"Back" to the Cabinet...

Today's post comes live from my couch due to a "bad back" day. I have a condition called Spondylolisthesis, which I was diagnosed with in high school. Basically, I have A LOT of good days, but every once in awhile a bad one. And today... ugh...  is  1 - SPINE  0 - ME. But anywhoo it gives me a chance to go back (haha! no pun intended) and post about some projects I have already completed! I am really excited to announce that my cabinet is complete!

This has been a long term project just due to the amount of time and also the fact that I could not make a decision with the inside color. Should I go with a bright color or should i stay safe with a neutral? Staying with neutral would naturally be my first pick, but I promised myself I would try to step out of my "comfy zone." But, before i reveil my decision let me tell you the back story on this piece.

I found this cabinet on craigslist. It was being sold by owners who were retiring and downsizing. At the time I believe they had it posted for $40, which is a very decent price taking in the size and the condition of the piece. So, I went ahead made arrangements to pick it up (which means I told my husband and his friend with a big truck, I need help!!!). We arrived and got chatting with the couple. The wife and I realized that I had gone to graduate school at the University where she had been employed for some time and that she had previously had been a teacher. Basically, we had a lot in common! She was so thrilled by this that she let us just have the cabinet. She said she was just thrilled it was going to a good home! :) The history is that it had been her mother's and it had been used to store arts and crafts supplies and most recently had just been stored in their basement.


It's a great piece and we quickly brought it home! Structurally, it was in great shade, but needed help with cleaning and some coat of paints. The hardware was also original, but needed to have paint removed. This process ended up being so much easier than I thought! I found the idea of Pinterest (of course!) You remove the hardware and boil it in a pot (make sure its a cheap pot you don't plan to use for food ever again! It gets really gross!) of water and some baking soda. It takes about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the hardware and you can fish it out and let it cool. After cooling a bit you will see the paint just starts peeling off. I then sprayed the hardware with two coats of a dark metal looking spray by Rustoleum.

As for the cabinet itself, I sanded it down really well and then primed it and painted two coats of a gloss white paint on the outside and the shelf panels. For the background, as I told you I was torn! I considered doing a cloth background, so I can change it out, but realized it still needed some sort of paint. Thankfully I was snooping around the "reject paint" section at Home Depot and there was a beautiful gallon of Kelly Green paint! They made the decision for me! :) The inside got two coats of green and ta da! Complete!

I really enjoyed doing this project and I am sure I will change things around in the cabinet, as well as possibly try cloth in the background (Maybe during new seasons?). However, I am glad it's done!  I gave myself the deadline of having it complete before Christmas Eve Dinner and I was painting the final green coat at 12pm that afternoon! :)  I know! Way to cut it close! Have any of you given yourself a deadline on a project only to be finishing it at the last minute?! Well back to resting on the couch!

Take care!

Christine

Mirror... Mirror... ACTUALLY on the Wall!

Hope everyone had a nice and relaxing weekend. Now that the craziness of the holidays is over, I am really looking forward to finding some new projects to work on. Today the husband and I ventured over to IKEA ( and it was his idea! Whoa!) to check out some ideas for a cabinet to put in our kitchen breakfast nook area. Currently, we have very limited counter space and we feel it's primarily because of the Keurig and the Coffee Maker. I saw some ideas on Pinterest ( yes this site is going to reoccurring theme! ) about creating a coffee station. Example #1 and Example #2 . I love the idea of having it out of the way and since most of the time we are grabbing it on our way out the door and that will make much more sense to have it closer to the back door.  So we looked and looked and honestly we were not all that impressed. Some cabinets were nice, but the price was not right, but overall we felt the cabinets were not sturdy enough. This is something we want to be extra careful about since we have two very curious critters who we know will investigate and climb. So cats + coffee makers + unstable cabinet = Caffeinated CATastrophy!!!  So we walked away empty handed, but with the idea of possibly designing and building the structure ourselves. I mean the husband is a engineer after all! Hopefully this will be something we will start very soon and I can share. In the mean time I wanted to show you a quick project I did this past fall with a mirror.

I am a HUGE fan of our local resale shop for Habitat for Humanity. Lots of fun items, great deals, and it all goes to a great cause. During one of many recent trips there I found this octagon shaped frame with was half mirror and half very old dry flowers. While the idea is cute, but I was really just wanting a mirror. We already have an octagon shape coffee table I redid when we first moved in. So this frame would be a perfect "redo" to match. It was a fairly simple process. Taking the glass was probably the most challenging part just because there were so many little metal tabs that were holding it all in. Once all the inside parts were gone, I sanded the piece really well and painted it first with a primer then two coast of a gloss white. Allowed for it to dry 24 hours ( I think waiting is sometimes the most challenging part). Then I took a small mirror I already owned ( it was just a square mirror that I bought in a 4 pack from IKEA a while back) and attached it once again with industrial strength velcro left over from the wedding! :) I decided to do this rather than permanently attach it, just in case I wanted to go back and use it as a frame. I love having options when it comes to furniture and decor and this also explains why I will NEVER get a tattoo! Once it was all complete up on the wall it went!

Before

 

During

After (Please excuse the smudges, it needs some Windex

During Christmas with shelf and lamp added. And of course Santa! :)

I am not sure if the mirror will always stay in that spot or if it will always be a mirror! However, for now I think it fits the spot well. Well that is all for now! Hope you all have a wonderful start to the week!

Take Care!

Christine

Ummm..... I am sorry.... Um I got Married?!

I know... I know...  It's not a very good excuse for my lack of blogging. It has been a busy year, but still I just got lazy and very wrapped up in all the wedding craziness, as well as the post "nesting" period
(not sure if that is actually something associated with marriage). Luckily, I continued to do a few projects throughout the house and even took pictures! Anyone who knows me well,  knows that the fact that I took pictures is absolutely surprising! I am notorious for bringing a camera on a vacation or to an event and not taking a single photo! I just tend to forget! :)

Anyways, since there is "evidence" of these projects I am going to spend some time back tracking and posting about them. I am also very excited to show you what I have done with some of the leftover wedding decor! When I first began planning my wedding, I was quite determined to use decor that we could eventually turn around and reuse in some capacity. I won't sit here and say that I am a super "green" person, but I try my best to be considerate and have really been learning different ways to "reduce and reuse." This has been a theme I am seeing a lot lately within my own groups of friends and family, as well as ideas I have seen posted on various blogs I read and Pinterest. So below are some of the ways I tried this express this theme in our own wedding....

1.) I shopped A LOT on Etsy.com. If you are not familiar with this site, you so need to check it out!!! It's basically ebay for crafters!!! You can find so many talented artists, collectors, and crafters, as well as some wonderful prices! Here is what we bought...

• Save the Dates  http://www.etsy.com/listing/90944140/custom-save-the-date-listing-for 
• Invitations and Thank you's  http://www.etsy.com/listing/88750118/old-fashioned-wedding-invitation-rsvp 
• "Doodle" Cards for the Church  https://www.etsy.com/transaction/82722274
• Ribbon             http://www.etsy.com/listing/100178025/16-yards-stitched-grosgrain-ribbon 
• Thumbprint Tree "Guest Book"   https://www.etsy.com/transaction/75651372 
• My garter set   http://www.etsy.com/listing/85290362/rhinestone-wedding-garters-navy-blue 
• Stamp               https://www.etsy.com/transaction/75826245 
• Our Cake Topper  http://www.etsy.com/listing/100189358/ivory-snuggling-love-bird-cake-topper 
• My Hair comb   https://www.etsy.com/transaction/82259289 
• And even my veil!   https://www.etsy.com/transaction/74009485 

*** Most of the pictures are just samples of what our items looked like (I don't want to have personal info like addresses on the web), so the colors are not exactly what we used. Basically all of our items were the same style but in the colors of Navy and Blush Pink. However, feel free to order through these links if you are interested, all the vendors were awesome to work with!


2.) I actually bought vintage jewelry for my bridesmaids. All the items were from the 1950's and I had a lot of fun searching for each piece. I tried to match each style of necklace to my bridesmaids' personalities, while still sticking with a round stone theme. I think they looked lovely and they all really enjoyed them as well!


3.) When it came to our caterer we could not been more blessed. Our venue worked with Jeffrey A. Miller Catering and they were fantastic and yummy too! The best part was how accommodating they were! They made adjustments for not only my allergies (that could be whole other blog post! ), but as well as our guests too. In that case, no food was wasted or thrown aside. Also Jeffrey Miller really likes to focus on using locally grown produce, so it was great to help local businesses in a small way too.

4.) Favors! I am not a fan of favors that are items like shot glasses, frames, etc. While they can be very cute, I think its hard to find one item that is the style of every one of your guests. Therefore I am sure many favors end up being thrown in a drawer or even thrown out (yes, I am guilty of this oops!) So in that case I wanted something that would not be wasted. We decided to order different flavors of popcorn from one of my favorite shops in Maine. We vacation there every summer and half of my family is from there, so it was a fun surprise for those relatives at the wedding. I dressed up each bag in a fun popcorn box and put on a cheesy label that said Thank you for making our Hearts POP! Our guests loved the late night treat and were snacking on them already as they headed out the door! We also enjoyed the leftovers as well!

5.) As for decor, we have reused a lot of it in our home. I will show you one example in this post and hopefully share some more over time. Today, I will show you our seating chart board. I really stressed the fact that I didn't want to clutter the reception tables with too much and also waste so much paper
( I really do love trees! ) With this in mind, I found the idea of doing a framed seating chart board on Pinterest.  I loved the idea of having a easel and frames, since our wedding was in a museum. I also loved that these frames could be used in our home afterwards. We used a large IKEA Frame and attached smaller frames with industrial strength velcro (I highly recommend it! It holds heavy items well and can be found in craft stores). All the smaller frames had the names of our guests in alphabetical order and with their table number in matching fonts. These were simply printed off our home computer. I used some polka dot fabric in the background ( I had to sneak them in somehow! :) and then simply attached each smaller frame to the glass.  After the wedding I was able to break down this frame and scrap off the velcro with some windex. I then decided to turn the large frame into a chalkboard. Another Pinterest idea! It was very simple! I took out the glass carefully and sanded it lightly. I then purchased some chalkboard spray paint (can be found in stores like Home Depot or even off Amazon) and sprayed two coats of it on the glass. I allowed it to dry for 2 days just to be safe. I then put it back into the frame and used to chalk to scribble all over and to break the chalkboard in (it was recommended online to do this).  So then Voila! We have a chalkboard! We recently used it to post holiday messages, but I am thinking it will  eventually become a calendar/message board in our kitchen!

Well, that is all for today. I apologize for the HUGE post, but I guess I was making up for lost time! :)

Take Care and Happy New Year!

Christine 

Great contest!

Hey everyone check out this great contest for a custom cake!

http://staceyssweetshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/hey-locals-win-custom-cake-from-truly.html

My apologies... I have been pirate painting!

Wow!!! I am way over due for a new post! Well we are moved in for the most part and have begun the process of making the house our own! Currently we are mostly living on the first floor, while we begin painting upstairs and work our way down! I am so thankful we have an extra bedroom/guest room/man room on the first floor right across from a full bathroom. However, I can not wait to actually have a real bedroom and a real bed to sleep on. We currently are using a sofa bed we purchased for future guests! Probably one of the smartest early purchases we have made, but its time to move on! :)

Now you are probably wondering what my title was all about when I say pirate painting?! Well let me explain what pirate painting is:

The act of a letting an unexperienced painter (cough cough me!) paint her office ceiling only to have paint drip on her and land directly on her eye! Therefore, going the rest of the day with a squinty eye and also yelling out sounds like arg!! as the paint roller flies across the room.

That all being said the eye is back to normal and my office is done!!! I had a mission of finishing it before Chris arrived home from a trip he had this week and I am done a day early! woo!

I visualize myself saying "Look Chris!" and swing the office door open for him to see this gorgeous sparkling room! I actually visualized finishing the entire the house and totally shocking him, but that is soooo not happening! :)

But, I am thrilled the office is done (and so is the master bedroom Chris finished last weekend) and its so cute in all it's light pink loveliness (or Martha Stewart's pink "Magnolia") and I can not wait to start decorating it. I am considering going with a variety of prints with shades of green and florals. I also can't wait to finally print and display some of our photos from our trip to Europe last year! Now while this will be my office for the time being, we have plans of it being very versatile and also serving as a guest room with possibly a daybed. I think versatility is the theme for many rooms in our house. This room will also be home to two permanent guests who will possibly be coming this weekend and I will give you a clue!

And the move in begins.... and continues!

I am finally feeling completely 110% better!! So the process of moving into the house has begun! And will probably continue for awhile! I had no clue as to how much of a "process" moving is. I moved a lot with my family before the age of 5, but I assume I was not much help then (Especially the move where both my brother and I decided to get chicken pox at the hotel we stayed in). Hmmm... Maybe there is something linked between moving, me, and illness! Let's hope not! :) So last weekend we offically started taking all our furniture to the house. We are still working on clothing and small items, as well as waiting for our mattress to come in. So as of right now we are sort of going back and forth between our parents' and the house. Hopefully by early next week, we will be completely moved in and fully living there! In the mean time we have been do small odd jobs around the house, like having the cable guy come out (If you know Chris, you will know why this is VERY important), and fixing toilets. I also got very ambitious the other night and tore down all the plastic tile in our upstairs bathroom. I know I say it like "oh yeah! let me just demo this on whim!" But honestly I had it out for those plastic tiles from the beginning and to top it off the previous owners (or renters) left them in a disgusting state. Toothpaste on the wall, old used tissue, eck! So I just felt the need to pull it all down and start new. Here are some pictures of before and after
(or in progress) I took:

Now I am brainstorming ideas of what I should do next. Should buy the solvent that removes all the tile glue you see or should I cover it with wainscoting so it will look something like this bathroom featured on the This Old House website:

I will keep you posted as to what we decide and hopefully will have some pretty bathroom photos soon to share! :)

Closing on a house with style... or with sickness?

So, I need to give a HUGE shout out to my wonderful fiance, Chris!!! This past Monday he closed on our house all by himself! After an exciting weekend of looking at furniture, thinking of colors, and basically literally talking about house stuff till one could puke... I actually did! haha! Sorry for the disgusting-ness! On Sunday I woke up to the worst stomach virus/flu-like illness ever!!! I am starting to feel better and slowly getting my appetite back, but honestly I have not been able to be much help at all! However, it is times like these that I am soooo happy that I am going to marry Chris! He is so supportive and caring, making sure I have soda to settle my tummy, organic chicken noodle soup, and a wedding magazine to read! :) Could not ask for a better fiance!

Well on a positive note the closing went well and we officially own the house!!!! I asked Chris how it all went and whether he learned anything more about the history. I am extremely interested in history and find old houses fascinating! The little information we know about the house so far is that its 100 years old and had been own by a couple who had raised 10 children there! It then had been sold from that family to the most recent owner, who used it as a rental property. A couple families had rented it, as well as some college students (There are a few colleges in the are, two of which I went to! ). The old owner finally decided it was time to sell once the last renters moved on this past Fall and thats when we found it! Chris did say that the old owner was at closing and that he told Chris the house had been own by a widow (The original owner with 10 kids we are assuming) who went to his church. When he purchased the house it was quite a mess and they had done a lot of work to it. He did mention that his wife told him as he renovated that he should not do anything to the metal cabinets found in the kitchen! She had a feeling they would come back in style and I am soooo glad she had that "feeling" because I absolutely LOVE them! So let me share a picture of the kitchen cabinets as my introduction to the inside of the house. Please keep in mind they desperately need a coat of paint and new hardware. I am thinking a very nice crisp white and polished nickel or chrome hardware like these from Martha Stewart at Home Depot:




Here are some pictures of our kitchen cabinets! :)