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!!


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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~

 

The Embarrassing Room Returns!

... And it is no longer nearly as embarrassing as it once was!!

The plan all along was to reorganize my extra room but a link party motivated me to get it done faster, and boy am I glad I did! Can't wait to unveil it over at
Lovely Crafty Home!

Our extra room in the house is a multi-functional space. It is my sewing/craft room, my vanity space, husband's guitars, my clothes, ironing board and other random stuff. There was a lot of purging, Goodwilling and old fashioned organizing to get this space together but it is finally done. I have several photos for you to enjoy!

As a reminder here is the before photo and a link to the original post about the room. I made it small to spare you to heartache of its awfulness:

So, the flooring. Ya like that hot and steamy blue carpet?! Ooooh yeah!! 

GONE!

 

After my fabulous husband and his friend installed the flooring I got to chime back in with the real fun; bringing all the furniture in to the room and arranging it where I wanted it.

Quick and not so exciting glimpse of the closet and entry area (door is to the left). Still planning to hang and recover the ironing board to match.
(Here is a link to the ironing board cover!)

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My vanity went in to the far outside corner of the bedroom from the door where the guitars were once hanging. I bought wood boards from the craft section at Walmart several months back, used batting, fabric, ribbon and a staple gun to create the hair clip holder. On the other one I added mug screws to hang jewelry from. I'm not a big jewelry person so it works for me.

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My sewing table went right along the entrance to the room. I wanted the backside of it to be free from the wall so that fabric could easily flow down especially when sewing something large, which came in very handy when sewing the table skirt I made for it. This would also be the first time I have sewn a pleat, which wasn't so hard! I bought a large velcro package from Hancock Fabrics with a 40% off coupon (final cost $4 and change) to help hold it in place yet make it easily removable for washing.

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Last year I bought this chair (plus the one at my vanity) from Walmart for $30. It was an expense but I was having an awful time finding two matching, sturdy, and nice-looking chairs anywhere else. The padding is a brown leather look so I purchased an accenting dark pink checkerboard fabric to match the flowers on the table skirt and hot glued it to the chair!

Both fabrics cost me about $20 but I bought a lot planning to do the ironing board cover & curtains which have not been done yet.

As you can also see, the table is a functional hiding spot for my husband's guitar amp which needs to stay in this room but is just too ugly and bulky to be out and about! Speaking of which, his guitars got moved to where my spool rack once hung next to the window.

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This is the inside corner to the right of the vanity and directly behind the sewing table. On the floor shelf I've organized embroidery attachments, my file folder for patterns, accessories and my beloved stereo. No sewing space is complete without a stereo for relaxation :)

The wall shelf is pretty self-explanatory. It's home to a few special books, photos, a couple of jars for buttons and tiny notions, a basket of scissors, then the curtain rod I used to hang elastics, measuring tape, and ribbons!

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The is the inside wall where the vanity once was. I painted the saying up last year right after I painted the room. Thought it was perfect for me! I decided to hang the spool rack I made from an old coat rack underneath it that way it fits in with the area, and is easy to reach when I'm sewing.

What I love most is that I have space on my floor even in this tiny room where I can lay things out, and it's not being put on carpet!! Oh that carpet was sooooooooooo nasty.... old, nasty.

Hope you enjoyed the room make-over! Nothing incredibly fancy but for something that was almost all DIY and cost me around $25 to get the finished product I wanted, I am happy! This room now holds the title for most organized and least cluttered spot in the house :)

~Lisa~

Removing Baseboard Heaters

I'm telling you right now, this is as fancy as fancy gets. Your mind is about to blown by all of the insane detail in this tutorial.... that is not true. BUT I do have a few really good and possibly life-saving tips for you if you plan on removing old baseboard heaters!

****In all seriousness, I highly recommend doing some real research on this process. My post is meant to be very lightly informative and humorous!****

 

  My husband has been a tremendous help in this extra room project. He even took off work a couple hours early to get started. I do love him :)

1.) First thing's first, turn off the breaker to the heater! Nobody wants to get electrocuted eh?!

2.) Then unscrew lots of screws. We used the drill and even a manual screw driver to get it done as some are hard to reach.

3.) Rip that ugly thing off the wall and admire original drywall where you will have to paint and buy a new piece of trim to fill the gap.

4.) Wires. Now you need to undo the wires, cap them, and create a little box in the wall with a plate cover on the wall. Something to do with fire hazards and building codes... Remember the breaker we turned off? Yeah, not the right one. I was in the middle of ironing my skirt for work across the hall when I heard a pop and all the lights flicker. That would have been wires sparking!!

1.) Let's go back to step one: Don't turn of the breaker to the "heater"... which I found out later Hubster turned off the breaker to that room. Apparently that room and the heater are on different circuits. How 'bout turn off the breaker to the entire house! That'll do it for sure.

5.) Thank the Lord that when the wires sparked and welded themselves to the metal box that your husband was spared any injury,

6.) Cap wires, screw box to wall, and put the plate over the box!

Done!

(Step 6 not done in photo but I had to run off to work.)

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