Putting The Office Together: Dumpy Desk Makeover

Who knew when I found this little baby in the "Mart of Doom" that I would wind up liking her as much as I do.

To say she had some issues would be an understatement.  Check out the rust from the nails that were holding this on...

Gotta love the dirty stained fiberboard with quarter round to trim it out.  I found her in a darkened corner covered in junk and surrounded by tons of stuff.  I almost passed her by, but then I asked for a flash light.

After looking her over real good, even crawling on the floor to look underneath to figure out what in the heck was going on with the top, I figured the $35.00 asking price wasn't too bad.  Not great, but not bad either.

So, when I got her home, I pried off the fiberboard and trim with a spatula.  Remember that?  LOL!  You know, because I couldn't find one of my three hammers in my crap pile in the office?  LOL!  Regardless, it popped right off.  I decided to leave the base as is because I liked her age showing.  I just cleaned her up real good with some Krud Kutter.  You should have seen the filth that ran off of her.  N-A-S-T-Y!!  I must have dumped the bowl 5 or 6 times.  Then I sanded the living daylights out of the top and filled in the worst of the gouges with wood filler, while leaving some for character...

and then I sanded some more.

I primed her up but good, and then slapped a coat of chalk board white paint on the top.  Initially, I thought I'd dry brush her with my favorite paint color, but I just wasn't feeling it...

So, I re-painted it white and then glazed it with my go-to paint: Tall Cattail.  Better, but not great.

{Somehow I skipped a picture of this step.}

I thought about decoupaging the top with scrap book paper, but I didn't have enough of one kind of sheet.  Then I thought about book or hymnal pages, but I just didn't know.  So, what to do when you're at a crossroads?  Let it be.  I left her overnight, while I slept on it.  I've learned in the last 7 months that its never a good idea to force it.  You always wind up hating what you did just to say it's done.  The idea will come when its damn good and ready and not a moment before.  ;)

I was flipping through my scrapbook paper the next morning and I came across this one...

And I kept coming back to it.  Alas, I only had 2 sheets.  :(  And I really liked it.

So, what'd I do?

Cut 'em all out.  It only took about an hour.

Then I decoupaged them on at random intervals.

And then poly'd the top with two coats and decoupaged inside the drawer with scrapbook paper, as well...

I was quite satisfied.

So, this is the before...

And after...

When paired with this chair from an antique store for $35...

and the DIY chalk board for $12 that used to look like this...

and now looks like this...

The top printable you can find from the Tip Junkie.
For some reason, the link would not work.  Just search craft room printables.
The bottom printable, I just made myself in Mac iWork Pages.

Put it all together and it fits me just perfectly, just as I had hoped (like really, really hoped that I hadn't made a huge mistake when I bought it all.  LOL)...

So for $70, I had a whole new office set up.

I think the thing I have fallen in love most with in this journey of makeovers and refurnishing, is that when you refurb something, it is one of a kind.  No one else will have anything just like it.  And you can make it to suite your taste.  Plus, you're saving furniture from landfills and giving it a new lease on life.  Stuff just isn't made like it used to be and with a little money, a little work, and some effort, you can have better quality items for a fraction of the cost.  BONUS!

I know there are some thrifters that would think that I paid too much for both pieces, but you can't even think about buying a solid wood desk for that price nowadays!  Heck, you can't even buy a laminate desk for that!  ;)  And my old desk got a much needed makeover.  But, we'll save that for tomorrow.

Until then y'all...  Have an awesome day!

Ringing in 2012 With Bedroom Wall Art

Happy New Year!

I hope each and every one of you reading this is abundantly blessed 

with health, happiness, and love in 2012!

Nothing like kicking off the start of 2012 with a completed project!  I actually started this one back in December, but I finally corralled Scott long enough to get him to hang it up, so I could tell you about it.  LOL!

This was probably the quickest and easiest project I have ever done.  In fact, if you want to do one yourself, the hardest part will be finding the barn door to do it with! ;)  It was only by luck that I found this one...

One day in the beginning of December, Scott casually mentioned that as he was doing some cleaning up at his parents' farm he had noticed a couple of old doors I would probably like - if he hadn't ruined them when he shoved them into the burn pile.  WHAT?!  You mean he didn't take the time to get out and drag them off to the side????  So much for all the "training".  LOL!!!!!  

A few days later, I had a chance to go over there and see what he had found.  Not only were they fantastic doors, they were BARN DOORS!  So, picture me standing on top of this huge heap of old, splintered wood and trash, grunting, pulling, and pushing trying to get those suckers out!  I'm sure I was a sight!  I was just holding my breath hoping he hadn't ruined them!  It had just rained the day before and then turned cold, so everything was rock solid and frozen together.  And since they were wet, they were H-E-A-V-Y!!!  (Exclamation Point!)  I shoved one in the back of the Yukon, put one off to the side, and had him bring it home in the back of his truck a few days later.  Luckily, they were both intact.  YIPPEE! 

I've been seeing all these lovely pallet board signs hung as wall art all through blogland, and I knew that was the direction I wanted to take the wall above our bed - however, I didn't want to have to do all the work involved with pulling a pallet apart and then nailing it back together.  The barn door was perfect for my lazy self.  ;)

Seriously, all it took was a few simple steps:

1)  First I googled "Love Quotes" and looked and looked until I found the one that spoke to me.  I chose this one by Audrey Hepburn:

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other."

Ain't that the truth?  Especially during these extremely tough economic times and everything that life can throw at ya!

2)  Then I fooled around on the computer with different fonts and font sizes until I found a combination that I liked - rearranging it in iMac Pages.

3)  I wrote down the font and monkeyed around with different sizes - blowing them up anywhere from 250 to 325 in size, printed them off, cut them out, and then placed them on top of the door to see if they looked good.  Then I tweaked the sizes some more and fooled around with the placement.

4)  Then I made stencils with the printer paper (cutting them out with an X-acto knife) and used chalk to "stencil" them onto the wood...

Until I had done the whole thing:

I have to admit that I got tired of cutting out the stencils, so "Each Other" and Audrey Hepburn is my handwriting.  LOL!

The great thing about using chalk is that if you screw up (which I do often), you just take a damp rag and wipe it off.  I wrote Audrey Hepburn crooked and my spacing between onto and in was terrible, so I just wiped it off and did it again.  Audrey's name is still a tad crooked on the finished one, but oh well.  Its authentically me.  ;)

5)  After finishing up with the stenciling, I just painted right over the chalk with my paint, giving it a hand painted look without the iffiness of hand painting. I assume that the paint dissolves the chalk.  The paint still adhere's well and holds up to some distressing.  When I finished painting on the quote, I distressed it slightly to give it an aged looked (which drives Scott nuts :P).

Finally last night, it was a family event hanging the darn thing.  Greyson and I held it up on the wall over the bed, while Scott and Ian stood back and decided up, down, right, left.  Exciting times! ;)  Scott used screws to drilled in between the boards to hold it onto the wall in five different places - two on each side and one in the center.  Here's hoping it doesn't fall off the wall in the middle of the night and decapitate us.  HA!

And the final product...

I so LOVE it.  And better yet?  So does Scott!  Best words I've ever heard come out of his mouth, short of when he asked me to marry him...  "And to think that was in the burn pile."  LOL!  LOVE IT!

Take What You Have & Change It!

I love walking around my house and seeing what I have and thinking up ideas on how to change it to fit the vision I have for my home now.

Take this Americana door stop - At least I think that's what its supposed to be.  Its heavy and has beads inside of it.  I've always kept it in the window sill of one of my large picture windows.

It literally took me all of 10 minutes to change its look completely.  A little burlap, some vintage string, a few fabric rosettes, and VIOLA!

Or what was a primitive (and not in a good way) garland.  I ripped it completely apart...

and then set about replacing the country-style fabric with something a little more my taste today.  White cloth from an old bedskirt replaced the plaid fabric on the spools, burlap flowers replaced balls of yarn and tied in with the cream Welcome letters, and the quilt fabric heart was covered with one cut from a book page.

Totally upcycled with very little waste and a nice touch to my newly painted and accessorized mantle.  And better yet,  at zero cost to me!

And with that, I have a few more additions to the office...  However, I am procrastinating on the west wall because that means dismantling the computer.  Errrrr...

But it is so fun to take something that's outdated and update it into something I love.  What is something you've upcycled lately?