Wine Storage Cubbyholes

I'm very excited that this is finished!  Remember what these looked like when I brought them home?

Before:


After:

It was a daunting process - they were filthy. I had to remove the funky name tags, tape residue & gunk, in general. After sanding, I painted them with Black Suede from Behr (recommended by Thrifty Decor Chick), BLT made a backing from plywood and voila - we now have wine storage!

I guess we need to get more wine.

That's a fat little bird hide-a-key in there.

We have a little alcove in our dining room perfect for the wine cubby.

. Wine corks are the perfect size for the little compartments in the typeset drawer.

Mom brought this budding camellia for my little vase.
(My plant isn't doing as well as her's)

The downs of my project:

This is my best friend and my nemesis.


BLT cut the board and I attached it..my 'eyeballing' technique didn't work out so well as I had a few of these..


these are the patched up holes where I shot the staples through the plywood..way to go!


My parting shot - I couldn't find any gloves and used a grocery bag. (This is probably very familiar to you guys.)

I'm including this in:
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature at Miss Mustard Seed's Creative Blog
Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous
Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On The Porch
Make It For Monday at Cottage Instincts
Before & After Party at Thrifty Decor Chick

Kitties & my lucky number

(I started this on Tuesday but putting it up on Thursday. I don't know how to change the publishing date or if you can...)

Please be patient with me on this post:

I have 6 kitties of my own. BLT had 2 and I had 3 when we married and then one of ours passed away last year and we adopted 2 more. They all have kooky little personalities and hang ups. They are much loved and overfed, so we're doing our job.

I have been involved with animal rescue for years..I've been picking up strays since I was a kid. I bought a feeder mouse for .99 when I was about 7 years old and kept it as a pet..that didn't go over well. I brought my mom a rabbit that was attacked by a cat with it's tummy hanging out and handed it to her..saying, "Fix it. You're the mom..make it live." When I started driving I would get dogs out of the shelter and tell my parents I found it on the side of the road..I was baaaad when it came to animals.

I still have that need to save..I can't stand the thought of knowing an unwanted animal is in a stainless steel cage and may lose it's life by no fault of its own. Which brings me to my point..I'm fostering for Floyd County Humane Society..it's a rural area and they don't get much traffic in their shelter and the Humane Society isn't big at all. My cats have their own part of the house they live in and the fosters will live in the laundry room for a while until they are ready to go to their forever home. That little laundry room has been the nursery to many, many kittens. If you've ever thought about fostering a pet, I encourage you to pursue it. It's a wonderful way to teach children about being responsible & good stewards of all animals. There are so many in need and anything you could do would be a big help. It is the best feeling to see them thrive and go to their new home!

Here's a little project that I cranked out last week and I like the way it looks..

I bought these at Hobby Lobby. I love stuff like this..stars, eggs, numbers, letters..

I painted them chocolate brown and then waxed them and basically treated this cardboard like wood. It took it pretty well!

After a coat of white paint and light sanding I got this!

These are part of my cubbyhole makeover that I'm going to post Friday. I like projects like this...inexpensive, doesn't take too long and you don't tear your house up doing it!

Have a happy Thursday!

Bathroom Redesign

Since we moved into this 40+ year old house, I had every intention of demoing this bathroom to the studs and rebuilding. Four years later, it still hasn't happened and I couldn't wait one more minute for a new look.

Last Friday was D-day for the bathroom. I don't have a before of the decorated bathroom - it wasn't terrible, but not what I wanted. Taking into account the unintentional texturized walls where some Einstein wallpapered and then another Einstein attempted to remove SOME of it...I was left with walls that looked like a 100 year old crumbling villa and not in a charming way.

I took everything out and started with this:

BEFORE

It has neutral marble floors, countertop and ceramic tiles. I could work with this.

AFTER

I used Behr's Moon Rise white and love how it camouflages the
imperfections and adds warmth.

Let's take a little tour, shall we?

My mom found this sign, I added a frame and put it on the door...that along with
this basket of soap (homemade by a sweet friend from church) was my inspiration..

If you need any homemade soap let me know and I will hook you up!
This is the BEST I've ever used.

Ok, so let's keep moving...

This bathroom is FILLED with gifts and sentimental things I picked up over the years. My brother-in-law made the teapot lamp, mom gave me the Cherries Ripe! picture above it, the shelf was in my grandmother's bathroom, my sister gave me the tea towel, platter & pitcher, there's a picture of me with my dad, brother & sister on the ledge when we were kids on vacation, my husband made the silver leaf on the ledge, my brother gave me this beautiful hand carved wooden charm from Spain (that's on the shelf..you'll see in a minute)..I could go on and on. I love this room because it's like a little timeline and there are reminders of people I love everywhere.

We added the glass shelf under the mirror.


I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to put a toothbrush holder right over the toilet, but I put a little votive on it instead.


This shelf is a new addition too. I had the larger glass jar and the other 3 I picked up last week at a thrift store.


This shelf is actually one of the cabinet doors that I removed on the vanity. You'll see I skirted it and didn't want to waste the doors. BLT cut about 3 inches off so it wasn't so wide (I have 3 others that I'll need to find a place for.)


This painting was in a yucky metal frame that I wasn't too fond of..I pried it out of the frame and LOVED the authentic fray of the canvas. I can't believe I didn't do that sooner.

Here's the carved wooden locket that Richard gave me.
It's so sweet and I'm glad I found the perfect place for it under this cloche.

I stamped French sayings on slips of paper and filled one of the jars.

I'm a self professed cat lady and here is a poem about kitties that I found in a poetry book called "there is no rhyme for silver." I used old sheet music & black scrapbook paper to frame it.


Mom gave me these pretty brackets..she gets me.

I bought this on a family trip to France in 2005.
(Along with some fabulous wine that is LONG gone.)

The vanity needed more help than I could offer and since I'm not a magician, the doors came off. I measured and made 3 panels, so I could still access the storage. I had bronze thumbtacks and they worked fine. I looked at fabric, but in the end used a drop cloth from Home Depot for this and the shower curtain. It was a twin pack for $10. Can't beat that!


And here's the shower curtain. I have a shower curtain liner that protects this from the water on a shorter rod, but I like my curtains to go from floor to ceiling. I bought grosgrain ribbon and sewed it on. The most expensive part of this was that rod and curtain clips - I could've shopped around for a better deal but I wanted it finished.

So there you have my bathroom redesign..in total I spent about $90 on paint, drop cloth, chenille rug (which I don't think I got a picture of but it's cream and from Target), curtain rod clips, ribbon and jars. That, along with busting my rear end for an entire weekend, created my little getaway.

Today I am participating in Metamorphisis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch & Make it for Monday at Cottage Instincts. Come see what everyone has been working on!

Table Centerpiece

I wanted to share a centerpiece that I copied from another crafty girl, Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick and you can check her out here. She has TONS of ideas & projects and always shows how she did it.

You know when you see something and you just want it, but then you're like.."that looks like alot of work..neh..maybe not". Well, this isn't the time for that attitude. This took an afternoon and that includes dry time of the paint. I did take my time getting the glass candle holders that are wrapped in fabric but that's because I didn't want to pay full price. I picked some up at Goodwill and some were on sale at Hobby Lobby. I feel better about stuff if I get a good deal on it..I kinda feel like a schmuck if I just pay retail/full price and I don't want to be a schmuck!

So here is the lovely lady...

(I need to work on picture taking at night..can't stand the flash)

There is some reflection from the mirror on the fabric in this shot but you get the idea.

I started with a mirror that I picked up for $4.00..I liked the frame on it, so I didn't have to do anything but clean and paint it. It was dark wood and looked terrible but it was made well and ONLY $4.00! It amazes me what people just get rid of...anyway, I didn't get a before - I'm bad about that, but trust me it was ugly.

I used white paint I had already and sanded the corners to show wear. Then I rubbed tinted furniture wax (you can pick that up at Home Depot in the poly/paint area) over it to dull it down a little. It was too bright for my dining room.

I hot glued fabric around the glass, popped in a votive and put some fake berries around it that I usually only wag out at Christmas. Speaking of fake, I tried the LED votives and I don't like them! Maybe in another room or something but it looked like a glow stick in there!

Anyway, TDC has detailed instructions on her site..this is the quick and dirty version. It was fun to do and my son LOVES to have dinner by candlelight. I think you could do this with any size mirror as long as you leave enough room to eat comfortably.

Now, I'm off to paint a shelf for the BATHROOM that I'm almost finished with COMPLETELY!!

Found a new place!!

Isn't that so exciting when you find a NEW place?! This is a thrift store that opened recently and since I had the day off (which was a surprise company holiday!) I decided to check it out and I found some cool stuff.

Yellow wire basket & cream pitcher...can always find a place for these.

Geez - can't believe I found this beauty...big old black candlestick. I don't have to do a thing to it..that's rare!

And all of these - It was like putting pieces of a puzzle together because they had the lids in one area and the jars in another. I found 2 that were cloche-ish for $0.99 each (my sister called dibs on one of those already)! In fact, all of these were like .29 to .99 each.


Their new home is going to be my newly redesigned guest bathroom. I'm putting the finishing touches on it this next week but here's a little peek...



I decided Friday afternoon I was going to give my guest bathroom a facelift. So far, I've spent $55 plus the jars today and it's a whole new look and it only took two days of bust your butt work...not too bad! This will definitely keep me happy until we're ready to remodel it.

Now while I was working on the bathroom, BLT put beadboard up in the kitchen for our new backsplash and he's putting the back on the cubbies this week. I'll have those before & afters towards the end of the week.

I was going to cross post some of this stuff but right now that seems really hard to me. I'm tired and I'm ready to get some of these things finished and ENJOY THEM!!

A little paint goes a LONG way

As I said earlier this week, I bit off more than I could chew this past weekend with projects. They snowballed..I started one and then noticed something else and started that and then saw something else and started that...you get the picture.

I wrapped up 2 more last night and that puts the finishing touch on the fireplace! Here is the before..it's a Christmas picture but you'll get the idea of the blech mantle.



Here is the after:

I have not mastered getting a good picture yet (& may never!)
Since we were already contemplating replacing the mantle, I thought I'd try painting it to see if that would help it not look so pitiful. I used high gloss black and I really like it..I might even love the new look! It really ties the mantle into the rest of the room that I'll show later (after I put the laundry away!)

These are a couple of windows that I painted and had hung on a screened porch in my apartment days...I LOVE old WINDOWS!

This is a new little arrangement I'm working with...I need to tweak this but it's ok for now...


I just love this...I like how it's a little kooky & it's alot sentimental.


This is a family clock that was given to me (thanks Mom). It's beautiful and I think the candlesticks with the clock make a perfect grouping.


I painted, waxed & sanded these chunky candlesticks. I wanted to add some white to the mantle and I think this works.

This is the same mirror that I've always used over the fireplace - just I added a chunky frame.

Well, there you have it..my revamped fireplace that cost ZERO dollars because I used stuff I already had. We are looking into building a new mantel in the future but this will do for now.  If you need a change don't be afraid to pick up that paint brush!