A New Desk!

I have been a little absent from the blog these days.  What can I say?  Life has been running us wild and time to sit and write has not been as frequent.  What has kept us so busy you ask?  Well, I have been doing a few home projects.  I love a good project and for some reason they are so therapeutic to me.  I count myself lucky to have a husband who doesn't mind me wanting to change the paint colors in a room or build a desk in a closet.  He is pretty wonderful at letting me just go for it!  And in the project I am sharing today, he even jumped in and helped!

The reason behind this project was that I am going to be doing a little work from home starting this month and so I needed a place to where I could do just that.  Tyler has a "home office"  but if we are being honest, that room is much more like a man cave than an office. So there wasn't any room for me there!  And since I hate clutter I really didn't want to set up anything up in the guest room.  That's when I found the perfect idea on Pinterest-- a desk in the closet!  It works perfectly because I really don't need that much space and I can close the door and the clutter is hidden! Ahh... hidden clutter... it's a beautiful thing.

Here are a few pictures.... I must say, my amazing husband is responsible for constructing the desk.  If I ever said he wasn't handy, well, I was wrong!  At first I thought I would paint the closet and while that would have been great, I had a second thought.  I used fabric to cover a project board and measured it to fit perfectly in the space between the desk and the top shelf.  It works great to post notes on and in case I want to change the look, its super easy to take it down and switch up the fabric!

The empty closet and the handyman :)

 Desk is ready to go! And Tyler didn't think it needed any "frilly" details....

....But SO much cuter!

Dresser Re-do

I had been in need of a dresser for our guest room, but just wasn't interested in buying something new right now.  Instead I thought redoing something would be much more fun and budget friendly.  It just so happened that Tyler's parents had an old white dresser in their basement that no one was using and so they offered it to us. It was perfect for what I needed!

I had already painted our Master bedroom furniture, so I knew what I was getting in to.  But this time around, I had heard so many great things about this new type of paint by Annie Sloan. Its a chalk paint and it is acclaimed to be the easiest paint to use- EVER. So I had to try it!  And everyone was right. This paint involved zero prep work (the boring stuff!). You just painted it on and covered it with a wax. So simple! And I love the way the dresser turned out.  I found out the dresser was Tyler's dads when he was a kid.... after I painted it PINK...oops!  But you know me, I love a sentimental piece- even if it is revamped!

Here's the before....

And the in between....

Then I took it inside for the finishing touches! I finished it in our dining room.. since its empty for now :)

 I always love a project! 

DIY? Yes, please!

Call me picky, call me high maintenance, call me whatever, but let me be real, sometimes, despite all my best shopping efforts, I am convinced that manufacturers just do not make what I am looking for. Okay, or maybe they do at a price I am just not willing to pay. Either way, I have a new love for DIY projects, especially since we are in our new house.  Something about a DIY project makes a home feel personalized and unique and it's that touch that I love.  I can't say I am the most crafty person out there, but so far, so good!  Here is one project I just completed and I am sure I will post more in the near future.

I love texture, color, and patterns in my house.  It makes me happy.  I do not love water stains on new furniture. Been there, done that! So when shopping for coasters, I definitely had an idea of what I wanted in mind and unfortunately I just couldn't find ones that I thought were interesting enough. I felt like they needed a certain look since our coasters were not going to be the type that you just pull out for that occasional party, they are pretty much mainstays on our side tables... so I just couldn't leave out something that didn't look cute!

I have seen A LOT of people try these tile coasters and they made it look pretty easy, so I went for it!  I won't go into all the details of how you can make them, you can find those on this site.  But here are my results...not expensive at all...and cute, right?

If I can do it, anyone can! Seriously :)