Tag Archives: Thrift

Home Improvement, New Life for Furnishngs

From Drab To Fab: Days 5-8–Trunks, Budgets, and Life

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It’s been a super busy week here at Casa Stevens. Here’s a summary of what I’ve been up to in my efforts to get this house done.

Day Five: Tuesday Touch Up

Most of the day was spent touching up the paint in the formal living and dining rooms.  I also worked on the vintage steamer trunk, which is coming along nicely. I started working on this on Sunday (Aug 11). It was tough work getting it prepped for priming.  Here is the before & after shot (of primer, not paint).

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Already looking better with just a few coats of Primer

Day Six: Mom Duties Called

I had to take the entire day off to finish up my daughter’s school clothes shopping.  In all, it was the most pleasant day that I’ve had in at least two weeks.  She even found her homecoming dress on sale at the Goodwill for $10!

Day Seven: Project Budget and Number Crunching

I spent the majority of my day using Excel to create my itemized budget worksheet and virtual shopping lists (thanks Home Depot!).  Though it was time consuming, I broke each project down into categories and created expense columns which included projected costs, actual costs, and a column for the difference.  I made sure to include a good amount of money for incidentals in each category.  The hubby was pleased.  This way we will know exactly where we stand budget wise for each project. This should keep us on track and prevent us from running out of dough before we are done.

I also finished up the painting of the chandelier and bought a new chain for it.

Day Eight:  School Prep

Unfortunately, I had to take yet another day off from getting the house done.  At least sitting at the PC and working on the budget was a necessity for this overhaul of the house.  Friday was the day I got all my ducks lined up for my fall semester at UCCS.  Buying textbooks, turning in forms, and getting familiar with the campus (locating my classes) was in no means how meant to spend my Friday, but I’m glad I could check it off of my very long to-do list!

Home Decor Projects

Updated Rococo Style Vintage (70’s) Wall Mirror

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I found this fantastic mirror at the thrift store for $6.99, but It was purple tag day, so it was marked 30% off! I just couldn’t pass it up! I had been wanting one for a long time to finish off a wall in my modern glam living room…and even Mr. Wallet couldn’t say no to $4.90.

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The mirror and frame were extremely dusty, so my first step was to clean the whole thing.  First, I removed the mirror, then I sprayed a light solution of TSP (yes I know it’s bad stuff) over the frame and scrubbed all the crevices with a nylon brush. After thoroughly rinsing it, I set it in the sun to dry.

The next step in the project was priming.  I used short bursts with the spray.  I wanted to be very careful not to apply too much, as the primer and paint can pool up in the crevices.

I let the primer dry for 24 hours because We had a bit of a late afternoon thundershower which caused the humidity in the garage to rise.

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It is already starting to look fabulous! Next up: High Gloss Black Spray Paint.

Two coats of this stuff, and it looks like the real deal!

Rococo Mirror
Rococo Mirror

Perfect fit for my modern glam wall.

Rococo Glam Wall
Rococo Glam Wall

I’d say it’s a pretty close match to my Inspiration Design Board.

OB-Modern Glam Liv Room

Just in case you forgot how ugly the mirror was here’s a lovely before and after photo.

Vintage Sewing Box

Home Decor Projects, Home Improvement, New Life for Furnishngs

From Drab to Fab: Days Two and Three–Window Treatment and Rococo Wall

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Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend.  We (I) got a few things done over the weekend around the house–but not even close to what was on the list.

Here’s what went down on Saturday:

I underestimated the time and ease of changing the hardware for our window treatment.  The previous owner had heavy red curtains in the large picture window.

Original Window Treatment
Original Window Treatment

I took those down eons ago, but we’ve been living with the window looking like this for the past 3 years:

Living Room Window
Living Room Window

We don’t spend much time in this room, and I put all of my energy over the past 4 years into the bedrooms and my office.  So this room just kind of stayed in a half-done state for a long time.

I removed the rest of the old hardware–not too difficult, though it was a pain in my neck. Literally.

Next up was installing the new hardware. We have a very long window and a very small budget, so we used a simple dual rod from Home Depot and added extensions.

Dual Curtain Rods and Extensions
Dual Curtain Rods and Extensions

Since we weren’t hanging any heavy drapes these are perfect.

However, because of the odd window cove–I have no idea what the actual architectural term is–getting the hardware just right was very challenging.  I had to change the postion of the hardware three times.  On the third try, the first rod hooked onto the hardware perfectly, but the valance rod didn’t. Hubby had to use pliers to manipulate the rod into place.  Insert string of expletives here.

The Hubby--manipulating the rod into place
The Hubby–manipulating the rod into place

When it was finally done I jumped for joy.

New Window Treatment
New Window Treatment

The best part is–the wood blinds are still there! But, we will replace this cheapo rod system with the Kvartal ceiling track system from Ikea before we leave.

My favorite part of the day was turning two old planter sconces into shelves. The tutorial post can be found here.

But here’s a quick recap of what I did.

Turning a Planter Sconce Into a Wall Shelf
Turning a Planter Sconce Into a Wall Shelf

The most challenging part of this project was figuring out how to mount it in such a way that it could hold heavy items.

I was SO proud when I figured it out.  I made a mounting bracket.

Here’s my almost finished Glam wall.

Rococo Glam Wall
Rococo Glam Wall

So that’s what I did on Day two. I think it was a pretty good day overall.

Sunday took an entirely different route.

Because I really want to get the formal living room completely done in the next couple of weeks, I decided to do what I love most: DIY Furniture makeovers.

I’ve been wanting to get my old steamer trunk refurbished as a coffee table for the past month and felt that this was  an opportune time to get started.

I think I made decent progress.

Steamer Trunk Progress
Steamer Trunk Progress

That sums up Days One and Two.  Now on to Day Three–More work on the trunk.

Home Decor Projects, Home Improvement, New Life for Furnishngs

Repurposed Vintage Plant Sconce

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I found these vintage plant sconces from the 1970’s at the thrift store for about $3 (for both) and just knew that they would look great in my modern glam living room.

Vintage Plant Sconce
Vintage Plant Sconce

After some cleaning, primer, and a coat of gloss black spray paint they looked like new.

Just Like New
Just Like New

At first I really didn’t know how I would use them.  I guess these were really common in the 70’s as sconces for fake plants & flowers–eww.

It dawned on me a few days ago that I still had a sheet of plastic from the fluorescent light fixture that removed and that I could use that to turn these sconces into a shelf.

I used a large envelope to trace out a template–a file folder would work well too.

Trace a Template
Trace a Template

After cutting out the template (I called it my taco shell) I placed the plastic into the center of the template.  I did it this way because it makes manipulating and cuing the plastic a lot easier.

Taco Shell Template
Taco Shell Template

Using my favorite glue in the whole world–E 600 glue–I simply glued the plastic onto the lip of the sconce.

E 6000 Glue
E 6000 Glue

Because I wanted to use the sconce as a shelf to hold a statuette, It need to be securely mounted to the wall.  I would have used anchors and dry wall screws, but the heads of the screws would not fit into the mounting holes on the sconce.

I found two wood screws that fit into the sconce, but were too short to offer any support into the dry wall.

Enter the DIy mounting bracket.

DIY Mounting Brackets
DIY Mounting Brackets

I used an old scrap piece of wood to create two mounting brackets.  I lined the top edge of the sconce with the edge of the wood, marked the length, and drilled holes where the screws should nestle into the holes of the sconce.

Using my handy dandy lightweight-yet-powerful cordless Ryobi 5″ circular saw, I cut the wood to the correct (measured twice) length.

I mounted the brackets to the wall with anchors and drywall screws.  Use a level while mounting the bracket to ensure that your shelf or sconce is level after mounting.

I then inserted the wood screws into the pre-drilled holes.  Make sure that the wood is painted the same color as the sconce.

Mounting Bracket
Mounting Bracket

Voila–a perfect Rococo shelf for my lovely ladies!

Rococo Glam Wall
Rococo Glam Wall
Glamourous Ladies
Glamourous Ladies

2013-08-11 001 006

 

I think it’s a pretty close match to my Modern Glam Design Board.

OB-Modern Glam Liv Room

No matter what color you choose, these will add glamour to any wall.

Linked To:

The Scoop

Tweak It Tuesday @ Cozy Little House

Tips & Tutorials Link Party @ Home Stories A to Z

New Life for Furnishngs, Transfer

Chalk Paint and Paste Wax

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Or “I’m Too Cheap Frugal For the Real Deal”

I’ve been wanting to try chalk paint for quite some time now, but I just couldn’t justify the cost of Annie Sloan. It’s nothing personal Ms. Sloan.  We live on one income and have teenagers.  With an eensie weensie teeny tiny budget like mine, it is imperative to find alternatives to the “real deal.”

I’ve seen several homemade recipes on pinterest for chalk paint.  When I finally found a pin that featured four recipes, I just had to check it out.  Denise at Salvaged Inspirations put all four to the test.  Since she has worked with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint before, I trusted her judgement.  Her results and the recipes can be found here.

I used the No. 2 recipe to paint these dining room chairs.  It only took 2 coats of paint and I didn’t even have to use primer!

Dining_Chair_Project_original

I wanted to age them and bring out the design on the chair back, but all I had on hand was plain paste wax.  So, I did the sensible thing and went to Pinterest.  My search wasn’t resulting in a DIY of tinting plain paste wax.  So I went to Google. I ❤ Google.

I found what I was looking for at Saving  4 Six.  Carrie took on the experiment of tinting paste wax for a project.  The DIY tutorial can be found here.

After Sanding the “aged” areas and applying the tinted paste wax the chair looked like this:

Antiqued_chair_original

I apologize for the poor picture quality.  We’ve been having a lot of summer rain lately and the garage lighting is awful.

Here is a  quick roundup of the chalk paint and tinted paste wax:

Because I do not want to take credit for the work of others, please refer to the instructions on the links above.

What you need to make chalk paint:

3 Parts Latex Paint

1 Part Plaster of Paris

A little bit of water for mixing

ingredients and equipment for chalk paint

What you need to tint plain paste wax:

Paste Wax

Oil based stain

Tinting_Paste_Wax_original

What adventures have you had in DIYing your own version of an expensive product?