New entertainment center

Kent had been wanting a new TV because the video game system hook-ups on our old TV were wearing out and we always were banging on the TV or having to jiggle the wires to keep the sound and picture up. We had had our TV since we first got married 13 years ago!

 So since he wanted a flat screen, we were going to have to get a new entertainment center for it to be able to fit.  I love the wardrobe entertainment center that my sister-in-law has, so I looked on Craig's list for one I could refinish.  Found one for $75 that was real wood and in really good condition, besides missing the shelf inside the cabinet.

I didn't get a before picture, but it was honey colored with a wooden swirly thing as decoration in the middle of the top section and ugly hardware.  I decided that I wanted my big furniture to be neutrals so that if I ever want to change the colors in my living room, all I would need to replace would be curtains, pillows, etc  Much less expensive than large pieces of furniture!  Anyway, so I painted it black and still need to replace the hardware (probably a brushed nickel color).  I ripped off the swirly thing too.  I love the crown molding on it!  It was a pain in the rear to paint around that silly TV stand  and the door tracks inside though.

 

I knew I would be losing shelf space, and couldn't decide if I wanted to just put shelves on the wall, but then I found these awesome solid wood shelves on Craig's List again - both together only costing $60!  They had the crown molding and were much taller with deeper shelves than any book shelf I looked at in the stores and online.  I couldn't wait to get started on them!  I had this perfect vision of what it would all look like put together.

  After realizing we needed to anchor the shelves to the entertainment center so they wouldn't fall over, Kent figured out a way to attach them.  I finally figured out placement of all my pictures and decor and this is the final product!  We also bought and painted a shelf for the cabinet so we could have ample room for all our DVDs, video games and video game systems.  Kent bought a device that you can plug up to 4 different things in it so you don't have to keep changing out the wires for the different systems.  That is such a great thing!  We got the flat screen from my grandma, so after it was all said and done, we spent about $250 for this entire solid wood entertainment center!  I looked online at solid wood entertainment centers and they were in the 1000s of dollars!  I just love getting such a bargain on quality items!

Kids' room make-overs

I don't think I ever posted pictures of when I made-over the boys' room, so since I sort of changed up the girls' room with Callie's new big girl bed, I figured I would just post pictures of both rooms.

Here is the boys' room before:

Here is the after:

I painted one of the dressers, got the headboards from my Grandma, Julie made the drawing on the wall for Kent a few years ago, but it went perfectly with their room that I decided to put it in there.

I found this shelf at the Goodwill and loved it.  I painted it white and loved it.  I am kicking myself now because there was another one just like it and I should have bought it so that both boys would have his own shelf, but I was trying to not spend a lot of money so I didn't.  UGH!  Now I totally regret my decision!  I repainted the boys' initials (except the blue ones) to match the room too.

My SIL, Erin, made this cute French picture holder for me and it also went perfectly in their room, so I found some pictures I loved and made prints to hang on it.  It turned out so great!

So here is the girls' room before:

 And the after:

We are going to add some throw pillows to add more colors from the sheets and make the quilt a bit more girly looking.  Morgan may even make some herself!

I wanted to do something else to add the colors of their sheets to their room, so I found some ribbon I had and bought a few more colors to match and then glued them to the lampshade.  I love the way it turned out!

I found this nightstand at the Goodwill and painted it white.  The shelf below is perfect for a bright basket of books!  My SIL, Kelly, gave Morgan the CTR shield for her baptism.  Morgan wants a cute alarm clock to add to her nightstand. :)

The other dresser we used when Callie was a baby was perfect for a changing table, but there just wasn't enough room for it anymore, so I inherited my Grandma's dresser and painted it this bright, cheery yellow.

 I really want to get the boys and Morgan loft beds so they have room for a desk or some more storage because their rooms just won't fit much else besides their beds and dressers.  Morgan is dying for a desk, so maybe for her birthday this year we can make that happen.  BUT I do love the way it all turned out and I was able to do it so inexpensively!

New furniture!!!

So after 12 years of marriage, we FINALLY bought our OWN, NEW furniture!!!  I have been waiting for this day for a LOOOONG time! :)  It was a lot of fun looking for just the right style and size and especially fun picking out the pillows!  I love the light aqua blue and wanted to incorporate it into my color scheme, but didn't have the budget to completely throw all my other decor (which I still loved!) away and start over, so I was ESTATIC to find a fabric pattern that had ALL the colors I wanted in it PLUS I loved the pattern!

 This one-and-a-half chair can fit two people comfortably, and FOUR kids a bit uncomfortably. :)

Since I didn't have any aqua blue decor, I used some of my birthday money and bought this awesome little ceramic vase.  I also added the flowers I used for Morgan's baptism to the mantle as well.

Before getting the furniture and pillows, I was thinking that I wanted to paint this little table the aqua blue for another pop of color, but once I had everything in place, I realized that if I painted it blue, it would be too much blue since I have two blue pillows as well.  So I thought about painting it red, but then my sister pointed out that my curtains are pretty bland against the wall and that maybe I should use the red for the curtains, which would then leave me wondering what color to paint the table again.  I don't know yet.  But I do like the idea of getting red curtains.  Maybe with Christmas money I can do that.

I haven't had anything on top of the entertainment center since we moved here except for displaying Morgan's baptism pictures, so I decided to add some color to the room that way too.  I saw this beautiful red ceramic platter at Hobby Lobby, but 1) it was WAY to expensive and 2) it was ceramic and BIG, so I didn't want it to get broken by some toy being thrown around.  SO I remembered I had this fun silver platter that I could transform into a "faux" ceramic platter - a lot less expensive and definitely less breakable!  It turned out great!  So now, besides painting the dresser at some point, I am pretty much done updating and decorating my house!  I love it all and it makes me so happy looking at it every day!  If I am going to be home, then I want to enjoy my surroundings! :)

A new look!

So Kent's aunt and uncle gave this hutch to us about 6 or 7 years ago.  From the beginning I wanted to update it but for some reason Kent wanted to hold on to the look of it since it had been passed down to "him".  I think he thought it was treasured family heirloom passed down from generation to generation or something.  After asking his aunt, she said she had just bought it at some garage sale for $75.  But Kent had some kind of attachment to it and still didn't want me to do anything about it.  Why a guy cared about what a hutch looked like, is still kind of a mystery to me.  When we asked all his brothers if they would care whether their wives painted and updated a piece of furniture, they all said they could care less.  It was kind of a sore subject between us and I think he was just being stubborn, BUT I won't go into all that. :)  Anyway, once we bought a house with a fence and he was able to get another dog, he FINALLY agreed to letting me update this piece of furniture that had HUGE potential!  So, I used some of my birthday money to buy the paint and new knobs and handles for it.  Here is the before (it also used to have glass paneled doors  on the two upper sides that I took off a while ago so I was able to showcase things better):

 

Look at those spindles! I tried rearranging and adding things to see how I wanted it to look after I painted it all.

After A LOT of puddying in old holes and re-drilling new holes (b/c it was so old they didn't make pull handles that size anymore!) priming, painting, touching up, and adding the new hardware - it was finally finished!!  I am TOTALLY in love with it!

 

My friend recently repainted and added new knobs to a buffet she bought at a garage sale and used all different knobs.  I LOVED the idea, so I copied it!

Look! No more spindles!!!

 I have an old, mid century style, long, low dresser that a friend of mine from college gave us when Tyler was just a baby that I am also going to paint black and add the same/similiar knobs to.  The two pieces of furniture are totally different styles, but I think the black and the knobs will tie them both together nicely.  It was perfect to use as a baby changing table with lots of room for baby clothes, diapers, AND blankets/burp cloths, BUT since we are done having kids and we didn't have room for it in the kids' rooms, I moved it downstairs to give us lots more storage for "stuff".

The rest of my birthday money went to updating the decor in the family room that will match our NEW FURNITURE AND PILLOWS that we are getting next week!  Once I get it all put together, I will post pictures!

Bathroom Makeover

The kids' bathroom was the last one I ended up painting and updating.  I finally got it finished in time for Morgan's baptism.  I. LOVE. IT!!!!  It turned out just awesome!  I still want to add a shelf to the left of the sink and put some trinkets on it, but I haven't gotten a chance to do that yet.  Anway here are the before shots:

Ducks with waves on the wall????? I don't think so!  And that towel rack is in a horrible place!

 

So I sanded down the "waves", primed it twice and painted it twice, plus painted all the trim.  

I also changed the hardware to match the other bathrooms in the house and moved the towel rod.

Even though you really can't tell in the pictures, it seems A LOT brighter even though I haven't changed the lighting in there yet.  Kent really likes the color b/c it is a super light blue, and I like that it isn't just plain white!  I am so happy with the way it turned out!

 

 

Desk Makeover!

So I have this corner in our office space that is COMPLETELY unorganized, cluttered and DRIVING ME CRAZY! I REALLY needed something to help organize it all, so when I found this desk for $10 I couldn't resist! As long as it was sturdy, I had a vision to make it cute and very useful!

From drab, dull and outdated:

To fun, cute and totally updated!

I always thought it would be so fun to have a built-in window seat in our room because we have the perfect cut-out wall space for it, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, so I decided to put my "new" desk there instead. I am using it to sit my sewing machine and sewing box on as well as a place to store my other crafty project supplies, like fabric, headbands, silk flowers, etc. I found the idea of using ribbon instead of hardware to save on cost in some magazine I read a long time ago, but I can't find all my torn out magazine page ideas, so I'm glad I remembered it! I LOVE the way it looks! Now I just need to find a cute chair I can re-d0 to match it.

Photo frame project

Remember the empty frame I needed to fill? Well, here is the project I was working on to fill this frame. My cousin did this and I just "love" (ha!) the idea since it works perfectly with the number of kids I have. It took a few tries to get Callie to stay still and smile, but I finally got a cute one. Now my collage is complete!

"A" collage

Do you remember my "A" wall?

Well, it didn't seem to be in the right place after putting up all the photos next to the fireplace. It just seemed like there was too much going on in the family room and since I finally finished painting the stairwell wall, it was big and bare and needed something. So I just moved my "A"collage over to this wall and added these pictures of the kids that I have been wanting to hang up. I love how it turned out. Now, every time I walk into the house I see my adorable children smiling at me.

Here is a straight forward look at it. I am going to do this cute idea with the 4-picture frame, but haven't gotten a chance to do it yet (you know what I'm talking about, Angie! :) Now that I have 4 kids I can do it!). I will definitely share when I do!