I'm a slacker...sometimes.

Well it has been way to long since I posted that's for sure. But don't you dare think I have not been busy. 

School and work have been a little overwhelming and I'm close to being burned out. Include 4 kids 24/7 and yeah you got your perfect chaotic mix. Don't 

forget the 3 dogs as well and my mother. 

So this summer my amazing ex in laws took the kids again for a couple of weeks and I decided to finish their rooms once and for all. I had the ideas of what I wanted to do with them since I bought the house but they had not translated into happening very well over the course of the year. 

Well this summer it finally happened. I dropped my course load to 1 this semester and I had a little time in my hands along with some funds ( finally recovering since the big revamp when I moved in). 

First I tackled the boys' room. These two had some serious dust and socks hidden everywhere. I ditched the old bedding sets for some nicely colorful ones I got at Burlington ( love that place) for $30 a piece. Not bad for young kids and with sheets included. 

Hit the local DI ( thrift store) for a new bookcase and I found the perfect one for just $15. Killer deal since it was in very nice shape with the exception of one broken shelf. 

While at Burlington I picked up a couple extra globes to feed my obsession and to go along with the map theme the boys have. 

New hampers and picture frames at Ross for only $9 each and I was set. 

Check out the results! 

The decal that took me and my mom 2 hours to put up. 

Beds and new bedding. Notice cute hamper in the corner. 

I need a new dresser. Still searching. 

The bookcase. Not too shabby huh. 

They loved it. They have even kept the room cleaner now. 

For Brenna's room. I picked up some new bedding as well for the same rocking price as the boys'. I had an old and heavy bookcase in my shed that I had planned to paint for her. I dug it up and cleaned and it looked super cute with the old rugged look so I kept it that way. 

Also got some new wall decor stuff and hamper to match. 

Here are the results. 

New curtains as well. 

Cute wall stuff from Hobby Lobby. 

The old bookcase. Super heavy! 

I'm proud and I think I might take another long break before any new projects. 

Well until next week when I redo my room that is. 

Cheers! 

Progress...?

Well what can I say when you do too much you get burnt out. So yeah I am slacking a bit and slowing down. Besides school started and that is such a nightmare around here.
But with the whole turmoil that education causes in my home, I managed to get another room done! or well ... maybe half of it.
I started working on this guy a while ago with the help of my beautiful daughter and it is finally done.
I can finally display this amazing piece of furniture that I had stashed in my garage for 5 months. I love it!!!

Of course I never took a before pic because I suck at that, but here is the in the meantime pic that I took of Val, while she was priming it.

Thomasville beauty and extremely heavy, here it is. I now have storage for all my movies and board games!

And here are pics of the family room before and after. This is the side that is finished, the other side will be the dining room, still working on it.

And here it is now

 Here are my reupholstered old couches as well. I love doing my own stuff!

Stay tuned for the living room!
Cheers!
PS: Look at what my ma got me!!! Love my new Broncos key and hat! Thanks ma!

Kitchen done!

I finished my kitchen and I cannot be more ecstatic!!! There is nothing like the rewarding feeling of doing things yourself. I started with a super boring kitchen. Ugly tile, crappy colors.
I re painted cabinets with ASCP in Pure White and waxed 3 times. This was very time consuming because I was moving as well so it took a couple of weeks. Then we painted walls, installed a back splash and laid new floors. The change is so dramatic! Amazing what a bit of paint and minor details can do. I had help with the floors and back splash since it was my first time. I love love love my kitchen!
Here are the pics!!

And the before and after

Stay tuned for more!
Cheers

Secret project

So after working on this little project for a few weeks, I can finally reveal the results. This is for a friend who's baby shower is today and we finished it this morning.
I got the cradle for cheap on an online yard sale and we started working on it. Spray painted it off white and my mom made all the bedding. Lighting makes it look white but it is very light pink with striped and polka dot fabric.
Isn't it darling??? Stay tuned for more to come!
Cheers!

Before and after 

The chippy job was not good when we got it, and it was quite dirty. One of the legs was glued wrong, so we sanded it down and fixed the leg.

Hot off...my table.

Wow it has been a super nice day today! almost 80 degrees and not windy for a change.
I went garage saling this morning and I scored a few nice things. My garage cannot handle anymore treasures I think.
This week I finally finished 2 tables after a very rainy couple of weeks. Still working on the chair and started 2 more side tables, yes I have way too many of those.
My daughter stole one of the little tables I finished today and the other one is for sale.
Here are the results and I am now sitting down enjoying some spinach and feta pizza. Yes we have a weird pizza taste around here.
Looking forward to finishing more projects as the nicer days roll around.
Cheers!

Here they are! Valentina really likes the "white washed" look so she kept the gray/turquoise one as you can see. I didn't even get to take a picture before she put all her stuff on it.

Before and afters.My phone is not taking great pics today, or maybe it's me....

Spring is finally here!

Yes yes yes! the horrible winter and all the rain has finally passed and I am so ready for this season of painting and redoing stuff.
I have taken the summer off school ( yes I will miss those credits I am giving up now, next semester) but I am planning on moving, if I can find a home to buy. School and moving do not mix.
I have started some new projects after a long hiatus of nothing done, due to lack of space and school, work kids, problems...you know the everyday stuff.
I must say I miss repurposing and I have to empty my garage one way or another so these later projects will be all for sale since I don't think I can fit anymore furniture in my house. And the money will come in handy for tuition in the fall.
I just refinished this little table, one of my friends gave it to me like 5 years ago and it has been sitting around for that long, yes 5 years, I think my mom's hoarder genes are starting to manifest ack!
I used a can of oops paint for this one and it was a beautiful sky blue which I topped with black glaze, I love it and it matches my floral chair so well that I will have a hard time letting this one go, but oh well. It is for sale now.

I love it!

In the works are these guys. Stay tuned!! Cheers!

It's a new year

Wow it has been a while!
Between school and work I have hardly had any time to post anything.
Well first of all Happy New year! We had a great time over the holidays with friends and family.
So about a year ago I decided to reupholster my living room set and well I finally did it!!!
Yes it took me a whole year but 2013 was a hard year for me, I started school, I moved, I got divorced and I changed jobs twice. In between all that, I did finish reuphosltering my couches though. The last one I did in one day and I got it finished before Christmas.
If you are new to this post, well I started with my loveseat last March with a 55 yard roll of fabric I scored from my mom's workplace. I have had this set of couches for 10 years and I was tired of the print, of course I did not want to pay for a new set so after trying my hand at reupholstering some wing back chairs and other small things I figured I could do this.
I did my first one in about a month between school and work, then I finished my chair in between the move and finally I had to wait for winter break to tackle my big couch.
I am so proud of the result and I feel even better because I did it myself!
Here is the before and after pic of the big couch.

I wanted a solid color for the big couches so I could play with pillows, which I ordered from Ebay for about $5 each, they have not arrived yet.
Here I am tearing the couch apart.

 

I saved the dust covers and tack strip to reuse, but you can find tack strip online or at Joann if you break it.

 

Here are some pics of the process of putting it back together. I have a regular electric stapler and these are the staples I used.

 I even reused the card board that came with the couch, but if yours gets shredded when you take it apart you can cut pieces out of cereal boxes.

 

And voila!!! here is the whole set all finished!! Doesn't it look great? I love it, my small pillow covers are coming and they are all beige with pictures of crowns and tufted chairs. I love them! Will post pics when they arrive. School is starting Monday so it might be a while before I post my next project.
Cheers!

Winter is coming...

...And that means I can no longer camp out in my garage and paint, like I do when I have a minute!
Bummer! reupholstering time is coming and boy do I need to get my couch done. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Right now I wanted to share my latest creation. My mom has had this old hutch for a very long time, and after my divorce I am kind of short on furniture so I decided to give it a face lift.
Now, since we have had a cold fall so far I brought it inside and decided to use the amazing Annie Sloan Chalk Paint that it's the best out there for fast drying and no smell.
I had about 1/4 of a can left of the graphite I used for my table and chairs and I decided to use it.
I gave it 2 coats and it was enough for the whole thing except the inside of the cabinet.
So since I have a black and red sort of theme in my kitchen I thought I'll just paint the back of the shelves and the inside of the cabinet red.
Well the back board had a crack and the paint would not cover it well. I tried using wood putty to smoth it out but you could still see the bump. So I decided to use contact paper in a pretty red print to cover it.
Well who would have thought that they not make red chevron contact paper?? lol. I looked everywhere and no luck. So while I was at Hobby Lobby shopping I picked up a yard of red chevron upholstery fabric and thought, what the hell, I'll use this!!
And I did! I removed tha back board and I used E3000 glue to paste the fabric onto the board. After that I painted 2 coats of polycrylic on the fabric and once it dried it stayed nice and stiff against the board!! Woot! That way it does not get dirty and it stays put.
I distressed and waxed and spray painted the hardware in red and here is the final result! I love it!!

And here you have the before and after.

Stay tunned for more!!!
Cheers!

My desk is done!!!

Yay!!!! I finally did it! I bought this desk almost a year ago and it say in my garage and then moved to my new garage and oh boy I needed it.
I started it before I had school and I did not have enough time to finish it, so it took a while . Between classes and work I would do a little each day.
I painted it a light beige and I didn't like it, so I mixed in some black and came up with this gray I loved. Then I decided to do the white accents and the chevron chair, which was a pain. Whoever said chevron striped were easy!!?!?!
But anyways here it is!!!

I had a moment of panic while I was doing it when I realized I had picked up oil based primer, but after researching a while I found out it's ok to use any paint on it so phew!! that was a close one.
After the 2 coats of paint I gave 2 coats of polycrilic to the surface of the desk and the chair.
For the white details I used a concealer brush I had laying around somewhere. The chevron stripes were a pain to trace but I found a good tutorial on google and I followed it.

For some reason the different lighting affects the color in the picture but it is gray.
Here it is in my room all set up!!!

And of course the before and after!!!!

Stay tuned for more upcoming projects for my living room!
Cheers!

I'm on a roll

Sooo I seem to be motivated after my move. I have finished another PhD (Project half done).
This one I started right before I moved so it arrived to my new house half way done and it has been looking at me all along so last night I stayed up til midnight and I finished it.
I love it! Here is the old ugly print.

This set I bought 9 years ago when I was pregnant with my second child. I love it and it is the most comfortable living room set I have ever had, it is also in great shape, so instead of spending $1000+ on a new set I decided to reupholster them myself. Yes it has been a bit of an adventure considering I started in January lol, but slowly but surely I have finished 2, sort of.
Keep in mind between moving, divorcing and school it has been a bit crazy here.
So for this chair I got the fabric at Home Fabrics, I think I payed $5.99 a yard and I bought 6 yards to have a bit extra for pillows. This chair was a bit difficult because of the upholstered legs, but I figured it out by taking pics as I was taking it apart.
Here is the final result, I am pretty happy with it, there are a few wrinkles here and there, but it's ok since it is for me. My wign back chair turned out much better since it was an easier shape to do and no upholstered legs.

Here is a picture of my loveseat, which I started long ago and I finished a couple of months ago but never posted it for some reason. I still need to do all the pillows so only one pillos was made to try out the pattern and the rest are still with the old fabric on...oh well I will get to them lol.

And here is my upcoming project , this is my desk I got like a year ago lol and it's time to finish it because I need it!!! Hopefully I can do it before I start school on Monday .
Cheers!!

Just keep painting...

So yessss, I am all moved in!!! This has been so far the worst and longest move of my life! I started last Friday and I kept going back and forth even after work every day until we were done. What a hassle!
Of course I had a couple of project going on while we moved, yeah call me crazy but I needed a few new items ready for the new house.
First of all I had a dresser that my neighbor Jeanne had given me a few months back. My oldest daughter claimed it and I started painting it a while ago but I stopped and then I decided to finish it before we moved, nice idea! So I had painted the dresser part but I still needed to paint the mirror. She also wanted like a "washed look" with yellow and the hardware in a pastel color.
I went with Annie Sloan of course since it's fast. I did 2 coats of Old White on the whole thing and then I tried to "wash with Annie Sloan Arles but was coming out too dark so I mixed the Arles with some glaze and "washed away" . It turned out super cute!!!! She picked Krylon's Ocean Breeze for the hardware and we were set!! Look at how cute it looks!!

Here is the before, of course with all the craziness I forgot to take before pics so here it is half way done.

And here is the final result.

I love it!!

My other project was a dining set I picked up for $50, it has a half wood, half stone table and 4 matching chairs. I loved it , it is super heavy and very well built. So I started painting it before I moved and just finished waxing it today!!

Here are the chairs before.

  

 

 

And here they are after!!! I used Annie Sloan's Graphite for this project and gave it 2 coats of wax. I love it!! I really like the look of the stone with the chalky black.

 

More to come as I try to make my new home functional!!!

Stay tuned

Cheers!!!