Grey and White Chevron Dresser Redo

Happy Monday! I'm ready to make this week happen, how about you? I can't believe April is almost over!

I'm excited to announce the winners of the Earth Day giveaway:

Cindy B., Becky B., Chelsea T.

Congrats! I will be emailing you to get your addresses. Didn't win, but really wanted to try Basic H2? You can always try the full size with our 100% money back guarantee!  And if you do like it (which you will!), one bottle will probably last you 1-2 years! Seriously, it's amazing! Go Here to shop around Here for Basic H2

 Also, stay tuned tomorrow for another exciting giveaway, you will LOVE it!

I’m really loving building/refinishing furniture lately, can you tell? hehe

I picked this beauty (and it’s sister) up from the Facebook garage sale site for my area. She is solid wood, with no major damage, and was only $20. All she needed was a little makeover.

At first I wasn’t going to pick her up, but you see my husband doesn’t like his current dresser. I’ll admit the drawers don’t slide very smoothly, but it’s got lots of space…

yet for some reason his clothes don’t end up inside the dresser. I thought maybe if the drawers open easier he might use it…I’m hoping

So anyway, I primed and painted the dresser, then I thought, “Hey, I know I’m super behind the trends, but I don’t have any chevrons in my house and I think they’re fun.” So I made my own chevron stencil.

I used my carpenter’s square, but you could do it with a ruler too. I lined it up to the line on the cardboard. Each side has a ruler down it so I lined it up to the 3” mark on both sides and traced. I did this the length of the cardboard, then came back and did the same at 4” so the chevron is 1” wide.

Did that make sense? haha Here’s what it looked like.

And here’s what you get while trying to work on projects in the garage with an 18 month old running around. He's climbing in his future play kitchen. Stay tuned for that one!

Then you cut out the ‘stencil’ with a utility knife and start lining it up on the drawer.

Ugh, camera phone picture, sorry. But you just keep tracing it on the drawer

Then comes the paint

Once I put the drawers in my OCD went a little crazy. I wish I had thought to try and line them up, but oh well. My OCD had to take a hike on this one realizing how much more work it would be to start over. haha.

Besides that, I love it (yes, I see the one little gray spot – I will touch that up). If my husband doesn’t end up liking it, I’ll claim it for myself!

Scrabble Tile Wall Art and a Big Announcement

First our announcement....

That's right, our biggest DIY project of the year, a baby! Currently the gender is unknown, I'm actually going in for an ultrasound today, but my husband had some work conflicts so I'm going to have them write it in an envelope and we'll open it together tonight at dinner (while we celebrate our 5th anniversary too)!! 

Exciting stuff and to go along with our 'wood' (5th) anniversary I recently put together this craft. 

You see a while back an amazing friend organized a craft club, but then she moved... and left it to me. Honestly I'm really not that 'crafty' not in a sense that is easy to put together a project for other women to do. Soooo I turn to Pinterest, a lot. 

Anyway, about 6 months ago one of the other ladies pinned this idea and I thought it was awesome. It was just a picture so I hunted down a post where someone actually did the project. It turned out super cute over at Insideways. 

Fast forward to last week, I finally got it all put together and found a day to host the event. I started by getting the premium pine at Lowe's that doesn't have any knots in it. Then I made stencils with my friend's Silhouette. I just took cardstock and cut out the letters with the numbers right next to it. 

Then using the stencils, the ladies traced the letters onto the wood. 

From there we just filled it in with paint. We actually found that for the smaller size (I offered 4" and 6" squares) it was easiest to outline in Sharpie to get clean edges, then paint inside the lines. 

Lastly, I gave all the ladies saw tooth picture hangers to hang them on the wall. They had too much fun though and so many didn't even finish :) hehe.

All the ladies' projects turned out wonderful! I actually spent so much time organizing and putting it together, I never even thought about what words I would want or where I could put it. I know I have plenty of bare walls for it, I just never figured it out. haha

But theirs turned out great! Here is my friend Barb's finished project...

So cute, right?!?

Some of the other ladies did their kids' names, last name, and other special words to them. You can really do anything you want, which is what I love about this craft!

Now I've got a bunch of ideas swimming around in my brain about what words I want to do...we will see. 

Be sure to follow along so you don't miss out! Have a great weekend!!

Trash to Treasure Toy Cabinet Redo

 

First off I love free stuff! This house was EXTREEEEMLY dirty when we bought it, but the upside was the previous owner left a TON of stuff for us. Some of it trash, other stuff was trash waiting for someone to see it’s true potential (like this vinyl tablecloth turned Christmas tree skirt).

This cabinet was left in the garage with a stand up freezer with no door, a broken bookshelf, 2 ugly bed frames, and much much more.

anyone know what the holes would have been for?

Anyway, I gave the whole cabinet a really good cleaning, lightly sanded it, took off the doors and hardware, and began priming.

I did two coats of primer. This is what I used, just what I had on hand.

Then I painted it a Cool Cobalt blue by Glidden. Last year some time I got a free quart of Glidden during a promotion and so I had that on hand as well. I did 2 coats of blue and left the inside white.

I decided to use it as a toy cabinet because it closes fairy tightly. I put the biggest offenders of playroom messiness in here. Things that Ben likes to pull off the bookshelf and scatter all over the place like the books, blocks, puzzles and their pieces. I’m hoping this will mean a neater playroom.

I’m so happy with how it turned out. I just need get new hardware, something really fun. Any ideas? In total the whole project cost a whopping $0! I told you I love free!

Hey, while I’ve got you here, I need your opinion. So you know those ugly bed frames I mentioned earlier? Tell me, is there anything crafty/creative that can be done with them or are they just headed to the dump?

Thanks for stopping by!

Organizing Linen Closets

Well I’m so glad so many of you enjoyed my pantry organization! If you liked that you’ll like this too.

Alright our main linen cupboard was getting a little crazy. I’ve had to move my craft supplies and these white drawers in here to keep them away from Ben.

There was just so much I didn’t need or use. I’ve become really sensitive to scents since I had Andrew so I haven’t touched these in years! (In college I worked at Bath & Body Works – don’t judge hehe)

The boys’ linen cupboard was pretty bad too. It had become a storage place for all sorts of home stuff. Air filters, caulk and vinyl adhesive, paint samples.

So what’s a girl to do? Go to the dollar store of course. I also got these at Dollar Tree like the ones for my pantry. I took everything out and went through it. I threw away old cosmetics and toiletries.

Then I organized the remaining items into categories and used my handy chalkboard contact paper to label the bins.

Hair dryer, curling iron, and straightener all in here because I don’t use them often honestly and if I put them in my bathroom drawer, Ben gets them out and drags them all over the house.

I bagged up winter blankets and put them neatly in the top of the closet.

My husband's workout stuff is still here and can't really be helped. 

I folded the sheets nice and neat and put them away

For the boy’s closet I took all the home project things down to the garage where they should have been in the first place.

I need labels in this cupboard, but I put all my dusting and cleaning cloths in bins and my cleaning supplies together. All the baby blankets are in that awesome chevron bin from Target – which I realized too late I should have gotten more of.

The boy’s towels, cleaning/rag towels, and beach towels are all on the bottom because Ben has no interest in playing with them – for now. Then my big bin of puzzles and games is at the bottom.

And there you go. I simple pulled everything out and went though it and the stuff that went back in went nice and neat in bins and together with other like items.

It is a lot nicer to find things in the linen cupboards now!

Painted Towel Hook Letters

So a couple weeks ago I gave you a preview of a couple projects in the works and I’m starting to get them all done.

This was a quick and easy one. These are just letter hooks from the $1 section at Michaels. They didn’t start out the colors I wanted them though.

So a little bit of primer and then the right color paint. Easy as that!

Then you just hang them. I tried to find a stud for both just because I can picture the boys pulling too hard, but I only found one. Now that I’m writing this, I actually don’t remember which one is in a stud. Hopefully I don’t find out the hard way. Oh well.

Totally simple, but one step closer to feeling like we live in this house and kinda somewhat decorating.