Part 2 of "Holy Crap, I can't believe I did that..."

Here is the other dresser that I've been slaving over recently.

Here she is before I started work on her. A little worse for the wear... There were thumbtacks embedded and gashes and mismatched hardware.. .It was a nightmare. So I conveniently bargained down to $12 for this beauty at my local thriftstore. I had them convinced I was doing THEM a favor by taking this gal off of their hands. I'm sure you can all imagine Kevan's reaction when I asked him to unload this from my car. There might have been some dirty looks. There also might have been some questioning of my sanity and some choice words.

And here we go all finished sitting in my bedroom. It fits in that corner like it was built to go there. I have a couple of ideas of what's going on the wall above it. So that won't stay empty for long.

I finally put knobs on this beauty yesterday. And while I love the knobs, I think that these are getting returned. The problem is that without realizing it I purchased three completely different styles and finishes for the knobs/pulls on the three dressers for the bedroom. But for now, it absolutely works.

So there you go!! A sneak peak into the soon to be finished master bedroom, but more importantly two dressers that I've put so much work into lately. I love looking at a piece that I've refinished and clearly seeing my hard work paying off. It's that "Holy Crap, I can't believe I did that..." that just makes me swoon.Especially when I can do it for under $25!!

I'd love to hear your comments about this dresser. I can't nag Kevan to finish my headboard until he finishes the kitchen cabinets. Man, my husband works harder than I do!! Poor Guy. But hopefully soon I can show off the stunning bedroom that I've been working on.
 
Tomorrow I'll be sharing the most amazing Cranberry Pork recipe and showing how I turned the most atrocious brass and crystal chandelier into the most perfect princess room accessory.

I'd love to see some pieces that you have all done!


Thanks so much for looking.

I'm linking this to Reinvented: Trash to Treasure Tuesday 
and Beyond the Picket Fence:Under$100 Linky Day

Part 1 of "Holy Crap, I can't believe I did that..."

Shhhhhh don't tell anyone, but here's a little sneak peak of our still in progress master bedroom. It's getting really close. The to do list is down to Kevan installing my stunning headboard (a little bit of horn tooting right there...), me finding and refinishing a nightstand and me decorating the walls...

But just because it's really nice to actually see a finished product once in a while. Here is one of the two Shabby to Chic redo's that were completed yesterday.

We'll start with this gem found on craigslist for $30




And here it is tonight. I ran into an issue with finding knobs for this beauty. The holes were drilled at such an odd length that I went through three sets of pulls before throwing my arms up and just going with other knobs that I had purchased for the buffet from yesterday and didn't like.

You might recognize the chair from the corner as being the $11 Chair Redo from this post.

That Crystal 5x7 (empty) frame on the dresser was an awesome find. Although I had second thoughts about buying it because it was so expensive... 99 cents... For a HANDCUT crystal frame... That was a tough decision right there. 

Tomorrow I'll show you the drastic transformation on this piece!! You're not going to believe how gorgeous it is . (Update: See this finished piece here )

I'm linking this to A Soft Place To Land, DIY Day

and 

Before & After: Dining Room Buffet

I found this dresser at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday and was delighted to find it was one of the half-off colors. For $40 I thought that it would be a great dresser for our bedroom. I don't usually like to spend more than $25 on something there, but hey, rules are made to be broken.



I decided that I didn't like the center cabinet and wanted that to be open for visible storage.



These knobs won't be staying on the piece, I'll be switching them out with some acrylic ones but they aren't here yet. I'm not done tablescaping yet, but it's a start at least. I'll probably play around for months until I'm happy. I'll be moving some of the pieces around the house once other projects are done so it won't be so cluttered. I have a crystal lamp sitting outside right now drying after I spray painted the base black. That will go on one of the corners. I'm excited for that.



Here are some of my crystal wine glasses courtesy of thrift stores. They are sitting on a silver tray that I also picked up at the thrift store.



This is the bottle of champagne that we popped after Kevan got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. I think that it looks beautiful in my new champagne bucket cooler from last week. The coasters and champagne glasses are also from last week's thrifting.



How Pottery Barn does this look!! Wait until you see the before on it. Yet another piece that Kevan questioned my sanity for buying.


I'm super thrilled with how this turned out, it took a lot of priming, painting, sealing and time... but the end result is well worth it. It looks like a high end furniture piece in my formal dining room now. Once the kitchen is done and I can move everything off of my formal dining room table, I can show the before and after on that room.

This week I'll be posting another Before and After on a dresser in my bedroom, be sure to come back and check it out!

Thanks for checking out my latest Before and After! I'd love to hear your comments on it!

The very beginning - Master Bedroom Redo

So I've decided to start a blog to chronicle all of the fun projects that I've been working on lately so this is the very beginning of Lost in Tarnation. I'm thinking about importing some of the posts from my previous blog used to keep family updated on our little rascals to show some of the previous things that I've been doing to keep busy on the house.

As I was explaining in my quick post last night, we are in the middle of renovating our very first house which happens to need work on every single square foot. The kitchen has been in progress for over a year. Between both my husband and me working full time and having two kidlets, there isn't a lot of renovation time. We have done just about everything ourselves with the exception of some plumbing work during our first month. From laying hardwood floors, to removing kitchen soffits, to turning our basement into a Pub, to well, you get it. We've been really busy.

And throughout it all, the bedroom has been an embarrassment to someone who loves to decorate and create. I try and avoid bringing people through because things are just thrown up on the walls and it just isn't well... put together. So after two years of living in this house, I decided that enough was enough and started brainstorming what I wanted to do in the bedroom.

It involves two colors of paint, chair rail, vertical stripes, stalking craigslist and local thrift stores for dressers and nightstands and crystal lamps, refinishing those dressers, nightstands and crystal lamps. All of that is in phase one. Once we finish the kitchen and another small project of laying slate tile on our wet bar counter top and wall, we will be moving up into the master bathroom and conquering the nasty old tile that is in the bathroom and putting my favorite slate tile down on the counter tops in the dressing room with our sink. The plan is to get all of those projects done this winter so that come hell or high water (or spring, whichever comes first) we can work on turning the exterior of our house from being another source of embarrassment to something that we are proud of. So you're joining us just in the nick of time to tag along on the rest of our project of turning a destroyed foreclosure into our family home.

I got the idea of refurbishing crystal lamps from this post on the amazing Centsational Girl blog and have been scouring thrift store's for them. I've been lucky and keep finding ones that I like more and more so now I'm going to use the leftover for my next-next-next project, converting my work office to something beautiful and feminine. Here is the lamp that will be on Kevan's nightstand (the lamp for my nightstand doesn't have godawful brass on it so I don't need to refinish it).

Crystal Lamp
Thrift Store - $2.99


I've become obsessed with dressers. O-b-sess-ed with them. Scouring thrift store's and Craigslist for them constantly. I want beautiful pieces that I can refinish in my favorite, high gloss black paint. Here are the dressers that I've picked up so far. Kevan has to pick up another one from the thrift store this week which I'll refinish next because it turns out the two that I have so far don't have enough storage. The second one might end up in Colton's room.

Dresser 1
Craigslist - $25

Before: Pretty, but not what I'm looking for:


After: I made a rookie mistake of being so excited to get it in place that I didn't think to paint the sides or tops of the drawers... soooo that will have to happen at some point.


Dresser 2
Craigslist $30
Before:


After: same rookie mistake on this dresser. Excuse the mess, not having enough dresser space means not enough places to put all of our clothes. I haven't found the glass knobs that I want to use on this yet either. But I have a vision.



Nightstand 1
Craligslist - $30



Each thing I refinish for the bedroom becomes my new favorite, but I think that this chair will be my favorite piece for a long time.

Chair
Thrift Store - $4.99


I painted it with (surprise, surprise) high gloss black and reupholstered the fabric with faux seal fur. It was $12 a yard at my local fabric store and I used half a yard for this chair and the next one. I recovered the buttons and sewed them back on, but think that they disappear right now so I might see what I think over the next couple of days and try and find a fabulous black button to put on instead. I'm so proud of this chair! It's my first attempt at reupholstering and after I bought it last week, I was concerned that I had bitten off more than I could chew and that it wasn't going to get finished or that I wasn't going to be ABLE to do it. I was and it was so easy. It took more time to remove the previous hideous fabric than it did to cut, staple gun and replace the cushions.

Dressing Table Chair. There is dressing table in my dressing room (how fitting.. har har har) and this little chair will go perfect there. It's been spray painted black and recovered with the same faux seal fabric as the previous chair. It's so soft and amazing that I'm thinking about making a small throw blanket out of the same material in black for the bed depending on the sheets I go with
Thrift Store - $4.99


I'm getting closer and closer on the bedroom and am really hoping to have it just about complete by Friday when we have our annual Big Birthday Bash. It would be really nice to be able to walk people through our bedroom with pride for once. Stay tuned as I paint stripes in our dressing room, Kevan installs chair rail, I refinish nightstands and another dresser and of course, all of the rest of the projects we're working on.