Another Coffee Table Makeover!

Y'all, my husband is awesome. He just knows how to find good furniture. Seriously. He picked up this piece and it majorly needed some work. It looked like it had been painted a few times... and that didn't hold up well.

But it has good bones and cool planking on the top, so I love it.

I was cleaning the piece I found out this important piece of info in the drawer:

Score! This piece is sturdy and good quality.


After cleaning her off, I painted her with ASCP Paris Grey, then applied clear wax. I sanded to distress a little and make the planking on top stand out. Another coat of clear wax was applied to seal it all!

 I love Paris Grey. It is such a rich color. Perfect for a coffee table, to offer a nice neutral color in a living room. You can see that the items I staged it with really pop against the grey. I gave the hardware a little cleaning and she is ready to go!

This lady is ready to be bought and put to good use! She is going up for sale-- check out the Store page!

Also, if you are looking for any specific piece of furniture you would like to be custom-painted for your home, let me know! We would love to find something just for you!

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Life is "Rough" Sometimes

Yeah, our life is a little crazy right now. In addition to the now-normal life of non-stop work, schoolwork, or clinicals with little time to do creative stuff, we have the other parts of life too.

One of our dogs, Cooper, needs surgery. He has a torn ligament and has been limping badly. Poor baby. :(

This weekend our fridge started leaking... And it went through the wall behind it into our bedroom. Soaked like half of the carpet. That we now have to pay to replace.

And this is all on top of us trying to be really good at saving for next summer when my last semester of clinicals will take up so much time my work availability will be virtually non-existent.

Now, I am not saying all of this to complain. But rather to share how God is so good to us. I have been tying to have a good attitude about all of this and He has been faithful to help me!

As my hubs would say, "these are first world problems." In other words, things could be a lot worse, and are for so many people. This is not to say that our circumstances aren't a bummer or financially significant, but rather to have perspective.

So, I am so happy to know what is wrong with my baby boy Cooper and know now it is something that can be fixed. And that in a few months he will hopefully be in less pain and be able to run and play even more! Until then I let him lay on the couch (or our bed) all he wants. :)

And hey, this gave me a chance to pick out darker carpet that won't get/show the dirt as much. That makes me sound like a dirty person. But man, those dogs are always tracking in dirt!! And, we will have to move the furniture out, so this is the perfect opportunity for me to finally paint the dresser! Yay!

And praise God for great payment options to help us out for both of these big unexpected purchases. He is so good and faithful to us. Hopefully out of this time I will learn to trust Him more completely with everything, knowing He provides. Even if that doesn't mean that money magically appears-- He is faithful to give us joy in Him in every circumstance.

Antique Mirror Makeover

This mirror is gorgeous. I could not believe it when my friend Courtney's mother-in-law gave it to me last weekend! It belonged to her mother-in-law and they brought it back this summer. She gave it to me saying, "I know you can do something with this." Well, she was right.

Sorry for the before picture... I had already taped and started painting. 

This mirror is not only an antique, it is solid wood. Heavy. With beautiful carvings. Sigh. However, it was a little chipped and needed some love. So, enter Annie Sloan's Old White. I told you I would be doing more with this color this weekend!

And this was the perfect color to freshen up the mirror! I gave it a coat and some light distressing to keep with the antique look, and here it is.

I even had the perfect place for it in our dining room!

Check out those carvings! Swoon.

Any good weekend projects? I would love to hear about them!

Coffee Table Makeover

 The hubs and I picked up this table recently and I was intrigued by the drop-down sides. What a cool way to have an awesome oval table, but be able to make it smaller-- to bring the snacks closer?  

I gave it two coats of Annie Sloan's Old White last night. LOVE this color. It's so clean yet warm.

Then I tackled the wax and distressing this morning. After one coat of clear wax, I sanded it smooth and distressed to give someone a head start on it's wear of love! Added another coat of clear wax for long-lasting durability! (Note: I have changed the pictures because I re-did the top. I wasn't happy with it before, and now it looks so much better!)

These legs are gorgeous. Love the curves! 

The drop-down sides are so cool! Makes this piece workable in any space! Even the foot of a bed... keep one leaf down! Oh, the possibilities! 

This lady is going up for sale-- check out the Store page!

I'm excited to tackle more pieces in Old White this weekend! Can't go wrong with this lovely color. 

Door Decor and My Staplegun

I snagged this snazzy door at an estate sale this past weekend because I loved the chippy paint.

The home this came from was filled with old stuff, and no doubt this door has seen many moons as well. It's not very sturdy standing up, but I had better plans for it anyways. I wanted to hang it on my living room wall.

I envisioned being able to hang prints from it by fastening chicken wire to the back. So, we headed to Lowes last night and picked up a roll of 1" mesh chicken wire.

Last weekend I also found something I have been wanting for a while... an electric staplegun! For $5 at a garage sale, this thing was all mine.

So I started by turning the door over and rolling the wire over, then began stapling one long side!

 I did a short end and then started on the other long side, making sure to pull the wire tight. After I stapled all 4 sides, I trimmed the excess with wire cutters.

I cut myself a few times. :(  But I didn't care, it was done and looks awesome. And I got to use the staplegun, which worked awesome. I felt pretty powerful, and yelled "BAM!" everytime I fired it. My husband thought it was hilarious.

I got these prints made at Sam's and clipped them to the wire with lil' mini clothes pins. They are both photos I have taken, the bridge is in Waco and the beach is at home in Carlsbad, CA (near San Diego). I had other plans for these photos but they didn't pan out. More on that soon in another post. However, I am much happier with this!

The door looks awesome and I love imagining how old it is and how much history it has been alive for. Plus, many people passed up this door thinking it was pitiful. But it is so beautiful now!

Do you have anything you have turned from pitiful to beautiful? I would love to hear about it!

In other news.... the console table sold! The hubs listed both tables on Craigs List and got an email about it right away! Yeehaw! My first sale! Looking forward to this weekend and starting on something new. :)

Linkin up at http://www.iheartnaptime.net/sundae-scoop-link-party-51/

How Wal Mart is (hopefully) Solving My Problems

So I'm not a big Wal Mart fan, I prefer Target. However, today Wal Mart was my best friend.

Since the hubs and I got our new bed over a year ago, we have had problems with the sheets staying on. We like the high thread count, so yes they are a little more slick. But come on. This happens every. night.

And the reason it is bothersome is because the extra sheet gathers in the middle and gets all hot and bunchy. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner, but this morning I googled "sheets won't stay on corners" or something like that. And BAM. I find it. Apparently there are sheet suspenders. Yes, you read that correctly. And maybe unlike me, you have heard of them. They are little stretchy pieces of fabric with clips on the end to clip around the corners of your fitted sheet. I was so excited! The Wal Mart website said they were in my store and so away I went before church this morning!

Now, I recently remembered that I had some money left on a Wal Mart gift card that I got for my birthday in August. So in the parking lot I checked the balance, with a special purchase in mind. I had more than enough to treat myself to a little late-birthday shopping!

I have been very patient. Very. I LOVE Mumford & Sons, and LOVE their previous album, Sigh No More. So when this new album, Babel, released a few weeks ago, I couldn't wait! But we are on a budget and so we didn't buy it. And then this morning I realized, "happy birthday to me, I can buy Mumford!!"

I of course got the deluxe edition with extra tracks and can't wait to listen more. Sigh.

I walked around the store a little and also bought some bubble bath and this scarf.

I'm sure I will have only good things to say about Babel, but hopefully my report about the sheet suspenders will be positive as well!

Have you had any awesome purchases lately? I'd love to hear about them!

Here We Go!

Dear friends, I have finished my first two pieces! Stay tuned for some before and after action as well as the game plan!

Here is table número uno. I gave it some love first with a coat of Duck Egg followed by Paris Grey. Finished it with some distress and sealed with wax!

Here she is in all her glory. I love how the red peeks through!

And here is lady number two. We have a table very similar to this, and it is awesome! The size is great so you have room to put all kinds of goodies on top- books, candles, drinks, and lamp.... And then lots of room to store inside! We have a bunch of throw blankets inside and it is so handy!

This pretty lady got a coat of Duck Egg to make her really shine. I distressed to bring out the beautiful dark wood and the great details! She is sealed with wax to last a long time!

The plan for these lovely ladies is to find them new homes! I am asking $40 for the console table and $85 for the hexagon end table. Send me an email at hayleymouse@gmail.com if you are interested!

Linkin' up at Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday party

Dining Room Table: Make Me Love It

When the hubs and I were engaged, we had no furniture. So we pretty much scrambled to buy whatever we could for a cheap price. We bought this table off Craigslist.

It served well for a while. It has a built in leaf that makes the table huge. Then I started to hate it. I covered it with table cloths. It just wasn't jive-ing with me. It looked too country and cheap. The wood is too light for my taste. We found what is now our kitchen table, but I wasn't allowed to buy that unil we sold the other table. It did not sell.

I was so bummed. But after looking at blogs and on Pinterest, I realized I could make this sturdy table work for us. So this past summer I gave it a facelift.

I followed directions of Centsational Girl here. I started by sanding the top with our power hand sander until the veneer was gone and the wood was raw and smooth. I used tack cloths to remove all the sawdust.

I chose MinWax Jacobean stain. Gorgeous color. I used a wide foam brush to apply it in long strokes in the direction of the grain. I let it sit for about 10 minutes and then wiped off with t-shirt cloth. I think I applied stain 3-4 times to get it this dark.

 See the variances in the color? I honestly have no idea how that happened! I was unhappy with it at first, but not for long! I love it now! The hubs thinks it has to do with the sanding job. I dunno. :)

I primed and repainted the legs white to give it a fresh clean finish.

Then I sealed everything with a polycrylic seal by MinWax. I used polycrylic instead of polyethylene because it has more of a matte finish. I wanted the seal without the shine. 

And now we LOVE this table! I'm so glad the hubs wanted to keep it, and glad I got up the nerve refinish it!

It was not as hard as I thought it would be! And I felt so awesome using the sander and applying stain! Our neighbor across the street builds cabinets and saw me working; I felt proud!

The original chairs and bench were weak and rickety, so we trashed them and decided on chairs from Ikea. These chairs are comfy and look great with the dark legs and linen fabric!

The hubs asked me if I could consider selling it for a lot of money. I considered it, but he reminded me what a special table it is-- it has a lot of memories and was my first big furniture adventure! It is a table we hope to keep in the family for a long time!

Linking up to:
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday party

(Honest) Opinions Please!

Ok guys! I have been working on my first piece! I bought this console table this past weekend and did my first Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (ASCP) run! I did two colors and distressed it today. I have not waxed it yet, and wanted opinions about it before doing so!
(Note: the table was red before- so it shows a little when I sanded it in some places).
Please take a look at these pictures and give me your honest opinions! If you don't like it, say so! If you think something could be better, give me a suggestion! If you like it, definitely tell me! If you want to buy it, let me know! ;)