset when they hear you are going to paint something.  It's all a matter of preference, neither way is wrong.  I do not think I harmed the plaque's charm or loveliness by painting them.

Cubbies

This past week/weekend has been a nightmare.  All I can really say is that I'm tired of dealing with other people problems when my immediate family (Will included) have enough of their own things to deal with.  I really hope things get back to normal soon.

That being said I tried my best at creating normalcy Monday.  I had a real issue with sleeping so I stayed up a full 24hrs from Sunday to Monday.  I had so many ideas running through my head that I decided that 2am was a great time to get started on a ton of projects, or at the very least get all my ducks in a row.
First thing I did was take before pictures of EVERYTHING since I'm horrible at before pictures I thought taking a group photo of all my goodies at once then individually would be a great idea.  That way when inspiration hits me and I start painting without hesitation I have no worries because photos were taken.  Of course that lasted one day.  I started a new project yesterday & primed an item before taking a photo.  Will says no worries it's still a before, however the gray primer is an improvement on the hideous color this item was.  I like to call it baby poo yellow.

Here is a photo of all the goodies I plan on redoing:

Got all this loot in one day: Lamp, picture cube, light switch cover, desk organizer, shower curtain rings, 2 of the wooden trays, bike basket & the rose candle scones. All of these will be redone.

Yesterday I redid the photo cube & a few days before that I painted the light switch cover gray. The other project yesterday was to take this cubby shelf:

and turn into this cute cubby shelf:

The shelf was $2.99 at Goodwill and all the paint & hardware we already had.  We had 2 gallons of the blue so you'll see it used quite a bit.  The knobs I got off of a shelf my mom had bought but had later broke.  This will later go up for sale, however for now I love it too much so we'll be using it to display some of our shabby nick-nacks.

Cost:


Shelf $2.99
Paint  FREE
Knobs FREE

Never hesitate to look around the house to see what you have, left over paint is a god send.

edit

This is currently where the cubby shelf is hanging out.  Please forgive the paneling, that is a future project.  I'm sure the items will vary when we get new finds.

The Second Shelf

We live 2 blocks away from a tiny thrift store called The Second Self.  I absolutely adore it, not only for it's great stuff but because the manager is so familiar with my mother & I we get stuff at half price quite often.  Recently Will & I rearranged our bedroom (after we painted) and we were struggling for a shelf to hold my bulky photo printer but also his xbox 360 (did I mention we are avid gamers?).  With no other options we used this ugly little night stand because it gave the xbox room to breathe.  Very ugly set up:

please excuse the bad picture & the bad PS.

As you can see my printer is barely perched up there.  Add to the fact that my cat Bunny likes to sit up there, it's a miracle that it hasn't fallen.  So I searched & searched even went to IKEA, but wasn't willing to spend a lot of money for such a small item.  $30 dollars seemed a bit much for such a smaller shelf, plus it seemed too "new" if you know what I mean.  FINALLY!! I hit pay dirt at the thrift store.  There was a little wooden cabinet for $6.00, then she says to me...I'll give it to you for $3 if you take it out of here. SOLD!!

Just so you all know ahead of time I am horrible at remembering to do the before photos.  That being said this is the door of the cabinet so you at least know what the wood looked like.

Not bad looking wood I know, but there is enough wood in our room.

So we decided to paint it to fit our color scheme.  We also decided not to put the door back on.  We're saving the door however, something tells me it will come in handy at a later date.

My printer fits much better, plus we have an extra shelf for books or games, DVD's or whatever we feel like.