My Busy Weekend

Remember this wonderfully inspiring mess I showed you this weekend?

Oh yeah.  Messy mess.

I was barely able to function in here.  My work and client stuff were the only things I had organized in any manner – just barely.  There were craft supplies, my personal paperwork, miscellaneous decor I haven’t found new homes for, etc etc etc. 

Oh, something for Jodi to deal with?  Toss it in the office. 

Literally.

Tossed.

Into the office.

The kids and I spent much of our weekend in here.  Just cleaning, organizing and unpacking.

(Excuse the bad lighting.  The lighting in this room is terrible.)

Organized work space, all set up for work.

This desk deserves it’s own post.  Soon.

Home of my future sewing space.

 

I need a second desk for my sewing machine and a very large table for workspace in the center of the room.

Children’s Creative Corner.

 

I always like to keep it real.  Check out the last lonely box.  It’s almost empty but I ran out of steam – and time.

 

I have plans for this room. 

Big plans.

The layout is basically what I want – plus the two new furniture pieces I still need.

I’m contemplating pulling down the paneling.  This is the one thing that will hold up my painting in here – to pull it down or not to pull it down?  That is the question.

But for now, it functions.  Which I very very badly needed for my sanity.

I actually feel like I can be creative now.  It feels good!

My New Coffee Table

Remember this red beauty?

Ok.  Not really a beauty but she’s got great bones and is super sturdy.

Look at her now.

Say what?  You’re distracted by the big red lump on the couch?

It’s ok.  The cuteness is pretty distracting.  (They were tuckered out from partridge hunting).

Back to my coffee table.  I stripped the top, sanded it down and gave it some love with Kona by Rust-Oleum (stain).  The base got a coat of primer and 2 coats of Sea Salt by Behr.  I then distressed and gave the entire piece a polycrylic top coat.

The new handles are an Oil Rubbed Bronzed finish.  I got them on Ebay.  (The Knob Shop – I use them a lot.  Great prices and a great selection.)

When I finally put the table in place, I realized I should have checked the height FIRST.  It was about 6 inches too tall.  T hacked the legs down for me and now we have perfection.

 

It’s great to finally have a place to put up our feet!  The drawers are an added bonus to hide coloring books and crayons for the kids.

One more project completed.  A gazillion left to go!

Linking up here:

 

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest

 

 

Little Man’s Bedroom

I’ve been working on getting Little Man’s BIG BOY room finished.  It’s been such slow going, what with all of the projects I have going at any given time – not to mention life in general.  ;-)

This was Little Man’s bedroom when we bought the house last January:

We painted the walls and trim immediately but that’s about as far as we got.  He was still in his crib and had my old hand me down particle board dresser.

Piece by piece, I’ve been putting his room together over the past few months.  It all started with his new bed.  One of T’s friends had this old trundle bed in need of a new home.  She knew we were going to be putting LM in a bed soon so offered it to us.

Bed before (It’s on sawhorses waiting for a makeover):

I also got this great dresser at a yard sale:

And let’s not forget the bookshelf my dad built for him:

We’ve had this bedside table for years (it was most recently white and being used in Monkey’s old bedroom – I also just found out my mother-in-law built it!):

I also had this framed poster from T’s childhood bedroom:

Now we have this:

and this:

The details:

The bed is painted Chianti by Behr and outfitted with a quilt I’ve had for years and years. 

The nightstand received a 3rd makeover, getting a quick coat of Chianti and then painted with a premixed Rust-Oleum semi-gloss black.  I then distressed the edges to show the layers of white and red beneath.  I also used an old tow rope from camp to make a new handle.

The lamp was from KMart for $17 and the fan I picked up at a yard sale for 50 cents.

My $15 dresser didn’t need much work.  It had a Formica top I ripped off.  The glue required far more scraping than I could handle so I used a stripping agent to get it down to bare wood.  The same Rust-Oleum semi-gloss black, some light distressing and a top coat of polycrylic and it was done.  The tractor and piggy were gifts – the old rail lamp was $2.50 at an antiques store.

The bookshelf received the same treatment as the top of the dresser. 

Most of our books were either gifted or from my large box of books from childhood.  The trophies are a couple of T’s hockey trophies from middle school.  I got the truck for $2 at an antiques store.

Lastly, we have T’s old poster.  I spray painted the frame black with some random generic black paint I had on hand (I had done this at the old house and even had the poster up but I only just put it up here last week).  There was a tiny bit of overspray on the inside that I could easily have wiped off but I like the added character it gives.

The total so far in his bedroom is $71.

• $25 wall paint           
• $10 bed paint           
• $17 lamp                    
• $15 dresser                                          
• $5 wood truck, fan and rail lamp
• $15 for new sheets
• All other paints were from my paint stash

Left to do:

• Finish shades (he has 1 – needs a 2nd)- fabric already purchased for $15 – will also have plenty extra for throw pillows
• T needs to put new window trim in (just replaced those windows) – not counting towards room cost as we’re doing this throughout the house
• My grandmother has an old dresser mirror I plan to put in there
• Random art – I have most everything here just haven’t gotten to those projects yet

I love love LOVE how his room is turning out.  I love the history of the pieces and the stories they tell.  I also love how rugged the pieces are – they’re very able to survive a growing boy.

The best part?  I do believe the total cost will remain just around $100!

I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Linking up here:

 

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest

 

   

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes…

When we bought our new old house, we knew we were going to need to do some updating – the windows being one of the needed updates.

We went through last winter paying attention to which windows were in the worst shape and decided which ones to change this year.

Our carpenter is finally here this week.

Before – exterior (excuse the shadows – I forgot to take my pictures until THAT morning – the sun was uncooperative):

Of course with an extremely old house, nothing can be simple.  The new windows are just a hair smaller than the old, which caused issues with the two big windows – particularly with the trim.

Our carpenter came up with a fabulous way to hide the problem – and it makes such a huge impact!

He is still up on the scaffolding working so I cropped him out just to show you the window.  LOOK at that trim!  You can see the difference with the window below it (old window).

The big windows make my heart go pitter patter.

 

T and I have been discussing paint colors.  The decision has finally been made that the house will get color-matched.  The trim will get an off white or cream, similar to it’s current primed color.

Next up, interior trim.  I can’t wait to see what he does for us inside!

I LOVE Happy Surprises!

Remember this?

And this wonderful mess blank slate?

Well, I was finally able to deal with 2 of the curtain panels. (Excuse the poor lighting.  Momma takes pictures when the kids allow – usually when they’re in bed for the night. ;-) 

There’s a lot of red accents (i.e., toys) in the room already.  I’m trying to tie in some green – and my curtains were too short. 

Tada!

But the curtains isn’t the happy surprise.  Nope.  No no.  That was just pure luck on a rainy afternoon and parking the kids in front of Dora for 20 minutes.  (Hey – sometimes Mommas gotta do what Mommas gotta do!)

THIS is the happy surprise.

T pulled out the wall paper steamer today only to accidently (or so he says) punch through many layers of wall paper – and what we thought was cardboard wall paneling of some sort underneath said wall paper.

Looky at what he found for his wife.  Aren’t the wood slats just wonderful?  I wish you could have seen my face when he showed me.  There was only one section visible through the mess he was ripping (no steamer needed at this point) off the walls.  I audibly gasped.

 

No?  Ok…  but after hours and hours of scraping by yours truly, I think they’ll definitely be wonderful then!  Oh, yes.  Yes I do.

 

SO, we are now back to square one with a wall that still needs to be dealt with.  I’m not sure what color I’ll be painting it now.  The pale gray blue in the rest of the room just doesn’t seem right.  I think a fresh coat of creamy white is what these old wood walls are yelling for.

PS – The wall WAS supposed to completely be turned into a chalkboard.  There is NO WAY it can be a chalkboard now, so we’ll offer up a different wall in the room for that fun project.

Thanks for your mistake, honey!