In everyone’s zeal to pin everything and anything they realized that maybe we all were doing more pinning than projects. Hand raised, guilty as charged. So here I am, taking the Pinterest Challenge. One of my very first pins was a campaign dresser from Emily A. Clark.

Gorgeous, right? Here’s another brightly colored dresser by the Little Green Notebook that had my wheels turning.

As fate would have it, I stopped into the Salvation Army on my walk home from work last week and found my own little campaign dresser for $20. I was beyond thrilled. I think I squealed a little bit on my way home. After Matt graciously helped me load that beast into the back of the Elantra. Y’all, that thing has some serious hauling power.

So, here she is:

Grody, right? I took off all of the brass hardware and started scrubbing it down with Brasso. This method was working fairly well but I was getting kind of light headed from all of the fumes. These handles were really tarnished so I was kind of stuck in the kitchen with the fumes scrubbing away.

Then I had a light bulb moment. Doesn’t vinegar and salt do the same thing without the stank? I remember cleaning pennies in high school to prove this chemical reaction. Well, wouldn’t you know, it worked like a charm and was a lot less abrasive.

While the hardware was removed I wiped the entire dresser down and primed it with my handy Zinsser Stain Blocking Primer. I also filled a few minor cosmetic scratches with wood filler and gave the whole thing a light sanding before priming.

After slapping on the primer I really thought about keeping the dresser white (or black). As we all know, I do love a good neutral. I put my big girl pants on and said go big or go home. Matt and I were looking at the dressers above as well as Centsational Girl’s recent project for color inspiration.

We decided we wanted to stay in the blue/green realm of things this time so we picked up a quart of Sherwin Williams Oceanside and I was ready to slap some paint on this baby.

This picture was taken after the first coat. I almost had a nervous breakdown. Oh em gee. Have I painted my glorious campaign dresser an eye searing shade of turquoise? Luckily, once the second (third and fourth!) coats were added the color became much more muted and what we were going for. A collective sigh of relief from everyone!

I added two coats of wipe on polyurethane and added the hardware back to the dresser. I especially fell in love with the color when I added the newly spruced up drawer pulls. It’s like jewelry for the furniture! What do you think?

We’re still contemplating where this little guy should live. It’s a little short for a bedside table but I’m wondering if it works 100% in the living room.

Either way, we love our first foray in to the wonderful world of color. So tell me, are you Pinterest addicts too? Have you tackled a project that you’ve had on your to-do list forever?

Moldy insulation, drywall and gallons of NASTY water all over the kitchen!

Our contractors, and I use that term very loosely, showed up 2 days after the initial wreckage and rigged up a temporary solution. They ripped out the rest of the ceiling and taped up a garbage bag. Yes, a garbage bag.

A day later a new set of “contractors” showed up to patch the ceiling. Here’s what it looked like. Excuse the brutal iPhone pictures, I was try to be sneaky while texting Matt, OMG…this is how they’re patching our ceiling!

Apparently, mud and drywall tape cover a lot of mistakes. They managed to get the ceiling patched up and painted. The next tenants will be none the wiser. I’m just glad that experience is over. Between all of the phone calls back and forth with the property manager, contractors and taking time off of work it would have been easier to just patch the ceiling ourselves! Ah, such is the renter’s life. So, have you had any unexpected projects crop up lately? Had to clean up someone else’s dirty dishwater?

So here’s how it all went down…I grabbed my magazine stack and pulled out all of the inspiration pictures or articles I loved and I recycled the rest of the magazine. Please forgive me, in my zeal I forgot to take a picture of my ridiculous stack of magazines. Bad blogger.

[ INSERT PICTURE OF ME RUTHLESSLY EDITING MY HOME MAGAZINE IDEAS AND CATALOG INSPIRATION]

After I had my keep stack I just threw them into plastic sheet covers and into my “house ideas” binder. I printed off Ashley’s cute cover design and that was that.

Just to add another level of crazy OCD, I added categories. They are: Living Room, Kitchen, Dining Room, Bedrooms, Accents and Outdoors. I used my trusty label maker and I was done with that project.

Since that took me less than an hour and I was all hopped up on organization juice I decided to put all of my recipes that I had either printed from the internet or torn out of magazines into a binder. Luckily, I remembered to take a picture of that hot mess. You’re welcome.

I went through all of the recipes and sorted out the duds and organized them into easily searched categories: Appetizers, Desserts, Breakfast/Breads, Chicken, Beef/Pork, Pasta and Seafood.

I found a lovely Recipe binder cover via Prudent Baby. I printed that out, put the recipes into plastic sleeves and went to work printing my category labels. Easy peasy.

I love these dividers for this binder. They have little pockets in the front. So when I find a recipe we want to try I’ll put it in the appropriate category pocket. If it’s a winner, it gets put into a plastic sleeve, if it’s a dud, I’ll toss it out. Hopefully that will keep the recipes from getting out of control again.

Looks great next to all of my other favorite cookbooks!

But, wait! There’s more to organize! I was looking at our 4 baskets (yes 4!) of DVDs and thought, there’s a binder for that! I may need a binder intervention.

I bought a DVD binder from the Container Store. LOVE that place, by the way. I took all of the discs out of their cases and put them in the sleeves. Easy as that. Well, actually first I had to endure the ruthless commentary from Matt based on my collection of DVDs that starred Ben Affleck or Matthew McConaughey.

Finally all of my errant collections were happily placed in their new happy binder homes. Tell me I’m not alone in my organization bliss. What’s have you categorized or labeled lately?

I didn’t really feel like shelling out any moolah for this look so like any good blogger, I headed deep into the interwebs for a DIY tutorial. I found tons. Here, here, and here. Not to beat a dead horse, but here’s my take on it. I think I added a significant first step so I’m going ahead with my own mini-tutorial.

I reused these votive holders from my mantle candlescape of yore.

I peeled the fabric off and was left with a semi-sticky residue from the spray adhesive I had used on the prior project. Since I was feeling lazy I just left it on there to see what it would look like. I think the texture from the spray adhesive really gave the candle holders a more realistic look.

I brushed a metallic silver paint on the candle holders and used a little spritz of water from a travel hairspray bottle to get the mercury glass look.

How much paint and spritzing is your own preference, do what moves you. After I had let that layer of paint dry I dipped my stenciling brush into black paint and dabbed all over the candle holder. More spritzing. I also used a paper towel to dab for more texture. Dab and spritz away pals!

Let dry overnight and add candles. Cute, right? I love the texture that the 2 layers of paint plus the spray adhesive gives it.

So tell me, what have you transformed lately? Do you have a new spin on a familiar craft?

Our mattress might have been cheap but she sure isn’t standing up to the test of time. Our mattress is old. and saggy. and not comfy. I tried to dress her up with a feather bed and new 600 count sheets with no avail. We both felt like 95 year old people creaking and cracking every morning. We’ve had our eye on this mattress for awhile but with the $2000 price tag we won’t be pressing the buy button anytime soon. My BFF, Mel suggested the memory foam topper from Serta. We were sold at only $80 and $2 shipping from Overstock. I was so excited when I saw the package at our door step. Yay!! I would have jumped up and down had my old aching back not been cramping up!

I had a minor freak out when I pulled out of the box. It looked really small, like teeny tiny. Take a look a Lulu dominating our foam mattress pad.

I was worried they sent a twin instead of our queen size. A quick scan through the manual and I realized this thing was like those old school expanding animal capsules we used to play with as kids. I cut off the shrink wrap and this thing folded out and expanded to its full size in about 10 minutes.

Fun, but not as fun as waking up every morning like I slept on a cloud. This was the magic answer to our crappy college mattress. I added new sheets and a coverlet from Target and our bed is looking ship shape. I’m hoping to swap out the throw pillows and update the color in the frames above the bed soon.

Ahhh, please excuse me I think I need a nap. Before I pass out in a glorious sleep, tell me how you fluff your bed. Extra pillows, feather beds, or 1000 count sheets? Now that I’m on this glorious sleep train, I never want to get off!

I decided to take the plunge and spray paint it with Rustoleum’s Metallic Brushed Nickel that had received rave reviews round the blog world.

It didn’t look too bad outside in my make shift workshop but once I brought it inside it was all  “LOOK AT ME!! I’VE BEEN SPRAY PAINTED SILVER.”

I thought I had maybe grabbed the wrong metallic paint and headed back to Home Depot for a less shiny alternative. I returned home with a matte finish but the result was pretty much the same. BRIGHT AND SHINY! It might be more noticeable because of the picture frames on the table but one thing is clear. This lamp just isn’t working.

Wah. I haven’t found a replacement yet so we are still rocking the silver lamp. I’m thinking a glass lamp would be cool. Maybe I should paint it a different color? What say you people? Paint it again? What color?

Our little office space looked like this (great chair huh?).

The shelves were pretty easy to install. The shelves came in two pieces. One piece was a metal bracket that was installed on the wall.

The second piece, the actual shelf, just slid right over the bracket. Easy! So now we have some handy shelf space to keep the desk clutter at a minimum and some interest on the wall to keep Matt from going crazy looking at the white expanse of wall.

After hanging the first shelf we realized that the second one wasn’t necessary in the office. We’ve been trying out different places all over to find it a home. I think we’ve found a winner so we’ll post on that later.

Have you found any look alikes that fit the bill for one of your projects?

Since I had all of the paint out for our shelf and table re-vamps I decided to tackle this project while the patio was pulling double duty as a workshop.

I didn’t sand or strip the table at all. Mostly because I’m lazy. I just went to work with the handy BIN primer. It’s oil based so it hides a lot of imperfections and covered the brownish/black.

I then applied 2 coats of Glidden High Gloss White from the never ending gallon of paint that I picked up. I didn’t bother with polyurethane since the table is pretty rustic anyway. So what do you think?

What?! You don’t like it? What if I told you it was only $10? Matt didn’t love it either but I had plans for it. I needed a place to house all of our cookbooks. Our cupboards are packed to the brim with wine glasses and important stuff like that so my poor cookbooks were living in a box in the corner of the kitchen. Let me tell you people. Digging through a box to find a recipe = more motivation to go out to dinner.

Anyway, on to the re-model of this puppy.

It looked like someone used it as a media stand in it’s previous life. I bought a $6 thin board from Home Depot to replace the backing (PS-those peeps will cut it to your standards for Fa-ree!). I then used my leftover beadboard wall paper and added that to the back. Can I just say how much I love this stuff? Seriously. Love.

Looking better all ready, right? I think the beadboard helps disguise this as a cheapy shelf into something a little more substantial. Eh, maybe not. But, at least it looks cute.

I had to prime this beast since it was painted black. I used the BIN Zinsser primer of previous projects. I then painted it with Glidden’s High Gloss White. I bought it straight off the shelf. Nothing fancy. I usually use Benjamin Moore but I didn’t want to spend the money on such an inexpensive piece.

Another view of my fancy rigged up workshop on our patio. Yes, that is a dumbbell holding my plastic tarp down. Apartment dwellers rejoice! You can still DIY in an apartment.

I added a piece of trim around the bottom for 2 reasons.

1- to make it look less cheaptastic

2- the edge on the right is really ragged so I needed to disguise that and it gives the shelf more stability.

So here she is all decked out in her cookbook toting glory.

So what do you think? Here’s the cost breakdown if you’re looking to revamp a shelf of your own.

$5.00 (ish)- the trim along the edge

Free- beadboard wall paper

Free- Glidden High Gloss white paint. Leftover from my table project.

Free- Zinsser primer. Also on hand from the table-revamp project.

$6.98- Hardboard backing

Total: $11.98

Not bad, eh? So for $21.98 I have a perfect perch for all of our cookbooks. So, have you given a furniture castoff a facelift recently?

So remember what we had before?

I just flipped over each cushion and took out the staples holding the old, grody fabric onto the chair cushion. Easy-peasy.

I really thought I was going to have to replace the foam under the fabric since there were so many stains on the fabric. But I lucked out, they each looked perfect. I was also hesitant to replace the foam since it’s the spray on kind and it would be hard to replace and make it look smooth.

So I used one of the old chair covers as a pattern and cut out my new fabric.

Ok, so this is where it gets a little unconventional. Usually, to put the new fabric on the chair you use staples. Well, my staples would not go into the wood. I had this same problem with the chairs I recovered. I solved it by using furniture tacks. Unfortunately, those are currently residing in our storage unit. So, I improvised. I hot glued the fabric to the cushion.

I can hear the screams of professional upholsterers everywhere. I am not recommending this as a go-to method. If you have super nice fabric I would definitely not recommend it. If you used tacks/staples and mess up you can just pull them out. With glue you are literally stuck. Ha! But seriously. It worked out fine for me but I like to live on the edge. SO for all of you who want to glue your cushions here’s how it’s done.

1- Make sure your fabric is how you want it on the front (if you have a pattern or stripes-double/triple check!). Glue the top corners down first. Then wrap the corner edges over and glue/staple down. It’s like wrapping a gift.

2- Hot glue the edge between the two corners you just glued down.

3- Glue/staple the bottom two corners. Make sure to pull your fabric tight. Then glue the edges between those two corners.

4- Finish gluing the final two edges and enjoy your handy work.

Lest we forget where we came from…

Ta-da! We’re now confident that our guest can rest their hineys on our newly improved cushions and not worry about picking up some disease.

What say you? Love the white and grey combo? Any luck re-painting a thrift store find? Do tell!