Basement Makeover

So my big focus right now is our basement.  We have a fairly large basement divided into 3 sections.  One whole side is dedicated to laundry, sewing, craft area.  It's unfinished, kinda cobwebby, but it works for what we need - for now.  There is a door, and a wall, and I can close that room off to the rest of the basement if I want to.

The other 2 rooms - one is our oldest daughter Kalyssa's room and the first room when you come downstairs is going to be our family room.  It was originally just a junk, sewing, office room.  But I decided I wanted another living space. A place for the girls and their friends to hang out, or all of us to watch a movie together - kind of whatever.  Seating was the first issue.  We needed a couch down there, but I really didn't want to buy something new.  Budget is tight, so I knew we were gonna have to do this remodel on the thrifty side.  Lucky for me Pinterest is my best friend.  I had remembered seeing some pallet couches, and figured we could easily do that for a fraction of the cost of a new sectional.  Spent a Saturday morning looking for pallets that would suit my purpose, but weren't finding any that were all uniform or not completely damaged.  My awesome hubby said he would build the pallets that we needed.  We had all the scrap wood, so YAY - no cost pallet couch base!  I am currently in the process of making the cushion covers.  I am making large 33"x33" cushions for the sofa.  I am going to stuff them with chopped foam - a combination of regular foam and memory foam.  I actually found a place online that sells chopped foam by the pound for really inexpensive.  So I bought a little and am going to stuff one of the pillow covers and see how well it sits, how I like it etc. before I buy all that I need.  I also found curduroy fabric at Joann's for $2.50 a yard.  I thought that was a really good deal after seeing some pricey stuff elsewhere.  It was on major clearance and I only needed 8 yards...When all is said and done, my pallet sofa sectional will only have cost me about $100!  Score!

However, I am getting slightly ahead of myself.  I really  just want to share some inspiration for the room.  I think I want to kind of go with a rustic, eclectic theme down there.  I'm having so much fun planning out the family room - I can't wait till it's finished so I can post the final product.  Follow me on Instagram for updates along the way!

Some pallet sofas that are super cute

In the meantime, enjoy my basement board on pinterest...
basement

Bedroom Makeover

Ok everyone.. the time has come for me to officially start making over our sad, sad master bedroom.  It's only been 14 years in the making!  I'ts so easy for me to put off that room because I can just throw crap in there and close the door.  No one sees it - except for me, and I've finally had enough.  So I will be re-doing the whole thing.  And I'm going to do it super cheap. *i hope* 

I will be using stuff I've already got, but will be re-purposing.  I've got alot of different knick knacky items stored in the garage.  So this will be a great project to pull out some of that stuff.  I am going to be thrifting, garage saling and flea marketing it up.  :)

I will hopefully be revealing bits and pieces as I do them, until the one final reveal!  I don't really have a deadline for getting it all finished.  It's gonna be a work on it here and there when I get time kind of project.  But if it turns out how it looks in my head, it's gonna be fantastic!  LOL

In the meantime, here are some pics from pinterest that are my inspiration...
Enjoy

wood pallets for headboard

End of bed benches

yellow frames

love the whole thing

art

yellow dresser, so pretty

what a cute headboard

pretty white bedding

framed you and me - love it

In case you can't tell, the color scheme I've decided to go with will be greys, yellows, corals, and some turquoise...

HELP!

Ok ya'll be patient, this is kind of a long post, but I really need some help.  Some of you will remember my kitchen table makeover see table here.  I am in love with the table, but I am completely stuck on the chairs.  My original plan was to paint them red, because I really like the whole blue/red thing.  But I've tried 2 diff. reds and I am not a fan of either one.  The first one was a fire engine red.  Then the second one was more of a berry color. Which I like better, but it's still not right.  You can see the berry chair below...

So now I'm thinking maybe I don't want to go with red after all.  I just re-did a thrift store chair see thrift store chair here and I LOVE LOVE LOVE that yellow (golden maize from valspar).  AND I really love turquoise and yellow together AND I have this buffet/cabinet thingy in the same room that I want to paint that yellow.  So now I'm thinking that they maybe need to be yellow to help tie everything together.  It's a pretty small room, doubles as my dining room and my office, so I'm afraid it will look weird with too many colors floating around.  So I think I'm kind of sold on the yellow for the chairs - what do you guys think??

So another issue I'm having with the chairs is that I cannot figure out what else to do with them... I feel like they NEED something, but WHAT?  It's driving me crazy.  Maybe it's the chairs - I like the idea of having 4 mismatched chairs all the same color - I've also played around with this idea.

So you can see where I need ya'll's help.  I would love any input - ideas, pictures, suggestions, I'm open to almost anything at this point.  I've googled and blog searched and I think the problem is there are just too many options.

Help a girl out - would love to hear what you would do with the chairs.  The table is staying that color blue - that's the only thing that is not changing in this scenario.  :)

Thanks for the help everyone!

Chair Makeover

I love chairs... I can't explain it, I just really love chairs.  I picked up this chair at the Goodwill some time ago.  I left it the way it was for a very long time.  I liked the chippy white paint.  Well today I decided enough of the white, let's go yellow.  I was actually experimenting with this yellow, because it's the color I am thinking of painting a buffet/cabinet I've got in my dining room.  So I wanted to test it out and see how I liked it.

Let me just say that this is such a pretty yellow.  It is Valspar's Golden Maize, and now I know it will definitely be going on my dining room cabinet.

Anyway, below are the before and afters of my chair.  Cute isn't she?

BEFORE

AFTER

Coffee Filter Lampshade

Ok I know what you're thinking... she did what with coffee filters?  But you read it right folks, I coffee filtered my lampshade.  And it looks freaking awesome!   It was pretty easy actually and I've been seeing alot of coffee filtered things on the internet including lampshades.  I figured it couldn't be too hard to mess this kind of craft up, so I got out my coffee filters and my hot glue gun and went to work.  The lampshade was already red, and I was worried the red was going to peek through the coffee filters and look kinda tacky, but when the light is on it looks so pretty.  Which you will see from the pictures below.

All you have to do for this particular DIY, is scrunch up the filter, hot glue the bottom and stick it on the shade. You want to put them pretty close together so you don't have gaps.

The only bummer with this particular lamp is that the shade doesn't come off.  I was wanting to spray paint the base of the lamp too, but since the shade doesn't come off, I didn't bother with painting the base.  It still looks so cute.  I think I may incorporate coffee filtered lampshades into our bedroom remodel too.

What do you think?

If you're not following me, I'd love it if you would!

Re-doing an Ikea Cabinet

So I had two of these 3 drawer cabinet thingy's from Ikea in my office at work.  They were so bland - that blonde laminate color stuff and 3 white drawers with silver handles.  I decided they needed a makeover.  That laminate stuff is terrible to try and paint, but they  just sit in a corner in my office, so I think they will be ok.

I used Krylon's Periwinkle blue and sealed them with a gloss sealer to try and help the paint from peeling off the laminate stuff.  It seems to be working pretty good.  Then I had some pretty scrapbook paper that I mod podged to the front of each drawer face.  And I kept the same silver handles.

Overall, I really like how they turned out.  I didn't take any before pictures, sorry about that.  So I'm attaching a picture of a similar cabinet from Ikea's website.

I'm off for a busy errand day... Happy Thursday everyone!
The pictures are terrible, I know, I had to use my cell phone.  I'm trying to work on my picture taking ability, so bear with me.  But you get the general idea...

Dresser Reveal

Ok, here it is... I am loving the way this turned out.  It is a completely different dresser!  I sanded and cleaned the whole thing.  Then I applied a dark walnut stain to the top only.  I love a dark top with a contrasting lighter bottom.  Looks so sleek and elegant to me.  Anyway, then I painted the dresser and drawers a light grey - 3 coats.  After it was dry I sanded just the drawers to distress them a little.  Then I applied a light coat of the dark walnut stain to the whole thing in small sections so I could brush and wipe, brush and wipe.  And of course, new drawer knobs.

So here are the before pics again, and afters below them.  It is for sale, so if you are local to east texas or in the vicinity and need a new dresser feel free to email me.

Whoever the new owner is of this piece needs to own a smoking jacket.  It just seems like a piece that a person who wears a smoking jacket would own.  :)

Cleaned and Sanded

Now for the afters...

I will be linking this up with http://www.theshabbychiccottage.net/
http://www.houseofhepworths.com/
http://sassysites.blogspot.com/
http://itsahodgepodgelife.blogspot.com/
http://www.mysimplehomelife.com/2011/05/features-simply-creations-link-party-8.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20SimpleHomeLife%20(Simple%20Home%20Life)
http://www.pollywantacrafter.com/

Dresser Re-Do

So we've had this dresser for a very long time.  It was mine when I was a kid, and it somehow ended back up with me now that I'm a grown-up.  It's been in a guest room, in our kid's play room, and now it sits in a lonely corner of my garage.  We just don't have the space for it anymore, so I've decided to give it a makeover and sell  it.  I mean, who doesn't want a solid wood 3 drawer dresser, right?

Anyway, here are a few before pics for ya to enjoy.  I'm so excited about how it's turning out!  It looks so good!  I can't wait to share the after pics.

Anyway, happy wednesday.  Check back in a few days, I should have her finished.

This was after I cleaned and sanded the whole thing.  Palm sanders rock.

The drawers after they'd been sanded.