My $20 Sofa Table

Ever since I saw this post on Young House Love about their super awesome home made console table they have behind their couch I have wanted one. Check theirs out! '

 I don't know why the idea to have a table behind a couch to be able to use as a place to put you drinks and what not while you are sitting at the couch never occurred to me but I wanted one now :) 

So I stalked CL- nada. Asked around- nada. Scoured my house for something that would work- nada.  Thought about having my hubby build me one- well, I didn't want to wait that long....

And then I came across this beauty @ Salvation Army. It didn't have a price tag so I set my mental price limit to $20 and guess what! When I asked how much,  the gall offered it for $20!!! Yee Ha! Now, if I had been in my right mind I probably could have bargained with her down to $15 but I was too excited to think rationally. 

It still needs to be refinished to match everything else but I am in love with those knotty little legs:) 

Lucky table, we are having a memorial day BBQ and need all of the table space we can get, so it gets to come inside before I haul it back down stair and attack it with sand paper and primer. 

I Got A HUGE Clock!!!!

I've been crazy jealous over these huge clocks, especially since one of my good friends had one but no way I was shelling out that kind of money for a couple of sticks that ticked.  

My lack of funds patience payed out when I found one on clearance for $10, marked down form $30, at JoAnns!!! Whoot! Whoot!

However it came with these ho-hum numerals. :{ 

Walnut Hollow Big Time Clock

I really liked the look of clocks like this one from Pottery Barn. As far as I can tell they don't even sell any more but when they did it was $79! GULP! That's not including that shipping to Alaska....

So, I saved those boring numbers for later and made my own with my Cricut.

Check out his funky font goodness!!!

I used the font JDL Revelry that I downloaded when it was featured for free from scrapNfonts.com check them out for all kinds of awesome fonts!

It's Coming Along

I have LOVED having my little chalkboard table. It is such a great thing for the kids and I to do together and it is an amazing learning tool. Eventually I would like tot have this little space all tricked out learning wise. I bought rain gutters but then the end caps I bought were the wrong ones so that is put on hold for a little bit.

My almost 3 year old is starting to be interested in the days of the week (Well, really only Sunday- when she get to wear her fancy dresses :) Such a girl!) so I would like to get some sort of magnetic/vinyl week chart where I can change out things like maybe a today sign and some weather signs in there somewhere too.  Anyone have something like that they'd like to share? 

Anyhow..... Here it is so far:

I added a vinyl quote to the wall using my Cricut with fonts that came on my computer and some from here.

I found a little chair at Salvation Army for $3.50 to give kids a place to sit.

My daughter loves having her hands and feet traced and it's a great way to help teach her words and numbers! I'm LOVING this table!

To see some other things I've used this chalk table for click here!

Dumpster Dresser

Well, here it is at last, my dumpster dresser reveal :) 

This is it when the hubs dragged it home. 

It had been left int he snow, 3 of the drawer aligners were broke, and it was missing a drawer handle. 

You saw my post about what I learned while stripping it here.

And my post about how I made tha knot handles here. 

And now here it is int he process of being painted and distressed:

This time around I used my Dremel tool to sand off a lot of the edges. SOOOOO much easier! 

Here he is in all his beauty:) 

 

One thing I thought was really cool about this piece was that it still had a makers mark on it. I was able to look up the company and read about it's history. 

Read the history of the company and see some pictures of the factory for yourself here!

As much as I  absolutely adore that I can look up the history of this piece the very very very best thing about it is the storage. 

1st Drawer

Kids Stuff.

Yes! All of this stuff is up off of the floor and hidden away!

2nd Drawer

Wrapping Supplies. 

The drawers are long enough to fit wrapping paper in with room to spare! How awesome is that! 

3rd Drawer

Scentsy Stuff. 

Those folded bags on the right are HUGE! When these puppies are unfolded I could fit one of my children inside with blanket and pillows and use it instead of a crib/bed.  They have been getting in my way for a while now when they weren't in use. Problem solved.

Top 3 Drawers

Batteries

Diapers & Wipes

Unused Office Supplies

Behind

Yard Sale/Scentsy Party Signs & Portfolio

Pretty sneaky for a little dresser isn't it?  And did you notice not one of those drawers is actually full which means is capable of holding just about 2x as much!

Dear dresser, I love you.

:P

Total cost to refinish less than $15

$10 for the rope

About $4 for the replacement drawer aligner pieces. (Technical I know)

Recap: 

Before:

After:

Linking to: 

Salvation Army Mirror Make Over

I have a good friend that desperately wants a house but until she and her husband find on they can agree on she has asked me to help her with creating a few details for when they do get a new home. This is a mirror that she wanted to make to coordinate with her kitchen dreams:) 

She found this mirror @ Salvation Army for $3.50.

It had some sort of paper on it with a bamboo pattern and the mirror was scratched.

So, she got down and dirty with some sandpaper.

The back was nailed in where we couldn't get to it.

So she covered it with a cloth for safety...

and smashed the mirror with a hammer.

Then she carefully removed the shards of glass and punched out the backing.

She spray painted it oil rubbed bronze.

Then we replaced the mirror by hot gluing a new one to the back  with one from a package of 6 for $10 Walmart.

The hooks we added were From Walmart too. They came with adhesive to hang them up so we didn't need any tools.

It looked a little lonely so we tried dressing it up with some sunflowers (her favorite) but her hubs said it looked too crafty.

So we pulled out the old Cricut and put this together and it got the approval from her hubs! Yea!

Now they have a sweet little mirror and a place to hang their keys.

For those of you that are super smart: Yeah, we spelled it wrong, but  no worries, it has been remedied:) 

Chalkboard Table

Some of you may remember this table from my living room and guess what? It only moved about 10 feet to the other side of my couch. 

I really like it's toy hiding properties, just not where everyone is sitting and looking at it. 

So I moved it over to the rest of the eye sores that I try to forget about, like these marks on my wall caused by a futon we had when we first got married.

And the off colored outlets that I should just force my hubby to do the whole $1/15 minute fix and be done with it already.

This is a problem all over my house. See the line? It's where the metal thingy under the paint is coming up and crackling the paint and wall texture. 

The worst part of the whole thing is that the wall doesn't stay clean. :/

So I cleaned the wall and kind of filled in the little cracks with a thick coat of paint (yeah, couldn't find the filler :( ) and then painted the whole wall with left over paint that was left to use by the previous owner.

I really wanted to add a dowel and make it into a table like this one from Land of Nod but I got to thinking about how much it was going to cost to buy the paper all the time and about how it was going to fill up my trash can too and I started thinking of alternatives.

Since the table was already raised in the middle I didn't have to tape it off or anything.  I just painted the top with chalkboard paint. That stuff is EXPENSIVE @ $10/half gallon! I had seen some in the clearance section but didn't have the money at the time but it was all gone when I went back. I already had the idea in my head though and there was no stopping me. 

The girls LOVE it. I draw little roads and homes on it for their little animals.

It's just the right height, gives them something to do, is a great teaching aid, and hides 2 laundry baskets worth of toys. Go table!

I want to cutsie up the back and make it a little more functional with some rain gutter  book shelves. Wish me luck!

I still have about 2/3 of chalkboard paint left so I guess I will survive the less than $4 table make over.

To see how this area is coming along click here.

Linking to:

Just Something I Whipped Up @ Girl Creative