Furniture Re-Birth

I have been thinking about adding a desk to Gabrielle's room for awhile. I just never really looked for one. Now that she is going to start taking piano lessons in the Fall, she needed a place to set her keyboard and practice. I was out garage sale-ing one morning and saw this desk for $5. I loved all the detail on the top drawers and the spindle legs. Right after buying it I knew I wanted to paint it black. 

The only issue I had about taking on this project was I didn't want to have to strip and sand all the parts. So I did some research on the internet and found that there was a primer that I could use that would adhere to anything pretty much. So I headed to Menards and bought the primer and got to work making sure to carefully follow all instructions on the can including drying time between coats. That is Key!

I didn't really want to spend any more money or time on new hardware, so I bought nickel spray paint and painted the metal parts and painted the wood white. I also added black details... peace signs and zebra stripes.

Here is the finished product (minus one pull, I need to find the last screw) I am extremely happy with the results, and Gabrielle likes it too!

Projects-Lots of Projects

Lately I have been finding lots of projects on blogs that I am wanting to complete. My Pinterest boards are getting full of ideas! I wouldn't consider myself overly crafty, but I do like to create things. Over this last week I was able to knock a couple of projects off my to-do list.

Project #1- Family Rules chalk board. I converted our computer cabinet doors into chalkboards using chalkboard paint. I have seen this "family rules" idea all over the blogosphere. Here is one over at Starr Circus. It is great personalized subway art. You can order them on Etsy, but I am cheap frugal and love to try things myself. Eventhough the boys can't read, Gabby can and she enjoys reading it and seeing what is on there and what isn't! It is still a work in progress as you can see. But I can see this being a fun piece of "art" in our house.

Project #2- Menu/To-do dry erase board. This idea I fell in love with over at Positively Splendid. She has a tutorial on how to make it! This is a vast improvement from our cheap, plain old, nothing special white dry erase board we were using before! I used 3 different pieces of scrap book paper, a few letter stickers, some chopped up Uppercase Living expressions, and a $5 picture frame from Walmart. Yes, you can use dry erase markers on glass!!! I just can't really put into words how much I love this thing it turned out awesome... in my opinion!

Pottery Barn inspired photo shelves

A month or so ago I stumbled across this website, that contains tons of free plans on building just about every piece of furniture you could imagine. After looking at it, my wish list of projects is massive. I decided to start small and simple with the ten dollar ledges. I bought the wood, but unfortunately my wonderful husband must not have trusted me with the power tools. He decided to put them together for me and I was stuck with the unpleasant job of painting them. In the end I love the way they look and it gives me more places to display pictures of my family.