Finally, Furniture

Okay, so we bought new furniture. IN MAY, and I am just now posting about it. Do you remember our hand-me-down furniture from before? It was blue, and leather, and OLD. See, Cove tried to cover it up with her bed just to hide how old it was...

I guess I should bash it too much. They were free, and we are STILL using them in the newly remodeled basement. So on to the exciting stuff, the new furniture looks great...

We bought them from NFM. We spent $1052, plus some extra money for the furniture protection spray stuff. We actually got the sofa and the chaise from separate sets, because I couldn't find a sofa set I liked with a matching chaise. I kind of like them mismatching, so it wasn't too big of a deal. The chaise has become Cove's new bed. We typically have a chocolate brown blanket on it for her to lay on but it was in the wash...

As you may also notice, the new, wider furniture made me invest in some new, narrower side tables. I snagged the ones in the picture above for $60 apiece from Cymax online + free shipping. I sold these old ones on Craig's list for $40...

Now that I have new furniture, I've thought of a few things I want to do next with the living room, including purchasing an area rug, investing in blinds and curtains, and building an accent wall (think Lettered Cottage guest bedroom look) behind the television stand to give the room and "true" focal point. See, this wall is really bare and boring...

Maybe Brandon will be up for a new project once the weather turns cold again ; )

Change

Don't you just love when you realize something you've done isn't a good as something else you could do? It happens to me all the time. I find an idea I like, do it, then find another idea that I like better. It drives the hubs crazy. In my defense though, he only had to help hang the second idea ; )

So, remember this picture wall...

(pictures compliments of my sister, Kara Elaine)

And these Craig's list find chairs...

They look a bit different now...

I decided that I like Pattery Barn Holman shelves better that the previous picture collage. I also re-did the chairs with white paint and new fabric. I took pictures of all the work that went into the chairs, but the death of my last phone was also the death of those pictures. I will admit I had the help of my very talented Gma who not only sewed the front portions of the seat covers together (thanks,Gma!), but gave me tips throughout the whole process.

I actually am thinking of revamping the collage idea into another corner of the room using this picture as inpiration...

I went ahead purchased a few unique frames from the thrift store and spray painted them white to start my collection...let the fun begin!

Remember This?

It's the dresser we found on Craig's list forever back. I know, its been too long.... I almost forgot about it too ; ) Either way, I finally found some time to posts some before and after pics!

Here it is before. It really was a clean, nice looking dresser. I am a big fan on the wood look, but the finish didn't quite compliment our darker wood floors. After some Internet browsing, I found some pics on Working Woman's blog here. Seriously loved the inspirational posts : )
And thus the idea for this color came about. I would love to share how the dresser was painted, but I didn't have to paint a lick! My sweet husband stripped and painted the whole dresser himself why I was in St. Louis. I can tell you the whole process involved CitrusStrip, a seagreen color undercoat, and an antique top coat.

Good things can be done when I leave my man alone. On the other hand, you can also come home to a plethora of speakers surrounding your television too. I can't wait till those speakers find a new home in the basement...ha.

Picture Collage Without Pictures

Here is a quick run down on my my latest, almost-completed project...a picture collage.

It all began when I saw Joi's picture collage on her blog.
I had a blank wall in my living room, and it looked fun.
Then I realized I like things more matchy, so I searched for another picture for inspiration.
I found this one from Lettered Cottage.
I don't know, somehow all the frames being black made it suit my taste a bit closer (does this make me boring...probably)
So I went to the store and bought the thinnest frames I could find. I will spend a lot of time looking at these from the side angle in the dining room, so I didn't want them to stick out too far.
Then I cut out a bunch of wrapping paper in picture frame size sheets to try and figure out how many pictures frames I would need to make a collage I liked.
It took me 3 tries, but I finally decided on this one with Lynn's input:
Then I has to do to 3 Wal-Marts to buy enough frames of each size.
It sounds worse than it was. I have 3 close Wal-Marts to me anyways, so I just went to a different one each time I needed to make a Wal-Mart trip.
Then I had to make a 4th trip to buy the nails to hang them...oops!

I also may have bought my friend Chinese for lunch just so she would help me hang them...gotta love friends! Trust me- it was way easier too with someone there to help hold things up and take measurements!
So a million measurements later, we only had to move 5 of the frames after initially hanging them...ha!
It turned out like this:


Now I am just waiting for my sister, the photographer, to get me pictures to put in them.
I would also like to get a couple chairs and little table to make a cute little sitting area along this wall, but for now, empty picture frames will do ; )

I Love Lamp

Here is a quick before and after picture of one of the projects I was able to complete this week.
It really isn't that dramatic, but it sure makes me happy.

This is a simple black lamp Brandon got for free from Uncle Doug back in college. We have been using it in our living room because the light in here is really dim. However, we really don't have anything black in our living room, so it kind of looked out of place.

So, I bought some spray paint from Wal-Mart and changed the color.
I believe the new color is called Satin Nickel by Krylon.

My friend Mary walked me through the basic of spray painting (yes, I have never spray painted before).
She told me to put light coats and let it dry in between.
I learned why...it runs when you put on to many coats to quickly...oops!

I would have taken the after picture in the light, but Brandon only lets me quit working outside when it is dark....j/k. But seriously, we have been working hard. Really hard.

Our gutter project has been turning into more projects. Lets just say while working on the gutter we discovered a whole section of roof that was leaking on our porch that required patching and board replacing. We also found a whole wall of our garage was infested with ants. Brandon had to rip a whole wall of our garage off (the rest of the garage is cedar...I am not sure why this wall isn't). Then he had to kill approximately a trillion ants with this crazy spray stuff that made my father in law hurl. We have yet to replace the missing wall as it got dark on us tonight.

So tomorrow we will be back outside replacing a wall, hanging one more section of guttering, and painting.

Did I tell you were are changing our house color.

All the paint is on sale at Home Depot for Labor Day weekend.

We bought over $300 worth of paint- yikes!

It may take a few weeks to get our whole house painted due to the unexpected leaks and ants, but I will be sure to post before and after pictures.

Good Ol'Craig's List

Here is a picture of my latest Craig's List find. It's an old dresser. I have plans for it! See, Joi shared her fabulous find on her blog, Nuestra Vida Dulce. I instantly fell in love with her idea and started watching Craig's List for the perfect dresser to use as a TV stand in our living room. I also got Brandon in on the action- good thing too because he is the one that actually saw potential in this dresser. I was mostly just watching for a 9 drawer dresser like Joi's, because I like the design with the electronics organized in the middle and the drawers on the outside.

Ours will actually have the electronics organized across the top section. I took the drawers out in this picture, so you can see the idea. I also want to find 2 lovely used chairs (they can be new for the right price) to put on either side of the dresser/entertainment center...the ones in the picture are our dining room chairs. Using a dresser in place of a typical television stand works great for us because we need space underneath for air to travel back to our return air duct that sits right behind it. Also, we have a large puppy that would love to stick her nose into anything sitting too low to the ground; the height of the dresser prevents her from doing this...perfect!

You may not exactly be able to tell from the picture, but the color of dresser doesn't exactly jive with the color of our hardwood floors. We want to stain it a darker color to match some of the darker hues in the flooring. Thus, Brandon got to work striping the old top coat and stain off of it.

The stuff he was using smelled like oranges-mmmm! He put it on and then scrapped it off several times. I told him I would do the work, but he doesn't seem to have too much confidence in my furniture refinishing skills...trust me, I don't mind at all ; )

We may or may not switch up the hardware. I can't decide if I like the old hardware or not...decisions, decisions. Any opinions on this?

I will be sure to post the final results when we get it completed. I can't wait!