Turquoise SideTable

I found a sweet little side table at Goodwill for about$5 last summer and like many of my projects, it has sat around untouched...until now. We've had gorgeous weather this week so I decided to get outside and get to work on this little beauty! And just look at it now...




Here's what it looked like before...


Complete with schoolboy graffiti! "Chaz Wuz Here"...not for long, Chaz!



First I sanded off some of the sheen...and "Chaz"!



Then I simply primed it using some spray primer (love that stuff!).



Next I painted it a robin's egg blue color. The color is actually called "Reflecting Pool" by Sherwin Williams, but I think "robin's egg blue" better captures its essence ;) I love how it looked with just the paint, but I really wanted to age and distress it (and I'm so happy I did because it looks even better than it did with just the paint. But more on that later).



So I sanded it using a palm sander and my 2 hands (ie, the old fashioned way).



Then I wiped on some stain with a foam brush and simply wiped it off with a rag. I never knew this was considered "glazing" until I entered the blogging world. I just thought of it as "aging" a piece. How naive I was!


I just could not love this little table any more! I seriously want to paint everything in my house
this color!

Don't you all just love the color? I hope this trend doesn't go out of style any time soon! What's your favorite color to paint furniture?


I'll be partying here this week:

Furniture Advice Needed

I am slowly planning a redo of my living room that is right off the kitchen. I don't have a great current picture of the room, and trust me when I say it's in NO CONDITION to photograph right now (between the snow days and the flu, we need a hazmat team to come do a sweep of the house!).


Anyway, one of the (many) trouble spots in this room is the TV cabinet. I like the cabinet and I like that it has storage, but I don't like that you can see through the glass cabinet door to all of my *stuff*.
(I'd already taken the glass door off, but this is pretty much what it looked like even with the door on.)

I had the brilliant idea of frosting the glass making it opaque so I could still keep my *stuff* in their and not have to give up that valuable storage space. So I bought a can of spray frosting and gave it a couple of coats.


I love the look of the frosting, but here's the problem...


You may not be able to see my *stuff*, but you can certainly see that it's pretty junky in there. So now I don't know what to do with it. Hence my plea to you, my creative bloggy friends. Any suggestions for how to solve the dilemma of how to make the still-somewhat-transparent glass door more opaque? I've thought about covering it with fabric or paper, but will that stick to the frosting? HELP! You all have given me some great advice on other projects so I am anxious to hear your thoughts!

Craft Room Inspiration

If you've been following the blog, you know that last summer my sister and I did a major makeover in my formal living room/dining room. This room also doubles as our guest room/craft room. I loved the space when it was complete, but unfortunately my craft space is already disorganized and completely out of control.


Here's what the "craft room" looked like for about a minute after the makeover.


Here's what it looks like now.

YIKES!

So this summer, I am hoping to tear out this bar in our family room (you may have seen this room from my HGTV'd submission) and turn this area in to my craft space/computer area.


I have been thinking a lot about what I want this space to look like, how I want it to be organized, what kind of furniture I will need...but I also want this space to be inspirational.

So I thought I'd share with you a couple of craft rooms/studios/work spaces that I find inspirational. I would love for my space to look and function like any one of these!

No wonder Lindsey over at The Pleated Poppy makes such cute things, look what an amazing space she has to create in!



I LOVE the way Lindsay over at The Cottage Home stores her fabric. Plus I just love to look at all of that fabric (you know I'm a fabric addict ;).



Cami over at Tidbits of my Crafty Side really paid attention to detail when it came to making her space functional. It helps to have a super handy hubby that can make furniture, too!



How about the amazing colors in this craft room by Ashley over at Make it and Love it? And where can I get a cabinet like that to store my fabric???

And check out all of the amazing work spaces Tara over at the Trendy Treehouse found as inspiration for her new work space. Love them all!

I have a Kelly Rae Roberts piece that I am in love with and will definitely hang in my new space. And I've had my eye on some art from Rachel Austin and The Black Apple Shop. What could be more inspirational for a work space than art that makes you happy?

If you have a craft space, tell me about it! What's the one thing you can't live without? How do you stay organized? How do you make sure it's functional and inspirational?


Linking up here:

I want to be HGTV'd!!

If you've ever dreamed of having HGTV makeover one of your rooms in your house, you probably know that you have to live in the area where filming takes place (usually somewhere in CA). For those of us that live in TX or elsewhere in the US, up until now we've been out of luck. Well not anymore! HGTV has a new show starting soon called HGTV'd. They bring the HGTV star and remodel to you!

So I've submitted my 70's family room to be HGTV'd.


I'd love it if you all would go check it out and rate my space. But please don't make the same mistake I made. I gave myself 5 stars thinking that was the "worst" rating, but I actually gave myself a rating of Perfection! They're never going to come makeover my space if they think it's "perfect!"

Living Room Makeover Reveal

So I'm finally ready to show you my new and much improved living room/guest room/dining room/craft room. My sister and I worked very hard to cover up the red walls and I've been working on lots of other projects for that room (some you'll recognize, some you haven't seen yet).

It's not totally finished yet, because I still have lots of walls to hang things on, but I figured I'd better share it with you now since I've been talking about it for so long.

And be sure you check out the whole post because I'm going to be asking for some design opinions at the end.

So without further ado...here's my new room!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how it all turned out. In order for you to fully appreciate this makeover, let me show you what we started with.

Dining Room/Craft Room BEFORE:

AFTER...

As my crafting projects multiplied, so did my supplies. And I had no where to put everything. Unfortunately that rendered our dining room obsolete. But now, I've got all of my supplies neatly tucked away in the buffet and dresser behind the table. And do you recognize the fabric rack and lamp? I love that you can still tell that that area is used for crafting, but you don't have to look at everything...and we can actually use our dining room!


Living Room/Guest Room BEFORE...


AFTER...


Sure the room was functional before; the couch opens out into a bed (I love IKEA!) but it wasn't a comfy, cozy room to stay in for our guests (usually family, but still). Now it's a bright and inviting space for our guests. I picked up the fun, bright pillow covers at Target for about $4 each. Notice the lamps on either side of the couch? I love how they look in this room and they give such nice light to that space. And what better artwork for my guests to look at than my kids! :) I had the picture printed on canvas at Snapfish.com (they were having a Mother's Day sale and it was a GREAT deal). And of course, you've seen the fabric wall art. Don't they look perfect in this room?



Entryway BEFORE...


AFTER...

I'm planning to rehang the mirror, I just haven't gotten around to it.

We've also got a new place for shoes now that I've removed the shoe cabinet from the other room...



Piano BEFORE...


AFTER...

Remember that great, green frame I picked up at a church sale? I'm not sure what I'm actually going to frame in it, but I love how the green pops against the blue color of the walls.

Buffet BEFORE...


AFTER (with an extra dresser for craft storage)...


These pieces looked nothing alike before I started their makeover. But I wanted them to be painted the same with the same hardware since they would be lining this back wall side by side.


I primed both pieces and painted them a creamy white (almost pale yellow). I then glazed them using a walnut stain that I applied with a foam brush and then wiped off with a rag.


I got the knobs at Target. I got 20 of them for about $20. Pretty good deal considering most knobs average about $4 each!


Window Treatment BEFORE...

The curtains were barely hanging on to an existing rod that was meant for sheers, not big heavy curtains like mine. And those white blocks you see are wood that the previous owner had a big, ugly valance hanging from.


AFTER...

I bought a new rod at Lowe's for about $45 (on sale) and new clips to match the rod. I like the added detail of the amber finials.


And just because I am so happy with this NEW room, here are some more AFTER pictures.






As I mentioned before, I still have a few remaining projects left to do in the room. Obviously, I need to get some stuff up on the wall and add all those fun finishing touches. But I also need to deal with this...

It's this crazy 1950's entry "wall" made of stone bricks. It's hollow and you can see all of the extra bricks that they must've just thrown in there. The previous owner had fake plants in there but my cat decided to make the planters his new litter box so I had to quickly dump them (not that I would've left the fake plants anyway). I hate it and I would love to just take a sledge hammer to it, but that would involve tile, carpet and wall repair. So that's not an option right now. So instead I'm going to cap the top of it with a nice piece of wood (painted or stained? What do you think?). At least that way I can cover it and it won't be such an eye sore when you walk in the front door.

Also, you may have noticed that the buffet is missing some hardware.


Well, that's because I can't find any drawer pulls to fit the existing holes. I have been all over town looking at hardware and I am so frustrated that I can't find any matching pulls. So I think I'm going to have to fill the holes, sand, prime, paint, stain and drill new holes. Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh! This project is pretty high on my To-Do list since a lot of my craft supplies are in those drawers and it's kind of hard to get them open without pulls!

The other project on my To-Do list is to repair the matching yellow chair so I can reunite the set.


These chairs were given to us by my husband's aunt, along with the curtains hanging behind the chairs. My husband's aunt and grandma handmade the curtains to match the chairs. I love the colors, the design and the history of these chairs and curtains. About a year ago, one of the chair legs broke on the other yellow chair. I moved it out of the room and "temporarily" put that flowered ottoman in it's place. Well, a year later and I still haven't fixed that chair leg. But now that my room looks so great, I have new motivation to get it fixed!

And finally, here's where I need your help. Remember this painting?


My original intention was to hang it above the buffet at the back of the room.


However, with the height of the dresser and the lamp, I'm afraid the painting would either have to be hung too high, not be centered on the wall or be partially blocked by the lamp. I'm not real fond of any of those options. To give you an idea of it's size, the painting is about as wide as the buffet and about 36" tall. I really don't have any other available wall to hang the painting on and I think the colors would look so great in this room. I need the lamp there since I do my crafting at the dining room table and the overhead light is not very useful. If I move the lamp to the dresser it seems ridiculously high and I wouldn't be able to center the painting on the wall. What do you all think? Any suggestions? I'm all ears!

Well, that's it. My living room/dining room/guest room/craft room makeover. Although it's not 100% finished, it looks 100% better and I am so happy that I was able to get it done this summer (with my sister's help, of course!). I hope you all enjoyed taking a look around. And let me know what you think about that painting!


Sharing my makeover at these fun parties: