From Mirrored Closet Doors to Homeschool Chalkboard!

We're less than 2 weeks away from the beginning of kindergarten, and since I am homeschooling I've had to come up with some of my own ideas on how to cut costs and still maintain a functioning home + school environment. One dilemma has been a large writing surface (i.e. dry erase or chalk board). 

 

After a little digging I picked the sliding mirror closet doors in my daughter's room as the victim. Normally I would hate to cover them... she loves to use them when she plays, but unfortunately one of the doors has a large crack and jagged edge that I've been itching to hide somehow. And available wall space is an issue so this was a win win!


 

 

 



Here is what you will need:

Glass cleaner

 

Microfiber cloth

(or something that will pick up all the lint!)

 

**Primer**

(I used a grey primer. If you don't prime you risk an uneven coat of paint resulting in more paint being used and possibly peeling prematurely.)

Chalkboard paint
(Valspar brand is what I used)
 

Foam roller

(Don't use one with fibers... I'll show you why later)

 

Painter's tape & drop cloth

Chalk & eraser

 

Tape your surface anywhere you do not want paint. Clean your mirror very well and use a microfiber cloth to help grab up any extra linty pieces. Use a foam roller and begin priming your surface. Completely and evenly coat it and let dry. I let mine dry overnight.

 

 

**I used a reguar cheap roller for my primer coat. I wish I had not done that. It resulted in fibers being pulled from the roller and left on the mirror. I didn't really catch it until it was too late and far too bad to pick out individual pieces. Once I added a coat of chalkboard paint I took a very fine grit sand paper and sanded down the rough fibers as much as I could.**

Here you can see the fibers sticking out after a coat of chalkboard paint was applied.

You can see in this image where all the fibers caught the chalk later during the "priming" process. It's not a perfectly flat surface but it still writes very well, just a few little bumps here and there.
 

 

To fix the nasty chip in the mirror I took a quick and simple route of using painter's tape. I took a couple of small pieces and wrapped it around the chip then proceeded to paint over it. You can barely tell on the finished product.

Apply 2 to 3 coats of chalkboard paint according to package instructions, prime the surface with chalk as shown above (I used sidewalk chalk for quick application), erase and you now have a great writing surface!!


~~~~~

The more I think about it the more excited I am to use the board for school. I can see the sliding doors coming in very handy for hiding subjects, revealing one letter, number or word at a time during different learning activities... yay!
 

 

From Old(ish) to New - Crib & Changing Table

I can hardly believe we have approximately 100 more days to go until our son is here! With his impending arrival I'm doing little projects here and there to prepare. So far I have done a lot of room organizing, furniture painting, and even started making my own cloth diaper inserts. I waited until I finished what I *think* is all of the furniture painting for the room before I posted about it. Now that it is done, see our 4 year old crib and changing table get a Maddox-approved makeover!

Before:

The crib before Jaiden was born back at our cramped little apartment.
(We had cats, hence the crib tent, but ultimately it got taken off because the cats never bothered her)

 Changing table heavily stocked before her arrival.

 

And for Maddox
After:

(still lots of stocking to do on his table) 

Painting the Crib:

Obviously the furniture matched to begin with, but it didn't look right on the hard floors and really, those plain wood colors are kind of 90's! I started with the crib a couple months ago. I'm not going to lie... I'm lazy and really did NOT want to sand that thing. I found a blog a long time ago about someone who spray painted their crib without sanding by using several coats of primer spray, then used the color spray paint they wanted the finish to be. 

I used Krylon brand spray from Walmart. At the time it was the best priced spray I could find after checking local hardware stores. I was going for either Krylon or Rustoleum. 

I primed maybe what I thought were 3 coats. Apparently my coats were not really "coats" and more of touch-ups of the first coat. When I applied a gazillion coats of the gloss white spray I was having issues. (It really does take a gazillion coats... the downside to spray paint!) I had a couple bubble and crackle spots, and after a couple of days it was chipping easily. Luckily the bubbly spots were on a rail so all I had to do was turn that rail to face the wall. To prevent chipping I slathered the entire crib in 3 coats of Polycrylic. Now it doesn't chip and looks beautiful!

Painting the Changing Table:

After the crib I vowed spray paint was a thing of the past. I convinced myself it would be easier to hand paint. Ha. I gave up that idea when I decided I was going to go ahead and use the changing table. I did not plan to use it and was trying to come up with other creative changing table ideas but without spending money I don't want to spend that was not going to happen. I dug the old table from the outside closet, laid all the pieces out and went to town. I tried to be more liberal with the primer this time. Since I had 3 cans left I went ahead and used every can before I moved on to using the gloss spray. The finished product was more durable than the crib (pre-Polycrylic) and since baby will not actually be sleeping in this I opted to not Polycrylic it. 

 

Total cost of BOTH projects was simply the cost of the spray paint. I bought about $45 worth in the beginning including primer spray. It happened to work out the way I did the crib that I had just enough spray to do a good finish on the changing table. I already had a quart of Polycrylic so I won't include that cost. A quart will go a LONG way! I still have way more than half a can left and the crib has made the 4th or 5th big project I used it on.

~Lisa~

 

Small Home Solutions: Stool redo

For more photos and a short tutorial on the frames and hooks, head back over to Small Home Solutions: Coat area!

For our small 3 bedroom house, space is critical as we are beginning to figure out, even for things like a coat area! And with a small living room, seating is in short supply as well. So why not create a new space to hang our coats, personalize it, and fit in a cute stool? Challenge accepted and completed :P

A little background on the stool idea. I had pretty much decided what my plans were, I just had to find the right stool, pick the accent color I wanted for my living room (of which 4 walls are green as you can see), and then do the work.

Let's take a short break for a Pinterest funny find:

Had your laugh?! I did too hehehe.


Ok, seriously now! I found some cute ideas especially in the yellow region. Yellow and white seem to work well together. And when I thought about it, yellow would make a fantastic accent color in my living room even when I go to recover my couch cushions some time in the future.


After a long days search I found the right stool for the project. To me and every other DIYer out there, it was just beautiful. To others, probably hopeless. I snagged it up for $9 which is a tad more than I planned on spending but it was seriously the only stool I could find that fit my plans.

There is some sort of panel nailed in to the top to cover a hole that was once that webbed wicker stuff. I assume somebody fell through it and they "patched" it up lol.

I had to get really creative here... what to cover the top with in order to give it cushion WITHOUT buying anything? Oh yeah, how about that old pillow I found under my bed!

Let's say it together, P E R F E C T!! I didn't even have to cut it down or anything! 


Before putting the pillow on it needed a few coats of white paint, a little roughing up and a coat of Polycrylic to match my TV stand and Coffee table redo.


To get that perfect pillow on to my beautiful stool all it took was a hot glue gun and some toasty fingers.


And then of course I had to add the pretty yellow checkerboard fabric. Again just some hot glue and toasty fingers... I did not fold the raw edges under or anything, I let them hang over while I glued because hot glue does not really work through two layers. I wanted to make sure it had a good "stick." Once it was all glued on I took an exacto knife and cut all the excess fabric off.


Finally, thanks to a fun basket at Hancock Fabrics full of adorable flowers I snagged up a couple of these golden yellow flower pins and attached one to the corner.

This beautiful new "Small Home Solution" cost me approximately $15 for the stool, fabric, and flower!

Back to - Small Home Solutions: Coat area

Small Home Solutions: Coat area

This project is split in two posts so be sure to follow up with Small Home Solutions II: Stool redo. I felt the stool deserved its own post!

I am so excited to share this project. In my living room is a small space between our giant German shrunk and the wall along the hallway entrance. Typically it housed a plant, a vacuum cleaner.. other random things that fit there. Now it houses what you see above!


I wanted a more organized coat area that was not behind the living room door cluttering that wall and the full swing potential of the door. Plus where you find coats, shoes tend to gravitate further inhibiting door opening. So with the coat area I decided to go with a personalized touch. 

There is way more on that rack than you can see. Oh, and the wall isn't white anymore! That post to come eventually....

First, I took these old frames I inherited from my mom eons ago.

They got spray painted white. Eventually I decided to cover two of the frames with fabric.


To do the personalization I used Word 2011 and picked font "Parchment" then with the Word Art option I used whatever style it is that outlines the font. That made it to where I could use black marker to color in only what I wanted, in this case, just the letter. It's amazing what Word Art and enlarging a font can do... really gives you many different looks!


Lastly I took hooks from an IKEA wall-mounted coat rack (also given to me years ago), spray painted them white and, with long screws, hung them on the wall.

If ever there was motivation not to overload a hook with coats, them not being in studs ought to be it! I placed 2 up high for my husband and I, and one down low for our daughter to reach.

Technically the frame and hook project cost maybe a few cents. I bought a yard of the yellow heavy cotton fabric for $5 but obviously used very very little of it for the frames, and all of the other things I already had!

Take me to Small Home Solutions: Stool redo! 

A Little Girl's Dream Room - Tribute to Jaiden

I have spent an evening or so cruising Pinterest (click the button in the left column to follow me and see more of my ideas.. I've just recently gotten hooked!) for color themes, decor ideas and other goodies to help me with my next major project: Jaiden's room makeover! 

Our 3 1/2 year old daughter currently has the middle-sized room of our home. What makes it small is an awkward entry way that cuts to the left.. really proves difficult for furniture arrangement. The smaller room is my sewing and vanity space, and my husband & I have the biggest room. 

....We definitely have a "starter home" with approximately 1100sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath with no basement or garage. 

But I'm truly thankful for it nonetheless!!

Here's an old photo from when we first moved in... I promise I have added a flower garden since then.

-You can probably imagine what my dreams are for a future house!-

We did Phase I of our laminate flooring install last summer that currently only stretches the living room and hall way. Definitely check the link out if you're interested in installing laminate. I tried to incorporate some great tips on doing it yourself ;) Here is a bad quality (great pose, however!) picture of my little sweet pea... gives an idea of the living room on down the hallway. Lots of painting left to do if you can't tell.

Our intention is to get the flooring finished and installed in all 3 bedrooms.... You may wonder why we'd have pretty much an entire home of laminate flooring? I have my reasons: A toddler, a full breed yellow Labrador, a kitty, and a really awful terrible blue carpet in the bedrooms. If future homeowners don't like the laminate, they can pick it up and put down carpet... I might just have to leave behind photos of what it looked like before to stop any complaints lol.

The exciting part of finishing the flooring is that it lays the ground work for her bedroom makeover! Jaiden will be moved to our bigger bedroom and we will move to her room.

We don't need the space. We already know her room will fit a queen size bed and dresser... been there done that and went back to the crib/daybed conversion. A toddler needs her space to play! Hubster and I are only in our bedroom at night. Otherwise it is a DZ (drop zone) for clean clothes laundry baskets. Needless to say it hurts my feelings none to give the big room to her!

Now... 

My ideas:

Pink? Green? Black? White? <--- Some sort of combination of those colors plus or minus one or two of them!

Not sure on which shades of pink and/or green I'm going for yet

Painting her bed possibly white ...but maybe pink, green or black... from the natural oak color. Can you tell yet that I'm kinda in the early stages of all this? lol

Giving her bed a tufted headboard and of course new bedding (that I plan to make or buy super duper cheap).

A dress up area - What little girl wouldn't want a dedicated dress-up space?!

And my biggest idea - A stage!! (Also seen in the above dress-up area pic) Jaiden is such a performer, always singing and dancing around. I joke that the world is her stage, but I think it would be incredibly awesome to give her a real stage in her room! Maybe it will cut down on stage shows in front of the TV hehe. I thought of this idea one night and was so excited about it I had to see if anybody else had already done it. Luckily I found a couple of blogs where people had!

So there you have it! 

A few ideas I'm tossing around to get me going on this project once the finances are available and the rooms are ready to be switched over. I'm trying to stick with a pretty tight budget. I love to do makeovers frugally. Many things I have planned out that I can already get for free or really cheap, plus several items I have on hand already. My biggest OOP expenses I anticipate to be fabric and paint. The room isn't huge by any means. I do have a lot of space issues to work out ahead of time and organizational dilemmas. 

It won't happen over night but my goal is to have it done by the end of June for her birthday in early July! I'll save the "before" photos until the finished product post.

Definitely click on my Pinterest button so you can get links to the photos I have provided and check out some of the other things I have pinned to help me with the makeover :)

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