CRAZY WONDERFUL

I am so excited that Shelley from Crazy Wonderful is guest posting for me today.
I can't remember how I came to befriend Shelley, but I am sure glad I did.
She is hilarious, she has fabulous style, and an adorable little girl.
Take it away Shelley.....

Can I tell you how excited I am to be guest posting for Andrea today!
WOOHOO!!!
When she asked if I'd be interested in it I jumped on it (and around in my seat for a while too).
I LOVE her blog, and the chance to be a little part of it totally made my day :D
THANKS FOR HAVING ME OVER ANDREA!
So, here's one of the many things I've been obsessing over lately...
Trays!!!

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Surely, I'm not the only one.

And, these photos make me think every room in my house needs one.

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I wanted one in a BAD way for my living room coffee table.

Something big like this one.

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But, these big bad boys are EX-PEN-SIVE.

I don't get it... but, I still wanted one.

Look how sad my coffee table is?!  Blah.

Me - "Why don't you make one?  It's just a box!"

Me - "This is ridiculous... just pony up the cash woman!"

(Yes, I occasionally have conversations with myself)

Me - "Uggghhh!!!  (Caught a glimpse of those prices again)  Looks like I'm heading to Home Depot."

Glad I did though!

I now have my own big ol lacqure tray, and I don't even think I spent $10 on this project.

BINGO!!!

What I used (the wood was my only purchase):

• 2'x2' thin plywood cut down to 18"x24"
• 4 thin precut strips of wood 1/8"x2"x24" (2 of them cut down to 18" long)
• Brad nailer and brads (or) small finishing nails and hammer would work
• Wood glue
• Wood filler
• Sand paper
• Primer spray paint
• White lacquer spray paint
• Clear coat spray paint

What I did:

• Glue strips of wood along the outside of the plywood (overlap edges) and nail into place
• Fill in nail holes and any gaps with wood filler and let dry
• Sand entire piece and wipe clean

• Spray with primer and let dry
• Spray with lacquer paint (approx. 2-3 coats - let dry fully between coats)
• Spray with clear poly and let dry

I was a little irritated when I put this together (probably because it was well over 100 degrees that day... AGAIN), but I'm sooo thrilled with the result and even more thrilled with the savings.

My table is pretty happy with it too ;D

So... if there's a size that you can find, a color you're dreaming of, or if you're like me and you just don't want to go broke on a tray - BUILD IT!

I actually picked up two trays in the past few weeks from Goodwill and had big plans to transform them.  Shelley has inspired me.  Hopefully I'll have some fantastic trays to show you next week.  Be sure to check out Shelley's blog, Crazy Wonderful. 

STRIPPIN'

Now, now, get your minds out of the gutter.  I've got to keep this blog 99% clean.  My mom, dad, mother-in-law and occasionally my nine year old daughter read it.  I'm speaking of paint stripping, of course.  Let me back up for a moment and admit that I think I may have a disorder called ADD (Attention Decorating Disorder).  Anyone else have this problem?  It's where you start on one project, then swiftly move to another, maybe come back to the first project momentarily, then move on to a third project.  The first step is admitting it, not sure what to do from there, but I'm thinking a support group involving wine might be helpful.

Moving on, Sunday as soon as we got home from church (while still in my church clothes), I decide to start stripping the paint off some old brass door hardware.  I thought I had some chemical paint stripper in the garage, but no such luck.  A quick google search told me I had everything I needed in my cabinets.

I simply put the hardware in an old pan and covered it with white vinegar.  I brought it to a boil and let it boil for about ten minutes.  I forgot to take a before picture, but this is what it looked like while cooking.

Here it is all cooked up and ready to be stripped. 

I used a flat head screw driver to scrape the paint off.  It came off with little effort. 

The piece to the left has been stripped, but not shined.  I used steel wool on the piece on the right to shine it up.  I read about a product called Brasso that brings the shine back to brass.  I'm actually loving the tarnished look so I think I'll let it be.

Here it is all shined up and installed.  

This hardware is about 73 years old.

Doesn't look too shabby, does it? 

The newly stripped hardware went on this french door.
The door finally has a doorknob on it (after almost two years).  A.D.D. I tell you!
I would have taken a new picture with the hardware on, but then I would have had to clean up the office.

Next up, the hinges and the rest of the hardware on these doors 

will meet their fate with me, a pan and some boiling hot white vinegar.  

Of course, that might happen next week, or perhaps next year.  Who knows, but in the meantime,

 who wants to join my A.D.D. (Attention Decorating Disorder) support group?

FABRIC BULLETIN BOARD

Just as soon as I thought my daughter's room was all finished, she decided she needed a little something extra, a bulletin board. I see cork bulletin boards all the time in thrift stores and I have even picked up few lately.  They are sitting on our third floor waiting to be used for yet another project.  

I wanted her bulletin board to be something special.

I had some old blank canvases stored in the basement.  

We grabbed one and used a staple gun to attach some leftover fabric.  

This is what we came up with....

We hung it on the wall next to her desk. 

We also added some blue ribbon we had on hand to the edges, to dress it up a bit.

It's the perfect spot for her to hang pictures of her friends, special awards, 

important e-mail addresses, or whatever else she deems important at the the time. 

The fabric was leftover from this pillow project.  This fabric was the inspiration for 

the entire room so I was thrilled we were able to incorporate it somewhere else in the room.  

Have I mentioned my obsession with fabric lately? 

Hope everyone had a fantastic long weekend.  We did a lot of nothing and I loved every minute of it.  Saturday it was close to 100 degrees and today it was about 65 degrees.  

Looks like summer is officially over!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Our first house did not have a foyer.  Typical to older homes, you walked right into the living room. When we bought our next house, I was thrilled it had a foyer.  It's a nice open space with plenty of natural light.  It is the first room guests see when they come in the front door, and many times a day we pass through the foyer to get to our staircase.  When we renovated our home, the foyer got updated as well.  I have slowly added a few things to the area, but was having trouble finding a rug that would work.  The space needed a 6'x9' rug.  A 5'x8' rug would be a hair too small and an 8'x10' rug would be too large.

I lucked into this rug over the weekend. 

It is the perfect punch of color for this space 

and it flows nicely with the colors in the living room and kitchen. 

It is from William Sonoma Home, but it no longer available.  

I purchased it from a friend of mine. 

She bought it with the intention of using it in her bedroom. 

It didn't quite work out, so she was looking to get rid of it.  I kindly took it off her hands.  

This Dash and Albert rug was my original choice, but the colors just weren't quite right.

The rug was one of my Wine and Dime purchases.  So thankful to have friends with good taste.
How about you guys, ever buy, trade or sell with friends?

Hope you all have a fantastic Labor Day Weekend.  I'm looking forward to spending time with friends and family, saying goodbye to this hot Summer and welcoming my favorite season, Fall. 

WINE AND DIME

Last Friday night, one of my good friends hosted a "Wine and Dime".  

What on earth is a Wine and Dime? 

Well, it's basically a big fancy yard sale that takes place in my friend's house.  

Oh and a teensy bit of wine is consumed during the event. 

My friend has amazing style and she took great care in making sure 

everything was displayed beautifully. Everyone that wanted to participate, 

dropped off their items at her house earlier in the week.  

She set everything up and gave each person selling items an envelope.  

Most things were priced and tagged with names. 

If you bought something, you simply put the money in the correct envelope. 

Sounds simple, but my sweet friend was running around most of the night playing cashier. 

She was such a gracious host. 

Some people simply swapped items and some sold their items.

Three rooms were dedicated to home decor and one room was dedicated to clothing and shoes. 

There was also plenty of purses, jewelry and fabric to be found. 

This was the second "Wine and Dime" and it was a huge success.  

Anything leftover after the sale was donated to a charity.  

Kudos to my friend for hosting such a great event.  It was major work for her.

Once we were all finished buying, selling and swapping, 

we took the party outside on the patio and it gets a bit fuzzy from there.  

Just kidding (kind of), but I did manage to learn to hula hoop while drinking wine.

By the way, I came home with this cute jacket, scarf and shirt.  The shirt still had the tags on it.  

I traded one of my girlfriends a bookshelf for the jacket and shirt.  

I also managed to snag an amazing rug.  

I'll show you soon. 

I can't wait until next year's Wine and Dime!

GIVING IN

Taking a break from DIY projects and decorating today to share a little lesson I learned this past week.  You see, my nine year old daughter wanted a feather in her hair.  It's all the rage here.  She had asked me several times over the summer and I kind of put it off thinking she would forget about it.  Well, that didn't happen and when school started last week, the inquiries began again.  Although this time, it was more like "everybody has one but me".  This isn't entirely true, as I know of at least one other girl in her class that is featherless. I questioned her about why she wanted something everybody else has.  I encouraged her to be a trend setter, not a trend follower and I even went to far as to make her a headband with feathers on it, thinking she would think it was so "cool".  

After shattering her dreams and telling her that a feather was not in her future, I talked to my husband about it.  I really thought he would be on the same page with me.  When I explained the situation to him, his response was "what's the big deal, aren't they just $10?" 

I then thought to myself, what IS the big deal?  I'm sure there are going to be times when she pleads her case for something that is completely inappropriate and I will definitely have to stand my ground.  But in this case,  a little feather in her hair really ISN'T a big deal.  I decided to give in and let her get the feather.  The look on her face when I told her was worth all the worrying I did about it.  She even asked me what made me change my mind.  I told her I talked to her daddy and we decided that if she really wanted a feather, she would have to do four chores (in addition to her regular two chores) over the weekend to cover the cost of the feather.  She happily obliged and we went Saturday to get the feather. 

Here it is....

I gave her free reign to pick out any feather she wanted.  However, I strongly discouraged the bright yellow and black striped feather and I nudged her in the direction of this smaller less conspicuous one.

I am not a big trend follower now.  However, when I was nine, of course I wanted to wear my hair like my friends and wear the latest fashions.  I can't fault her for being a normal nine year old little girl.  

One other reason I was anti-feather is because she has the most beautiful hair and I didn't think she needed anything added to it to make it special.  One of the many, many times we will disagree, I'm sure. 

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of her (and her hair) through the years.  

I normally wear my hair straight, but lately, my daughter's curls 

have inspired me to go natural. 

This is what my hair looks like without doing much to it. 

Feels so odd taking pictures of yourself in the mirror. 

It's so much easier wearing it this way.  I think I'll follow her trend for a while.  

 (not the feather, the curls!)

One last thing, Lauren from West Furniture Revival featured a few of my projects today from last week's Revival Monday party.  Lauren is an avid thriftier and turns her finds into masterpieces.  Check some of them out here.   Thanks so much, Lauren, for the kind words.

JAZZED UP LIGHTING

When we moved into our house, I picked out lighting for just about every room.  

However, when it came to my boys' room, I just couldn't find anything I loved at the time.  

So what did we do?  We stuck one of those "boob" lights in there for the time being.  

Last week, their light wouldn't work.  Okay, really it just needed a new light bulb, 

but I played dumb and used it as an excuse to replace the boring "boob" light.  

I hopped into Lowe's one afternoon and saw this guy (on sale for $31.99). SOLD!

It can be found here.  (for some reason, it is not on sale on-line)

I also picked up a can of red spray paint while I was in there. 

What do you get when you add red spray paint to a plain barn light?  

A fun, custom light that two boys absolutely love!

Our new light looks a bit like this one from Barn Light Electric for $119. 

For less than $35, we gave this room a whole new vibe.

Now just for fun, here is what the room looked like before we bought the house. 

The red barn light probably wouldn't have looked too bad with that lovely carpet. 

You can read more about the carpet here. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  So glad all of our friends on the east coast are safe and sound.

Anyone else need the phone number for Spray Paint Addicts Anonymous?

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Savvy Southern Style

THE EVOLUTION OF A FAMILY ROOM

Since I've been making so many changes to our family room, I thought I had better do an updated post on this room.  This is a pretty large space and when we were designing the space, we weren't exactly sure how the furniture would be placed.  I knew it would need to be split into two separate areas, but that was all I was sure of. 

Here is the room now....

(This is the TV viewing, lounging, hanging out area.)

This is how the room started (before we purchased the house).

And another view...

Shortly after we moved in, the room looked like this...

And the other end of the room looked like this...

Then I painted the bookshelf and it looked like this...

After adding the vintage school chairs and painting the wicker chair, this space now looks like this....

(This is the homework, game playing, artwork area.)

This was a difficult room and I'm so glad it has finally come together.  Of course, I can't promise that it won't change again, but for now, I am happy with it.  I am loving the mix of natural wood and painted wood and the mix of traditional pieces with vintage pieces.  I also love the fact that it is a comfortable space in which our entire family can spend time together.

Two out of three of my kids started school on Wednesday, and so far, so good.  However, it's been a long and busy week so I'm looking forward to taking it easy this weekend.  Thanks for all the kind comments this week on all of the changes I've been making.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!