Furniture Upcycle

Here's the latest project! I had a blast refinishing upcycling this old desk into something more beautiful! 

Here's the before picture. Actually this is not quite the desk as you can see mine has a writing slide-out in the front. But being somewhat scatter brained as of late (I'll blame it on the baby) I forgot to take a picture of the before. However, this is almost the same thing. Pine desk from IKEA. Super boring, and kinda ugly... and definitely doesn't match the house decor or vibe we are aiming for around here.

SO.... I crammed it into my little craft room out back. This is a lovely space to work in. It's a little tight for furniture projects, but its all windows which feels awesome and I have a great view of the "mountain" to beat! This room used to be a deck that someone enclosed up with windows so it's a bit of solarium kinda feel. We call it the "inside outside room" and it's the perfect place for your mid morning coffee break. When it's not full of projects that is.

The supplies I used for this upcycle included:

stain: dark walnut (by minwax) This is my go to colour when I want something nice and dark but not too red or grey. It's perfectly warm, but still definitely brown. 

applied with a rag and just rub it right in!

paint: AURA edgecomb grey (by benjamin moore) This was leftover paint from our master bedroom. I originally though I was going to distress this up a bit, but after getting the paint on there I liked it so much I just left it clean. Nice and creamy without being yellow. It compliments the top well. 

applied with a brush. It took 1.5 coats,  but the wood was raw when I started so it really should have been primed first, but I didn't have any kicking around.

Lastly I sealed the top with a semi-gloss varnish to give it some durability and water resistance. I'm so happy with how it turned out! It's NEVER this clean and ALWAYS covered in papers, laptops and other signs of life, but I had to take advantage of the moment ;)

And just for fun a close up of my typewriter. Passed down from my dad from my grandmother. It needs a little bit of a tune up, but it still works. In fact this was the guest book at our wedding!

Now go get creating!
Sarah

Picture Frame Key Hanger

This was a fun project. Partly because it was so simple, partly because I LOVE these girls and it's a great memory! My bestest got married last summer and she sent me this framed super cute photo of us girls all being awesome and strong and super cool...  

The frame was already perfect and slightly distressed so I didn't have to do anything to is aside from make some even marks across the bottom where I wanted to screw in my hooks. So now I have this cute photo key hook right inside my front door which solves the problem of lost/misplaced keys and also gets them off the ledge where they inevitably add to the clutter which I am slowly but surely getting rid of one pinteresting project at a time!

You could do this with any frame you have around your house to add a personal touch to your entryway. So stats for this project are:

Time Spent: 15 min

Frame: FREE 

5 Hooks: $2 from Walmart.

Total cost: $2... doesn't get much cheaper than that folks.

Valentine's DIY

Cut out hearts from places you've been together for a fun Valentine's worthy art piece that has an extra personal touch!

Thrifted Frame $10
Poster board matting $2
Map printouts - free!

You can easily out this together and it's a fun memento of places you've been with your sweetie ♥

Revered Pewter

Before and After

First you should try and picture this in your head: A shockingly lime green house with a red brick fireplace. Now paint over that shocking lime green with pasty peach. But do it poorly so that your lovely peach colour ends up smeared on the ceiling, the underside of the window trims, and some of the green still pokes through if you look for it. Also leave the back side of the fireplace green.

Got it?

Now imagine that. 

A red brick fireplace with the back side shocking lime with peach EVERYWHERE else. 

Welcome to my home :)

Needless to say the peach must go! I've slowly been painting over it all with this lovely colour from Benjamin Moore called "Revered Pewter" It's a fantastic "greige" as is so popular right now. So fantastic in fact that it was the same colour my sister painted her beautiful home. In all fairness she painted first, but I didn't know the colour name until she saw my paint job and asked me. Discovering we had picked the same colour! I guess good taste runs in the family.

As switching up the tiles is a big job they'll stay for now. But it's been a fun process to see the house transform with just a coat of paint. I LOVE painting with Benjamore Moore Aura paint. It's so stellar. Really just a coat and a bit. Which is awesome because I can only ever paint for about an hour at time while the babe naps.

The peach is almost gone now. Just the bathroom left to go, and touching up the mess that was left on the trim. Seriously people! If you can't edge well... TAPE! (rant over.)