Teal Dresser

A few posts ago, I talked about remodeling our old-ish house in a way that makes all the rooms livable and presentable before tackling the nit-picky details of each room.  In keeping with that theme, I slightly remodeled the powder room on the main level since it gave me the heebie jeebies going in there before.  It was bland and dirty (no matter how hard I scrubbed, the walls looked dirty!).  The prior homeowners hired a painting company who, I swear, watered down the paint because when I scrub the walls even lightly, the paint rubs off.   And I HAVE to scrub because they also used matte paint and with three kids, matte paint doesn’t work!

Anyway, here’s the bathroom before:

The space looks a lot like the kids’ bathroom that we recently remodeled.  Beige walls, beige sink, outdated vanity, and lots of wood.  The only new thing in the bathroom is the toilet that I replaced a few months ago when it was running 24/7 and driving us crazy.  So, that’s new, but that’s it!

I didn’t want to do a whole lot to the bathroom because I wanted the remodel to be manageable.  In my pie-in-the-sky remodel, I would rip out the vanity and replace it with a pedestal sink, rip out the floors (marble baby!), and also have a half wall of marble tile all around the room and a cute little glass shelf above the toilet.  But, in the interest in just making it presentable, here’s the low-cost remodel:

I replaced the dated, frameless mirror with a mirror that I got from Home Goods which is my favorite place to find bathroom mirrors of any size.  They’re cheap and well made.  Even if you need a huge bathroom mirror, you can buy one of their full length mirrors and just hang it horizontally.  I bought a wood colored mirror that for now goes with the wood floors and wood vanity, but I expect to paint it white when phase II is ready to go.

I also replaced the light fixture from that ’80s bar light to this glass and chrome one.  It made a huge difference!  And of course, I painted the walls.  I love painting small rooms a crazy or dark color since there’s not a lot of space for your eyes to get overwhelmed.  Imagine this color in a huge room….  Too much!  The color I used was Wrought Iron my Martha Stewart at Home Depot.

Here’s the breakdown for the cost of the room re-do:

Mirror:                $40

Paint:                  $20

Light fixture:   $120

Total:  $180

More pics:

It’s a small makeover but the paint really makes a difference and now the walls are CLEAN!  I still have a big list of to-dos for this room but it will have to wait until our other “getting the house up to snuff” are finished.  Patience… sigh…

A couple days ago, I posted a mood board with Sofia’s new room design and I included this animal menagerie that I thought was so appropriate for my cutie-pie!

I got on that on this weekend and here is my version (with instructions):

And here’s a close up:

After searching, I couldn’t find a site that gave instructions on how to do this, so you’re in luck because, after doing it myself, here they are!

1.  Gather supplies:  frame with 8×10 opening (I got mine from Michael’s)

                                          plastic animals (also from Michael’s)

                                          gold spray paint

                                          white poster board

                                          sharp scissors

                                          superglue or Gorilla glue

2.  First, cut the poster board to the size of the frame opening.  The poster board should go all the way to the inside edges of the frame since it will provide the most support for the animals.

3.  Put the frame together the following way: mat, then poster board, then glass, then back of frame.  You want the glass in the frame but not showing to give even more support since the animals can be heavy.  It should look like:

4.  Cut the animals in half.  Okay, I am a big idiot and at first I broke out my power tools.  BIG FAIL!  Then I used my noggin and thought, hello, the animals are plastic, if I could just melt them a little, I could cut them with scissors, so that’s what I did.  Put each animal in the microwave for about 15 seconds at time.  After a few animals, I learned that 25 seconds was perfect for my animals but yours may be smaller or larger so play with the time a little.  The animals should be WARM but not mushy.  You just want the plastic to be soft enough to cut with scissors with moderate force.  If you can easily cut them, they’re too hot and you could deform them when you cut!

Here’s what an animal does when left in the microwave for too long:

No, that dog did not come with a weiner…. That is a melted dog leg.  Sadly, I had to throw Fido away since he was so deformed.

5.  As you cut each one, check to make sure it’s level by putting the cut side on a flat surface.  If it’s lopsided, then just take your scissors and snip away the uneveness.  If needed, warm up the animal a little to cut (I didn’t have to but you may).

6.  Spray paint all the animals.  I did one coat on each side.  I found that if you spray paint the animals in the sun, they dry super quick.  After about 15 minutes, they were completely dry.

7.  Arrange all the animals the way you eventually want them in your frame.  I did face first then butt next for all of them.  Make sure the spacing is even for all of them.  I had a tendency at first to have the head and butt of one animal close together then put a larger gap in between the next set of animal parts, but that looked bad.  Even spacing is key to have the “art piece” look right.

8.  When you’re satisfied with the spacing, put a thin layer of glue on the cut sides then push them gently onto the poster board.  Don’t use too much glue or it will seep around the animal and cause a shadow.

9.  Admire your work of art!

After I was done, I liked the piece so much that I’m thinking of doing one for the family room to put behind our arm chair or to put in the foyer.  It was also an easy project (don’t let all the steps scare you, I was just thorough!).

I wanted to paint and organize my pantry and when I took a peek inside to decide on a paint color, I saw that holy crap (!), there’s a lot of stuff in there that I bought a while ago that has been forgotten.  Dried figs, a giant bag of sesame seeds, half a box of barley, various half bags of dried fruit, and the list goes on.  So, this vegetarian family is going on a “Pantry Challenge.”  There’s been lots of blog posts written on pantry challenges, but the basic premise is to use the food in your cupboards, in your pantry, and in your freezer first before heading to the grocery store to purchase food.  If your house is like mine, you could live off of the stuff in your pantry for a couple months without having to spend money at the grocery store, but I’ve just been too lazy to use the more “exotic” items and they’ve been sitting there staring at me.  The goal of the challenge is not to eat tasteless garbage food but it’s to save some cash by not going to the store (hold out as long as possible!) and to come up with some creative recipes that you wouldn’t normally think of to make.

If you’re going to do a pantry challenge, you’ve got to fit it to your lifestyle so that’s what we’re doing.  We’re vegetarian (me and the kids, and mostly my husband) so we NEED our fruits and veggies every week and because of that, I have to buy those weekly.  I’m also going to buy necessities (soymilk=necessity, brownies=not so much!) but everything else that we eat will come from what we already have in the house.

Some people who do this like to take an inventory of what they’ve got in the pantry that needs to be used.  I am not that organized!  I just pull out a few things that I could make a menu around and put them on the counter and stare at them until inspiration comes (or I just plug in the ingredients into allrecipes.com).  For example, I really wanted to get rid of a half a box of barley and some mushrooms that I had no plans for and that were on the downslide so mushroom barley soup is what we’re having tomorrow for dinner.  I haven’t made that in a long time and it’s tasty and easy to make.  My kind of dinner!

I will try to post the recipes that turned out the best.  I’m busy and also a lazy cook so the recipes will be easy and quick!  I always work off of a base recipe that I find in a cookbook or online, but I modify it to maximize the amount of stuff I can use in my pantry.

First recipe of the challenge:

Super Easy Mushroom Barley Soup

1 cup barley (I used quick cooking barley but you could use slow cooking too)

6 cups veggie broth

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, thinly sliced

2 (10 ounce) packages sliced mushrooms

2 cups of any veggies that are about to go bad! (I did half a green

pepper, parsley, some thinly cut spinach, and a few diced squash)

1 cup of sherry or white wine

Salt and pepper to taste

1.  Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat, stir in the onions, carrots, and the rest of the veggies MINUS the mushrooms; cook and stir until the veggies have softened and turned translucent, about 10 minutes. Stir in mushrooms and cook 5 minutes more.

2.    Pour in sherry or white wine and cook for a couple more minutes.

3.    Pour in the veggie broth, and bring soup to a boil over medium-high heat, then stir in the barley and continue simmering until the barley is soft.  Season with salt and pepper before serving.

I’m serving this with the three half eaten boxes of crackers that I found in the pantry.  With this recipe, I got rid of the mushrooms, the half box of barley, the veggies that I had in the fridge that were half eaten/used, and a few half eaten boxes of crackers.  Not bad for one recipe!

My goal after a month is to save some cash and to have a more minimized pantry so that when I do paint and organize, I’m not throwing away a bunch of perfectly good food to make room for my OCD organization!

Here is my pantry before the challenge:

It’s almost too embarrassing to post!  But, there it is in all its messy glory.  I’m really hoping that by the end of this challenge, it’s much more minimized and organized!

Sofia, my 12 year old daughter, needed and wanted a bedroom makeover.  I always call Sofia “my odd bird” (in an endearing way ) and I wanted her room to reflect her quirky personality.  Sofia loves to read, loves music, loves her little puggles, and loves Abe Lincoln (that’s right, Abraham Lincoln).  She wanted green and purple in her room but not in that elegant purple and green combo way; she wanted funk.    After taking her to look at paint samples and both of us getting frustrated, she said, “Mom, you know what I like and so long as there’s green and purple in the room, you just design the room and surprise me.”  That’s exactly what I needed to hear to go nuts!

I started researching online and found the following things that I thought would be perfect for her:

I love the eclecticness of this room!  It’s minimal but still colorful.  The colors tie in together but it’s not too matchy-matchy.  To pull this off, you have to have white or close to white walls otherwise it’s color overload.

Purple and green with Abe Lincoln!  It’s like this designer was reading Sofia’s mind!  I also like the green lamp and hot pink accents.

Gold severed animals as artwork, who wouldn’t love that?!  Sofia loves animals but because she’s quirky, I’m going to replicate this artwork using the animal BUTTS instead.  She’ll love it!

This is a keeper because I want to do one accent wall with these ombre chevron stripes but the stripes are going to be lime green at the bottom going to soft green at the top.

So with all these ideas, I made a mood board since the best way for me to see if things are going to work when I do a room from scratch, is to make a board.

Purple, orange, and lime green are the main colors with punches of pink and to neutralize the room, gray and white.

1.     A gray bedspread anchors the room and gives the eye a rest since the accents in the room are so colorful.  I got the bedspread from Marshall’s for $40.

2.    This colorful tapestry is from Urban Outfitters for $39 and it will lie on the foot of Sofia’s bed to give the bedding a little color.

3.    Sofia loves music!  This headphone print is from ZGallerie and will be in the collage above Sofia’s bed along with Abe, the turntable, and the Keep Calm print.  It was $40 for the print.

4.    Same collection of prints as the headphones.  $40 from ZGallerie.

5.    Sofia is also an avid reader and I got this print from the Keep Calm store on Etsy for $20.

6.    Every girl’s room needs a gaudy, plastic, purple chandelier.  This one is from Amazon for $118 but I’m going to try to find a similar one on Craigslist and just paint it to keep costs down.

7.    I got 2 little knobs from Urban Outfitters for $10 for the pair to serve as pullbacks for Sofia’s curtains.

8.    This little wooden jar is from Urban Outfitters for $10 and is perfect for Sofia’s retainer that she leaves on her nightstand that one day I’m afraid is going to become a dog treat…

9.    Lampshade from Target to go onto the lime green lamp base which will sit on her nightstand.  $26

10.  Lamp base from Target for $36.

11.  Awesomely colorful rug from Urban Outfitters for a whopping $18.  It’s only a 3×5 but it’s going to go at the foot of her bed and should be just the right size.

12.  Neutral curtains from Urban Outfitters for $29 per panel.  Great deal!

13.  The Abe Lincoln print from Zazzle for $19.

So, that’s all I’ve ordered for now.  I’m still looking for some pillows for the bed which I might sew myself since I am trying to keep the costs down!  Overall, I’d like to keep the makeover under $500 and so far I’m at $357 plus I still need to paint…

When we moved into our house from the townhouse, I realized that there were a few extra rooms that we were gaining that I didn’t have in the townhouse.  A formal living room was one.  So, I started buying a few pieces here and there and storing it in the townhouse.  There wasn’t a lot of room in the townhouse to begin with so you can imagine I was looking forward to moving ASAP to get the extra furniture in their proper rooms and out of our way (there were a lot of bruised hips and toes for a couple months).  Our formal living room is one of the first rooms I started designing in my head, and buying a few pieces for, even before moving.

I wanted to have an eclectic living room and I really liked the below living room designed by Elaine Griffin published in Better Homes and Gardens:

Using my inspiration photo I came up with this living room arrangement, which seeing them side by side, I realize that they are very different, but I think the flavor is similar.  I’d like to take down the wallpaper that came with the house and paint the walls either a soft blue or soft green.

I used a lot of layering in this arrangement mirrors, stool, chair, side table.  Everything is layered.  I think that’s important when you have a small room that is essentially just a rectangle with no real architectural features except for the bay window.

The piano occupies the other side of the living room.

Side couch view

Close up of the side of couch

Coffee table objects

Pics of the kids above the piano (I still have to put a photo into the gold frame)

And finally the teal dresser that the website is named after!

     There’s a space next to the piano that I need to fill with a comfy chair, but I haven’t seen one that I like for the right price.  In addition to tearing down the wallpaper and painting, I’d also love to replace the carpet with hardwoods and find a beautiful area rug to add even more color.

     Creating this room was a lot cheaper than the designer room that I based the room off of.  The teal dresser was a free piece of furniture that a friend was going to throw away.  It was sort of an eyesore since it was old (it belonged to her grandfather) and it was dusty, but it was well built so I asked her to have it and a few coats of paint later, it was fit for the living room.

     Most of the knick-knacks were from Target, Pottery Barn or West Elm (when I had a coupon), or Michaels with a coupon (the vases on the teal dresser) so I saved money there.  I got the two light blue chairs with a Groupon for a furniture store in my area and the mirrors were either from Home Goods (the large brownish mirror) or from my childhood (the gold mirror).  The end tables and little bee stool near the mirrors were from Ballard Designs (it was one of their “Bring Home Ballard” deals).

     Curtains were from Pottery Barn (again on sale).  The only truly costly items were the couch (Ethan Allan) because I wanted it to last a long time and I knew it could withstand the stomp of our family since it was in the “formal” living room which is used a whole lot less than the family room.  The piano also cost a boatload but my kids all take piano lessons weekly and Sofia has a “gift for piano” (her instructor’s words, not mine… I don’t know diddly squat about playing piano) so I wanted them to have a nice instrument that they could grow with.  Our first piano I got from Salvation Army for $100 because I didn’t know if the kids would be interested enough to stick with piano but then we upgraded when I saw the motivation kick in.  So, oddly enough, our current piano is actually the most expensive piece of furniture in the house which doesn’t say a lot!  Good luck truckin’ off with that robbers!

     Still working on what color to paint Sofia’s room.  She’s thinking green and purple.  I’m thinking not… but it’s her room.  We’re off to look at paint samples after school today and hopefully it will be painted in the next few days.

In the spirit of making the house presentable without busting our budget, the kids’ bathroom is the first room to get a coin-friendly makeover.  The bathroom was not touched by the previous homeowners in 25 years so it was an outdated ’90s nightmare.  I hated going in there to occasionally clean it so, I made the kids’ clean it so I wouldn’t have to claim its existence.  Here are the befores:

Lowdown: Builder grade cabinet, yellowing sink and countertop, outdated hardware, cracked toilet (but it didn’t leak), beige stained walls, beige tub, beige tile, black grout, outdated fixtures, huge old mirror, dark shower curtain (I took it down so it’s not visible in pic), the list of atrocities goes on and on…

And here are the afters:

Better, right?

Another one

HELLO!

The vanity

It turned out so much nicer than I thought it would on a budget.  Initially, I wanted to gut the entire thing, but because I wanted to have some money for other rooms, here’s what I did instead:

Painted the walls Palladian Blue by BM            $25

Painted the vanity Stratton Blue by BM         $15

Painted the ceiling white by Behr                        Leftover so FREE

Changed the hardware on the vanity             $12

Scrubbed the crap out of the grout                  FREE

Sealed the grout using grout sealer                  $5

Put up artwork (Target and Home Goods)    $50

Shower curtain                                                               $50

Towel Hooks (Target)                                                  $23

New bath mat (Target)                                               $20

Hamper (Bed, Bath, and Beyond)                        $24

New soap dispenser                                                     $10

New outlet and light switch                                       $20

Grand Total                                                        $254

Now for the deats:  I wanted a beach theme for the bathroom but not the “hit you over the head” kind of theme; I wanted subtlety.  I also wanted the bathroom to be coral and blue/green with hints of tan but I wasn’t sure which colors would be the leads and which would play supporting roles.  Then I saw these ombre, coral curtain panels at Target and I had my color scheme: walls-blue/green; shower curtain- coral; accessories- tan.  So beachy, right?

The window curtains went from this:

to this:

with a little sewing.  I just bought two curtain panels and sewed them together the same width as the old shower curtain then I shortened the curtain again using the old shower curtain as a template and presto!: a new ombre shower curtain.  Because it’s not made from typical shower curtain material, I Scotchgarded the crap out of it so that it’s more washable.  I’m also hoping that the steam from the kids’ shower will pull out the wrinkles in the curtain, because I wasn’t about to iron it!

     I painted the walls Palladian Blue because that to me is a perfect blue/green bathroom color and because my sister recommended it and she’s got a great eye for wall color.  Thanks Nancy .  I also painted the vanity a couple shades darker than the walls because initially I painted it white but it clashed with the countertop which is staying (for now).  The vanity is Stratton Blue and it looks great against the wall color.  I also put on new handles that I got at Lowe’s.  It really classed up the vanity.  The ceiling also went from beige to bright white.  It’s amazing how much more open and bigger a space looks with a fresh coat of bright white on the ceiling.

Now the not-so-fun part:  I spent three hours scrubbing the dingy grout with bleach gel from Clorox and by the time I was done, I ruined a pair of pants, and couldn’t smell anything but bleach for hours… but, the grout went from this:

to this:

It was a huge difference!  After all that scrubbing, I didn’t want the grout to turn grimy again in a few weeks, so I applied grout sealer.  Hopefully, the grout will stay white…

     Back to the fun part: Artwork and accessories.  I got the coral prints from Home Goods and was so happy that they were coral and tan, my accent colors (that was just luck as is most finds at Home Goods!).  The towel hooks under the artwork is from Target.  There was a traditional towel bar initially hanging, but it could only fit two towels.  The new towel hook can fit 5 towels which is so much better since three kids are sharing this bathroom.   

On the other side of the bathroom, I hung some shell artwork from Target which also had tan in it (the burlap mat) so it tied in perfectly.

A tan bathroom mat from Target rounded out the accessories.  BTW, the mat was so soft and plush that my son took a nap on it in the bathroom.  Should have snapped a pic of that one… darn.

     Overall, I’m so happy with how the bathroom turned out especially for the money I spent.  I think it’s definitely presentable now and phase 2 will be a while off yet but here are the to-be done additions:

• New vanity (I LOVE how this one turned out, but there’s still not enough storage for three kids, so it eventually has to go…)
• New floor (Even with the shiny, white grout, the floor is still outdated so I’d love to install marble tiles eventually)
• New tub (white please!)
• New tile in shower (marble subway tile would be perfect)
• New toilet (even though ours is cracked, it doesn’t leak so it’s staying for now)
• Scaled down mirror
• Shelves over the toilet for more storage

That list is easily another $1K which is why it’s a list and not reality!  On to making the next room presentable!!!

Since moving into our house about two years ago, I tried to be organized about the home projects I tackled by taking it one room at a time.  But then I looked around and saw that, yeah, one room is exactly the way I wanted it but the rest of the house was either really outdated or in some instances kind of gross (we live in an old, well loved house where most of the rooms hadn’t been remodeled in 20+ years).

So, I’m trying something new and calling it “Project Presentable” (formerly known as “Project Unfunkafy!”).  It goes like this: If I were to invite someone over, would this room be presentable?  If the answer is “yes”, great, move on to the next room.  If the answer is “no” then make a list of the things that need to be done just to make it presentable and tackle only those projects and no more.  The rationale is that I want to use my time and budget to get my house looking decent first before I go nuts and make it perfect.

In my house, some of the rooms made the “presentable” cut, and some didn’t.  Here are some of the rooms I would cringe if someone walked into them in the state they’re in:

 This is the kids’ bathroom that also doubles as the guest bathroom and it’s dingy and dark and just plain nasty!  Everything is beige except for the grout which is a beautiful shade of “gross.”

This beautiful bathroom is our powder room.  It follows the same decor as the kids’ bathroom: beige and outdated.

 Our kitchen.  The cabinets are outdated and old and the floor is linoleum.  At least the countertops are granite (small miracles…).

So, after the walk-through, my husband and I decided to tackle the yucky parts in each room to at least get them up to snuff.  It would be nice to focus on one room and get it perfect (I’d love a brand new kitchen!), but then that leaves no time let alone money in the budget to handle even the little things that annoy me in the other parts of the house.   So house projects from now on will focus on inexpensive fixes to make the house look nice, but not perfect.

For example, I really want to tackle the kids’ bathroom because my sister is coming at the end of the month and this is the bathroom she’ll use and I want it to be presentable.  Normally I would go hog wild and rip out just about everything.  Here’s my old list:

Rip out the floors and install new ones

Demolish the outdated vanity and replace it with something with much more storage and much prettier

Replace all fixtures to include the faucet and shower head

Paint the walls and ceiling

Replace the toilet with something more water efficient and without a hairline crack at the bottom of the commode

Replace the light bar above the mirror

Re-tile the shower surround

Replace the huge, outdated, frameless mirror

Get a new shower curtain and accessories

Replace all outlets and light switches

Estimated Cost:  about $2,500

But, under Project Presentable, I’m not going nuts like that because it will take too long and will put too much of a crimp into my budget that I could use to make another room presentable.  So here’s my new list:

Paint (such a cheap, dramatic fix)

Scrub the crap out of the grout on the floor and in the shower

Buy some inexpensive baskets for bathroom storage under the vanity

Paint the old vanity

New shower curtain and accessories

Replace the outlets and light switch

Estimated Cost:  about $175

It’s so much cheaper to do it this way and then the bathroom is not perfect but it’s PRESENTABLE.  That’s the goal!  Make one room presentable then move on the next and do the same.  If anyone tackles their house projects differently, I’d love to hear it.

The chandelier in the foyer is gone and in it’s place is some serious bling!  But, as usual, there were some mis-steps on my part before arriving to the final light fixture.  Here was what was originally in the foyer:

It’s the Belora Chandelier from Pottery Barn and I loved it when I got it but I’m an idiot and didn’t take into account that our ceilings are low, so it ended up hitting anyone in the head who was over 5’9″.  Luckily, my family consists of short people, but when “normal” people came over, we always had to warn them to watch their head.  And in the case of the kids’ piano teacher who comes once a week and who is tall, he hit his head on the thing just about every week even with the warning!

It was also too wide and when we opened the front door, the door banged into the light.  About half the time, the really heavy crystal balls would fall off when that happened and either land on the ground (“whew”) or land on someone’s head (“sorry….”).  What a way to welcome guests into your home, right!  ”DUCK and try not to break our chandelier!”

See the heavy, concussion-causing, crystal balls?!

So, I knew that I needed something that was either flush against the ceiling since the ceilings are low, or maybe semi-flush if it didn’t hang down too low.  I went to Lamps Plus online and found a light that I thought might’ve worked, but as my husband ALWAYS points out, I’m really good at getting things right the second time around.  So here’s what didn’t work:

It was super easy to install but I didn’t like it because it didn’t go with the “theme” of the foyer… It was too modern whereas, the foyer, and really the whole house except for my husband’s traditional office, is eclectic.  It was a nice fixture and I liked it but I just didn’t like it in MY house.

I went back to Lamps Plus because their selection is huge , their prices are reasonable, and I knew I’d find something else when I came across this light for about $300:

It was love at first sight!  It’s a little fancy because of the crystals but it’s also eclectic because of the “cage” around the crystals.  After a quick 20 minute installation, viola!

See how well it goes with the dentil detail in the crown molding?   And, I love how I can see the light from the two mirrors in the living room.  It also puts out major wattage since the bulbs that came with it are halogen so when it’s turned on, the entire foyer is bright, bright, bright!

This is a picture of it looking up which I did a lot the first night I installed it because it was mesmerizing!  Also, when the light’s on, it makes a pattern on the ceiling that is an extra little plus:

Now everyone’s happy, my piano teacher with the soon-to-be lump free head, the kids because they love the pattern the light makes, my husband because of the price, and me because it really is a beautiful light!

I love to re-purpose, especially if that re-purposing involves spray paint so when we replaced the mirror above our mantel with artwork and the mirror was homeless (poor mirror ) I busted out my spray paint and got busy.  The last we saw of the mirror, it was gold and shiny above the mantle:

But then it got the boot and was replaced with a canvas print that just looked a lot better in the space.

I loved the shape of the mirror but not so much the color so I grabbed some paint from Home Depot and got to sprayin’ that bad boy:

First I covered the mirror with scrap paper that I just shoved between the mirror and the frame.

It actually worked out really well when I sprayed because hardly any paint landed on the mirror and what little bit did, I just scraped off with a razor blade.

Then I spray painted about 10 light coats of Rustoleum Satin Paint in Summer Squash and viola, the finished product:

It makes me happy to see that mirror right when I walk into our house .  You can see where our front door is from the reflection in the mirror, it really is right when you walk in.  Here’s another pic:

The wall color is Edgecomb Gray by Benjamin Moore (a shade lighter than Revere Pewter) and love how the yellow and gray look together.  I scored the basket on clearance from Target.  I love Target…

The little table is from Ballard Designs and was free because I bought one for the office that was a little off kilter when I put it together (the screw holes wouldn’t line up correctly), so Ballard, being the great company they are, sent me another one for free and told me I could keep the original one since it was almost all put together.  I fixed the original one by breaking out the drill and making the holes bigger then superglueing the screws in the holes- something I didn’t want to do if Ballard wanted me to return the original!

With the addition of the funky gold and coral chair and now the mirror, the foyer is coming along nicely!  Next on the list is replacing our too-low hanging chandelier that always hits people in the head when they walk into our house…  Welcome to our home!  Sorry about the concussion!  More on that later.

A while ago I posted this chair that I love:

I like the simple lines and especially the fact that it was bi-colored and BLUE (my favorite accent color).  It looked like an easy, quick project so I definitely wanted to DIY one for my house.  I checked out a couple donation stores and found a chair at Goodwill for $10 that I thought I could work with:

The lines weren’t as clean as I wanted, but I thought that if it didn’t look the way I wanted after I was done with it, I could always give it to the kids for their treehouse (which is where all our cast-offs go).  I wanted to paint the bottom gold and the top coral since even though I love blue, I’ve learned that I have to stay away from blue as much as I can since that is my go-to color and my house is at risk of looking like the Smurfs live here if I’m not careful!

The first step was to get all the gloss off the wood with a liquid de-glosser.  I used TSP de-glosser that I picked up at Home Depot.

I wanted the bottom of the chair to be gold because the chair was going in the foyer and right next to the foyer is my living room which has gold accents and I wanted the two spaces to relate to each other.  So, I flipped the chair upside down in the grass and started spray painting the legs using Rustoleum gold spray paint.

I sprayed about 10 very light coats and let the coats dry for about 10 minutes between coats.  I was so happy with the results after I was done because the legs were shiny, bump free, and drip free.  I high-fived myself for picking a project that was easy and awesome but then came painting the top part, and soon I was kicking myself in the rear!

I decided to use latex paint for the top of the chair because I couldn’t find the color that I wanted in spray paint; although I did find a website where you give them the paint color from any manufacturer and they make spray paint out of it but it was really expensive (like $20 a can) and I wanted this to be an inexpensive project.  So, latex paint is what I worked with and after lots of headaches and drips and sanding and time and cursing, I came up with:

It was way too light on the top and when my husband saw it and said, “I didn’t know you were going for the old lady South Beach look,” I knew I needed to reevaluate the color.  So after spending about three hours painting this atrocious color, I went back to Home Depot and picked out a brighter version and got this:

This was too dark and sadly, still ugly so I lightened it:

Still terrible.  And at this point, I had so many coats on the chair that there were bumps, brush marks, drips and general ugliness.

Even if the color was perfect, which it wasn’t, I couldn’t live with all those imperfections!  I even tried thinning out the latex paint before painting and the paint still globbed in lots of places, so I did the only rational thing and spent the next 2 days stripping all paint that wasn’t gold.  I used Citristrip which is an environmentally friendly gel stripper and had to apply 3 coats since I had so many coats of paint to strip.

After stripping the chair, and going to 5 different stores, I found a spray paint that would work called Coral Isle by Krylon and after another 10 coats I finally got it right with no bumps, drips, globs, and no cursing!

See how the gold in the chair relates to the gold mirror and accents in the living room?

I even found a cute little pillow at Target for $5 that I think goes well with the chair.

The next step is to add some art above the chair with blue accents to break up all that coral a little.  In the spirit of trying to do this with as little cash as possible, I’m going to DIY the artwork and already have some ideas that I think might work.  I’ll let you know when I come up with something that is share-able!

Notes from this project:  USE SPRAY PAINT!!!  It leaves no brush marks and if you spray light coats, no drips.  I will for evermore use spray paint to refinish furniture because I value my sanity.