Dollar Store Finds Turned Votive Holders

I love poking around dollar stores.  Why?  You never know what you will find.  Last visit, in addition to the pieces featured in this post, I got a bunch of seeds for our garden.  Yay!  Some of them were planted in my seed starter kits and have started to grow.

But back to the project.  I found a couple of votive holder that were already an oiled bronze color (score, no need to spray paint) and a couple of small glass vases.  Below is one set. 

I flipped the voitive holder over, applied superglue to the metal edge, set the vase on top making sure it was level and...tada...

For only $2, I think it is a cute and slightly different from the usual votive holder. 

I duplicated the same process on the other two pieces for a second holder.

I placed one in our basement guest room on the revamped table.  I think it looks perfect in that spot with the bronze color looking fabulous with the espresso color of the table. 

The other one ended up in our living room to give a little atmosphere on our Craigslist end table that still is in dire need of a redo. 

Don't you just love the vase? It was a wedding present made specially for us by my mother's cousin.

Not too shabby to end up with two votive holders for a whopping $4. 

What creations have you come up with from your Dollar Store finds?

Spring has Sprung!

Spring has arrived here in the northern climes.  And it is exciting to see what is coming up in our yard since this is our first spring here. 

The forsythia is blooming.

The tree outside our office is blooming (and the big bumble bees are in heaven).

The one of our rhodadendrons in the back yard had begun to bloom.

The hyacynths are blooming making the back yard smell amazing.  (Those little suckers are really potent!)

Does anyone have any idea what this plant is?  It has pretty blue flowers and we have a ton of them in the backyard.

We even have a robin's nest. 

And maybe best of all, some of my veggies are starting to sprout.

We are planning a garden this year a la Square Foot Gardening.  Next up in the "creating a garden" department is moving some shrubs so I can place my raised garden boxes.  Watch for posts on what I am sure will be quite an adventure.

Has Spring sprung in your area?

Marble Coffee Table Revealed

Remember this table?  I gave you all a sneak peak way back in January.

I first spied this lovely piece while out with an old friend and fell in love.  While the color was all wrong, the grey and white marble top is fabulous.  While I would have purchased it on the spot, I wanted to make sure that Hubs was on the same page with my vision for both the table and the color scheme for the living room redo.  Lucky for me, Hubs saw the potential and $55 later, it was headed home with us.

Now that the weather has warmed up enough so I don't see my breath while working in the garage and paint doesn't take days to dry, here it is in all its repainted glory.

 
SOOOO much better, right?  I absolutely love it. 

And that elephant I referred to in the original post? The name of the paint color is Elephant Skin by Behr in their primer + paint line. It is a fabulous color. It is a dark grey with just a hint of tan. I am already trying to figure out other places to use it in the room.

Redone, the table looks fabulous in the room, especially with the new wall color (a post on the trials and tribulations of the repainting coming soon.)

And no, our living room is not usually this crammed together on one side of the room.  I am still working on the other side of the room.  It is pretty bad. But I am trying to work on it bit by bit. 

So until this is done, our living room furniture will be crammed on the other side of the room. 

And there are a couple of upcoming projects in the pic of the living room furniture.  Keep checking in to see what they might be. 

Cost Breakdown:

$55 Cost of table

$  5 One can Kilz spray Primer
$  6 1/3 of a quart of Behr Elephant Skin in semi-gloss

$66 Total Cost

Boys' Room Dresser Makeover - Before & After

During the makeover of the boys' room, we realized that we needed a dresser.  Something that could fit in with the surf/beach theme they wanted for the room. 

When I found this dresser on Craiglist for $30, I knew it would be the perfect piece.  It is not a factory-made piece but instead was handcrafted from what looks like high grade 2x4s and has hand carved wooden handles.  It weighs a ton and is one of the sturdiest pieces of furniture I have come across.  Unfortunately, it was also ugly as all get out. 

Luckily, the ugly was easily covered up with primer and paint. 

The best part?  I already had the paint I needed in my ever expanding garage "paint store."  With the grey paint I planned on using (found on the "oops table" at Home Depot for a steal) matching the bedding I was making for the boys' beds exactly.  What a wonderful bit of coincidence.  So other than three cans of spray primer I had to purchase, my finishing costs were minimal.

The dresser fits perfectly in the space in the corner of the room and the deep drawers fit a surprising amount of clothing.  Even better, the boys think it is cool that they have a "custom finished" piece of furniture made over just for them.  Glad my "clients" are happy with the finished project. 

Cost Breakdown
$30  Dresser (from our local Craiglist)
$  5 White Paint (1/4 gallon of semi gloss)
$  1 Grey paint (1/4 gallon of flat enamel from the Oops table)
$15 three cans of Kilz spray primer
$51 Total Project Cost

We are Still Here!

I promise.

I have been working on odds and ends around the house since it has been too cold to do any painting in the garage.  My poor little space heater just can't keep up.  And I will admit that I have been dreaming of Spring so have also been spending time planning my garden space.

Though we do have some interesting things coming in the next week or so.  We are finally getting things up on the walls in the office.  The home theatre is getting set up in the basment rec room (though we still need furniture).   We are starting on painting in the living room. 

So now that we are back at it, posts will be starting up again.

I do have to ask, is there any interest in seeing some of the photos and design styles that inspire us as we try to work some design magic in our house?  I know that some bloggers do this so just wanted to get some feedback to see if there is any interest from our readers.  So let us know and we will get working on those types of posts.

Sneek Peek - Night Table Redo

This little nightstand was a Craigslist find and cost $10 (I think).  We bought it with plans of putting it in our center bedroom.

A good cleaning and a coat of semi-gloss white paint will make her look like new.

Stay tuned for the reveal.

From Freecycle Castoff to Redone Bedroom Light

Have you heard about Freecycle?  It is made up of 4,876 groups with 6,905,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

I think it is great.  While you do see some odd requests (my favorite was someone looking for a poster with 13 black and white cows on a green background), most are for items people give away/throw away every day.  Like this lamp.

I got it from someone who was redoing their basement and the brown didn't go with the new color scheme.  It didn't come with a shade, but the price was right (free).  Glad the woman didn't know how easy it would be to make it look fresh and new with a few coats of paint. 

I started by scuffing the ceramic slightly with a sanding sponge just to give the primer something to "grab." Then a coat of white primer.  Followed by several coats of white glossy spray paint.


Top it with a shade from Target and we have a lamp that doesn't look anything like what we started with.

I think it looks lovely sitting on top of another one of my frugal finds, the Craigslist nightstand that cost less than $20.  I just love the way the white sets off the blue wall color. 

Once I get the bedding and other details finalized in our front bedroom (aka the boys room), I will be adding some coordinating trim to the edge of the white shade.  Wish me luck that I can get those decisions made in the next few weeks.

Cost of the Project:
$  0.00 lamp off Freecycle
    2.00 1/2 can primer
    3.50 can white glossy spray paint
  20.00 lamp shade from Target
$25.50 Total Cost