Shabby Chic Dresser

Looks like I took an accidental little hiatus .....  oops.  Life with 2 gets super busy, and before you know it, 2 months have gone by and your little ol' blog has cobwebs on it. 

Last summer we transitioned Miss A to a big girl room - she got a new room and we kept the nursery the same for Baby N. I had an idea of how I wanted her room to look and I am pretty pleased with the finished product.... It is a shabby chic, feminine and full of refinished antique furniture.  I am waiting on a couple more pillows to be made, but in the meantime, I thought I would do a post on refinishing her dresser.  Yes, big and pregnant and in the heat of the summer I was sanding, painting and working on transforming a beat up antique dresser to a perfectly polished piece.  I also refinished her bed and a little chair. 

Here is the dresser before:

I bought the piece from Gypsy Soul Interiors.  (If you are in Texas or Alabama and want vintage furniture - she is your gal. Check her out here.)

My first step was to lightly remove all of the hardware and drawers and lightly sand the entire piece.  Once I was able to get some of the old paint off, I was better able to see the areas that needed some extra TLC.   I am sure you can fill holes and scratches and then prime, but whenever I refinish pieces, I prime and then fill areas with wood filler.  I am pretty detailed in this step - why put all of this time and effort into a piece if you are still going to have little dings and scratches?

I worked on the top of the dresser....

Corners....

Filled in the old hardware holes in the drawers....

And used lots of wood glue and putty on the door...

I also removed the old feet and added these new wood ones.  I love how these look with the rounded lines on the bottom of the legs. 

After all of the wood filler and wood glue was dry, I sanded the entire piece again to have a super smooth painting surface.  Tip - After sanding, wipe down the entire piece with a tacky, glue like cheese cloth to remove all of the dust.

I did 3 coats of paint - semi gloss Benjamin Moore Decorators White. After each coat of paint, I would lightly sand with a super fine grit sand paper and then wipe down with the tacky cheese cloth.  All of these steps take quite a while to do, but it really results in a professional looking piece of furniture. 

Once everything was painted and sanded for the last time, I did a coat of satin polycrylic on everything.  Had this been going in an adult room, I might have just done the top of the dresser.... but, since it was going in a little kid room, I decided to do it all. 

Since I had filled in all of the hardware holes, I had to drill new holes for new hardware.  This part stressed me out - I had done so much work, I was afraid of messing it up.  Thank goodness my dad helped me with this part.  I was too chicken to drill the holes - I just didn't want to screw it up! I used clear, green glass handles for the drawers and clear, green glass knobs for the door. 

 And, here is the finished product! I love how it turned out.

Steal of the century

I think that decorating a house is an ongoing process.... well, at least it is for me. I am constantly finding new little treasures or some great fabric that I want to incorporate somehow into our home. I have mentioned before how I am kind of bi-polar when it comes to decor - part of me wants all white, cream and neutrals and then the other half craves color - orange, turquoise and green! The fun part is finding the right balance that works for your home.

The other day, I had The Nate Show on while I was doing some things around the house. I am not sure what the majority of the episode was about, but at the very end he was talking about the various ways paint and fabric can transform a simple chair into many different looks. This is the first look that he talked about.

Look familiar? This little turquoise chair was one of my first little furniture projects last year. Glad to know that Nate and I have similar taste.

And then today, I hit up the Wisteria Warehouse Sale with a friend. Kristen has wonderful taste and somehow received an invite to this wonderful sale. (Side note - check out her fab home. Love love love)

We were walking around, checking out the great deals and then all of a sudden I saw what appeared to be another Missoni-esq frenzy. Women were are trying to get their hands on these wonderful, European spindle chairs. I quickly got into line and was able to snag 2 of these incredible chairs. Not sure why they were selling at such a huge discount, but I did not waste any time by asking any questions.

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you - that tag is correct. A $600 chair for $10.

And now comes the fun part ..... picking out a fabric for the cushions!

Children Inspire Design

Hands down, this has to be one of my favorite companies for children's art work prints.

Children Inspire Design is totally up my alley - bright colors, funky patterns and fun prints. I have these prints in our game room and I just ordered some for the nursery, plus I have used them for Miss A's chic farm party.

Here is the game room.....

And here is the banner from A's party...

In a couple of days, these prints will be added to my collection:

Normally, I am NOT a fan of decorating with words, but I guess every rule has an exception. (I have lots of crazy and wacky "rules" for decorating, but that is a whole other post.)

And I am loving these 2 prints. I really want this alphabet for the nursery, but will wait and order it once we know if Baby M2 is a boy or girl.

And these planet prints are wonderful.

Right now you can order these wonderful prints for a great price at Zulily...

Children's Art

If you have little ones in your house, then you are constantly faced with the question - what do you with all of their art?!?! Keep? Display? Toss?

I am going to do all three.

I will keep the ones that are really special to me.

I will display all of it, on a rotating basis.

And I will toss it after a while.

And before you roll your eyes at me for tossing artwork created by my kid, just imagine how many masterpieces you would have if you saved every little scrap of construction paper your child gave you. It would probably be borderline hoarder.

In our game room I have created a gallery wall - it is composed of some Miss A art and some other framed prints. I really like how her stuff is incorporated in with the other stuff. It is important to display your child's artwork, and this way I can constantly display her stuff without having to tape things to my walls or kitchen cabinets. Eek.

I made little cork board strips and I have clips and thumb tacks on hand to attach the art.

She in constantly bringing home new projects, so the wall is constantly changing. Whenever I take down a piece of art, I take a picture of it and add it to a photo book.

I love sites lite Picaboo, Shutterfly and Snapfish. I am constantly making photo books, so this seemed like a logical thing to do with her art. I have not ordered one yet, but I am planning on making one book per year.

What do you do with your child's artwork?

House Tour - Kitchen

I love seeing how people live....I want to see how their house is decorated, what their curtains look like, what color Kitchen Aid mixer they have, etc. I love it when you drive by someones house and you can see inside. These little glimpses into someones life helps you know someone. Which brings me to my first ever house tour.

@allie_in_ga suggested that I start with my kitchen. The kitchen was a big selling point for me when we bought the house. I loved how open it was and how it was connected to the main living area. Plus, the double ovens, marble countertops and stone back splash did not hurt things. So, here you go - my kitchen.

I love the little windows that are on either side of the stove. And the white cabinets - perfect. Would I change anything about it? Absolutely. More counter space, more cabinets, and maybe some wall space. The eating area has a light fixture that I would not have picked out, but it will do for now. Ordering this light fixture is high on my to-do list.

Not sure what room I will do next.... stay tuned!

New Reading Material

Are you staying warm on this chilly February evening? Maybe you are one of the lucky ones that is relaxing on the beach in a nice tropical location, but here in Dallas we are in the middle of a huge ice storm. I am one of those crazy people that actually loves cold weather, but when your street is coated in inches of ice, you are basically stuck in the house all day. We get cabin fever pretty easily, so this afternoon we bundled up and went outside to play and run in the snow/ice for a little while.

(Brrr.... Momma, it is cold!)

Earlier in the day while Miss A was napping, I worked on some stuff for her upcoming birthday party and then lurked around the Internet for a while. And, just when I thought I already read all of the good design blogs and know about all of the newest magazines, I find some new stuff. And, now I am going to share that stuff with you.

High Gloss Magazine

There are about a million design magazines out there, but who says there can't be one more? High Gloss looks pretty awesome. I especially love that you can follow links directly from the digital magazine.

How About Orange

I think Sweet T Family tweeted about this today..... I love the color orange, so I had to check out the link and boy was I excited with what I found. Part decorating, part projects and ORANGE! Love it all.

One Charming Party

I have already made some Valentine's for Miss A to send her friends this year, but these printables are adorable. I might have to print these off myself and send them to my friends.

Bungalow 5

Their entire catalog makes me have visions of redecorating our entire house..... but, not is not going to happen anytime soon. So, in the meantime, I will just look and swoon.

Do you have any websites that you are loving these days? Give me some more reading material!