Entrway shinanigans

I'm really tired right now but I am set on getting a post written ahead of time. When you read this it will be the 24th but right now it's very much the 23rd.

The worse part? It's only 8:53 and my eyeballs hear my bed calling my name and they have took it upon themselves to dry up like shriveled prunes until I give in, hit the hay and get the much needed shut eye. Does this mean im getting old? Am I hitting a mid lifer or something?

But! [theres always a but right?]

I have to talk to you about my entryway. because entryways are just super fun to talk about.

Small. boring. plain. blah. We don't use our front door at all. We use the side door [garage] and back door. The only time we might use the front door is when the pizza delivery boy comes or someone is trying to force, oh I mean sell me a magazine subscription.

Oh look. It's the little buffet table we had in the dining room. I guess it was safe to assume that since I showed you all my newly stained dresser which I moved into the dining room, that it didn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that the buffet that was in there was moved elsewhere in the house and that conveniently I had an entryway-update post a few days there after.

see. I told you I was tired. Im rambling.

At first I was going to throw it up on craigslist and be done with it but I gave it one last chance to prove itself to me in the form of fitting in the entry/hallway without being to overly big and dramatic.

It proved me wrong. so it stayed. and I like it.

I picked some greenery from a crazy-fast growing bush in the backyard and stuck them in my chunky glass vase. Seriously. that vase weighs about 10lbs. I do curls with it when no ones looking.

Next to that is my little made in china Dollar store bird tea light candle holder thinger majiger. It was originally a rusty poop color but I gave a few good coats of white spray paint and it's much happier now.

I threw my life teachings book and Eat Pray Love for the heck of it. and because they have pretty colors. I then topped it off with my vintage burnt orange glass jar.

The lamp you might recognize. It was in the master bedroom but since I don't have another lamp readily available and the fact we never used it in the MB anyways, I decided to put it on the new hall table. It needs a new lamp shade though. The current one is so 1993.

Before [booooooo]

After [yaaaay]

I will be changing stuff around here for a little bit until I get it all exactly the way I want. Until then this is what it looks like now and it's so much better then the emptiness it was before.

I'm not sure why but the one thing im most looking forward to is setting a bowl of Halloween candy on this table on Halloween. I know. totally random but that's what I was most excited about.

Don't forget. All week is blog week here at little Brick House. 

Come back on Friday for my very first ultimate giveaway for your chance to win a custom item from my very own Etsy shop [more details coming soon]. 

$30.00 Dresser Before and After

Happy Happy Monday. Oh how I dread thee Mondays.... well at least for the first few hours. I'm thinking I have to leave the house a few mins. early today because... Kids go back to school which for me [and everyone else on the road] = more traffic which = fun headache.

Anyways

You remember this $30.00 dresser I snagged at Goodwill? Well I fell in loooove with it's lines and curves and structure and hello - real wood. Need I say more?

It was already pretty decent looking given it's age, with the minor exception of some areas. The top drawer was also missing the handle but that sure isn't enough to deter me away from snatching this baby up.

My plan however was not to paint it. With as much furniture that's painted out there, and don't get me wrong, I love me some painted furniture, the colors are endless. There are just those times when you buy a piece and paint just isn't going to cut it. Paint isn't going to work. I mean technically it could but when I looked at this dresser paint wasn't happening. I don't even think it popped up into my head.

It craved a fresh coat of stain.

{humidity + my camera = not a good combo}

And stain is just what I did. A nice dark walnut. I wanted something darker then what it already was and to flow with the other pieces of wood in the room it was going into.

I did two good coats of stain before I was happy with the shade of walnut it was drying into.

A few hours later she was ready to be put into her new 'home'. I'm not sure what my constant need to refer to furniture as 'she', oh well. I even refer to my car and my motorcycle as 'she' too... Maybe because I have a house full of boys, so inanimate objects fill my void, ha.

If you were wondering where I put the dresser and if you guessed that I had put it in the dining room you guessed right. Here is the space before^

And now after, with the dresser. It's my 'new' buffet table, granted it's a dresser but pffft, still holds all of my paper plates, napkins, utensils, sushi set, small appliances [waffle maker, George Foreman, chopper....etc] and placemats. Does the job pretty good and I still have a few drawers left over with extra space for other things.

Don't mind the lamp. That's the next thing to be 're-done'. I snagged that up for $7.00 when I bought the dresser. I actually kind of like the gold finish to it but... eh, we'll see. As for the shade, it didn't come with one, so for the time being I took the shade from the lamp that was in there previously and just put it on this one. It's all just visual for me right now, trying to decide what color [if any] I will be doing the lamp over in.

Before

 

After

All in all I am so happy with it. I'm glad I went with stain. No way I could cover up all that wood grain. You might have also noticed I kept the same hardware. I loved the handles, they were so detailed and vintage looking that after a good cleaning they went right back on. I'm still not sure what im going to do for the drawer with the missing handle. I ended up moving it to the bottom [the middle section] so it didn't look as noticeable that the drawer was, in fact, missing a handle.

When you buy furniture to refinish, how do you decide on whether to stain it or paint it? Is it one of those things you just know immediately upon seeing it, or after a few test sessions, do you then figure out what direction you will be taking with it?

And don't forget! All week is Blogoversary week here at Little Brick House!!

Jayden's Room - Before and After

Well I am happy to report that I have one completed room in our home. We have been living here for a year and a half and one, keyword there, one, room is finished. Done. Complete. Although I say it's completely finished but is any room ever really 100% finished? [especially when said room involves a toddler].

It has taken us approximately a week to complete this room. Not to shabby if you ask me, and I must say I am super happy about the final result, Jayden is super happy about his 'new' room and I am so excited to finally be able to share it with you!

At the bottom of the post I have added the complete breakdown for you. Budget was a big focus for us with the complete transformation of this room.

Before

Here was his room before. The wall color was... honestly, I can't remember what exactly it was because I haven't really liked it since it went up on the walls. The tree and the owl I painted almost a year ago, which I adore and am sad to see it go, however just in the past year Jayden has changed so much as far as what he likes. 

His 'style' is more defined now. He knows what he likes and there for it makes it easier for me to create a space just for him, with all of his favorite things. A room where his personality shines through and where the possibilities for his creativeness are endless. 

After

And that's exactly what we did. 

I still wanted to stick with a lighter shade for the wall color, however I wanted something a little more 'warm' to keep the space bright, but not make it feel like a hospital.

As you can see we picked one wall and painted it with Rustoleums Chalkboard paint.

There is the new home for my $15.00 dresser that I blogged about the other day [you can read about that here] Above the nightstand is a painting I made for him, of a Robot. He is all kinds of serious about some Robots right now. 

 

The nightstand itself currently holds his chalk, coloring books, shape and numbers books and flashcards.

We already had a twin sized blanket for his bed because when we bought his toddler bed, I could never find a smaller sized blanket I liked, so I went with a twin sized and kept it folded. So in the end we saved money during this room redo. Also the little 'blanket' you see in the photo with the tree's, is not a blanket it at all. It's a shower curtain that Josh's mom picked up for about %75 off [Target] and at the moment it's being used to add some color to his bed. I do plan to make something out of it... just haven't committed to anything yet [possibly a blanket?]. 

I had a shower curtain stored away in the closet of my craft room, never really knowing what I wanted to do with it. I'm glad I kept it because it was the perfect color and match for his already plain/white curtains he had in his room. I cut 13" off the top and sewed sections of the blue patterned shower curtain on. Made some button holes with my sewing machine for the hooks to easily go through without them fraying, once hung up.

The art you see in the above photo is from Vintage Printable. It's vintage stamp art. The colors worked perfectly!

The other art you see is also various photos from my own collection, scrapbook paper, vintage printable and art he already had in his room before the redo.

His own little Art corner.

Complete with crayons and stamps.

 Before

 After

And someone.... definitely loves his new room! :)

Paint Colors-
Walls :: Olympics 'Oatlands Subtle Taupe' and Rustoleum 'Chalkboard Paint'.
Bed :: Olympics 'Asparagus'.
Nightstand :: Olympics 'South Pacific'.

Budget Breakdown [rounding up to the nearest dollar]-
Paint and Supplies :: $50.00 [already had the chalkboard paint].
Nightstand :: $15.00 [Goodwill]
Bed Frame :: $23.00 [Goodwill]
Serta twin size mattress ::  $100.00 [Big Lots]
Books :: $4.00 [bought 7 new books to add to his collection].
Frames :: $5.00 [bought some extra frames @ Goodwill to add to the collection of frames I already had].

Total :: $182.00

I reached my goal of staying within $200.00 and im pretty proud of myself. I have learned that it's super important to set a budget for yourself on the specific room you are working on so that you don't go overboard and break the bank on stuff you really don't need.

For this room I also did a lot of the things myself. The Art throughout the room for example- Photoshop is your friend people, cannot stress that enough and also AC Moore Arts and Crafts has sales on their painters canvas from time to time. I bought a 2-pack of 16x20 canvasses for $7.00. I didn't need them at the time but because they were such a steal [for real, those things can get pricey!] I bought a few packs and have had them stored away in the closet. So glad I did!

I also buy tablecloths or cotton/fabric shower curtains when their on sale because they make for great curtains [or even pillows]. You already read where the blue pattern I sewed onto his [already there] curtains, was a shower curtain. The white fabric part is also a shower curtain [100% cotton] that I had snagged on sale @ Target last year.

The furniture as you saw was bought at Goodwill. It didn't look so hot when we bought it, but for solid wood [which is rare these days] you can't beat the price. A little elbow grease goes a long way and in the end we are left with a colorful, solid piece of furniture that will last for many more years. 

And last but not least, the bunting was super easy. Some white yarn, scrapbook paper and presto. Easy and totally fun, colorful bunting [stay tuned further in the week for how I created the simple bunting hanging throughout his room].

That concludes our tour. I'm pooped, but relived that we have one completed room in this house. How exciting is that!?

Night-stand Reveal

So I am back with a first installment of reveals. The first one was and probly is the easiest out of the bunch. You might have saw my post on Sunday where I showed you my ultimate thrifting finds? Well I decided to work on the little $15.00 nightstand I scored at the Goodwill. I am also working on re-painting the bed frame, so I have been bouncing back and fourth between the two, however the frame is being stubborn and requires multiple coats of paint, where as the little night stand is a little more laid back and only required about 2 good coats and it was done.

Here she was before. I think the thing that really did it for me was the handles on the doors. Just something about them that really stood out to me, and even now I still don't know what it is. Anyways this night stand is pretty solid and has some good junk in the trunk.

Very vintage looking. I'm really loving the whole modern vintage feel right now, so this old/brushed/gold color of the handles, along with the design really lit a fire under my butt and before I knew it the tag was swiped off and I was at that register paying for it like a mad woman.

The inside is in perfect shape. This will be great for some of Jaydens books and coloring supplies. The shelf isn't broken and surprisingly the little knobby-doobers were all still, saves me the trouble of having to rig something up for the shelf to perch on.

And for the color I went with Olympics 'South Pacific' [love the name. Makes me want to go on Vacation]......and I know.... paint on the hinges? No, that's not staying there lol.

I left the handles alone because like I mentioned earlier... Loving the vintage right now. Just gotta have the vintage and against the blue, love it. If they would talk they would say 'Hell yes I am super awesome'.

I still have to clean the paint from the hinges, but other then that this little night stand is ready for Jayden's room. I'm super excited to get it in there but im holding off until we have the bed finished, that way we can kind of just combine everything at once. I'm hoping by this weekend we will have it about 95% done. I still have some paintings to finish for his wall, and some other crafts [involving scrapbook paper.... and lots of it!], I am also thinking of doing something with his rug, but those ideas are still floating around in my head.

Not bad for $15.00 huh.

Stay tuned!