Little Bookshelf Love!

Lately I have been very busy with many different projects. I have project ADD I think because I start one and before I finish it I get another inspiration and start something else. SO at the moment I have a few projects I am trying to wrap up.

The first one I have finished is my lovely little book shelf! I recently gave you a sneak peek into this project. I bought this shelf a few years back at an auction. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and knew it had great potential. So I bought it for $7 {such a great deal!} It has two shelfs and two magazine holders!

It was in pretty rough shape, but I love the look of old furniture refinished in a modern way {plus, old furniture is usually made a lot better then the new stuff!}, and this little guy was a perfect fit! Refinishing it has been put on the back burner for quite some time now because honeslty we just didn't know where in our house it should go. But we recently found the perfect spot for it in one of our spare bedrooms, so I decided it was time to refinish it! So after sanding and priming:

And then painting, my beautiful diamond in the rough turned into this:

And here is my little shelf in its home just waiting for my little nieces or nephew to come have a seat and read the fun books it contains align="center">

This was technically a free make-over because I used the same gallon of paint that I bought to refinish my desk. And since all of the furniture in our house is black, it fits right in! You will also see more refinishing projects using the SAME gallon of paint! I am spreading out this $30 gallon of paint as much as I can!

A Few of My Favorite Things: Glass Water Bottles!

My husband and I have been doing a very bad thing for our wonderful earth...we have been drinking bottles of water! Not the nice refillable kind, the plastic ones that you buy in a case of 24 at the grocery store. And we drink A LOT of them! We have been going through 3- 24 packs in less then a month! Not good at all. So we have been recently talking about getting a water cooler, but we don't really have the $200-$300 that it would cost to get one. Plus my little teeny kitchen is not a great place for one of those monsters!

A few days ago while we were shopping at our favorite store Marshalls, we came across these:

I fell in love with these babies as soon as I saw them! They remind me of a glass pitcher my mom used to have when I was young that we had orange juice in! They are glass and they have a great plastic lid that is in two pieces. The center part loosens so you can drink out of it, or you can tighten it and it is spill proof! Plus, when you screw the whole lid off the mouth of the glass is large enough to put ice inside the bottle! Love them!! Here are the ones I got:

Well after using these guys for a few days, I decided to head back to Marshalls today to see if they had anymore. My idea was to keep four in the fridge full of water for the easy grab-and-go, and two in the cabinet for other beverages to-go. I like iced tea a lot and frequently stop at Mickey D's for a good ol' iced tea while I am out and about. But now I can brew a big pot at home and just take some with me! I have also bought a large jug of water at the grocery store, and our store has a refill station for 29 cents a gallon! So I bought two jugs and will refill them during my weekly visits to the grocery store as needed! Here are my nifty water bottles full of water in the fridge:

Now we will have less recycling! {since our bin is usually half full of plastic bottles} No more plastic bottles for this family, oh and even better news they are BPA free!

Another Fun Headboard!

A few weeks ago my sister and I made a trip to New York to visit our friends Hart and her husband Mark. It was such a great trip! Hart and Mark just bought their house a little over a year ago and have been working really hard on it! It is an older historic home that needed a lot of drywalling done. So that has been the main focus for them since they moved in. Mark is in the Military and left for Afghanistan for a year a few days after Stac and I left. So while we were there I wanted to help them do a project that they wanted done. Hart was really excited and spoke up immediately and said she wanted a headboard! Sooooo a headboard it was!

For their headboard we did a really simple one. We used plywood, a foam mattress cover {I like to use foam eggshell mattress covers because they can be so much cheaper then foam at the craft store}, and the fabric of their choice! Hart really wanted it tufted, so we made buttons out of the same fabric.

First we measured and Mark cut the plywood to size. Then we drilled holes in the plywood where we wanted the buttons to be located. The next step was spraying the plywood with adhesive and gluing the foam to the plywood. Next we added the fabric by laying it across the front and stapling it around the back. The next step was adding the buttons. To do this we took a quilting needle and twine and threaded the button through the hole we drilled in the plywood. And lastly we made a cleat to attach the headboard to the wall. And here is our finished product:

The next step to making this room and headboard complete is new bedding that will compliment this beautiful new headboard!

The First Piece to My New Office! {Part 1}

A few weeks ago I made the best discovery at a yard sale near my sisters house, an old solid oak desk! And the best part...it was $10! As soon as a saw it I loved it. It is very simple {which is my style} and I knew it could be beautiful refinished. I didn't imediately buy it because I was afraid it was too wide, so we left the yard sale without purchasing the desk. When I see items like this my mind will not give up. I thought about the desk the whole night and about how much I really liked it and what a great deal it was. So the next evening my sister, my brother-in-law, and I drove out to buy and pick up my desk. Luckily it was there and just another sign that this desk was meant to be mine :)

I love this desk for a few reasons! It is my style, simple. There is a place for someone to sit on either side, so when my office is complete I can use it for client consultations if needed. Also, it is going to give me a lot of work space, which is exactly what I needed....and it was $10!

The first thing we did to refinish my desk was to sand it down a little. My husband couldn't wait to help with this part. We bought a new orbital sander last year on black friday and have yet to use it. So he was very excited to use his new tool.

After Sanding it, cleaning it, priming it and then finally painting it my desk turned into this {dont mind my crappy camera pictures}:

Then I put it in its temporary spot {for now} and then added knobs that I got at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 a piece. And this is what my desk has turned into! {I am not completely finished with it, I am working on some accessories for it and I also have a few other things I would like to do to it, but for now this is it}

I am now working on some accessories and will share the finished product with you as soon as I am finished :)

PS: Here is a sneak peek at a few other refinishing projects I am currently working on. The first is a bookshelf/dresser that will someday be a part of a nursery, it was my step dads when he was a child and it is the perfect size for our teeny tiny bedrooms. It also has a matching small corner desk that I have already refinished because I was using it as a computer desk before I found this one. The second picture is a small bookshelf/ magazine rack that I bought at an auction years ago for $7. I can't wait to see this one refinished! The last ones are our entertainment towers in our rec/movie room. I HATE them! But we can't afford to go out and replace them so why not refinish them!