Sons Tween Room: On Display

While shopping at the same thrift store I found Tabari's desk at, I also found a large cork board for $3.00. I love cork boards in general but even more hanging above a desk. I updated the basic honey oak frame with glossy white spray paint. I've mentioned before how I don't like to spray paint myself, but this time I went ahead and did it. I'm so glad it came out nice. Next I was thinking about shelving, I liked the idea of adding flaoting shelves to some eliminate kid clutter. With shelving above his desk, he would have a place to hold his books, Nintendo DS games, and his collectibles.

I thought the best place to hang the floating shelves would be next to his desk and cork board. Tabari wanted to hang his cork vertical. While I like Ikeas floating shelves, I didn't want to pay 20 bucks a shelf, since were doing his bedroom makeover on a budget. So I thought the best route to go was DIY, that way we could customize the length and depth of the shelf. We spent around $ 10 bucks for the two shelves. 


Here my son's DIY floating shelves hanging in his room. I painted the shelves a nice glossy white. The floating shelves we built for our son are nice and deep, 24 inches long and 8 inches deep. Perfect to hold stacks of books, leaning pictures and more. I love how the shelves look next to his grey walls & cork board. 

I'm glad I found a special spot to keep his birthday mouse ears from Disneyland, the back of his hat has is name on it. 

Tabari's most prized possession on his shelves: his super heroes [  Incredible Hulk, Ironman & Spiderman, he needs two more to complete his collection ] and his Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Those books are suck a great read of boys 8 and older! He and I and will read them to together, they are too funny :)

Believe it or not, these shelves are super simple to build. Thanks to the help of Ron Hazelton's House Calls, we watched the videos and got the basic idea and built the shelves, we also got free cuts from Lowes. His bedroom is coming together, just in time - his school starts back in less than two weeks! 


ps: Here's a recap of completed projects for our sons bedroom: Painted the Bedroom (here) Tools Used in Decor (here) Lighting for the Room (here) Finding a Desk (here) West Elm desk chair (here)

Extra Large Mirror for Our Dining Room?

I've been thinking about moving our large mirror that resides in our living and putting in our dining room. Since we have a small dinning room, I think the mirror would make the space look larger and bounce more light around. Here's how our dining room currently looks.  I would place the mirror where our chalk board is and move the chalk board above the buffet.

The mirror thats currently over our buffet would be placed elsewhere in our house. 

The mirror I want to move into our dining room currently resides in our living room. It's a large mirror and super heavy.

Below is an old picture of the mirror, leaning against our living wall before it was hung { right after we first moved into our house}. This gives you a better idea how large the mirror is. I bought a few years ago at Ross for $ 49.99. It was so large, it didn't fit into the trunk of my car. 

Mr. CHL isn't convinced a the extra large mirror will look good in the dinning room. I think it will be perfect for the space, just hoping our light switch and alarm box isn't in the way. I love the two dining rooms below both have extra large mirrors.

{ via Decorpad }

{ via Decorpad }

What do you think of my idea to move our large mirror into the dining room? Will it bounce more light around our house and make the space look larger, or will it look to big and out of place?

Vintage Chair Gets a Modern Look

Last Weekend, I came a across a cute little vintage chair at thrift store. I loved the lines of the vintage chair, and for $5 bucks I couldn't pass it up! I couldn't wait to take the chair home with me.

As you can see from the picture below the old stain on the chair was badly faded, and the chair seat was covered with really b-o-r-i-n-g fabric. I love little mid century modern chairs. 

Vintage Chair Shopping Tip: Always sit on the chair and test its comfortableness and sturdiness before buying 

Chair Frame: After removing the seat I sanded the entire down using a 80 Grit sanding pad on my power sander. After sanding the chair down with the 80 Grit sandpaper, and used a 220 fine grit sanding block {it helps leave a smooth finish on wood} 

Even though the chair is old, it has a nice sturdy frame. 

We have a basic black and decker sander, it works great on small and medium projects, we used this sander to refinishing our dining room table. 

Here's the chair after being sanded, a little on the old stain remained, but I now had a nice smooth surface to work with.

Then I wiped the entire chair down with damp cloth and mild soap to remove the dust. After allowing the chair to dry. I applied to coats for primer to the chair and lightly sanded, then lightly sanded the chair with a 220 fine grit sanding block. Here's how the chair looked after primed, it already started looking so much better.

I applied to coats of Breezy by Sherwin Williams and then applied one coat of Restualums Painters Touch. I allowed each coat to dry 24hrs before applying the next coat. I only applied one coat of cleat paint coat, because I didn't wait a super glossy finish.


The Seat: For the seat cushion I only needed 3/4 of a yard of fabric. I really wanted to find a fun modern brown print fabric for the seat. I found the perfect fabric from Calico Corners called Blossom Chocolate made by Thomas Paul for Duralee.  Here's a picture of the fabric I bought for the chair. 

Normally you have to order the fabric { they offer FREE shipping } but they had a bolt of fabric in store for 50% off - I only paid $ 10 bucks!. Since the fabric has a large scale print, I played with the layout determining where I wanted the design to lay. I used the old fabric has a template {just like I did with my bench} and then stapled the new fabric on the chair seat, and then reattached to the chair. The entire chair project cost around $ 15, I spent $5 bucks for the chair, and $10 bucks on fabric. I had left over paint from painting our dining room mirror, and love the color so I used that paint. It's the same color as our accent wall in our living room. 

For fun, I placed the chair in front our accent wall - love!

I'm actually taking this chair to my work to replace a boring chair I have in my office. Looking at this chair will brighten my day while working 9-5. What do you think of the modern look, I gave this chair? 

Glee

I just starting watching Glee re-runs this Summer and I'm hooked. I may or may not be thinking of buying the Glee soundtrack. I know one thing for sure, the first season has been added to my Netflix Queue.

Are you a Glee fan too? Any shows you just discovered thanks to Summer Re-Runs?

Sons Tween Room: Wrap Chair = Desk Chair

A couple of weeks ago I won a Get It Girl Style's West Elm Giveaway. My prize: my choice of three very cool Chairs from West Elm. I had a crush on the West Elm Wrap chair for quite sometime, and was super excited I won one { thanks Tam & West Elm! } I thought the wrap chair would make a nice desk chair for Tabari's room. When the chair arrived he loved it, and thought it was super cool. The chair is comfy and was easy to put together. 

I decided to order the white wrap chair, because I liked the contrast of the white against his grey bedroom walls, and the white is just so sleek. I also choose white just in case in he didn't like it, I could easily use the chair elsewhere. Here's the chair is his bedroom, as you can see from the picture, I need to touch up his baseboards! 

This weekend, I'll be wrapping up some projects for his tween bedroom, I just love saying that word. 

ps: Here's a recap of completed projects & ideas for our sons room: Painted Room (here) Tools Used as Decor (here) Room Lighting (here) Desk (here)

Dog Days of Summer

"Dog Days" (Latin: diēs caniculārēs) are the hottest, most sultry days of summer. Dog Days can also define a time period or event that is very hot or stagnant, or marked by dull lack of progress. The name comes from the ancient belief that Sirius, also called the Dog Star, was somehow responsible for the hot weather - Wikipedia { the Know Everything Source }


This is exactly what's been happening in our Casa at the moment, lots of projects to complete for our sons redo, but little progress. The weather is finally cooling off into the low to mid 90's in Northern California, after dealing with 100+ degree weather over the weekend. We'll take any 'cool down' we can get - lol

Meanwhile, Mojo and the family have been chilling in side playing: Uno, Connect Four and lots of Chess. 

Have you been experiencing the Dog Days of Summer?

Sons Tween Room: 3rd Times the Charm

You know the old saying third times the charm, I think this applies to finding the perfect desk for my sons room. Yep over the past year I've bought him three desks. I'm not to embarrassed to admit, two didn't work out as planned. The story of buying the perfect desk for my son actually began over a year ago. A few months after we bought our house I began stalking looking on Craigslist for a little desk. I found a simple small desk for $ 10 bucks on Craigslist that needed some love. I planned to paint the desk red and update the hardware. Well the desk sat in the garage and has been there every since. I planned on taking a pic of the desk, but there's hardly any light in my garage. 


Fast forward three weeks ago, I found a perfectly good desk on Craigslist { again } that needed updating, a big plus was the desk came with nice simple wood chair. But after bringing it home and paying $ 30.00 I realized its not the one. I know your probably thinking I'm a little crazy, but it means so much to me to be able to work on a space for our son that reflects his personalty. I thought about re-listing  the item on Craigslist or selling it in our yard sale, but thought my sister would want it for my nephews bedroom. My nephew and sister loved the desk, as is. I'm am doing one little update on the desk, spraying the handles ( that are faded gold ) a black matte color. Once its made its way over to my sister's house, I snap a picture of it on my nephew rooms with its mini makeover. 

I found the 'third times the charm desk' while doing a little thrifting over the weekend. I found a neglected desk sitting in the corner all by itself, it was only $ 15.00. I looked it over and over, checked out the drawers and liked the style of the desk. It's a little larger than his second desk. I plan to update the hardware { yup, one pull is missing & one is hanging by only one screw } and remove that funky box the previous owner attached the the bottom of the desk. As well as fix the 'empty' space where the drawers are. 

The top of the desk is pretty beat up, nothing some Kilz Stain Block Oil Primer can't fix. I'm looking forward to getting this project done. I got some recent inspiration from Tabari's new light fixture in his room, I want the desk to be a mix of modern and classic { same as his room}. If all goes well, meaning I don't have to deal with 100 + degree weather, I'll have an after to share with you all next week and my son will have a new desk! 

Out of the two desks, which do you prefer? Has this happened to you: bought a piece of furniture and then kept right on looking just in case something better { in your eyes } came along?


ps: Here's a recap of completed projects for our sons room: Painted the Room (here) Tools Used In Decor (here) Room Lighting (here)

Cheap Buy

Last night while I was at Michaels getting a a custom matte cut for my sons artwork for his bedroom re-do I spotted a super cheap buy. Which is always a good thing, and so good I wanted to share with all of you. They were selling 14 sponge bushes for a buck! That's right one dollar. I bought two bundles which should last me quite a while. 

Instead of having a bunch of roses in my window sill, I have a bouquet for sponge brushes. Oh the joy of home  improvements! I think I have plenty of brushes for upcoming projects. 

I love using sponge brushes for painting projects. I love that they are cheap and can be tossed, which means less clean up. My son also likes uses sponge brushes for his artwork. Most recently I used sponge brushes to apply primer on my yellow tray in our living room, and bench and dresser for our master bedroom. 

Do you love using sponge brushes like I do? What's the last item you painted with a sponge brush?

Sons Tween Room: Light the Room in Style

I couldn't wait to replace the boring lights our son's room. He had a very basic light fixture in his room that gave off adequate light, but it's boring. It was the same light fixture we had in our dining room, and master bedroom before we updated them. My son and I start looking for lights for his bedroom a few weeks back, starting our 'looking trip' at Ikea. I like that Ikea has a great light options that are affordable and great value. I really liked the Borja pendant lamp, I liked the look of the basket weave, but $59.99 was a bit more than I wanted to spend. 

He like the Fado pendant light. I thought it was cool too and like the price of $ 29.99, however I worried it might be too small for his bedroom. We decided while he was at his grandpa's that I would continue the search for a light fixture and gather more ideas, if I found nothing he liked I would buy the Fado pendant from Ikea.

As luck would have it while shopping for a Carpenters Clamp at Lowes for his bedroom, I spotted a the perfect light fixutre for his bedroom. It was a large drum shade { you know I love drum shades! } pendant light fixture. Now I've seen a few of these at Lowes before, but at 
$79.99 they weren't in the budget - so I kept it moving! However this one was on clearance and I loved the look of the shade. The shade resembles dark walnut wood grain. Very cool vibe. It was on clearance for $ 53.98, I just couldn't pass it up knowing it will grow with him & with all the DIY projects were doing for his room, it will be the splurge item. I pulled out my Blackberry and Googled the style pendant drum shade, and found out I was getting a steal, compared to a similar version at Bellacor for $ 268.28! 

I've been crossing my fingers for a few days hoping my son would like it when he got back from his grandpa's. Sigh of relief he thought the light fixture was cool and likes the inside detail of the pendant shade the best.

Here's my sons old light fixture, basic and boring. I now how three of these light fixtures to drop off at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Remember to take your no longer needed home goods to their restore { light fixtures, bath vanities, doors and more } they resale the items and then the proceeds help fund construction on Habitat homes. It's also a great place to shop for bargains. 

Here's his new light fixture in his bedroom. We choose to use the shortest portion on the down rod for his bedroom, so the drum shade still has impact while being kid friendly. I love when the lights on, came with a large bulb that doesn't hurt your eyes if your directly under it. It's the city scrape perfect. 

The dark wood grain is so pretty and unexpected.

Here's the light when its off. I took the picture in the evening, so it looks a darker then what it actually is. 

Months and months ago while shopping at Kohls I came across this cute table lamp on clearance for $ 3.99. I love the fabric on the lampshade and the colors work perfectly with his bedroom. Sadly the little bench the lamp is current;y sitting on will be stored in the garage, since he's out grown. 

I'm glad I continued my light fixture search. What do you think of his new drum shade for his bedroom?

ps: Here's a recap of completed projects for our sons bedroom: Painted the Bedroom (here) Tools Used in Decor (here)