Shabby Storage Ideas

I saw this shabby wooden box over at Shabby 2 Chic a few weeks 
ago and just fell in love!

At first, I made one for decorative purposes only...

This is the first time that I have distressed something with Vaseline and I 

LOVE it!  Shabby 2 Chic gives you complete instructions HERE.

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Recently, I have started taking some vitamin and supplements to hopefully

help my body get back to pre-40 normal.....is there such a thing?

One thing that has always kept me from taking vitamins is that I hate my kitchen counter

looking like a pharmacy, but if I have the bottles hidden in a cupboard, I never remember to take them.

I thought of my "decorative" shabby wooden holder and decided to

use more scraps in the garage to build a functional, but cute box to hold my vitamins!

One keeps me organized.....

.....and one is just pretty!

How do you keep organization "pretty"?

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My 20 hour coffee table redo...

Well...maybe it wasn't exactly 20 hours, but it sure wasn't ONE!!

I love the blog Dear Lillie....I hate to admit that I kind've stalk her.....not really, but

I do look forward to that RSS feed email telling me that she has posted something new!

When I saw her coffee table redo, it provided me with the inspiration to finally

make over my ugly coffee table!

 I wouldn't say that I am finished....I need to do some more distressing and

I'd like to cut a board to go under the table so that I can add cool looking

baskets to hide more JUNK!!!

But, for now, it's good enough!

And here's a fun little before....

and after...

Have you ever underestimated the time spent on a project??

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My One Hour Project....Ha!

This project was supposed to take one hour...I was going to quickly paint the legs and

sand off the top and stain it...an hour, that's all I thought that it would take!

UGH!!  Did I miscalculate!!

I originally hauled this baby out of the garbage....it was lovely in all it's 70's wood glory!

So, I painted over it in black....

Then, I got tired of black and painted over it in cream with a coat of stain overtop.

Yep...you can see ALL the colors that it's been!  It was in BAD shape!

I started by sanding it....and sanding it....and sanding it.....

I wasn't getting through the layers of paint, so I decided to chemically strip it...BAD IDEA!!

I will NEVER again chemically strip a piece of furniture....it turned into a gooey nightmare!!

I called my Mom in a panic because she has stripped furniture before...what had 

I gotten myself into???

HOURS later, I had it "clean" enough to sand...isn't that where I had started???

I had a little bit of dark walnut sitting on the shelf, so I started staining.  


I just use an old t-shirt to apply the stain.

I'll show you later this week how it turned out....but let's just
say that it's take a little more than an hour!!

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Laundry Room

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my laundry room makeover at Craft-o-manic.


What I didn't share was that the whole project started here.....

I was only going to "reorganize" this shelf...HA!  I added shelf paper and then 
I found about 1/3 a gallon of paint leftover from my kitchen makeover.....INSPIRATION!

Here are some "before" pictures of my laundry room....the color was called latte, but it reminded me of sitting inside a cup of lukewarm hot cocoa.....but it had been leftover (and free!), so I used it!

You can see white spots where I used to have wire shelving....I ran out of paint and wasn't able to touch up those spots when we added built-in shelving a couple of year ago....those spots drove me crazy!

So here's the reveal.....all that this makeover involved was leftover paint, one roll of beadboard wallpaper, and some foam chair rail and trim!

I love the response of my one son....he walks into the laundry room, turns around and says, "Did we get new lights in here??"  Uhm...no......did you miss the other changes??

My total cost was $30.00!

 Beadboard wallpaper:  $15.00 available at Lowe's 

Brushes and rollers: $5.00 

1 piece of foam chair rail:  $7.00 at Carter Lumber

1 piece of foam trim:  $3.00 at Carter Lumber

Wood shelf: FREE!  Wood just sitting around

Everything else:  FREE!  


I just shopped my house for the blue mason jars and

rustic key holder.

And because we all love before and after shots...

Truly...you are able to make BIG changes to your home for very little money!

Now....if I could just magically find a free can of paint that's the perfect
color for my dining room!  


Yes....I still haven't decided on a color yet and it's driving me crazy!!
 


Linking up to:  Beneath My Heart

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Easter Decorating: Tiered Rack

 

Here's my second "installment" of inexpensive Easter table decor.

I went to my local Goodwill and grabbed an assortment of dishes.  These

may have cost me a grand total of $3.00.

The poor man at my local True Value as I tried decided on a paint color....I

went back and forth on the color until I drove him crazy and picked

this color by Rustoleum....Strawflower.

I gave my dishes several light coats.  I didn't want it to bubble or run.

I already had glass candlesticks from The Dollar Tree, so I 

glued everything together with Gorilla Glue...love that stuff!

I wanted to grow wheat grass, but my local True Value didn't have the type that I've seen referenced elsewhere, so I had to grab this...

......FIVE pounds of spring oats.  Here's a snippet of the conversation 

that ensued on the car ride home.

Son #2:  Hey, don't we we eat "Toasted Oats" for breakfast?

(that would be the generic version of Cheerios!)

Daughter:  Yes....do you think that this is where Cheerios come from?

Son #2:  What if we would grow a whole section of this in our backyard

then we could make our own Cheerios??

Daughter:  Mom...can we grow our own Cheerios from now on?

Anyway.....grab some oats, soak them for at least a day to soften the

seed coat.  Layer them on the dirt and put a light covering of 

dirt over the seeds and  wait....

Before you know it, you will need to start trimming your wheat (oat!) grass!

You still have plenty of time to grow some wheat grass for Easter!

 

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Come see my laundry room....

Today I am doing my first guest posting for Jen over at Craft-o-maniac.

I am the DIY/Decorating contributor...which I truly find quite amazing since

most of my "decorating" consists of spraypainting something from Goodwill!

I was pretty stressed about what to submit for my first project....I had a bunch 

of ideas floating in my head, but just couldn't focus....

During all of this I decided to organize a shelf in my laundry room where

I found some left over paint from my kitchen redo!  

I was suddenly inspired AND I didn't have to spend much money!!

Here's a picture of my laundry room "before"....

If you want to see the "after", you'll have to visit Craft-o-maniac!

 

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Frugal Easter Table Decor

I have determined that while I'd like to have a pretty Easter table this year, I just

don't want to spent a whole lot of money....that just seems to be my continual mantra...*sigh!*

So I went to my local Goodwill store and found these treasures....

Yes, they are lovely, I know!

I took some some Gorilla Glue and glued the melamine saucers to the lovely 80's styled candlesticks...

Then I used some Rustoleum Spraypaint...

and voila....custom candlesticks!

I can't wait to show you what other inexpensive ideas that I'm working on!!

For another resource on decorating savings, find Promo Codes online.

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