Chalkboredom

Everyone was busy yesterday so I decided to paint my thrift store coffee table. I think I paid $15 for it on some 50% off special. Its partner is still in my garage awaiting my genius/oops paint spectacular.

Someone pinned something similar on pinterest the other day. A chalkboard table. I had thought of that while staring wistfully at my bargain but nixed it because of the chalk dust and the idea of seeing the chicken scratch of two non-writers would distract me too much so I'd always be cleaning it. But, you know, boredom, monotony, the thought that if I left the house I'd be spending money all came together in my head in an explosion of energy. It's like my super power. Boredom turns into creativity. At least I'm not Aquaman.

One of the reasons the table was $15 was because it had large gouges scratched into the top from what I can only assume was a dwarf werewolf.  Small paws and all that. So I had to bust out the wood filler. It dried pretty quickly in the 10am sun of southern California. Two passes of that with sandings in between left me with a pretty smooth top.

The top wasn't as smooth as I wanted so I sanded between coats. I did around three coats and finally switched to a foam roller to get a clean top coat.

 Matte black!

This photo is after I primed the top with a piece of chalk. I just rubbed the chalk over the entire surface. Otherwise if you write something it stays forever until you evenly apply the same amount of chalk to the surface. So if you write, say, "knuckleheads" it will be there for months before it finally fades. Plus, now it looks a bit like a fancy zinc tabletop.

 I like the dark gray better than the matte black.

I had a friend stop by to help carry it in and before the legs hit the floor, Hartwell found the chalk and got busy.

Also, I realized that I was absolutely right, I have to wipe it down every night or go insane at seeing the mismatched scrawling from the short, drunken frat boys who live in my house.

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One Nightstand. Cheap & Easy.

 

 

Hi Everyone! My mom brain kicked in and I sent the wrong link! But this nightstand is cute right? Here's the correct Thing I Love on Thursday.

Sorry, I'm new!

It's finished! I think it turned out pretty cute. Much harder than I thought it would be, but totally worth it. 

I started with a plain, pine bedside table (industry term!). I thought I would paint it some crazy color but was inspired by this:

Not Catherine O'Hara, although she is an inspiration, but that excellent wardrobe to her left. Or stage left. Or your right. Anyway, it's gorgeous and my wheels immediately started turning when I saw it in Penelope.

Before:

The first thing I did was paint the inside a teal-blue color, since I wasn't decoupaging it. But if I did it again, I would paint the whole thing. If a little blue peeks through it's much prettier than wood. 

Next, I cut the paper. I bought a scrapbooking stack with a palette I liked on sale for $8. It was this one, 180, 12x12 sheets. I went through the stack pulling out the pages I wanted and getting it down to the exact mix of colors. Then I cut them into 3"x4" pieces and put them in order by color family.

Blues, oranges, patterns, orange/purples, purples, blue/purple/oranges.This makes it much easier when you go to glue them to the table. Nothing too similar is next to each other.

After a poor start, I tried just using the ModPodge to adhere the paper, I decided to spray glue the bedside table and place pieces on. This is good for two reasons: 1. no wrinkling/bubbling and 2. you can reposition! Genius.

For the sides and the edges..it's tricky. For the edging around the table top I cut 4" x 1" strips, sprayed the glue to the backs of the strips and adhered them to the edge by kind of curling them under. For the vertical edges, I used 4" x 2" strips and centered them on the edge and wrapped them. Creating a border on the outside and inside. You can see it better in this photo:

Since the inside of the drawer was kind of gross, I just spray glued a 12" x 12" piece and popped it in.

 

To finish it off, I found an Anthropologie knob from a previous project that was resting inside my garage. I remember that knob was expensive, like $10, which is more than I spent on the whole project.

Here it is! All done and pretty. I walked into my bedroom after I redecorated this little area and I did a double take because it was so pretty. It needs some wall color, but still! Gorgeous!

Check out DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land !!
and
Metamorphosis Day!!

This is where we do all of our living.

I was sweeping my living room floor last night and marveling at the number of cheerios and cheese crackers in the dustpan. And dog hair. I live in a day care kennel.

I made my neighbor come over and smell my house. Like a first impression smell before the playgroup came over. (I have the best neighbor ever). Unanimously dog. Stinky, stinky basset hound.

All this cereal covered stinkiness makes me long for a time before children and before sweeping the floor took three trips to the trash can. And I came upon this photo. I love it. It's like how my living room was supposed to look before I was storing toys in every crevice. And when we used the fireplace. Even with candles. Now there's a furni pad crammed up in the chimney because it has no damper. But we used to buy firewood! And had a fireplace accessory set! Nowadays I would be biding my time before I was hit upside the head with a dirty broom. And can you imagine the face of the kid who discovers the bellows?!

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I had a white couch. White. Now I have a dark brown, ultra-suede arch nemesis. And there's no going back.

Sofa King Un-cool

I'd like to introduce my arch nemesis. My sofa. I wish it were as simple as, "Whenever I watch Ratatouille, she tries to kill me," but she is much more subtle than that.
She was a gift from my parents before Thanksgiving. My mom and dad were coming to help me get ready for the baby and needed a place to sleep, so she offered to buy me a sleeper sofa. The only problem was, I had three weeks to find something. Most places could give you a sleeper sofa if you had six weeks. The one I found was ready in a week and a half. What a deal!
But, alas, she is a fickle mistress. When you sit on the sofa and stand up again, you don't get that bouncy push. She tries to pull you back down. And since it's a sleeper sofa, it has that giant metal hardware under the cushions. If left alone the cushions get lodged into the cracks and it's even harder to stand up. So I folded a bunch of comforters and quilts and blankets and pillows and placed them between the hardware and the foam. It's much more comfortable, but if no one is sitting on it, she looks like she just ate a quilt. "Mmmm,..log cabin."
She is supposed to be a sofa/chaise combo which I thought would help with the problem I have of Barkley thinking the sofa is his and we need to sit on the floor. But no one can sit in the corner seat, so it ends up seating three anyway. Or two and a basset hound. So I turned it back into a regular sofa and we use the chaise part as a climbing structure.
What I need to do is create a vision board full of ideal sofas. And stop talking about her. She could hear me and get really angry. And I wouldn't like her when she's angry.