Coffee Table, The Sequel

Well, my freebie kitchen table hacked down into my new coffee table sold out from under me the day after I listed it on Craigslist (a good problem to have.)  I was sorry to see it go, and just when I had hubby warming up to having a coffee table.  So I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement, and came across one on Craigslist the other day for $15.  It was a similar size and shape to the first one I loved so much, and the guy said it was solid wood.  (Uh oh…)  And it is very solid indeed.  The clever laminate had me fooled as well when I picked it up.  It was only when I came home and began working on it that it became obvious that it was a piece of nice, but still quite laminate, furniture.  Since my plan had been to strip and stain the top and paint the bottom black like I had done on the other one, I had to switch to plan B.

I am a bad, bad, naughty blogger and forgot to take a before picture, but it was a very light maple looking thing to begin with.  I thoroughly sanded the piece to give the laminate some tooth to grab the paint, then I primed, then painted the top a black satin finish and the bottom cream.  I hit the top edge of the table with my palm sander to distress the edge, then applied a few layers of wipe on poly.  What’d ya think?  (My hubby is on vacation with the GOOD camera, so I apologize for the poor pictures.)

It’s my first time painting laminate, but I think it turned out well, and it seems like a durable finish that will hold up.  I’ll keep you posted.  If it can be ruined, my kids will.  ;) 

Did you also notice my new window treatments?  The sheers are from Ikea by way of Goodwill, and I LOVE THEM!!!  They have a very subtle large medallion motif.  SO pretty (but very difficult to photograph!)  I’ve wanted to get some sheers for the living room, because my hubby is a privacy nut, and we always had the blinds shut up air tight, so the room was like a cave.  So now, I can open those blinds a tid bit, let in some nice light, but he can still have his privacy.  I’m such a compromise whiz!

The burgundy and gold damask panels on each side are a complete window mis-treatment.  I got the fabric from last week's 50% clearance fabric sale at Joanns for $3 a yard.  I was too lazy to sew the panels, so they are completely held together with hot glue.  Nope, not a stitch to be seen.  Hems and all.  :)

How I love hot glue!  Hope you had a great weekend!  Mine was very quiet without all the boys.

Flea Market Style Table

I’m not big on posting my not-quite-completed projects, but I’m so excited about this one that I wanted to share it.

My friend Valerie (whom I’ve talked about here before, and from whom I got the chairs to both the Apple Green Desk and the Studded Desk) told me that she loved and wanted to have a table like the one on the front of Flea Market Style Magazine.  You know the one:

Pale, barely-there turquoise with heavy distressing.  Oh yes.  That’s something I can sink my teeth into, for sure!

When she mentioned it, this table that I had sitting around waiting to be attended to came to mind.

So today, I whipped out some pale turquoise oops paint that I got from Ace Harware for $5 for a gallon (Ace is my FAVORITE and cheapest place to go for mistints.)  I still want to do a little more distressing on it, and then I’m going to do a dark stain on the exposed bare wood to make it looks a little more like the inspiration table, but I love the way it’s turning out!!!

Valerie has a set of metal chairs that we’re going to work on and put together with the table, I believe, so I’ll update you when the whole set is complete and together.

Have a fantastic weekend!!

 

Linking to:

Miss Mustard Seed, Funky Junk Interiors, Life in the Fun Lane

Apple Green Chalkboard Desk

I got this desk from the free section of my local Craigslist.  It had a cute shape, but wasn’t winning any prizes for quality.  I think it’s made of masonite.  The top is pressboard with a laminate top.

Because I didn’t have any initial monetary investment in the piece, I felt liberated to go a little bit wild with it. 

I got some fabric for $1.50 a yard at Joann’s last week when they had 50% off their red tag clearance fabrics, which gave me the color inspiration:  Apple Green!  I sprayed the original hardware cream, and decided to do a dark green chalkboard top for the desk, inspired by this little beaut by Miss Mustard Seed.

That chair looking familiar?  It should.  It’s from the same set as the chair for the studded desk I completed not long ago.  (Thanks again, Valerie!!)  It’s his funky twin!  :P

To do the wavy edge on the chalkboard top, I just cut some painter's tape with scissors down the middle and taped it up like so:

 

So… Traditional?

… or Funky?

 

What’s your pleasure?

This project is competing in the Roadkill Rescue Challenge over at The CSI Challenge!

 

Also linking to:

Reinvented, The DIY Showoff, Domestically Speaking, Bobby Pins Boardwalk, My Backyard Eden, The Shabby Chic Cottage, Brambleberry Cottage, Somewhat Simple, Miss Mustard Seed, The Shabby Nest, Funky Junk Interiors, The Stories of A to Z

Cowboy Pop Art

When my oldest son was born 8 years ago (Sheesh!  I can’t believe it’s been that long!), I decorated his room in a Noah’s Arc Theme, with a golden yellow and denim blue.  It was adorable (if I do say so) and served him well in his wee days, but as he grew, and moved into a big boy bed, the room kind of became a mish-mosh of things added over time, including his younger brother.  :)  I never had time or inclination for a redecorating.

Then, about 2 years ago, I was expecting my first little girl, and I was excitedly decorating her new room with a pale butter cream yellow and spring green and a dragonfly theme.  I REALLY got into it.  Along my new-baby decorating frenzy, the boys got a little jealous.  They told me in no uncertain terms that they wanted a newly decorated “theme” room.  Since they have a giant pine bunkbed, and we have a lot of the golden yellow and denim blue stuff left over from the Noah’s Arc nursery, a cowboy room seemed the logical choice.  The boys were thrilled, so off I went redecorating their room.

I’m sure I’ll show you more of the room at a later date, but I wanted to share with you an easy-peasy but really striking piece of art I created for the wall above their dresser.  I had the frame from a Noah’s Arc painting that I did while I was pregnant with the eldest and planning the Noah’s Arc room, and I had the idea of doing a rustic, cowboy-style pop art in colors that matched those of the new room.  The new color scheme was inspired by the great sheet sets I got at Target to go with their dark denim bead spreads.

I found a great website called Pop Art Machine that creates all different artistic renderings from your uploaded photos.  They also have lots of images in their public galleries.  This image was one from their blog, but worked perfectly for this application.  I downloaded four of the color schemes that worked best with the colors in the room, printed them out on cardstock, cut them out and stuck them down on a board with glue stick, and voila!  Free art:

Here it is with a little more of the context of the room.

There having a great giveaway for a Silhouette Craft Cutter (worth OVER $325) over at Tatertots and Jello, but stay away, ‘cause I want it!!  ;)  (Apparently I’m not the only one, since there are over 2000 entries so far!!  Wowee!!)

Thrifty Decor Chick is also giving away a Silhouette Craft Cutter.  I’ve never won a blog giveaway before, but this would be a fantastic week to start!  ;)

Also trying for a Silhouette machine over at Southern Hospitality.

 

This project is participating in the Wall Art Challenge at The CSI Project!

A Sofa Table, A Desk Chair, and Tour de Thrift

I have a lot to fit in this post!!  Sheesh!  Things have been piling up on my to do list.  Why is it that I feel more busy during the summertime than I do during the school year?

First, my friend Hannah contacted me last Friday and told me to be on the lookout for a sofa table.  Not 2 hours later, I scored this Thomasville beaut at a yardsale for $5!

Unfortunately, it’s about a half a foot too long for Hannah’s purposes, so this puppy’s now available!  I painted it satin black and decided to try out Rustoleum’s Frosted Glass Spray on the glass panels using a store-bought stencil.  I LOVE how it turned out.  I would really, really love to keep it for my house, if I had any where at all I could squeeze it in.  ;)

This week, I’ve also finished up the Studded Desk project.  I finished up the studded design on the left side of the desk, where I had run out of tacks before (oops) and I also did up a matching chair.  The chair has a little bit of a story:

I met a woman, Valarie (Hi, Valerie!!!) who had seen some of our pieces for sale on Craigslist and who had in mind a few things she wanted us to do for her home.  She also had some furniture that she wanted to get rid of, and wondered if we would want it to do our thing with.  Well, I for one will never turn down free.  :)  Valerie had a dining set that she had inherited from her husband’s mother.  It was a double pedestal table, the top of which was long gone.  The pedestals were all that remained.  She had one of the captain’s chairs (with arms) and another four with no arms.  She wants me to fix up and reupholster the captain’s chair and use one of the pedestals to make a side table to match, so she can have a piece of her mother-in-law’s old table for posterity.  Isn’t that a great idea?  She gave me the remaining pedestal and the four other chairs to do with what I do.  :)  I used one of these chairs for a makeover to match the studded desk.  They now look like they were always meant to be together.

Here’s a side-by-side with one of the chairs that hasn’t yet been made over:

 

And here’s a shot from the left to show you that I did, in fact, finish of the studding.  :)

Lastly, I just found out this morning about an event coming up this Saturday, the Arizona Bloggers Tour de Thrift, put on by Aly and Ash over at Cute as a Fox Creations.  Needless to say, I signed right-the-heck up!  I’m stoked to be attending!  Hopefully we all have a fabulous time and I come back with some loot!  :)

 

I’m sure there’s more I meant to write about that I’m forgetting right now, but this post is long enough, and I’m tired.

‘Night all!

Chop, Chop! Dining Table turned Coffee Table

A couple weeks ago, our neighbors who are moving had a yard sale.  They had a dining table out for sale that didn’t end up selling at the yard sale.  The morning after, they had it out front with a “Free” sign.  I, of course, snatched it up.  I forgot to take a true before picture, so this one was taken after I had already done a lot of the sanding on the top.  The wood top was a light pine and the bottom was cream.

 

I just finished the Red Dining Set not long ago, and I have another dining set sitting in my yard waiting to be finished, so I wanted to steer clear of yet ANOTHER dining set.  I was determined to go a different direction here.  Since this is a small sized rectangular dining table, I thought the size would translate well into a large sized coffee table.  Yes, yes, yes!!

I marked 17 inches down from the table top on each of the legs, and chopped them down with my trusty jig saw.  (Oh, how I love my jig saw…)  I used some Minwax Gel Stain in Mahogany on the top (once I got it sanded down to the bare wood) and painted the base with some Behr Black Suede that I picked up from the Habitat Re-Store (a gallon for $3, TOTAL SCORE!!) 

This is the first Twice Lovely piece I’ve done that is totally MY style.  It fits in my living room perfectly, and has taken up (at least temporary) residence there.  My husband is a little bit anti-coffee table.  He thinks they just get in the way and gather junk on top of them.  He may be right, but I want to give it a try for a little while and see how we do with one, because I LOVE IT!!!  :)

In other, exciting news, my fellow TL gal, Cara will probably be slowing down on her re-do projects and posts for a while, because she is quite consumed with her latest project of growing a new little and (surely) adorable person!  Yup!  Her family will welcome baby #6 this January.  I love her little (mostly red-headed) cherubs and can’t wait to meet a new one!  Between being pregnant (thus exhausted), having the older kids home for the summer, and this Arizona heat, I’m sure we can all understand her not being around these parts with new furniture and decor projects as often.  ;)  Anyways, I just wanted to extend my personal, hearty, and heart-felt congratulations to one of my bffs and her growing family.  Muah!

Linking to:

Thrifty Decor Chick, Finding Fabulous, Miss Mustard Seed, The Shabby Nest, Funky Junk Interiors, Tatertots and Jello

Cute Little Studded Desk

You may remember this cute little desk from a few posts ago.  I picked it up at Goodwill 50% off Saturday for a whopping $10:

I decided to paint it the loveliest shade of white (it's called Filigree) and distress the edges (naturally.)

 

I wanted to give it a little something special.  But what, you may ask (or perhaps you may not ask, but I’m going to tell you anyways.)  :)

Over at The CSI Project this week, they’re having a Martha Stewart inspired project week.  While browsing at Martha Stewart’s website, I came across this studded dresser, in this case, done for a child’s room.

The clever folks over at marthastewart.com had painted the heads of nails and pounded them in a simple design to embellish the boring drawer fronts on a little dresser.  I loved the effect, but decided for my application to use upholstery tacks, to tie in with the antique brass patina hardware on the desk.

The quatrefoil design is mirrored on the left side of the desk as well, but I need to run and pick up a few more tacks to finish it.  :)  You know how that goes…  I think it’s a fun little interesting addition.  What do you think?

I’m working on another very fun project as we speak.  It might just take up permanent residency in my home, I’m loving it that much.  Can’t wait to show you!!  Maybe tomorrow or the next day.  It’s VBS week, so I have several free hours in the mornings.  I should be doing housework, but I’ll probably be busy with projects (sorry, honey!)

‘Till next time,

Linking to:

Miss Mustard Seed, Finding Fabulous

 

This project is competing in the Martha Stewart Inspired Challenge at The CSI Project!