Saturday, July 30, 2011

A project for me....and the stuff.....

I am a blog stalker. I love to sit on the couch/sunporch and look through the many home improvement/decorating/craft/first grade teacher blogs that I follow. All of the ladies that I follow are SO creative and I now use Pinterest to capture as many of those great ideas as I can always thinking that "someday" I will make something. Well, after rummaging at a church sale a couple of weeks ago, I came across this gem.
As soon as I saw it and saw that it was very sturdy (and $2) I knew that it would be the perfect item for a project that I saw Natalie at Johnny in a Dress create on her blog. I painted mine a "buttermilk yellow" and went to work! The letters are vinyl cut on the cricut and I am hoping to get a larger black and white polka-dot bow for the top but for now it will do!
My hope is that it will catch all of the electronic "stuff" that collects on my counter! Evenif it doesn't, it will look good!

Beauty and the Beast

This is the medicine cabinet on the wall in our bathroom upstairs. Let me start with a positive comment. It is great to have a cabinet this size in the bathroom. There, my one positive comment. This cabinet was gross. It is a plastic door so it is easy to clean but the gold trim was difficult to stomach. I have thought about having Dave make new doors for this cabinet but I am VERY happy with the results!
This is the hardware that was on the cabinet doors......very vintage and is NOT a standard size so replacing it was a challenge but not an impossible endeavor! Home Depot ROCKS!
There was gold trim all around the doors that had turned that lovely green color. While I was sanding this off by hand I nearly burnt my fingers. The heat from the friction was hot. Had to get the power sander out.

The same cabinet now. A beauty isn't it? I love that it is clean and white. Dave thinks that it may need a little color but I am leaving it as is.
The flower design turned out so nicely. I used spraypaint and it was SO EASY!
Beautiful non-vintage handles.

The bathroom project part 2

While the primer was drying on the vanity, I decided to whip up the bathroom valance. If I have not mentioned it before, I LOVE my MOM for teaching me how to sew. I made this in about 20 minutes. No pattern. The best part of this project was that the window is so small that I only needed 1/2 yard of fabric. I decided to splurge and buy a heavier cotton so that I would not feel the need to put a liner behind it. This fabric was $9.99/yard! In normal life, I would have balked at that price. Even better was that I had a 50% off coupon so the valance cost me $2.50. Yes.!
The bonus to this project was that while I was showing my hubby, I mentioned that I wanted to scrape and paint the window and he said not to bother because he is going to replace it! Yipee! That window is just yucky.....but with a pretty curtain!

Bathroom Vanity 911

I decided to title this "Bathroom Vanity 911" for two reasons. First, this vanity was ugly. Just. Plain. Ugly. I made a good effort to make it tolerable. I really need Bathroom Crashers to come over and gut the place but that is not likely to happen. The budget does not support a remodel so "911" will have to hook it up to bandage it up and have it hold for now. At least I will not cry whenever I am in there!

Ok......this is the vanity "before". It did not look quite like this when we bought the house. It had a contact-paper-type covering on the doors that was peeling off so I helped it along a little. Doing that did go a long way toward motivating me to do something with it.
This was what was on top of the pressboard....grrr....
My first step after peeling the doors was to use the wood filler to fill in the designs on the door. In retrospect, I did not need to do this. It was impossible to make the doors completely smooth. oh well, lesson learned.
After primer and two coats of paint, this is what we have now! Not too bad eh? I am tempted to get some vinyl and cricut cut something for that large white center panel....maybe....
The top knobs are turquoise glass (thank you Hobby Lobby). I think that they are too small but I do like them quite a bit.
The bottom knobs (Hobby Lobby again) are very cute.....
In this picture you can see my floor......that is a totally different story.......good thing I like blue.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Wow...June 5th was my last post? I refuse to beat myself up about it. So for the 2 of you out
there that actually read my blog, here is a brand new post.


I had to move my classroom at the end of this year to a new hallway and a different room set up. The room is gray...with some gray....and maybe a little blue....dark blue....SO I decided that my mission this summer was to perk up the room. I had this great chair that was given to me by my co-worker Kathie (she also has one in rainbow colors). It has sat in my classroom for a few years and has been happy being white. I thought that it deserved a little makeover.

3 cans of red spray paint later and a very cute back panel, I think that it will be great in the new room. I absolutely LOVED the fabric and may go get some more for a future project. Hooray! Now I need to go clean up my house a little and think about what project may be next! If you are reading this, thanks. :)