WILLN (What It Looks Like Now)

There's lots of spots in my house that I wish I could change. I think every person probably feels that way, right? This spot in front of our kitchen and next to the stairs is one of those places. We've had this bookcase here since we moved in, and although it fits the space just fine, I think it's too dark and a little boring. Because it's so dark, its been a little difficult to decorate, and so I feel like it's always in a state of flux. And when the new bookcases in the music room got put in, this little bookcase seemed to collect all the reject accessories. Poor guy. This is how the space looks right now.

It was looking so dreary over there I compensated by adding the bright flower canvas. It's a little much I think. But hey, it's spring!

You may remember it looking like this from a previous post:

Anyway, for a while now I've been searching for a buffet/sideboard/credenza/dresser-type piece to put in its place. I don't have a huge budget though, so the search has been a little frustrating. If I had an unlimited budget however, I would love to have one of these.

Love the thin gold legs on this, don't you??? I don't have a source or a price.

 Oh Dallas, why do you have to care about Mid Century Furniture and overprice everything??? This one is $775.

West Elm $900

 This is for sale in Dallas for a bazillion dollars $725.

I love this vintage credenza in Emily Henderson's house. Staged for Christmas, but you get the idea...

West Elm $700

Do you have a favorite? Obviously all of these are out of price range, so I'll keep looking for that perfect piece at the right price.

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New Addition

I was strolling around Salvation Army as I do every week more often than I'd like to admit,  and almost missed this beauty hiding amongst the big bulky furniture.

I'm not sure if the navy blue wool fabric is original, but it's in perfect condition, a total steal for $50, and goes great in our family room!

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Side Table Makeover

I got this lovely, but confused side table at Salvation Army for $13. The legs are mid century modern, the curved sides of the top have an Asian feel, and the planked wood is a little bit country. I had plans to refinish it, but it sat in our garage taking up walkway space for a few months before I had the gumption to work on it.

I hesitated working on it because of step one: filling in the lines. The planked wood look just didn't fit, so I grabbed some wood filler and started filling the holes in. Pretty sure I put too much on, but I wanted to make sure it got in the grooves and had room to sand down to level.

When I got to sanding it however, it was a beast. I used 60 grit sand paper, which did the job, it just took a really long time. I finished up with a fine grit sand paper to smooth it down.

Instead of my regular method of priming, painting and sealing, I tried something a different and used chalk paint. I got some Chalk Country Paint from a local antique mall and chose Sailor Blue.

And because there are a gazillion examples out there of painting with chalk paint, I'll spare you the details. I must say though that it is a totally different experience painting with chalk paint. The texture of this paint was like thick chocolate pudding, so it's virtually drip-proof, which is super nice. Chalk paint dries fast, so I was able to do three coats of paint in a matter of hours. As thick as this paint is, it doesn't cover well. I didn't want a distressed look on this piece so I was very liberal with the paint. However, with chalk paint you get a very flat finish, and it gets dirty or chalky really quickly. So its important to seal it. 

You can choose to seal with wax or with polycrylic. I chose poly because I don't have to re-seal it like you do with wax. 

But first I taped up the legs and sprayed the bottoms gold to give them a "dipped" look. This might possibly be the worst DIY process picture I've ever taken. You're welcome. 

I let the spray paint dry, did a coat of polycrylic, let it cure, and then brought it in to stage.

I plan on selling this, so the staging is just for fun. Because the side table is such a statement piece, I decided to go with a monochromatic look and bring in other bright blues. It's like Cinderella's dress color and I kind of dig it. The blue pillow is from Ikea, the flowered pillow is new at Target.

And here's a before and after:

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Mini Makeover Monday - Gold Shell Tray

I feel like all I've had time to do lately are mini makeovers, but I do have a few bigger things coming. But for today, I'm posting another makeover, and it's one you can do!

I recently discovered the 99¢ Only Store, which is funny because not everything in the store is ONLY 99¢, but I digress. It was your average dollar store-type with average dollar store junk, but I did find a few things like this elephant coin bank, a cute mug, and this plastic shell tray, each 99¢.

Okay, so the shell tray is a little boring, but I knew it could be awesome, so I bought a few and got out my trusty spray paint. Lucky for me, and to my husband's dismay, I keep all the left over spray paint for projects like this, so I have lots of colors on hand.

First I taped off the corners. I was going to lay it upside down to spray paint so I didn't need to cover the inside.

I then sprayed a color on the backside of the shell. There was already a teal faded color treatment on the shell, so I chose colors that would go with that.  Because I sprayed the backside, it made the inside of the shell super glossy because the color is showing through the plastic.

Then I sprayed two coats of gold spray paint over that and let it dry completely.

And that was that! I chose not to do a top coat because in my experience it takes the shine off the gold paint, and I didn't want to do that. But if you want a little more durability, you can do it and it will still look nice.

 Here they are! Not bad for a dollar, right? Which one is your favorite?

So now I have five of these... who wants one???

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Mini Makeover Monday - 50¢ Flip

My friend Emily thought it would be fun to challenge me with a few random thrift store items to "upcycle." The first piece I took on was this trashed out metal candle holder she got for 50¢.

I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but I knew I didn't want to keep it as a candle holder, so I pried off the top. Once I got it apart I stared at it for a while and reconfigured the pieces, thinking it would make a cute little jewelry holder.

I scrubbed off the old wax and sanded down the rusted and rough areas. Looks like this used to be silver, and then lime green. 

Next I primed with Kilz spray primer, and then I sprayed the back sides with Rustoleum metallic gold. Once it was dry I taped up the gold sections, and sprayed the other sides with Rustoleum Universal Robin Egg blue. All of these products I love, but especially the Rustoleum Universal. It was my first time using it and I loved the way it handles and sprays.

I had a bit of an issue figuring out how to put it all back together, since I kind of ripped it apart. After some trial and error, I ended up drilling a hole where the old joint used to be and adding a new screw. This created a problem, however, because the screw wasn't flush with the base. So I added some felt to the bottom to level things out. It looks super classy on the bottom, but no one sees that part anyway. 

So here it is finished!

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Remembering

I hope you don't mind a little nostalgia. This past week marks fifteen years since my dad passed away. The first years without him really hurt, but then I think we recovered a little and learned a new normal without him. And then I got married and had kids, each of those moments making me miss him a little more because he wasn't there for those happy times, but also because my family will never get to know him in this life.

It seems like the older my kids get, the more I long for them to never forget someone they never knew, and so we talk about him, and look at pictures of him. But I have also tried to incorporate little things that remind me of him in our home, whether it be a milk can from his ranch or a collection of nick nacks that he collected from his dad.

Recently I found a stack of his guitar music. Actually mostly only lyrics to popular songs and folk music from the 60's written out in his rambling script with guitar chords above in red. And in the back of a yellowed notebook full of these songs was a chord chart in which he had carefully hand-drawn every chord he wanted to learn. My dad wasn't an accomplished guitar player and he didn't really play a whole lot, but he had a deep, rich bass singing voice that even fifteen years later I can recall with perfect clarity. This chord chart is beautiful to me, and I had to display it in our music room, because looking at it immediately takes me back to my childhood, him singing The Marvelous Little Toy to us, and me begging for him to sing it one more time.


If only he could sing it one more time.

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Out With the Small, In With the Bigger

Remember this mini makeover I did on Abby's room? Well, in regular Mandie fashion, her room has changed once again. (shocker, I know.)

She has outgrown this small dresser and so I went in search of a replacement. After a lot of deliberation, (because when you are decorating a nine year old girl's room you don't have complete control,) we decided on the Ikea Tarva six drawer dresser. The price was great, and cheaper than most of the things I found on Craigslist, which is just wrong, btw. Plus its raw wood, which meant I had a clean palate to paint on. Abby wanted a white dresser with cute drawer knobs, and so in the midst of painting the bookcases, we primed and painted the dresser with the same white paint. It worked out great.

The wood pulls that come with the dresser are cheap and boring, so we looked around for cuter replacements. We found these adorable drawer pulls for 50% off at Hobby Lobby. It was a little painful forking over money for 12 pulls at $2.50 each, but they really gave the dresser the bit of character that it needed, and really, they are cheaper than most pulls that you get at home improvement stores.

Since this dresser is much bigger than the old one, we had to take out the bookcase to make room, which did not make the owner of this room happy, so maybe we'll try to squeeze it into her room somewhere else.

This gold framed mirror was in another location in the house and we moved it here because it fits the scale better than the white oval mirror that was here before. I decided to leave it gold for now anyway, because I thought the aged patina added some interest to the room. The accessories are mostly thrifted, except the frame from Ikea and ring holder from Target.

Another change we made in her room was to bring in THIS side table that I refinished last year. We sold her other one since it matched the old dresser and we had the yellow one on hand, so we tried it out and I think it looks pretty cute there.

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