Tuesday, October 11, 2011

a dresser re-do!

So obviously, I'm not the 'best' blogger! I don't know why I forget to do posts because I love blogging! I've been working on a couple different projects lately and I'd like to share some pics of my favs with you! Things are going well here.....my daughter started pre-school today! EEK! She did AMAZING, I mean couldn't have gone better amazing. She was just so excited to be "in school." Although I did have to explain to her this morning that she wasn't going to be riding the bus to her school because that was one of her first questions this morning when she woke up. Pre-school is one thing for this stay at home momma, but if I had to put her on a bus at the precious age of 3......I don't think I'd be emotionally stable!

So she started school today, both kiddos got flu shots yesterday (yuck!), but my poor little man Henry had his 1 year check up and ended up with 3 other shots on top of the flu shot......he was devastated :( But on a happier note, he's a very happy, healthy growing baby (a 14 month old baby!) according to the doctor weighing in at 26lbs and an exciting 33ins tall! "He's very tall (97th percentile) and skinny (75th percentile)" were the doctor's words. Not that I'm surprised since his mommy and daddy are 6'0 and 6'4 respectively and both pretty active! But here's my growing momma's boy trying to help me take some photos!


Look at those big brown eyes! He's going to be a little heartbreaker!

Anyway, on to my projects! Thanks for tagging along on my little rant about my babies :) So for the last few months I've been dreaming of finding an old dresser, fixing it up and putting in my entry way for extra storage, but also just because I thought it would just give the room that "pop" you know?! After months of looking and refusing to spend more that $75 on the entire project I found "the one!" I knew in my head what I wanted the dresser to ultimately look like when it was finished, I just needed to find the dresser with the right bones to it. So here's a picture of my little beauty as I found her in a second hand store for $50!!!






Obviously, not the prettiest thing, but I knew she was the one. She just needed a little makeover, some TLC and a little elbow grease and she'd be better than new! I get her all the way home and my wonderful (and very patient) husband comes out to get her out of the van and he notices that the bottom of the dresser is separating from the drawers! OH NO!! My heart sank! We pull it out and we're looking at it and it's not popping back into place. It looks as if the wood is warped and just pulling away. I'm devastated. My husband is pushing and pulling on things trying to just get it to slide back into place and it just won't budge for us. Neither one of us are really sure what to do to keep the original structure as "original" as we can with out replacing some pieces. So I'm pretty bummed out that my lucky find isn't turning out to be so lucky. Plus I'm kicking myself for possibly wasting $50!! My husband being as great as he is knows I'm upset and says, "let me go talk to our neighbor, he's always working on wood projects maybe he can make a suggestion for us." What to do we have to loose?! Nothing, so he walks across the street and my neighbor, Rocky, (seriously, that's his name!) is coming over to take a look at my "project." With one swift look he says, "oh that's nothing, we can definitely save her!" He and my husband flip her upside down and he pulls the one side of the dresser pretty far back and just starts banging his fist on the drawers, etc and every part fell right into place!! "Let me get some wood glue and clamps and she'll be good as new in no time!" So he returns with tools that my husband and I looked at each other and said, "we need to get some of those!" He put a little glue here and a little more glue there, clamped it and told me if I can leave it for a good 24 hrs, that would be best. Considering I'm the most impatient person you've ever seen coming, I was okay with the delay as long as the dresser was saved! This is what my baby looked like for a good day and a half......




You can see the bottom was pretty banged up......but it won't look like that for long! But while I waited for my dresser to dry and set I worked on another little project I found while at the second hand store also. I found this awesome stool and knew it had a very bright future in my home!



All I did was add some fresh paint then added some extra badding to the cushion and changed the fabric and this is what I have now......





I know it doesn't look like it, but I repainted the base a brown color so there wasn't a a huge difference. This little stool cost me $10 at the store and then I had all the other materials on hand, making this fabulous little find a steal!

But back to the dresser.......after the glue dried and I waited 24 hrs, I started sanding, priming and painting.






It took about two days total to get it completed, but it's beautiful and I couldn't be happier! So are you ready for the finished project??!!! I hope you love it as much as I do!!



Do you love it??!! I'm SO, SO happy with it. I kept the original handles and just painted them black to make them pop! I originally was going to replace the handles with the same style just in a nickel color, but when I tried to remove the original handles, it was a little bit, shall we say, uuuummmm, challenging! So I kept the originals and just went with paint! Plus the Halloween decor just makes it look so awesome too! My kiddos think it's great. The decorations I mean, they could careless about the dresser!


Here's a mirror I redid also. It was black, but our living room is so dark that it was just getting lost in the room. So I spray painted it white and made the moss letter myself with things from Crafts 2000 and, TA-DA it's beautiful! I've seen the moss letters in Pottery Barn for awhile, but wasn't willing to pay anything near the $65-$100 they were wanting for letters that are smaller than this one! So thanks to the crafty and thrifty little lady over at the Thrifty Decor Chic blog, I found this idea and thought....'I can totally do that!' And I did. The letter was $6 and the moss was $20 (and I still have quiet a bit left). I just love my entry way now. It's so bright and open. It turned out better than I thought it would!

So what do you guys think? Are you working on any projects that you've been wanting to do for some time now? Thanks for stopping by :)

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