Vintage lockers for the playroom!

There is one spot left in my playroom that I hate... here it is.

It was just never "finished" and doesn't jive with the rest of the space in any sense.  It's a giant mosh of toys, puzzles, and books.  The last frontier of that room.

I mean, its directly across from this gallery wall... just not giving off the same vibe!



Gallery wall and custom lamp shade how-to found here. I left plenty of room to add to it over the years.



I had envisioned building in a desk surrounded by pantry height shelving for more storage of course!  Something kind of like this.

source

Well, as luck would have it, I was shopping at the Tobacco Barn with my mom on Mother's Day and ran across these absolutely perfect vintage lockers!!

I was over the moon excited!  They were the perfect size, perfect feel for the space, and even better than what I had in mind. Just think of all the things I can hide in there!!  And there is even a row of shelves at the top that can be mine all mine (because the kids can't reach them!)

 Next step... getting them home.  This ended up being the hard part.  Giving them your money is easy ($150 by the way!  About $450 cheaper than they Ikea system I had designed!).  After mulling over the purchase for a few days I decided to take the truck and head back to buy them while my mom watched the kids.  Guess what happens next... they do not fit in the truck and they DO NOT come apart.  A really old guy in a motorized wheel chair suggests that they will fit perfectly balanced on the sides of the truck.  Good eye old man!!  This wasn't his first rodeo.  I head off to Lowe's and buy $75 worth of ratchet straps (we only needed two but I wasn't taking any chances!)  Two sweaty guys, two random ladies in dresses, and myself end up getting them on, balanced, and strapped down.  It was the longest 45 minute drive home of my life!

So here they are right this very second.  My biceps got a two day massive workout from scrubbing every sticky, dirty, nasty teenage whatever-ness off these babies.  There is still one pesky piece of blue gum stuck to the bottom... I think I might just leave it :-)  Goo  B Gone is a miracle worker by the way!!  It even ate through duct tape!

I'll leave you with a little vintage locker inspiration.  I am pretty sure they are going to be sprayed green with my new sprayer from Will (you know your husband truly loves you when he supports your hobby that drives him totally bonkers). 

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On another note, Rebekah and family are making the trek to NC this weekend!!  Maybe I'll make her help me paint these.  That is, after we watch our kids and husbands participate in the Mad Mountain Mud Run!  Awesome pictures to come!!

Kandi

Children's Art Display and a Playroom Update

Both of my children go to preschool.  My son attends 5 mornings a week and my daughter 2 mornings a week.  That means they come home with a minimum of 7 pieces of art each week!  Has anyone else out there ever been caught throwing it out?!?  I finally had to tell my 5 year old that I just can't keep every single thing. Does that make me a bad mom?  I do keep the extra special things!  He seems to understand... well kind of.  

In an effort to rediscover my refrigerator and better display their art I came up with a super quick, easy and free way to display the precious artwork that they are always so proud of!

In digging through a "junk" drawer for a candle last week I found a pile of drapery clips I had taken off curtain rings.  Those, along with a ball of twine from the dollar spot at Target, and a few push pins (which will soon be replaced by screw in hooks that I know I have somewhere in this house!).

I had a large blank wall right over a pile of toys.  The perfect place!  Tie your clips onto the twine, tie ends of twine to your hooks (or push pins for impatient people like me) and  attach to the wall.  If you do not have extra drapery clips, I have also seen this project with clothes pins.  Done!  In 15 minutes you can mark two things off your to do list... display your child's prized art work, check....and clean off the fridge, check!  

I wanted to show a couple other playroom project that have gone on since the reveal.  I'll use this super awesome "during" photo so you can see the giant fluorescent light box in the back of the room.  Maybe it was functional but I'm not sure there is anything I hate more in the world of lighting  than florecent bulbs.  I even took out the bulbs to make it less noticeable until I could get it totally out of there. 

Have you ever in your life seen a bigger mess!! 

It has since been replaced with track lighting that makes the gallery wall look 100% more awesome!  Made a huge difference in highlighting the photos and adding more light to the room!  Thanks Will for being so handy!  You can look back at the original Play Room Reveal post to see the difference.   

A couple other inexpensive playroom art projects. 

The "i can do HARD things" free printable is from an awesome blog called  Kiki Creates.  She is creative, smart, focused on God, and all around inspiring!  Go check her out! 

And finally, I can't help but smile when my son recites to my daughter when she's whiny... "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit".  Yeah, right!  Print from Children Inspire Design.  They no longer have this one but have great things that are super affordable.

While some of us are enjoying a snow day (Rebekah)... I'm sitting her looking at a sunny day... super jealous!!!!!!  Not even a flurry last night!

Kandi

Here is where we link up!

 

 

3 Money Saving Projects and a Basement Update

It has been a little more than a week and my basement reno is still not quite finished.  It kind of took on a life of its own and what was going to be a little face lift turned more into a major over-haul.  There were a few snafus that slowed me down... starting with the fact the color I bought [2 gallons of] was horrid and even worse the polyurethane I bought to go on my cabinets turned them from a beautiful white to full on banana yellow!!  Please learn from my mistake...ONLY USE AN ACRYLIC BASED POLY WHEN PAINTING OVER WHITE.  More on this topic and how I remedied it in a later post!  Then, of course my husband came home and got involved and we now have beautiful new floors down here and I won't complain about that at all!!  Thankfully the basement is about 99% complete now and I am only lacking a couple baskets to feel good enough about it to post it on the blog.

Today, I am going to show you 3 projects I did down here that saved me tons of money!  Who doesn't like that?

1.  Spray painted refrigerator.

What?  That's right!  I spray painted our little under bar fridge that was bought in 1980 and had the brown wood grain color to prove it!

I figured I didn't have anything to lose and if turned out horrid I would just go buy another one.  I taped up the handles, primed with Kilz, and then hit it with Krylon Fusion spray paint in Metallic Shimmer (2 coats). Easy as pie and less than an hour project including dry times!  I think it was 100% worth it and no one had any idea it was spray painted.   We are talking $5 rather than going to spend $150 on a new one!  Good stuff!

2.  Repurposed Goodwill Lamp and Walmart Shade. 

This was $5!!!!  Yes!!  They actually had a few to chose from but I wanted one that could take up a good bit of visual space on a big side table.  I was drawn to this lamp from Ballard Design, but the $169 price tag seemed completely unrealistic to me!

Pretty huh!  Here is a link if you don't feel like doing it yourself.

For the lamp base I first checked to make sure it worked before I did any work to it!  Wrap up the hardware with painters tape and next give it a quick wipe down a a coat of Kilz primer.  I would normally spray paint the whole thing but I didn't have any bright white and was sitting beside a big can of Super White Benjamin Moore trim paint.  I did two coats of that and then hit it with a coat of Rustoleum High Lustre Lacquer. 

The shade was just a little trickier but not much!  I found a $14.99 drum shade at Walmart.  I had a scrap of fabric left over from pillow making and used the plastic protective covering from the lamp shade as a template, traced it onto my fabric, and cut that out leaving an extra 1/4 inch or so around all the edges.  Next, just pin the fabric onto the shade, cut off any excess, and slowly glue (I used hot glue) the top edges all the way around. Lastly cut two lengths of matching ribbon to hide your raw edges and glue those down.  It turned out pretty close to perfect... close enough for me anyway!  One thing I learned is to line up the seams of your new cover with the existing seem on the lampshade.  Otherwise, when the lamp is on you will see both seams. 

I'm kind of in love with it and my total price including the $14.99 Walmart lamp shade was still under $30.  A far cry from the $169 price tag on the Ballard Design gourd lamp!!

3.  Gallery Wall. 
I have been pinning tons of gallery walls on Pinterest!  But, to price all new frames, mats, etc was gonna be a little ridiculous.  So, I gathered up tons of existing frames and a few other pictures and mirrors from around my house and got out... you guessed it... the spray paint!  I wanted to stick to the green, black and white so all I did was lay out my design and decide which frames to paint!  I even painted some mats and it worked beautifully!  Hopefully the glass pops out of your frames (some of mine didn't) which makes it very easy work.  Spray prime, spray paint, hang.  Easy as that!  I am left with a cohesive gallery wall that I think highlights the pictures which is exactly what I wanted!

There you go... 3 incredibly easy money saving projects that absolutely anyone can do!
Full room reveal this week sometime!

Kandi

When the husbands away the wife will...

...REDECORATE... of course.  For many reasons... but certainly not because it's physically easy.  For me it is a couple things.
1.  I LOVE to surprise my husband
2.  He is entirely too opinionated and loves to play devils advocate which, well, gets on my nerves!

I am working downstairs which I originally blogged about here.  It is going to have a couple elements from my inspiration room.  Namely a Dash & Albert rug. 

This one to be exact.  The name of it is Margarita Ticking... two things I just so happen to love! Margaritas and Ticking.... oh yes!   Their description of it is "great taste (without the morning after headache)".  I hope that name and description aren't the only reasons I bought it :-)     

My inspiration to get started originated with this little array of fabrics. I found the floral and it took off from there!

                    

To me it was just happy!  I need something to lighten up my brown couch and what better colors to pull from for a family room than green and yellow.  So far I've made 10 pillows.  I'm painting built-ins from country oak to a crisp white.  I THINK I'm going to paint the walls green.   Valspars Guacamole to be exact (sticking with the Mexican food theme I guess).  A gallery wall is in the works as well.  Now, if I could just get rid of all those ugly pesky toys---- errrr, I mean, storage solutions are coming in also. 

I will leave you with a final before. The reveal will be at the end of the week but will only be 85% complete. I am not (yet) proficient at hanging light fixtures and I have a couple pieces of furniture that are literally impossible for me to move.  Oh, and the fact that I am only working during nap time and at night...  not exactly full work days.

Wish me LOTS of luck!!!!!!!!  I need more coffee!