Chalk boards, cupboard doors, same thing

Today I have a before and after, but only because I managed to find a "before" picture from awhile ago. It's not like I was patient enough to take a picture of the "before" so you really just got lucky on this one.

The point of this picture, is the big empty space on the far wall. I'm not a fan of empty spaces, but that's not the problem. See that shiny rectangle on the left side of the wall? That's a phone jack. The phone jack that wouldn't be a problem if I could put a phone there. You know, if there were a power outlet anywhere remotely close to the phone jack that I could plug said phone in to. I'm telling you, I'm not sure the designers of this house were all there. After oh, 5 months of living here, I came up with a solution. Something had to cover it up, and also lie flat against the wall so that you wouldn't know that something was being covered up and, whatever was put there, would have to span most of the wall since it's not like it would look normal to just put something over the phone jack. If I did that, someone would probably think, "hey, I wonder what that picture is covering up, and try to look under it or something. Here is my solution-

I headed over to the Habitat ReStore and picked up some cupboard doors, put some chalkboard paint on them, drilled some holes to put some twine through, and hung those suckers up. Noah loves to color on them, so he gets to have his pictures hung up in the dining room.

See, no more phone jack! (Or empty wall.)

A small before and after

This is a little metal tub thingy I found for a few cents at The Salvation Army that needed a little bit of a makeover. I liked it as it was, or really, as they were, since there were 3 of them, but as usual, I thought they could be better. Enter Rustolium's Heirloom White spray paint.

Better, right? Still not done though. Distressing makes everything better.

NOW it's all done. Slightly distressed to bring out the details, and give it a little personality.

A Boring Bench Made Pretty

Remember the bench that I mentioned here? Well, I finally got the thing finished. It's been sitting in our spare bedroom for a month or so, half done because I just haven't gotten around to finishing it. Partially because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with it. I knew I wanted a "something pretty" on it, but didn't know what. A week or so ago, I decided, so then it was time to get her done.

This isn't a great "before picture," because well, it wasn't supposed to be a "before picture." It was meant to show our out-of-state family what our entryway looks like, but with the magic of the crop tool, it also works for a before picture of our bench.

The personality-less bench.

And now *drum roll please!*

All better. She (I can call it a "she" right?) is now full of personality.

My "something pretty."

Just had to put one in there of my little bench model. :)

She was painted with an "oops paint," the "something pretty" was done with paint I had left over from other projects, then glazed with an acrylic craft paint, sanded down with 60 grit sand paper, and once I get some, will be getting a coat of poly.

While doing this I decided that I really really like refinishing furniture. I like it to the point that's it's my preferred sanity saver when the kids are starting to make me feel a little nutty. So, I decided to open an etsy store and make a little bit of extra money by selling my pieces. I have an end table that I found on Craigslist yesterday waiting to be given a personality, so hopefully before too long, it'll be done and up for sale!

Evolution of a Pop Tart box

While I'm on the subject of making things out of things you already have, here's another recent project. A very small project.

Here was the problem-

Pretty fire place, pretty picture on top of said fireplace, and ever-growing stack of DVD's, and video games on top of fireplace. Josh is the culpret on this one, but I understand why it happens. You see, we have a place for video games and such, but that place is across the room on a too-full bookcase. It's just not real convenient to walk across the room every time to put stuff away. So, I've been thinking the last few days about a way to solve this problem. Then, as I was getting Noah his breakfast one morning, I saw the oh-so-glorious solution- an empty Poptart box. Yes, I'm a horrible mother- I give my kid poptarts for breakfast occasionally. Untoasted, in fact. Anyways, Pop Tart box + scrapbook paper + a little bit of ribbon=

My little box was then attached to the back of the TV stand so it's out of reach of small brown-eyed children, but still within easy reach of Daddy.

My latest project

Here at the Brahm home, there's almost always some type of project going on. This is for several reasons. Mostly because I have a hard time not doing anything, but also because for some reason I always think that something around here could be better, I like to work with my hands, learn how to do new things, and make things pretty. Not pretty as in girly-pretty, but pretty as in pleasing to look at.

My latest project, was my microwave stand. Shortly after moving into our house, I found a brand new microwave at Goodwill. We're not talkin' like new, but still has the styrofoam on it new. I really like it, but it's giant....and it was on my counter....shoved into a corner. Well, then my mom came out to stay with us for awhile when I had William, and she decided that this was just not going to work. She then set out to find me something to put it on besides my counter. After she checked Craig's List (yes, I take after my mom in the "being cheap" department), Walmart, and Target, I decided to take her to my favorite place to buy furniture- a local Fresno thrift store, 4 Sisters Thrift. They always have the coolest furniture in there. A lot of it is a little more than what I would pay for something, but not all of it, and they'll let me bargain with them. Anyways, after scouring the store, we found the perfect little table that was well under the budget for Operation Get Microwave Off Counter. Only problem was, the paint on the table was in pretty awful shape, and it was red and green. As much as I love Christmas, in my opinion, red and green should be Christmas, and only Christmas. So, I told my mom I was going to re-paint it. (She also bought me a entryway bench that will also be getting a make-over, but it just hasn't happened yet. That'll be a future blog post.)

This is the "before." I got a little impatient and had already taken the drawer out and painted it before I remembered to take a picture, so you'll just have to imagine there's a barn red drawer in there. Like I said, Christmas.

Like I said, paint was not in great shape. Fine if you want the paint-not-in-great-shape look, but that wasn't what I was going for this time.

I went at it with a wire brush to take off the loose paint, and almost all of it came off.

I put on a coat of primer, and then I decided to use the leftover paint from our dining room and living room since the stand would end up in the dining room, and be seen from the living room. (That part of the house is open.) Besides, I'm all about leftover paint.

See! My pretty grey/green antique-looking paint.

Then it was on to the drawer. I used a pretty cream colored paint that I found way marked down at Ace Hardward because it was a mis-tint. I had picked it up awhile ago because I knew I'd use it for something someday. After getting the cream colored paint on, I painted the branch and birds because I'm all about the details. It's an antique piece of furniture, so we can't have new-looking paint- that's would pretty much be the table equivalent of Joan Rivers, and we can't have that. So, it was on to putting on a glaze to make it look closer to its age. (I had already done that step in the picture. Impatient again. Woops.)

I ran out to the garage and grabbed a few bottles from my acrylic paint stash, mixed and then added water to thin it out.

Appetizing, right? When I was happy with my oh-so-appealing brown with just a tad of yellow, I brushed it onto my drawer and table, and then wiped it off with a paper towel to get the antiquie look that I wanted. With two babies running around, I see that color a lot. (Hehe...I crack myself up. :-D Yes, I'm 12. And a boy.) Let me tell you, those spindle legs are a pain in the neck to get paint on.

See? Pretty. This is the almost finished product. But, like I said, I'm all about the details.

This is what was inside the drawer. Cute, but stained, and not quite cut to the right size, and just didn't match my table's new personality and we don't want a table with multiple personality disorder. Burlap however, matched the personality just perfectly. Have I ever mentioned how much I love burlap? Just in case, I love burlap. I especially love burlap in this instance because I already had some tucked away in my ever-growing fabric stash. Nothin' better than making something new from stuff you already have. Besides, I got to use my nifty rotary cutter to get the perfect fit in the drawer.

I measured the inside of the drawer and cut the burlap out with scissors, but then used the rotary cutter to trim off the little bit of excess at the back of the drawer. I love that thing. Almost as much as I love burlap. Time to put the burlap in. Remember what I said about liking to make things out of stuff I already have? Well, for glue, since I didn't have anything else, I mixed up a quick paste of flour and water.

Anyone who has ever let cookie dough dry in the mixing bowl knows the power of flour and water.

My grand plan was to use my newly aquired rolling pin to press it down in to the drawer. Problem was, it didn't fit.

Fixed that problem. It worked perfectly after a little uh...modification.

All done! See, matching personalities.

Here is the finished product.

Dressing up a bathroom

I recently finished working on the first phase of "let's make a presentabe guest bathroom." Phase two, will include repainting the baseboards, which should be done soon, and repainting the cabinets under the sink. Not sure when that will get done. Someday I'll probably decide I want a new shower curtain and bath rug since the ones we have are stained with who-knows-what, but for now, it's what we have.

Here is the before picture-

Yes, that is an automatic hand dryer....and the old-school soap dispenser. I really have no words. I have no idea why that was there in the first place. There are so many strange things about this house that at this point I just kinda go with it. Anyways, both of those little gems had to go. As cool as it is to say that "my house has a hand dryer," I think I'm perfectly content to say "my house USED to have a hand dryer." The hand dryer now resides with our friend Andrew who took it down for me. For some reason he wanted it. Eh, whatever floats his boat. I managed to get the soap thing down, by just taking out a couple screws. I painted, hung a picture er, window, put up some curtains, scraped some grout, put in a new toilet paper holder, and towel bar, caulked around the bathtub, and it looks so much better. Yes, I scraped grout. For some reason someone not in their right mind decided to put down new grout in the tile without taking the old grout out. Therefore, the new grout kept chipping out making the floor look awful. So, I decided that there was no reason for the new grout to be there when the old stuff looked better anyways, so I got down on the floor with a putty knife, and an hour later, we had no new grout. Here is our after picture-

The red thing on the counter is there for Christmas, but in general, this is what it'll look like. I'm thinking there needs to be a picture or something above the toilet. I'll have to go through my stash of pictures in the closet and see if I can find something that works.

No more hand dryer! Instead there's this old window that I picked up at a thrift store. It already had a mirror in it, which I thought was pretty nifty, so I just painted, distressed slightly, and put in our picture of the wild horses on the beach at Cumberland Island. Josh and I went to Cumberland Island for a camping trip with our youth group while we were "dating" and we got this picture. Now I finally have the perfect place to put it. Here's a close up of my window.

I thought the window needed a little somethin', so I put the little curlycue doo-hickies down at the bottom corner. That's my limited painting abilities, right there. So anyways, that's our bathroom until phase 2 is done. Adios!

My beloved Walmart purse

About 3 years ago I was at Walmart picking something up, and I wandered past the purse section. I saw this purse, and had to have it. It was only $10, so I didn't feel too awful about "having to have it." After using it for the past three years, it was starting to look less like a purse, and more like....well, a purse that someone pulled out of the dumpster. The handle was cracked, and washing the fabric wasn't even going to touch the dirt that encrusted this thing. I loved it though...it's giant, so I can fit all of my boys' stuff in it and still have room for my stuff. So, it was time to give it a new life. Or rather, put it out of its misery, and make a new one just like it....with a little help from the old purse.

So, last night I cut it up and used it as a pattern to make a new one. I didn't quite have enough fabric though, because as I mentioned earlier, it's a little on the large side. So, I decided to use the little bits of fabric left over from other projects quilted together.

I finished making the purse last night....but then lying in bed last night, I thought about how I'd seen April, our pastor's wife, cutting out butterflies from magazines, and I was inspired. So, this morning, I cut out the flowers and butterfly from some leftover fleece, and whalla!