Piano bench project

 

I have a lot of projects going on right now!  I am finishing up the loft and the guest room.  I have also started the bookcases in the den, which is turning into a really BIG project! 

 

 

The piano bench was a fun little project to work on.  I found the bench at a flea market and planned to use it for a bench at the end of the bed in the guest room.  I got it for $20.00.

I decided to go with ASCP in duck egg. I bought this little pot awhile ago.  I used it on my kitchen chairs under Graphite.  I have never used it alone, so was excited to try it.

Since there was no padding on this bench I added my own.  I glued together two of these foam pads.  ($1.99)

I was going to use this gray burlap fabric I already had. Once I had it all stapled on I realized the weave was too loose over the foam pad, the pad showed right through!  Not a good look!

 

I ran over to Hobby Lobby and for $3.00 bought this chevron fabric.  It is spot on for matching with the Duck Egg paint color.  I stapled that right over the burlap.  

**I left out pictures for that step.  I was able to unscrew the top of the bench.  That made covering it soooo much easier.  I placed the foam pad down.  Stapled the burlap fabric over the foam pad.  Then the chevron fabric over the burlap.  Easy!  Except I had an extra step in there with the burlap!

I used two coats of ASCP and covered it in a coat of clear wax. 

 

 

I love the legs on this bench with the gold on the bottoms. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little bench will be perfect!  I love little projects like this one.  :)

Target deals!

 

I used to live in Target.  When my kids were younger I was there all the time!  I never got out the door without spending $100.00.  I do not go there half of much as I used to.  That is until recently. After finding these lamps for $17.00 each I was pretty excited to see what other deals I could find. I am really liking the Threshold line! 

 

I love this little footstool.  I had sold our old one on craigslist and was looking for a new one for awhile now.  My sisters (2 of them) actually found this stool in red at their Target in WI.  I loved it and set out to find it.  I ended up finding it in gray/blue which is perfect for our family room. The size is perfect too! I also found it for $11.00, it was regularly $59.99.  Not bad.  I could not pass up the pretty gold candle holder for $7.00 or the turquoise throw blanket for $8.00!  (I sold my old ottoman for more than all the 3 items I bought that day!)

 

 

 



I also found the ottoman in the red.  ($17.00 for this one)  I thought it would be perfect for the loft.  There was something about that woven lamp that I just loved!  $17.00 for the lamp.  I do a slight lamp addiction. 

 Speaking of lamps.... I ran into Target for half and half the other day and came out with another white lamp! (TJ was in the car and just looks at me like I am nuts! :)  It was just sitting on a shelf by itself and marked down to $7.00!  That I could not pass up!  What I spent on all these items was about what I was planning to spend on one new ottoman for our family room.  I love getting deals!! I saw one lady in Target with two carts overflowing with all the Threshold clearance stuff.  She said she was redoing a few rooms.  You can not go wrong when you find what you love for so little!  :)
 


 

 

 

 

Flea marketing with all 3 sisters!

This past Sunday my daughter Bryce & I headed to WI for our annual mother daughter summer trip.  We try to at least once a summer go up just the two of us.  We leave TJ and Brady at home.  This way we can shop and do girls things.  Bryce loves to hang out with all her little cousins so she looks forward to this time!

 

This year was extra special.  There just so happened to be a flea market in the next town!  Yipee!!!  It is called Maxwell Street Days.  I remember going there as a kid with my friend and her family.  My memory was getting up early to walk around a big rummage sale.  I was not a fan!

 

Now that I have come to love flea markets I was pretty excited to check this one out.  This time my other two sisters joined us too!  Bryce opted to swim at grandmas which was a very wise choice for her! It was a very hot and sunny day. 

I was not sure what to expect from this flea market.  Here is some of what we saw....

 

 

This vendor had a couple of these big tubs full of manikin body parts.  Maybe vintage manikin parts are all the rage now?
 

 

I thought this telephone table was fun!

 

 

We saw lots of dolls!
 

 

 

I liked this pretty light blue dresser!
 

 

I had these lamps in blue when I was little. 
 

 

A name plate with someone elses name anyone?
 

 



Ok this is something we have never seen before.  A misting tent.  This was pretty cool and much needed!



 

I always love old doors!


 

I am from WI so I can say only in WI is there a bar at a flea market!  Actually there were two.  People did walk around with pitchers of beer.  Now offer wine and I am in!  How fun would that be!!

 

 

 

Heather's purchase for the day was this pink umbrella to keep her cool.  She thought everything else was junk!  :)

 

The top of this blue desk was covered in pennies.  Different.

 

 

Fun colors!

 

Kim found a stroller for the new baby!

 

He is no Hippie Tom, but we did find a friend!
 

 

Fancy manikin!

So that was about it.   I found a few things that I will post about  later.  Kim found a few things too.  I told my sisters Lisa and Heather they could not leave without buying at least one flea market find.  Heather got her (new) umbrella and Lisa said she paid for parking so that was her purchase!  I am not sure if they will join us again, but we sure had fun! 

 

Office: Part Two

 

The Ikea Billy Bookcases were a breeze to put together. Just ask TJ!  :) They fit on the wall just how we pictured it.  Here is the office in phase 2.  It is pretty close to being done.  My next project will be fancying up the bookcases.  I plan to either paint the backs of them, wallpaper with a pretty linen wallpaper, or I am playing with the idea of replacing the backs with beadboard.  I also want to add some molding to beef them up a bit and fill those little holes. 

 

Here is the room as it is now.....

 

 

Here is what went on in that room:

*installed bookcases on back wall. 

*painted the table turned desk in Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue.
This table was our old dining room table and was just sitting in our basement.

*I kept the brown leather chairs, they are comfy and I still really like them!

*Filled the bookcases.  I love books so I am pretty excited to have a place to put them!  I love old and new books so the shelves are filled with both.  I also now have a place to put my special finds! 
 
*The left side of the cabinets serves as our working area.  The doors hide files, papers, office supplies, and wires etc. 

*The skinny cabinet on the end also holds papers and files etc. It is nice to not have to look at that stuff but to have it within reach!

  

 

 

The row of three glass cabinets above the desk is more space for books and special things! 

This black filing cabinets is great.  We had this in the old room. We have had it for many years, it is from The Bombay Company.    It actually has the look of all the library catalog tables I love!  (even though my little drawers are all faux ones!)
The sunburst mirror is from Homegoods.  I found it in the clearance section. I was planning to paint it but then decided I liked it left alone in its teaky colored wood.  The lamp and lamp shade are from Target.  I got the shade on clearance of course!  I love the pop of color it adds!  The little blue candle holder is from Pier 1.



That little gray table used to be a little brown table in our living room.  I painted it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in French Linen.  It is perfect in this room because it 3 drawers for storage! *This room gets a lot of sun, it was hard to take a picture on the window side!

You can read about that table here:

http://myeverchanginghome.blogspot.com/2013/06/more-annie-sloan.html




This wall area is one of my favorite spots in the room. The burlap corkboard was a DYI project. You can read about that here:

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5262909746498862430#editor/target=post;postID=5594785172068549898;onPublishedMenu



  The W is from Anthro and I just love it!  Also love those pictures of my kids when they were little!  The heart plaques are from a anniversary trip TJ & I took so have special meaning.  The little gold sunburst mirror just caught my eye at Pier 1 and was perfect for that spot!

I love filling the shelves! It is a mix of special gifts, flea market finds, and old and new books.

This room works so well for us!  Having two spots to work is so nice!  There is so much work space too! (before in my little black work hole I had a teeny tiny spot to work!)  I love having a spot for everything! I am so much more organized! 

 

 I am going to be having fun with those bookcases! I have a few other projects I need to complete first.  My loft and guest room are currently in a state of chaos!  After that I will tackle those shelves!  :)

 

 

 

 

 

Our office....part 1

I spend many hours in our office.  I am in here first thing in the morning with my coffee, several times throughout the day and since I am a real estate broker many nights too!   It is a bright sunny room!  It was not always so bright and sunny.  It used to be a pretty dark room.  Lots of dark furniture.  Although looking back at these pictures I did like the room before.  It  just was not functional.  When the cabinet doors were closed and the chairs were in place it was a pretty room. 

But it always looked like this......(with a big chair in front of it)

We bought that black cabinet for our old house.  We did not have a separate den.  We used the cabinet in the living room and it worked great in there.  Back then I was not a realtor, I did not have too much to keep organized.  This cabinet was not working for me now.  I felt like I was working in a black hole!  TJ also does work from home and there was only space for one!

 

Here are a few more pictures of the den before..

 

 

There was a big map picture above this file cabinet.  I had just sold it on craigslist before I took this picture.  The room had an old world feel to it.  (most things were from Bombay Co.)
 

 

It was time to make this room more functional!

 

In comes IKEA....

 

I had been researching bookcases and found some great reviews on the Billy bookcases from IKEA.  TJ and I went to check them out.

I knew I wanted an entire wall of bookcases.  I wanted the look of built in bookcases, without the built in price!  These guys were the way to go! 

It was pretty neat, we could plan our entire bookcase system out on the computer.  This helped so much!

 

We decided on white, but that black looks pretty sharp!

 

We bought: two full bookcase units, one book case unit with  partial glass doors, one half sized bookcase unit, and a row of three top cabinets. 

 

Everything (except one glass door) was in stock.  We loaded up our car and headed home to start building. 

This actually part fairly easy.  (TJ is good at this stuff)

 

TJ carved holes in the bottom of the bookshelf for all the cords to feed through.  This worked great.

 

The wood table in the picture is a dining room table we had in our last house.  It has been stored in our basement for the past 8 years.  I decided to use that as our desk. 
 

This is a work in progress.....stay tuned!  :)