Computer Desk redo

Edited to add to Mustard Seed Creations Furniture Feature Friday:



A couple of weeks ago, I bought a computer desk off Craigslist. It's solid wood and in good condition, it was just gray. Not a color hubby or I were very interested in. We moved the desk directly to the back patio so I could paint it black while my husband was on a business trip last week. Here it is after I started priming. I used a gray primer, so it didn't look any different. And here is it all painted black! It looks so much better! I really like the look of it better now. This was my first roll-on paint furniture re-do, so I made some mistakes. The biggest being that I forgot to wash the top of the desk (I remembered to clean the underside since I started with them upside down) before priming. The paint is easily scratched on top (it's beautifully scratch resistant underneath though!) We'll eventually have to strip the paint and repaint it, but with our move hopefully coming up soon (We're still waiting on a closing date for our house), I don't feel like doing it right now. I might do it soon after we get settled, we'll see.

Ok, and here is a before picture of the computer corner. The tower/desk we bought when we were in school and we had a 2 foot square space we could fit our computer since we had two babies in the second bedroom. It was a tight fit (4 people, 600 sq. ft.), but we made it work. Now, we get to spread out a little. We'll even have an actual office after the move! Yeah!

I totally didn't clean up, or organize before this picture. Hopefully, once I add everthing back in the computer space it'll look better than this!



I'm linking up to DIY day over at Kimba's. Hop on over and see some other great things!

Origami Gift Bag

I love origami. As a child, I would steal my older brother's origami books and hide in my closet with them trying to see just how small I could make the fox, ball, bird, crab... I absolutely loved it! My brother would eventually find his books and hide them from me. I would always hunt them down to do more origami. So, when I saw this tutorial at Infarrantly Creative, I knew I just had to try it! I loved it so much, that I wrote out my own instructions so I can do it again and again without having to look up the video! To watch a how-to video, see here.

(You can click on the picture to enlarge it)

This is a bag I made from 8 1/2 inch square paper. It was the perfect size to put a half dozen homemade magnets! I'm giving a friend this cute bag and some magnets (not the ones pictured) for her birthday. Love it!
We make Christmas candy every year to give out to friends and family. I'm always looking for a fun way to box/bag up the candies to give out. This year, we'll be doing gift bags! I already bought the paper at Joanns (on sale 50% too).

Rocking Chair redo

When hubby goes out of town, things get done around here. Not sure why, but I'm MUCH more productive in the creative department (the cleaning... not so much) when my husband goes on a business trip. This time, no surprises for him, he knows my list of to-dos.

We got this rocking chair from my mother-in-law. She found it at a yard sale the summer before we had Son #2. I think she paid $10? It was someone's grandmother's. My MIL brought it down from Washington for us when she came to help out when I had the baby. I really like it, but it was pretty beat up. I think the previous owners must have had a cat, or something with claws. The original plan was to sand it down and stain it dark walnut (this is one of the three projects I was supposed to do last summer before having Son #3). Since I was still working on the cradle, I hadn't touched this chair yet. But, when I decided to paint the nursery furniture white, things sped up quite a bit. I still had to sand it down quite a bit since the previous finish was so worn.

My boys helped with the sanding...

I also got some wood epoxy putty I heard about from this blog to fill in the rocker thingy pictured below. I think I did a good job remaking the front of the rocker part. After sanding it down, I spray painted it with Krylon Satin Ivory which I much prefer over Rustoleum's Heirloom White (what I used on the cradle). I guess I just like ivory better, although to be honest, there's not much difference between the two. I'll eventually replace the brown cushion with a green one since this will go in the nursery and we're doing green and yellow in the nursery after our move. I really like how this turned out!

Also, last week I found a decent computer desk on Craigslist (I'm totally addicted to Craigslist, now). I've had to promise my hubby again that I won't buy anything else on Craigslist, at least until after the move. We honestly have no more room now. We like the desk, but not the color, so I'm painting it black on the back porch. I have just one more coat to add to the drawer section and then I'll get to put it back together.



I'm adding this to Kimba's DIY Day. Go check out some other great projects!

Cradle remake

I started this cradle about a year and a half ago. This is the best I could do for before pictures:

Son #2 sleeping. He's 3 now.

In the picture you can see the wood finish. It wasn't bad, just a little banged up and I wanted to sand it down and stain it dark walnut. I was pregnant with Son #3 when I started, and it took FOREVER! I didn't own a power sander (do now!), so I did all the sanding by hand, until I borrowed one from my brother-in-law. That sped things up a bit. I went ahead and stained the stand the dark walnut, but the spindles on the cradle itself were taking so long that I decided the nursery would look better with white furniture and spray painted it to match. Here's the after:

Son #3 hanging out while his brother's rocked him. I kept the stand dark walnut and I really like it. At first, I "antiqued" one end of the cradle using a technique I got from Miss Mustard Seed. I really liked it, but thought the white looked better, so I spray painted it back to white last night. Now I'm ready for baby #4... Not really, but he/she will have a place to sleep none the less!



I'm linking this to Metamorphosis Monday and to DIY Day! Go check out some other great projects!

Painting dilemma, please HELP!

Hey everyone! I have a painting dilemma. We are buying our first house, it's newly built and the walls have a flat white paint on them. We want to paint the house before we move in. Due to time constraints and a really high wall (about 16 feet at the bottom of the stairs), we're going to hire a painter to paint the upstairs and downstairs main parts of the house (loft, family room, halls and the entry). We've been getting quotes for just the big part and then one for the entire house (bedrooms, bathrooms, den and kitchen included too). We have the money set aside for either way we decide to go.

Today, I went to our house, measured all the bedrooms, bathrooms, the kitchen and den (all the non-main parts of the house) so I could figure out how much paint it would take to do it ourselves. My mom gave me this cool painting book that has a formula to figure out how much paint you need to buy to paint a room. I sat down and figured out that it'll cost almost $700 to get paint to do all the rooms in different colors (Home Depot, Behr paint in 11 different colors). Going off our best quote so far (I'm still waiting on 3 more quotes from painters), that's only about $200 shy of having the painters do the whole house. And that's just the paint, that doesn't include other supplies like painters tape, edging brushes/tools, rollers, drop cloths and such. Okay, so my dilemma is this: I really want to do it myself! Crazy, huh? I have looked forward to painting our house myself (with hubby's help, of course!) from the day with picked the floorplan. Should I go ahead and do it all myself even though it'll probably end up being about the same price? Or should I just have the painters do it? Or should I go somewhere in between and just do my favorite rooms/colors? Time is a big factor too. We aren't sure yet when we'll close on our house (either sometime this week or the last week of October since hubby'll be on a business trip next week), but we're hoping to move in about 5 weeks. I still have lots of projects that I want to get done between now and then (like sew curtains for my boys' bedrooms and some furniture makeovers for the house) and of course, we also need to pack. Please let me know what you think!

Projects

We were supposed to close on our house this last week. Hopefully, we'll be able to close sometime this week. We did go through the house this week with the builder and sign off on it saying they did everything they were supposed to. That was fun. Our boys came along for the signing and really enjoyed playing in our (soon to be) house. I'm starting to feel the time crunch of our upcoming move. There's a lot to get done in the next few weeks to prepare for our move.

I've been working on several projects. A new vinyl sign for our Pantry door. I really like it, so I'm going to have to find a way to do it in our house. Our pantry there has bi-fold doors.

I started working on this rocking chair for the nursery. I'm still working on finishing up the cradle for the nursery too. My boys helped me sand down the rocking chair. I just need to wipe the dust off and spray paint it now.

We've been busy getting estimates for having someone paint the inside of our house since that'll free up time for me to get other projects done - like packing. We've also been finishing up picking out all the things we're going to change out before the move, like light fixtures and doorknobs. Oh, and I've been combing Craigslist for furniture for our house. I picked up a bed for our guest room and an antique dresser that'll go in our front entry.

I'm hoping to finish up a couple of projects this week so I can show you and start in on some more. I'm going to have to break out the sewing machine and start making curtains soon too.

Another lamp remake

It seems like all I finish is lamps right now. I finally pulled out the spray paint and did this pair of matching lamps.

I originally bought lamp shades at Goodwill for these lamps, but the shades turned out to be WAY to short for the lamp. I would have needed to put a good 3 inch, or longer trim to get it to cover the light socket. Last week I was up in Phoenix and stopped by the IKEA there. I picked up two of these lampshades in their AS-IS section for $3 each. I'm not the best photographer, so these pictures aren't all that great, but I LOVE my new lamps. I've never really been a fan of lamps, so we've never had lamps on our bedside before. I'm really liking the new softer lighting in that room. It's encouraged me to make the bed more often. Even better, my husband told me after a couple of days that he really likes our new lights. I told him I hope he feels that way when I'm done with the buffet!

** Sorry I never posted this, Marie is the lucky winner of my vinyl giveaway! It should be getting to you soon, Marie!**