Sneak Peek!!! A(nother) Work In Progress..

Today I am excited about a few things.  One I will share with you all shortly.  The next is that I am linking up for the Very First Time to Miss Mustard Seed's Blog for her Friday Furniture Party!   Who doesn't love a good piece of furniture???   Or, better yet, a bad piece of furniture turned good???   Be sure to click on the link and head on over to check out all the other goodies!

I am also participating in Frugalicious Friday over at Finding Fabulous.      -Make sure you stop there for a visit as well! Couldn't we all stand to find a little "fabulous"?  And, aren't I just the party animal today?!?

Now, I am *repurposing* this same, old, tired post to participate in Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Nite Special party.  You must go check this out!   Funky Junk Interiors always inspires me to think more *out of the box* and be unique with some furnishings.


This post is a teaser:   Sneak Preview of a few upcoming projects.....

Some days weeks months feel like all of my projects are in limbo or almost done or just started.   It's been a while since I've said "TaDa!   It's finished!"    Those days will come around again, I'm sure, but for now I will have to tease you with a few works in progress...

Actually, the below is still "pre" progress.  As in:   No progress has been made yet, but a plan has been formulated - Oh yes it has!!

This beauty stands on my front porch right now.   Notice it's dark hunter green color along with the ceramic, country little knob.   I will excuse you for a moment while you vomit.    Go ahead, I really won't be offended.

Feel better?  Okay then.   This is actually almost The Perfect Piece of Furniture for a part of my hallway/kitchen/dining room.  It really is!  And it's been right under my nose this whole time!   All it needs is a

little TLC. A makeover, if you will.

Edited to say:   A few gals have mentioned that they like the finish.   I have to say that I like the rustic-ness of it, but I am very done with the green (my entire inside of this home was dark hunter green when we purchased it) and I am planning to utilize this in my dining room area and need it to *fit in* a little better.

Umm,  and that's it.  That's where my story about this piece stops, because I have not actually done anything about it yet.  

Moving right along, we have another work in progress.    This fine little table was purchased from our local Mill Stores and has been unfinished for 10 years.  YES.  Ten Years.   I have no real excuse for this, but I think it's REALLY about time she sees her day in the sunshine.   

I've chosen a pretty off white color called Pop Corn Ball.   It's actually the same color as the trim in most of the downstairs in my home, but I really love it.  I don't want it to be TOO matchy matchy, so I will be distressing and adding a glaze.   I think.

It's in perfect shape and is basically boring and unoffensive, so I think if it has a neutral color, it could literally blend anywhere in the home.   Nice because I tend to have multiple personality decorating tendancies, and it will probably move around alot!

It does have one problem....

But I think a few coats of paint should cure it's ills and we will go from there..

Here she is after two coats.

I did a little light sanding/distressing to get the ball rolling, and right now I am ready to call it a day

Stay tuned for the big reveal!!!    Can't promise that it will be "any day now" but how about we shoot for "any week now" instead? 

Smiles and Hugs,
Joyce

A Treasure or A Mistake...

Hello!  

I am repurposing this post yet again (in case there are poor souls out there that have not heard enough about my endless "to do" list!) to link up with Miss Mustard Seed's Friday Party - Woo Hoo!  I added the "Woo Hoo".  You have me to blame for that.    But seriously, do your little old self a big old favor (no I don't think any of you are "old") and head over to check out the rest!


In my case, I may have stumbled on a treasure.   On the other hand, I may have made a large mistake.  Not large moneywise ( I spent a total of $6) but large SIZE wise.

Behold my newest....

It's a mirror.  Obviously.  And - It's. BIG.   I was driving past a yard sale last weekend, and it was the first thing I saw and did a quick u-turn to get a closer look.    I ended up picking up this and a few other things for $10.   I had originally planned on using it on my mantle.  Um, no.   Turns out that it's both too long and way too tall.   By about 2 feet!   How I neglected to notice that is beyond me.   The guys running the yard sale were nice enough to load my "goodies" into my car for me.  So, I also had no idea how HEAVY this beast was.   I did manage to drag it inside my house and into the living room.  

The glass is very VERY dirty and smeared (with what I do not know) and the wood is pretty scary as well.

Still I have visions of a creamy off white spray paint doing the trick - as it has so many times before!   Since I figured that Hubby would have a HUGE problem with this monstrosity (that he now has to figure out how to hang) I propped it up and quickly scurried out of the house before he came home.   I did happen to leave him a nice little note though, hoping he could somehow see the humor in the situation...

He did not.

I've been forbidden from buying any more LARGE junk.  Well that is just fine.  I will stick to smaller junk for the time being and plan to be vindicated once she's all prettied up.   I think I do have a great spot for it, now that I realize my original plan is just Not. Gonna. Work.

I have put the wheels in motion to redo some of our dining room.  You can read more about that project

right here.

I'm hoping that a newly painted, pretty white mirror can help lighten up and open up this small, darkish little space.   Although I'm a bit worried that people are not going to want to stare into a mirror and watch themselves eat.   Anybody have any thoughts on that?  For real, like I just don't know if my plan for the mirror in the dining room is any better than the original plan.  I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear any and all opinions!   :)  Thank you very much.

So that's all I've got for now.  Busy days ahead doing the mommy thing and finishing up my daughter's room.   That will be my next room in the "Come Inside" series.  

Have a great day!
Smiles and Hugs,
Joyce

Breadbox Revamp

Good Morning!

Welcome to my little ol' blog.   I'm so glad that you stopped by!  I sincerely hope that you will "follow" me as I continue my "redecorating on a budget" efforts!   I'll be doing lots of Before and Afters, for just about every room in our home.  Plus still lots of repurposing *Trash to Treasure* type projects and tutorials.   Hope you will join me! 

Edited to add:   I'm also including this post at Decor Mama's Frugalicious Friday linky party!  And again, no I am not lazy - I am *repurposing* !   :) 

This post is being *repurposed* AGAIN to link up with lovely Donna @ Funky Junk Interiors party.   We all need a party to go to on Saturday nights right??   Click your little butt right on over here to join the fun.

I thought I would show you how a recent project has turned out.  I've been spending most of the last week trying to finish up my daughter's bedroom, so many other projects have to be put on hold for the time being!  

Here is a breadbox that I've recently remade.  Let's have a look at the before.  

Wow,  huh?   I wish I could tell you that I found this at a thrift store, and had SO much vision and forthought that I snapped it up, already knowing what wonderful things could be done with it.

But no, this was something I actually purchased (about 7 years ago) with my hard earned money.  It's been sitting in my barn for the last 5 years, feeling shunned from society I'm sure.

Anyways, my first step was to see if the "lovely" object of art on the front (with all the fruit?) would easily be removed.  

It was!  Popped right off with a fancy screwdriver  cheese spreader!

I then got to work with some spray paint...

The off white took probably 3 coats, since I did not bother priming first.   I probably could have done that and got by with only 2.      I grabbed my new best friend for the middle piece...

I'm probably WAY overdoing the whole chalkboard paint thing now.   You can read about a couple of other chalkboard projects right here  and  right here.

I sprayed the entire outside and then sprayed a quick coat of a protective finish over it. 

I had originally thought that I should somehow NOT spray over the knob in the hopes that I could simply unscrew it and replace it.

I forgot and sprayed it anyways.   The screw WILL NOT come out.   I don't actually think it was the paint, because a couple coats of spray paint should really be no match for me and my sophisticated power tools.   But try as I might, this thing just did not budge.

So (at this point I had brought the whole piece inside) I just decided to grab some acrylic craft paint and handle the knob with that.

Here's a cool little tip that I use when painting VERY small items...

I simply put a tiny bit of paint into it's own cap and used that as a dispenser.

I then used Gorilla Glue (use this stuff SPARINGLY - it works really well, but it expands as it dries) to reattach the now pretty decorative patch on the front.

I like it much better at this point.  My camera is not quite catching the true color.  It's more of an off white than it looks in this photo.  Anyways, I thought it could be a tiny bit prettier still.

I have a few of these guys lying around.

That fluer de lis is actually a planter stand of some sort that I found at Walmart for 50 cents!

Painted her to match....

And then added a tiny black and white check ribbon (just glued it right on) along the back..

The finial could have used another coat, but I rather liked the way that it did not cover completely, gives it a more aged look or something.

And, here she is!

I did NOT adhere the top piece in anyway.   That way I can either remove it completely if I get sick of that look or use it elsewhere.

A few other recent projects resting upon the top...

Note:  I should add that I began painting both the inside and the back, but then either got bored or started something new, so this is how they remain...

Inside

Back.

But, I figure this piece is really only for me and "me" does not care.   The only way you can see the inside would be if you actually OPENED the bread box to make a sandwich or something.   Do you want to guess if anybody else in my house EVER opens the breadbox to make their own sandwich?

That is correct. 

Here she sits on my kitchen counter, looking more at home..

I'll be continuing with my "Come Inside" series this week with maybe a peek into the rest of the kitchen and my daughter's room.

Thanks for stopping by!

Smiles and Hugs,
Joyce

Organization Motivation

Hi Everybody!

Edited to add:  I will be posting this again to participate in The DIY Showoff Surprise Party!!

Make sure to head on over and check out all the fun!

I am linking up this post with a fun new Linky party at Shanty2Chic - check them out RIGHT HERE!!

These 2 girls are like my IDOLS - I swear, there is nothing they can't do!  

So, I believe I showed you some photos of my office/craft room earlier, just to give you a taste of what I am up against in my redecorating efforts.  I believe one comment had to do with renting a bulldozer.  Really.

Anyways, I don't know about you, but I find sometimes that if there is just TOO much to do it gets too overwhelming,  I just don't know where to start.   So instead of plunging right in and getting things done, I tend to step over and ignore the "debris", and go about my business as though this room didn't look like a tornado tore through it.

I finally started deciding to get my act together yesterday AM and was taking a good look around to see where the most logical place to start would be.   Then it hit me!  All of my storage and organizational pieces (except for one, I'll talk about her later) were UGLY.  Yes, U-G-L-Y.   Hoping that having a somewhat prettier storage area would assist me in actually STORING things away, I set about remaking a junky old white PLASTIC shelving unit.   It was something that a neighbor was actually trying to throw away and I helpfully grabbed it from his trash.  I figured that eventually I could do SOMETHING with it.

So it's a very sad and plastic piece, not quite WHITE since it's pretty dingy and it's probably missing some integral parts.  

Here's a Before photo.

Behold the Yuck.

Since I'm on this black (or in some cases, off white) kick lately, I figured that I could at least coat it with paint and make it a bit more presentable.  However, this was yesterday and it was raining here.  Raining Cats and Dogs, my friends!   

Being very impatient, I decided on the spot not to let that stop me.  So I grabbed some Acrylic craft paint and went to work. 

The above is what I used.    And, after one coat on the legs and sides of this piece.....

Okay, kinda scary actually.   I could tell that it would cleary take many coats (no big deal, this stuff dries QUICK).   But also the black legs seemed to make this "problem area"....

Stick out like a sore thumb.   I don't know why it didn't occur to be when it was all white, but I had to do something with the front pieces as well.    My solution??

Scrabook supplies!   I knew that I save everything for a reason!

I chose a Kraft cardstock paper, in keeping with the neutral tones.    Measured approx. the height of the pieces that I wanted covered (in this case about 2") and used my handy cutter machine thing to cut them exact.

Now cardstock is typically sold in 12" x 12" squares, so one strip was nowhere NEAR long enough to go the distance across.   I fumbled around for a while and figured out a way to kind of "trick" the eye into thinking that one Looooooooooooong piece was used.

I'm not sure if it is clear from the photo, but I placed two pieces together.   I drew a tiny line of glue (FabriTac being the glue of choice here lately) along the very edge of one piece and simply laid the other on top. 

Which of course, leaves a big ugly seam in the middle.   Not the look I was going for really.

So back to my Other Favorite Thing lately, a thrift store find that I had found.  

Did you notice??? Yes!  10 cents a yard!!!!!!!   I bought a dollars worth and have used this stuff everywhere lately.   It's more of a floral craft trim and holds up really well to all kinds of wear and tear.

I drew another small line of glue on the middle part of one strip of ribbon.

Lined it up so that it covered the ugly seam in the middle of my two pieces.

Flipped the whole thing over on it's back.

And glued the top and bottom together!  The photo above is where they are glued together on what is actually the BACK of the two pieces, so it looks like one pretty legnth of ribbon on the front.

Did the same thing with two more pieces of the same kraft paper.

And decided it needed just a little something more, so I tried fashioning two smal bows to add to the front.

Note to self:   Must research How To Make Bows.   There's gotta be a manual somewhere.

And there they are!

During this process, I also went back and forth adding more coats to my Ugly Shelf. 

Eh, still not sure about the whole thing at this point.  But I am starting to see a bit of improvement.

Anyways, the next step was to figure out how to actually attach my pieces to my piece.   Enter FabriTac once again.   And, like always, this is not the best way or the only way.  It was just My way on this particular occasion. 

I don't have a photo, but I basically did just run a thin strip of glue along the top edge of my kraft paper and also tried to get some on the plastic as well.    Stuck the little buggers right on there.   It's not something that would probably hold up to too much wear and tear, but it should suffice for my purposes.    My purposes being that it will remail sitting in a corner of a room holding stuff.

And it actually worked out fine!  Added alot more "something" to the overall look.   See for yourself............

Oh, the bows were trimmed slightly and then added afterwards.  With a glue dot.  You know, in case I get bored and want to change things out.   This happens.

BIG improvement!!

You want to see the whole thing?  

Really not bad.  If I do say so myself.   Especially accessorized.   My goal now is to find some additional BIG baskets that fit into it perfectly.

My point is, an old piece of trash (literally in this case!) can look really good with a little creativity and elbow grease!   Bet you think twice the next time you see an ugly white plastic shelving  unit!  

BEFORE

AFTER

And as an added bonus (or no, it was actually the entire POINT of this whole project, wasn't it??) I am now ALOT more excited and inclined to WANT to organize all my stuff!

Which is half the battle, really.

Smiles and Hugs,
Joyce