The Old Switcheroo

Do you ever switch furniture around in your house to achieve a new look of feel? This past weekend I did some switching around in preparation for the new dining table that I will (hopefully, crossing fingers, praying) done with this week.

First change is to our bedroom. I switched the out the white bank box console for the credenza I bought a while back. It matches the dresser I've been using, I like the warm wood, and I think we'll use it more than the bank boxes in the bedroom. 

And I love love love it with my new blue chair!!! Gorgeous~~~ I still love the grey slipcovered one but I felt like the blue went better with the room scheme. The grey chair is currently in our dining room, not sure where it's new home will be. This is what happens when you have a chair fetish, it's a sickness really.

The other change I made in the bedroom is switching up our end tables. I placed the new cherry table I won at our family reunion on my side of the room and flipped the marble top one to the Hubs side.

And another thrifty find- this awesome brass plate! I had seen it in one of the shops in town and finally broke down and bought it.

And you can see here that I am letting you in on a dirty little secret: I never made the upholstered footboard for our bed. Getting on that ASAP!

So those are the bedroom changes, here is the dining room with it's new bank box credenza:

As I mentioned earlier hoping to have a new table in here soon! Con-Man will loose his racetrack space but oh well for him! And since I no longer need that empty spot in the credenza for the TV box I'm thinking it will be a new wine storage area. Yep, always need more of that!

Do you ever rearrange your furniture for a new feel? Or go "shopping" in your house for new items??

A Nursery That's Over the Moon

As promised today I'm going to reveal Tiny Falcon #2's Nursery. And since we've been telling everyone else I can finally tell you as well- We're going to name him Sawyer! He'll be here in about 2 weeks if all goes as planned.


His nursery has been pretty much ready for a while now. The reason I hadn't shown it yet is because I have been tirelessly searching for the curtains that match his bedding. They much have gotten lost in the move because they haven't turned up along with a few other things that Con-Man used as a baby. You can read more about my inspiration for the room here.


Anyway- without further adieu here's Sawyer's Moon and Star Nursery:

The theme for the room came from the saying "I love you to the moon and back." I used Con-Man's old bedding that my mom and I made which luckily matched the paint color that was already in the room. I had trouble finding stars and other accessories to match the color scheme so I broke out the spray paint and made it work.

I found a dresser at the thrift store that we are using as a changing table; The changing table we had for Con-Man is now our entertainment center. Reused the old rocker from Con-Man's room and a friend gave me the penants hanging on the shelf. The shelf is just a piece of wood leftover from other projects and the baskets are garden baskets we had on hand that I spray painted.

And again a few things leftover from Con-Man's nursery; the pictures I painted and the shelving unit. 

It's simple and sweet, just the way I like it. I feel like I had a lot more stuff in Con-Man's room. I remember the shelf being full and needed extra storage so we got an old chest. I guess a lot of the things that were in Con's room before we are currently using. 

Either way all this room needs now is a baby!! Come on July 28th!

Out with the Old and in with the ....Old

So I finally finished our "New" TV credenza (Get the back story here). This was one of my first wood finishing projects. Usually when dealing with wood furniture I just paint the piece, but this project involved stripping and sanding. It was tough but the final product was worth it!


Here's the before piece; a dresser I bought off Craigslist about 2 years ago that we had used in Con-Man's room. It came with a mirror and everything!

And here it is now! All freshly painted and stained serving as our "new" TV credenza:

Like I said, it was a long process to get it to this point but well worth it. I started off by stripping the old paint off the drawers using a paint stripper.

I followed the directions on the can- you just brush the stripping solution on, wait about 10 minutes for the chemical to work, then scrape it off. I used a scraper with a metal edge. I tried using one I bought from Walmart that was cheap and had a plastic edge, but it didn't work well at all.

Most of the paint came off pretty easily, but some of it did not. 

My original hope was to strip off the paint and use the original wood stain underneath. But the paint came off unevenly and some of the veneer came off as well.

So I ended up having to sand everything off completely on all 8 drawer fronts. Hooray... Once that was done though the wood looked pretty nice. I was about to stain it when I noticed something- when I was using a damp rag to wipe off the dust from the sand the wood had a nice color to it. I liked it and decided to forgo staining and just put a clear coat of poly.

I skipped the water based poly because it was more expensive, but I wish I had shelled out the extra bucks because this stuff smelled! I put 3 coats of Semi-Gloss poly on each drawer. I tried using a brush meant for staining on the first coat but it left brush marks. So for the 2nd and 3rd coats I used a foam brush to ensure a smooth finish. 

Once the drawers were finally done I moved on to the credenza. I gave it a light sanding to even out the finish then rolled on a white primer/paint combo.

I rolled on 2 coats of the white paint letting it dry completely between coats.

My original plan was to buy new hardware. The hardware that came with the credenza was a brassy color that I had spray painted silver when I first bought it. But the only places in our town that sell hardware are Walmart and Ace- neither place had anything that caught my eye. (The things that did were too expensive). So for the time being I reused some spray paint I had from another project and repainted the knobs to go with the new finish.

To make the piece functional for it's new use I removed drawers that were behind the center doors and drilled holes in the back of the credenza to accommodate wiring.

All the drawers are perfect for storing DVDs and other things that seem to accumulate in our living room.

I love the newly finished wood and the way it contrasts with the fresh white paint.

Now that our credenza is looks all good and snazzy I need to get started on reupholstering those orange chairs! 

Linking here

"New" TV Credenza Progress

I feel like I've been out of the loop, like I was missing my arm or something- the Hubs went to a conference this week and took the computer with him! Ugh! So frustrating only being able to use my IPhone for internet use. But, he's back with the computer and all is well again. And if you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed that I've been up to something this past week.


In our old house we had hung our TV above the fireplace, which worked for that room. In our new house the fireplace mantle is taller, and I didn't want to drill large holes in the wall since we're renting. So I needed something to place our TV on. 


So I stole this credenza out of Con-Man's room.

I had bought it off Craigslist when I was doing his nursery. It was a dark walnut color and has a mirror that goes with it. I had painted it white because I used it as a changing table and it held all his clothes since the Hubs had to use the closet in that room since the one in our master was to small. It worked great for that purpose, but in our new house we have plenty of closet space and there's lots of room for Con-Man's clothes in his closet plus some. So instead of taking up floor space in his new room I'm repurposing the credenza in the living room.

I wanted to give it another update though. I thought stripping off the paint and re-staining the wood would give it a rich sophisticated feel and would go well with our furniture and the wood fireplace in the living room.

So that's what I've been up to this week:

Stripping

More Stripping

Sanding and Sanding the night away

With some success!

I still have some finishing touches to work on, and I'm looking for some new knobs since the spray paint isn't coming off of the old ones very easily. Hoping to have this baby finished and ready to show off this weekend!