Made With Love

The best gifts in my opinion are home made.  The ones made from the heart so every time you look at that thing, it reminds you of the person who took the time to make it for you.

A couple Christmas' ago I was seeing little kid's kitchens made out of assortments of old furniture all over the internet.  I wanted to make one very bad for Kalista.  I talked to my Grandpa about it and he thought it would be a great gift and wanted to help.  My Grandpa is the handiest man ever so I was so grateful to get him on board!

One of my sisters gave up an old nightstand she had for the bones of this project.  Right away my Grandpa got to work and retreated to his basement workshop.  To my surprise, he worked tirelessly for three weeks on this sweet little kitchen for his Great-Granddaughter until it was finished.

I don't have the actual before picture of it being a nightstand because I didn't get the chance before he got to working on it. But here it is before and after. Oh, and please don't mind the crappy cell phone before pictures!

I love all of the little details he put into this, like the custom hutch on top with curly cue sides, the real turning knobs for the stove and faucet, the hand painted burners, and the fact that he made it into two separate pieces so it would be easier to move.  You would not believe how heavy this thing is!

It has a very vintage quality to it that I haven't seen in any other kid's kitchens I have seen built.  Which I love!  It's probably due to the fact that my 80+ year old Grandpa built it using odds and ends he had collected over the years.  It makes it just that much more unique.

Kalista was ecstatic to see this beautiful gift Christmas morning and loved hearing her Grandpa tell her the story about going up to the North Pole and helping Santa's elves build her little kitchen.  

This is why gifts made with love are the best.  Every time Kalista plays with her kitchen, she can see the love her Grandpa has for her by the time he took to make something so special for her.

xoxo - Marissa

Garage Door Makeover

This was a super easy project that literally took like 15 minutes from start to finish.  In my opinion it adds more character and curb appeal to the house.  

As we were shopping in Home Depot for a new furnace filter we ran across this awesome product.  I always wanted Carriage Style garage doors but it wasn't an option with the program we built with.  I always thought it would be a down-the-road upgrade we would have to save our pennies for.  Little did I know it was an easy project that would only take a few minutes and a few dollars!

This hardware kit was on sale at The Home Depot for only $6.99.  Seriously?! It costs about the same as a combo meal at a fast food restaurant.  Definitely affordable.  How could we pass it up?

Step One:

Place and measure where you want to situate the brackets, making sure they line up on both sides and are level.

Step Two:

Drill the screws in the brackets in the designated holes.

Step Three:

Figure out where you want your handles situated.  There are a few different options, whether you want them closer together or farther apart.  Make sure they are level, then mark where you need to pre-drill the holes.

Step Four:

Pre-drill where you marked the holes, put on the handles, then insert the bolts.

Step Five:

Put the bracket in the bolts on the inside of the garage door, then tighten the nut around the bolt.

That's it!

I think it made a pretty big difference.

One down, a million more to go

So I did it! I finally finished a project! Lol I think I may need a party.  I probably don't deserve one though because it took me over a month to do it and it was finished back in August and I'm just now posting it.  I'm lame I know.

Nevertheless, here it is!

I bought this well built table, two Parson chairs, and a bench off of KSL Classifieds for $60.  The lady told me it was built in Alaska, so I tend to think it is better built ;)  Probably because of this talented lady.

As you can see, aesthetically it was in definite need of a face-lift.  Most of the finish was worn off or scratched and I wanted a deep chocolate color stain instead anyways.  It is a beautiful rich color that you can still see the grain through.

Here it is with my 2 mocha brown Parson's chairs, and some chairs my sister gave me.

I'm still planning on recovering the Parson's chairs with some wipe-able white faux leather fabric and then building 4 more just like them so I will have all matching chairs.  FYI: My husband is a professional upholsterer who used to do it full time and now does it on the side, so he will be the one doing all that work! Although I will try to watch and pick up some tips when we get to that.

First thing we did was sand the remaining finish off with our palm sander in the direction of the grain

{Make sure to have a little kid wave their hand right in front of the camera as soon as you take the pic ;)}

I didn't manage to get pictures of the next steps, but all I did was:

• Vacuum the table of all of the dust. 
• Wiped down with a wet cloth.  Then let fully dry.
• Applied a dark brown stain called Kona from Rust-Oleum on all surfaces of the table, let dry.
• Put a few coats of poly-urethane on, finely sanding in-between coats.

Make sure to read the instructions on the products you are using and let it cure in a well ventilated area for a few days.  The longer the better!  You don't want all that hard work to get dinged and scratched up as soon as you bring it back in the house!

I'm so happy with end results.  Much better than my last table re-do. I think with the supplies and the cost of the table and chairs this cost me about $80.  I have TONS of stain and poly-urethane left too.  I maybe used 1/10th of both cans, so there is a lot left for other projects.  Also this room is pretty much a blank slate.  I still have painting and decorating to do in here... just like pretty much every other room in my house.  One day or project at a time :)

I Love Buffets.

While it is true that I love buffet restaurants, that is not what I'm talking about today.  Instead, I'm speaking of the furniture variety.  Even more specifically, antique or vintage buffet tables or aka sideboards.

I am fortunately lucky to have been given one!  About three years ago my Grandpa asked me if I would like his buffet table that had been sitting out in his shed for who knows how long.  He told me that when he bought his home over fifty years ago that it was left upstairs by the previous owners.  From what I understood, it was old when he acquired it.  So I have no idea how old this piece of furniture really is.

I believe it is definitely showing its age though.  It's dinged, scratched up, but solidly built.  I'm hoping to transform this into something more like this.

Pinned here

I'm so excited but not sure when I will get to this project.  I've got to finish 5,642 other projects that I have started and not finished.  Am I the only one that does this??!!

Think Pink!

My girl LOVES pink.  Although I think that is normal for about any little girl.  Heck, when I was a kid I was obsessed with the color too.  Just take a listen at one of my favorite songs from when I was about 10.

Now it is going to be stuck in your head all day! haha! I had this song on replay all the time and just was obsessed with the CD all together.  Why doesn't Barbie make music anymore?  Anyways, back to the point of this post.  Here is the before before before.

Hey, we started out with pink insulation walls!

Drywall up!

The actual white walls before

After

You have got to have some room jewelry!

It's not an in-your-face pink.  More like a soft, subdued, light and airy pink.  I love it! So does Kalista :)  The color is called Satin Sheets and I think I bought it at Lowes.  I was so excited to paint something pink, that I bought the paint quite a few months before we even moved in.

Here are our process pictures.

First I layed down plastic to protect our new carpet, then I taped off all of the trim and ceiling with Frog Tape... I love this stuff, no bleed through at all! Then removed the outlet covers and light switch plates.

Then we painted, and painted, and painted some more until it was all covered!  The kids even got in on the action too.  

She loves it!

Now that the painting is done, I have a whole laundry list of what still needs to be done in this room.

• Build/upholster a bed 
• Accessorize and get artwork to put on the walls
• Paint the dresser and get new knobs
• Get a nightstand second hand and update it with paint
• Put curtains up
• Get new bedding

But that will take time with a budget.  So it will be some time before this room is all done.  That's ok, because as of right now this room is the only one that is even painted in the house.  I have a few other before and after projects that I have really got to take the time and post.  Here is a preview of one I will post soon!

Progress!

It has been almost two months since I last posted!  Building has definitely changed in the last couple of months.  For instance, we have gone from building in sunny warm weather to frigid cold snowy weather.  I knew I shouldn't have been complaining about how hot it was! haha  Building in winter months definitely has its challenges, but I think we have done very well coping and keep going.  

Here is our progress!!!

                                                                     All framed in!

                                     
                                                                  Getting roof trusses on!

 
                                                                   Roof getting sheeted!

 
                   Tar paper on roof, shingles dropped off on roof, house wrap on, and windows in!

                           Doors in, tar paper and mesh on bottom of house for rock, and shingling done!

Looks like the kids are excited about our progress too!  But do you see all of those piles of snow lining the front of our house?  All of the lovely white stuff was covering our roof and had to be shoveled and swept off.  Soooooooo glad that the roof is on and we no longer have to worry about it.  Once we get the rock on then we move on into the inside and don't have to worry so much about the freezing cold!

The Story of The Functional Table and Chairs

When Rhett and I first got married we were given this awesome table and chairs.

Yeah, I know it's not the most beautiful table and chairs but I was just so grateful to have anything and what they were lacking in style they definitely had in function.  So I did what I could to try to make them blend in a bit better.

(My color scheme looks very 1990's to me with the forest green and mauve haha!)


After having this look for a few years I was so ready for a change.  Some sanding blocks, a bucket of primer, and paint, this is what I ended up with!

(excuse the cute little girl trying to pour her own glass of milk, it was the only picture I had of the finished project)

The table and chairs looked so much better than what I started with, but I definitely ran out of steam with this project.  There were so many nooks and crannies in those chairs. They took foooreeevverrr to paint and the latex paint wasn't adhering very well to the metal legs and and plastic backs of the chairs.  I feel like a dummy that it didn't dawn on me that spray painting them would have been so much easier.  They ended up peeling and chipped everywhere too. I did love the new fabric I put on the seats though.... for about a week.  Having two little ones and trying to keep that fabric clean was miserable.  So when we decided to move in to Rhett's Mom's house while we were building our house, the very functional but not so beautiful table and chairs were taken to the D.I.

This was my first adventure in furniture re-do's, but definitely not my last.  I have done much more research on proper painting protocols so hopefully my next project doesn't turn out so bad.  But for now my huge ongoing project will be to get my house built! :)