Decor for a Wooden Writing Desk

About a month ago, I visited one of my favorite thrift stores and found this beautiful wooden desk. It needed a bit of cleaning up, but the overall condition was great and I loved the shape of the legs and detail it had.
The inside of the drawers was already lined with this beautiful yellow floral paper- which was a pleasant surprise!

I couldn't pass it up- and now it sits in our home by the top of the stairs and holds a few things for us.

I took some pictures of it recently after selling this piece a while back.
Here is the updated look to give you an idea of how beautiful some pieces can be without paint!!

You can read all about the ruler growth chart I made for our girls here. They love it and it was such a quick and simple project to do! 

The paint color on the door is Sherwin Williams Porpoise.
Wall color is Sherwin Williams Wool Skein.

How do you feel about painting furniture? Do you find it hard to paint pieces that have a story and are made well?


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Linking with:
the golden sycamore 
the 36th avenue 

Painted Sideboard

Hello there!

How was your weekend?
Ours was pretty good actually...we spent a lot of it running errands and hanging out with friends. It was a good weekend but it always seems to go by too quickly!

Anyways, I wanted to share with you all a sideboard I recently painted and sold!
The day I posted about the sideboard I was contacted by a lady who wanted to purchase it...I wasn't expecting an offer that quickly, but it worked out and I am actually a little sad that we don't have it in our home anymore.
It was a very pretty sideboard and very well-made...sometimes that is hard to come by!


Here are some of the pictures I took of it after it was painted and styled.

Here is what this piece use to look like before I painted it and distressed it a little bit.

And here is another after photo.

I was very pleased with the turn-out/end result and miss this piece a little bit...but I know there are more great pieces out there to find and that is a little exciting!


I have another piece in the works right now...a dresser.
It is almost finished and once it is done, I will post some pictures.
Thanks for stopping by!

Linking with:

Stroll Thru Life   * Lou Lou girls  * Dwellings  *  Silver Pennies  
Thrifty Decor Chick 

Life Sized Growth Ruler Chart

I have such a fun and neat DIY project to share with you all today.

I was reading a few blogs over the past couple of months and stumbled upon a Pottery Barn ruler growth chart.
I loved this idea so much and of course had to look up the cost just to see if it was worth purchasing.


But at $89 for one....yea, no thanks!


A few blogs out there have made their own Pottery Barn knock-off rulers and knew I could do it...so I did!

I searched our garage for the left-over wood we used to build this and had the hubs cut it down to the size I wanted....which was roughly about 6 1/2 feet long.


I gathered my materials and got to work...using some online pictures to guide me.

I thought about staining the wood but knew it would take too much time and the wood stain I had on hand was too dark so I decided to keep the natural wood stain.

It works perfectly.

A black Sharpie marker was all that was needed to make each marking on the wood and it showed up quite well.

Ahhhh...

I LOVE it!

I love the idea of being able to mark and record my girl's height and keep it as a memory.
Plus, if we move, we can take it with us and they can look back at their growth!!

So what do you think?
Would you ever make one of these or purchase one to keep in your home?


Thanks for stopping by!

"T" & "L" Burlap Pillows

I recently made some little navy pillows for my daughters for their play area in our loft.

I cut some burlap and glued it to the navy pillows with the letters "T" and "L" to represent our daughters initials.

I added a flower to one of the pillows and am thinking about doing something similar to the other one.

Our youngest loves playing with the flower. :) And our oldest likes pointing out the letters on the pillows. She is really into doing that now...and she is getting quite good at her alphabet!

Our girls have quite the collection of books, don't they?

And that's not all of their books either. There's of course more in the house...oh the joys of having been a teacher!!

Our oldest daughter LOVES the Olivia books. We have read almost every single one to her and her favorite is the very first one titled, "Olivia." It is neat to see her really get into books now and she has even begun reading with us and to her sister...of course since she is only 2 she is "reading" sentences she hears us say to her from the books. ;) But it is still pretty cute!

I like how they turned out, but I am thinking of moving them to a small reading nook I am currently working on in one of the bedroom closets. I'm hoping the small space will function both as a reading nook and a place to store clothes as well.

I also changed out the bench fabric that use to look like this.

I like the simplicity of the green fabric much better than the geometric print.

That's all for today folks!

Thanks for stopping by!

Burlap Covered Boxes

 I just love this project I am sharing with you all today!

It was one of those things where one day I thought, "I would love to have been able to purchase 9 burlap baskets for our upstairs landing!!" But knew that would be way too EXPENSIVE to buy.

Then it hit me....why not just buy burlap fabric and wrap it around some boxes which I bought at Office Depot (for about $3.00 or less a piece).

Here is how it all turned out!

Sorry for some of the poor quality in the photos...they were taken at night. ;)

I store children's books and novels in these baskets from back in the day when I taught elementary school.

Our kids will always have a plethora of books to read if they so choose.

Quick tip: To keep the burlap secured to the box, I just used some spray adhesive from JoAnn's and it stuck like glue!

To see how this space once looked, go here.

Overall, I think the total for each "basket" cost about $5 or $6...not too shabby I suppose!

If you are ever looking around for cheaper ways to have burlap baskets, it may not be a bad idea to make them yourself. ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

Hangin' Up More Plates

Yes, I did it again!

I hung up more chalkboard spray-painted plates that we rarely used. Instead of throwing them out, I decided that the playroom could use a little chalkboard-plated fun. Plus, it keeps things consistent around the house.

We had another blank wall space next to our rain gutter bookshelves.

So that's where the cute little plates were gonna get put up!

I thought about adding a 4th plate under the "Grow" but think 3 is good for now.

Plus, these our out of reach from our little girls' hands which like to grab EVERYTHING in sight! :)

And if anyone is wondering, our paint color in the playroom is called Wool Skein by Sherwin Williams. It's such a great neutral color and goes with so many other colors.

Thanks for stopping by!

DIY Kid Apron & "Stuff" Holder

Hello, hello!

My title is a little bit of a weird one today, isn't it?!

Well, it's true...my DIY project for the day IS in fact an apron holder for our girls and a "stuff" holder.

Here is what I did!

 

I used some left over board that we had in our garage, painted it, and added 2 pink dresser knobs that we had on hand to a storage cabinet in the playroom.

 

Now our girls have a place to hang some of their play items.

 

This was such a quick project and I'm glad I did it because it keeps some of their play things off the floor and it helps our daughters access them a little bit better.

Have you done any quick DIY projects lately?

Thanks for stopping by!

Interior Doors in Loft Painted

The loft doors I posted about earlier in the week have been painted! Hooray!!

Here's a quick look.

I love, love, LOVE them! The color helps hide dirt that we occasionally get from little toddler hands...they are easier to clean and they look fabulous! :)

I have been thinking about changing up the blue fabric on the storage bench in the loft to a darker green fabric...but for now it stays.

Whatcha think? Do you like the darker doors in here? Have you painted any in your home?

I have one more to paint up here and that's it for the loft!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Painting A Few More Doors

Slowly, but surely, I have been painting the doors in our home.

I have been using a Sherwin Williams color called Porpoise. Luckily for me, Sherwin Williams has been having a 40% off sale on their paints and supplies so I bought 3 of their sample quarts for about $12 total! That will cover the remaining doors in our house.

In one of my posts I began with painted our entryway doors and our pantry door. I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and paint the doors upstairs and so far I'm loving the look! I only have a few more to do and am taking my sweet time on them because it's been a little hard getting all these projects done around the home when we have other things we like to do as a family. :)

Here is a picture of the doors I still need to paint.

It's funny because in this picture, the doors look nice just painted white...but in person it looks better with the gray/brown color....at least I think so.

I hope to get some pictures up soon of my progress. :)

Do you still like the look of painted interior doors?

Thanks for stopping by!

Our Little Pillows

One day while I had some "free" time on my hands...doesn't happen too often with little ones, I had an idea! I wanted to make some small pillows for the dining room and the playroom but I didn't want to buy pillows...I wanted to use what I had around the house.

So...I took apart some really old, old pillows that someone gave us a while back and cut the inserts in half. Bam! I had new pillows to recover with some left over fabric and I was super excited.

The chevron pillows go well with the ones we have in the family room.

Aren't they cute?!

They fit nicely in the chairs we have for our girls in the playroom as well. 

 

And someone else approves of them...although in this picture she is trying to color one of the pillows. :) Just before this picture was taken, my daughter was actually hugging the pillow...so she likes them!

Have you ever made small pillows of your own?

Thanks for stopping by!

Loft Playroom

Hey there!

Do you have a space in your house that is set aside as a little play area for your little one(s)?

We sure do because I am not one that likes to have toys scattered all throughout the house. My husband and I try and keep our house tidy and that means that all of our kids toys have to have their own place somewhere in the house. Plus, as our kids get older, it will be a great lesson for them to learn- which is, be able to put your toys away in their designated spot around the house.

For example, we have a loft upstairs that is partly a play place for our daughters. I have mentioned parts of our loft here in this post when I built our girls storage bench. It is a great place to house their toys. :)

Here is another post about the rain gutter shelves  we put up a few months ago for all of the children's books we have too!

Here is an update to the play area I recently made...nothing major, but just a little change for now.

I moved this memo board because my daughter kept playing with the papers on the board and the push pins. I should've known better. :)

These bins hold so many toys and its a great way to keep the toys organized and off the floor when its time to clean up!

This is the IKEA LATT table that I redid...just never blogged about it but I painted the top with chalkboard paint and then added some fabric to the chairs.

And these buckets were purchased from Target for $.60 each! Great deal!
And the rod is from IKEA too!
It holds markers, crayons, and chalk for the kiddos! They love it! :)


How do you organize your children's toys?


Thanks for stopping by!