My Painted Secretary

It is finished! 

Last week I wrote about how a visit to my blog reader prompted an inspiration for me to finally paint my Craigslist Secretary desk.

We had a very rainy week here in Central Texas and my husband was out of town for most of it. So, that gave me plenty of time while the kids were occupied to get to work painting.

Remember how it started?

The day my hubby left for a 4 day retreat/conference/wedding {three separate things...not a wedding at a retreat! ;) } I asked him to get everything all ready for me to paint.  I wanted to do it inside so I'd be near the kids and keeping tabs on them so he moved it into the entry way for me and disassembled everything.  Good man, Good man.

I had to prime it before painting and our primer is oil-based.  I can't stand oil-based paint.  Not because it stinks - but because I am MESSY with painting and messy with Oil-based means a lovely bath in Paint Thinner when I am ready to clean up.  So, it's not LITERALLY a bath...but really, I can get paint EVERYWHERE on my body.  It's ridiculous.  In an effort to protect my skin I covered up EVERYwhere.  Don't believe me...

And yes, that is a basketball hoop on our front door.  Somehow my boys {old and young} decided to move it here and it gets more use here than it ever did in our son's room so... it stays {for now}. Last night it provided entertainment for our college kids after dinner - competition can be found in anything!

After priming everything I let it sit overnight.

We removed the inner workings of the desk for two reasons. One: I didn't want to hand paint all those nooks, crannies & crevices. Two: I wanted it to be another color.  More on that later...

The front of the drop down desk had a ugly lovely to someone wharf scene. I'm sure someone paid a lot extra to have that etched into the wood.  But this girl wasn't a fan.  So, we used wood filler for the deep etchings and then sanded it somewhat smooth.

I was amazed that after just the primer coat how you really couldn't see the etching anymore. And after two coats of color you would never know it existed.

I bought a chair from TJMaxx that had a bit of sass with the zebra print, but still blends so well with my color scheme that's working in this room right now.  I loved the detail on the legs.

 

I love looking online to see if I can find where the chair originally came from.  I never found an exact match but I did find very similar chairs at some of the big name home decor places.

We also took the glass out of the doors to paint.  I wanted to remove the "panes" look that was on the front of the doors and to do that we needed to pop the glass out and then the wooden panes just pried right out of the inside of the doors. {It wasn't attached directly to the glass}

 

We ended up getting a new piece of glass cut & mounted inside the door after we cracked one side trying to secure it.  It only cost us about $15 and it's more professionally secure than what we were trying to do! :)

 I went to Lowe's and picked up new drawer hardware.  I settled on these because they were literally the only in-stock pulls that were the same size as the old ones.  Thankfully, I also liked the look of them.

I'm so happy with how it turned out! It's come a long way since my dad brought it to me from Houston after I spotted it on Craigslist.  I think I paid around $125 for it.  

And here it is today!

Where I happily have a new home to blog from!

And for the details:
Paint color is the same as our kids bathrom redo: Valspar Mountain Smoke
The interior part of the desk is spray painted with Rustoleum Painter's Touch Ultra Cover in Ivory {Gloss}
Drawer hardware is from Lowe's
Original hardware was spray painted with Rustoleum Hammered in Dark Bronze

Linked Here:
Fine Craft Guild
Someday Crafts
Southern Lovely

Dining Room Progress

Step one of my dining room makeover has been completed!!! Wondering what step one was?

Convicing my husband that we really do need to do board and batten all around the room...and that yes, we really can do it ourselves. Honestly, it didn't take that much convincing. I've got a handy man and one who is willing to put up with my decorating whims.

I've been searching the internet for what I want the room to look like and I've put together a few inspiration photos.... Thank you Pinterest!

Rug... I just ordered a jute rug like this one today from Overstock.com. I debated about going with a floral pattern, but was afraid I'd get tired of the pattern before the rug wore out. This way I can change color schemes without having to change the rug. {I also love the color of the walls}


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I love the tablescape on this table. So, I'll be looking for candlesticks here pretty soon.


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Curtains! I really want to have buffalo check curtains somewhere in my house... and the dining room is great place to start I guess. Not sure of the color I'd go with yet...and these are actually striped (but I think they look buffalo check-ish).
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I am loving the color in these two rooms.


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I want the board and batten to end up looking like this...



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I'm really hoping to get productive this week. But it's the first week back to school for our kids... and me to my part-time job. Soooo.... maybe this is just a good project for January. Oh, let's just be honest... it's a good project for February too!

Paint Stick Ornaments

I told y'all yesterday when I shared with you the cute snowman gift tag that I'd be showing you some of the crafts that our Bible study did for our "Super Saturday". Today's adorable idea was found through Today's Fabulous Finds. Who'd have thought that making ornaments out of free paint sticks could turn out so cute?

You can find the tutorial here. Or if you're really good at figuring things out from pictures read on... haha.


Have your paint sticks ready in various colors (ours were red, cream and grayish silver).


Gather your supplies. The template for the words can be found here.



Put it all together and here's what you'll get. Super cute and super inexpensive ornaments for your tree or for gifts!

Cute Christmas Gift Tags

Tiffany & I were a part of a Bible study at our church this Fall called Transforming Christmas. One Saturday this month our leader set up a "Super Saturday" for us to work on a whole bunch of cute Christmas crafts to use for gifts and/or decorating. This week I'll be sharing some of them with y'all. Hopefully you'll be inspired to try some of them out for yourself and take care of some gifts for those teachers/neighbors/friends on your list.

To start with, look at these cute gift tags that some of the ladies created.

This is such a cute way to label a gift that doesn't cost much, and is so much more adorable than the little stickers I have used in the past! I think they'd look so cute on solid colored bags.

Check back this week for some more fun ideas.

Burlap projects

If you haven't noticed,

I've been on a serious burlap kick the last few weeks!

Here are a few things that I've been working on...

And with the burlap I had left over, I completed the easiest burlap project yet.

If you can even call it a project.

I grabbed a few pictures frames from around the house, replaced dated pictures with a cut piece of burlap & added a leaf.

I like that it's kind of unexpected.

And feel good about using every last inch of burlap :)

DiY Burlap Wreath

I finished my burlap wreath today!

I actually started it weeks ago but life, laundry, and dishes turned this easy project into a month long get-to-it-when-you-can kind of thing.

Which is how most things get done around my house.

Fellow Aggie fans, pay no attention to the orange.

It is NOT burnt orange and does NOT pay tribute to UT in anyway :)

Here's how I made it.

(Please forgive the picture quality. They were taken with my camera phone.)

I cut two 3 inch strips of burlap and wrapped my wreath,

using sewing pins at the ends to hold it in place.

I then cut the rest of my fabric into 12 inch wide strips.

I folded each strip lengthwise (so it's now only 6" wide) and

pinned the end of the material to the wreath. With the two rough edges down towards the wreath, I began making big S's out of the material.

So all you see is the pretty folds and not the frayed edges.

There's no rhyme or reason to the width of each S.

Just tried to keep it nice and full.

I added a W and fabric rosettes for color.

To see how I made the rosettes, click here.

I haven't figured out where I'm going to hang this beauty.

I guess that will be this month's project! Ha!