What can a gal do with a coupla bucks and a little free time on her hands?  Well if you're creative and love to make cheap things that look expensive you can do a lot!  Went to the dollar store and picked up a few items and went to town!

Don't you just love this 3 tierd snack display 4th of July stand?  Me too and it cost me 5 dollars and about 2 minutes to put together.  Very festive and very frugal!  I'm a little obsessed with the dollar store lately!

My most very favorite transformation ever.  Why?  Because I thought this one out for a while ( well 48hrs ) which is a VERY long time for me to think about something before doing it.  Just ask anyone who knows me.  So I bought this at a garage sale.  The price tag said 45.00 and I thought to myself -Self no way, this has to be wrong, this is worth much much more than this.. So I asked the seller if it was really 45$ and he gleefully says to me, well it's 30$ if you want it.  WHA ?????  Heck yes I wanted it (in my Napolean Dynamite voice)  So we brought her home and I started to search online mostly at www.betterafter.blogspot.com for some hutch/dresser/vanity ideas.  I found one that I loved and then another and then I sort of combined the idea.  I dressed her up as if she were in a dining room or kitchen as well as a bedroom.  Hope you like it as much as I do!

Feelin the blues!

So I was gifted this awesome sofa table and pair of lamps.  I liked them, but I'm sorta into color in case you didn't notice.  I loved the fabric I had on the chair and decided to change up the color a little and match the new blue on the sofa table.  Then I took some leftover fabric and hot glued it onto the little lamp.  It makes me smile every time I open my bedroom door and see it in it's little nook waiting for me to admire it!  Hope you like it too.

Country bumpkin to Farmhouse cutie

I was very lucky and blessed to be given this cute end table and her sister for free.  It's sturdy and woody and eighties all in one.  So since most of my house is brown, floor, furniture and decor.  So when I got this sweet little ditty I decided to give it a facelift.  Didn't use a sander on the legs but did extensive sanding on the top.  When I was finished painting I then sanded down certain parts to give it the aged look and added the stain there and then thinly (and quickly) I stained the rest of the the end table to give it the full antique look.  Hope you like it as much as I do!

Look who's back.. back again.. look who's back tell your friend

So since I last posted I packed up and moved 2000 miles away to S.C. and have found a goodwill and am starting my new collection of old stuff remixed. Because I moved my husband explained to me over and over that we should sell EVERYTHING we owned and it would be cheaper and easier to move across the country.. .He was right but now I have no furniture. He then reminded me that we know this person who re-does furniture as a hobby and that we could furnish our house with her creations.. so here goes my first new re do for myself. Hope you enjoy it!

chairway to heaven...
I know, I know.. it's like ENOUGH of the chairs already, but I just can't help it they are so much fun, and are so easy and such a high turnover!

Dear Husband actually picked these out and so he gets a lot of street cred for these.  Not street cred so much as crafty cred, but that's like practically the exact same thing right.  Practically.

Life's a bowl full of chairy's

Tooth chairy, chairy God mother.  Yes all of those things.  I am in love with this remix.  This chair had a great bones, sturdy solid wooden legs.  Great beaded tacks, just a little worn and dated.  Now look at her, she's all like "Shazam!" She's all like "Excuse me I got so I'm gonna flaunt it" can't you just hear her saying this, and yes it's a girl.

I didn't sand this down.  I didn't prime it.  I just used a random color I had floating around in my garage.  It was a can of oops paint.. I would otherwise tell you the color, but I can't cause it doesn't have a name, okay okay I 'll name it.  bomb digity blue.  Okay now that that's settled I can finish the story.  I bought this fabric at Jo'Anne's.  I bought this chair for 5$ at the local thrift store.  I love it!  It's so fun, would you agree?  Nope you probably wont because like I've said before people don't ever comment on this blog eventhough it's obviously awesome.  But inside of your head you are silently agreeing! 

"Drywall"

The walls, ceiling and floor are all pretty much the same color in my house. Then this piece on the wall was the same as that!

I love this piece of wall decor, but it needed something more.  Instead of being a "drywall" I decided to make it a piece of art, a focal point!  It's a little loud but I LOVE IT!

What a difference???

Chairy baby!

I love these chairs. I wish I had a girl I would put one or both of these chairs in her room. Or I wish I had a room these would look good in. Hopefully someone out there has such a room. I was lazy and didn't want to drive to Home Depot or the fabric store so I re-did these chairs with whatever I had in my house. Luckily I bought this fabric to make a dress out of this summer :/ like that ever happened!!! Oh well I had some leftover paint aswell so this is what I came up with. I love it, just hope it finds a home somewhere it can be appreciated!

Country kitchen to pinterest pretty!

My besty who shalln't remain nameless... Shalln't shorn't Rachel Smith from shoptrendyties.com had a solid country style table. She has had this for about 5 years now and it was a hand-me-down back then. There is nothing wrong with this table structurally or functionally, but cosmetically it needed a little work. So that's exactly what we did. I was visiting her and she showed me what she wanted on pinterest. I'm trying to learn all about the thing but still using the old interface on blogger so I doubt I'll be successful, anyways we headed off to the home depot and we were on a mission! We started this project around noon one day and it would have been done that very night if it weren't for those pesky kids and their snooping dog, wait nope that's not quite what happened. Actually the pesky kids thing is somewhat true, but we had other obligations. It was finished the next day by Rachel and it turned out Mind boggling beautiful, tastefull and terriffic!
As for the tutorial I'll give it quickly, but if you want a full detailed one just ask in the comment bar and leave your email and I  will give you the full rundown!

We completely sanded the top of each surface, chairs bench and table top.  Then we used a walnut stain.  We didn't even sand the legs we just painted them this pretty turquoise color.  Then we sanded the legs down past the black underneath paint and added the same walnut stain.  Then put a glaze on the blue and a polyurithane coat on the stain!

Addressed!

Yes this dresser was old school, plain, cliche of a boys room in the 80's, but I loved it. I was excited to work with this. I've been craving (I know crave is a weird word for redoing furniture) anywhoo I can only speak the truth and I truly was craving to work with planked wood like this. Why? Well if it isn't obvious why, then I'll tell ya, it's because there is something so planky about it. No really it's just very natural and old fashioned. It's fun to re-invent furniture and give it a new life, but sometimes just sometimes it's fun to restore furniture instead of of redoing it. Now I know it's original life wasn't completely the same but just painting the wood and staining the planks felt like it was suppose to be this way instead of giving it a new life altogether. Am I rambling? Oh well NOBODY EVER comments on this blog anyways, so it's sort of like I'm talking to myself..... Maybe I'll make a comment, then it will be like I'm not only talking to myself but now I'm answering myself too!

What is black and White and you can sit down on it?

My next post.... okay very lame, but true. These sad and extremely weathered chairs were destined for the dump but all they needed was a little remix and imagination and they are now ready for a photoshoot!

The chairs seemed like they had been outside in the weather for a while I wasn't sure if the wood was rotted but at 6 bucks a chair I figured I could take a chance. When I got them home my husband was (as usual) a doubting debbi, but as soon as we got the sandpaper on these bad boys we saw that the wood was actually really good and sturdy. Remember y.ou can NEVER go wrong with black and white. In selling furniture that is the #1 thing I have learned. Black and White however boring or usual it is WILL SELL!!!! I have redone masterful, unique, playful, beautiful and fun chairs... I love them and so does everyone else but most of us are too afraid of those adjectives. We tend to stick with the "status quo" whatever is safest. I went out on a limb with these and chose a zebra print. I think it makes the chairs a little more daring! They have since found a new home and what was once junk is now a jump up to fabulous!

This little lamp of mine!!!

This plain old boring lamp once sat on the shelf of a thrift store.  I noticed it's condition and thought hmmm, not bad.  Then when I looked inside and saw that there was a lightbulb with it and that the price tag was 3$ I thought... "Yes, I will buy you, I will paint you, and clothe you and you will be happy" 

So that's exactly what I did.  A can of spray paint from the Home Depot, some leftover scrap fabric, a hot glue gun and some patience and this is ready for a botique!~

FROM ANTIQUE 2 SHEEK

1989 Called and they said this was ugly even back then!

Now that's just mean. I'm sure in some office in some walk of life at some point this was the MAC DADDY of office waiting room chairs. I'm just sure of it. But because of their obvious hideousness I got them for 4$ a piece... not bad for real wood and soft cushions. So I sanded down the chair recovered the seat and now it's like modern and fashionable and all around fantastic! I love love this makeover!!! By the way the tag on the bottom that you're suppose to leave on or else you'll go to jail.. ya that one, well somebody took that pretty seriously because the original tag was on i and it said June 1989... So I thought it would be fun to see what was happening in 1989
Well Reagen was president (ah the good ol' days) Kelly and Zack were being broken up by A.C. Slater, The Berlin wall was coming down, Hurricane Hugo (which I lived through) hit Charleston S.C. as cat 4, New Kids on the Block were hotter than Katy Perry or Beyonce and apparently this chair was an asset in any up and coming office place. Go figure

"If it aint broke....you can still fix it"

So I'm visiting my old stomping grounds in South Carolina. My mom's house is chuck full of lovely cherry wood furniture. It's everywhere. So as I walked around the house in each room I asked her what I could refinish or what needed refinishing. She told me that one of the chairs could use a re-do. She told me that she was replacing this pretty piece of furniture. I have never refinished anything that wasn't trashed!!!! So I actually felt a little weird hauling this outside and sanding it down when it was a perfectly pretty shinning cherry finish wood... even more so while all the kids were swimming in the pool next to me. I went for it anyways. I decided to sand down the whole thing and paint the base white and adding a WALNUT stain to age the legs and also that same walnut stain on the top of the sofa table! How do you think it turned out???

So fun I was very happy with the way it turned out. My mama loves it too but I'm probably going to sell it on craigslist since as previously mentioned EVERYTHING in the house is cherry wood and this beachy, antiquey, cottagey piece doesn't quite match anything!