New Stuff

I turned my tragic frosted mirror project into a chalkboard. I like it lots better.

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The nice guys at Lowes cut a piece of wood for me the same size as the old mirror, and then I painted it with chalkboard paint. And I really did make cheeseburgers in a pan, but usually that menu will say, "You're on your own, I'm having microwave popcorn."

And here is a new rug I got at Target.
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Zach dripped pizza sauce on it approximately 26 minutes after I got it home. Which is REALLY awesome.

Aluminum Chair

If you are like me you have been wanting chairs like these for your kitchen:

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But have not bought them because they are $450 each at Design Within Reach.

And even the knock-offs are over $130 each at both Target and Walmart.

Well I am about to make all your dreams come true, because I just found these babies for...are you sitting down? $52 bucks.

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(I know it says "door" instead of "chair" but I called them, they said they're just mis-labeled, but the price is correct.)

I spent half my day patting myself on the back for finding these and the other half playing Restaurant City on Facebook. So PRODUCTIVE day I'd say.

DIY : Frosted Mirror

I took this old mirror off my dad's hands awhile ago, and I finally decided to do something with it.

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I was inspired by this project, so I bought some of this:

















I used stick-on letters and drew out a floral design on contact paper. It looked like this, then I applied the frost spray.
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Now it looks like this.
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Meh. I'm not in love with it. It's one of those projects that I get really excited about and run around like I'm on meth while I'm getting it done. And then when it's finished, I wish I would have spent my evening on the couch with a Sookie Stackhouse book and some popcorn instead.

Room Board : Erin and Donny's Office

My friend Erin, left the following comment on a previous post:

"i would love your help to finish my office. it's technically donny's :( and it's the one room he has design control over in the house-but it's hard because he wants it to be an outdoors theme. any suggestions w/o becoming too tacky?"

I definitely know the pain of a husband having design opinions. Zach has made many suggestions for our house including a red and silver color combo, hanging beads in lieu of doors, and using posters from Spencers. So an outdoors themed office is pretty mild in comparison.

I think the best way to approach Erin's dilemma is to use elements from nature as well as a few clean modern pieces so as to avoid the Bass Pro Shop look.

Like this!
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Via Canadian House and Home

and this!
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Via Canadian House and Home

and this!
brown antlers[1]
Via Elements of Style

And here is a quick room board I put together:
Erin's Office

Sources:
Vintage Print - $20
Antlers - $99 for set of three
Desk Lamp - $69.95
Woven Desk Accessories - $15 and $25
Metal Accordian Side Table - $60
Cowhide Rug - $250
Desk - $119
Chair - $129.99

Good Luck Erin!

DIY : Door Desk

So what do you do when you want an "L" shaped desk but you are cheap? You make one out of two doors. Here is how I made mine.

Here are the supplies I used and about how much I spent.
DIY Table

(2) 24"x80" interior doors - $20/each = $40

(2) 29" table legs - $12/each = $24

White interior latex paint = $10

Wipe-on polyurethane (clear gloss) = $10

29" high bookshelf = free
(Make sure the bookshelf is the same height as your table legs.)

(4) "L" brackets and (1) flat bracket = about $4

Piece of lumber sized 1"x2"x96" = $8
(The wood board needs to be about the same length as long side of a door + short side of door, which for me was 80" + 24" = 104", but 96" was plenty long enough to support it.)

TOTAL for entire desk = about $96


The first step is mounting the wood board to the wall. This is going to support one side of the desk, like this:
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My bookshelf and table legs were all 29" tall, so we obviously mounted the board so that the top of it was at a height of 29".

Before you start to put together the rest of the components, paint everything white.

Next attach the two table legs to one side of a door. I didn't take a picture but it looked like this, thanks Google.












Then it's simply a matter of setting the doors onto their various supporting elements. One door is supported by the bookshelf on one end, and the wood board on the other.
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The other door is supported by the two legs on one side, and the board on the other.
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We used a little wood glue on top of the wall board and on top of the bookshelf to keep the doors from sliding. Then connect everything together with the brackets and drill a hole where you want your computer cord. Finally I wiped on two coats of clear polyurethane after it was all put together.

Done and done my friends.
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Now you're all very sick of my office. I'll talk about something else tomorrow I prom prom promise.

Before and After : The Office

For the last couple of weeks I've been obsessed with getting the office together. The goal was to make it pretty and functional, instead of beige and gross; while spending as little cash money as possible.

Before:
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After:
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I made the desk, with help from Zach, using two doors, a small bookshelf that I already had, and two table legs. I'll expound on this project in another post.

Before:
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After:
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The wicker chair is from a thrift store, it was twelve buckaroos. I threw a couple of pillows that I already had on it. The yellow stool is from HomeGoods.

I didn't spend any money on the artwork. I already owned all the frames. All of the art consists of things I already had (fabric and giftwrap) or things I printed on my home printer. I used three sources for printing artwork: Vintage Printable, a disk of clipart images I had, and Dafont.com. The pear, bicycle and tree sihouettes are all Dingbat fonts I downloaded from Dafont.
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The paint color is from Valspar, called Plum Passion (which is weird because it's not purple). The roman shades I made from the existing faux wood blinds that we had using Jenny's tutorial from Little Green Notebook. I was a little nervous, but they turned out okay. I think I will go back and add a liner to each of them. I used an old Ikea curtain for the fabric, and glued on black grosgain ribbon.
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I replaced the black plastic pulls on the file cabinet with new brushed nickel hardware. The shelves and the containers I already had, and most of them are from Ikea. The silver wall flowers are from Target and were on clearance for about a dollar. Target and Ikea hold the answers to all of life's problems.
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I eventually want to get a bigger bookshelf, but for now this one will work. I put my gift wrap in a big vase that I got forever ago, I think at Ross.
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The desk chair I also got at a thrift store for $15. It was in pretty good shape so I just recovered the upholstery with some fabric from Joann's.
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And there you have it, my new office! When all was said and done I spent about $200 benjamins.

Hello!

Welcome to my home design blog! Swallowing cheeseburgers whole and decorating my house are probably my two favorite things. Not at the same time though.