Nursery: Turquoise Dresser & Orange Lamp

The nursery has been a fun ongoing project for me, it's nice because we have plenty of time so there is no rush. Last year I found this nice solid dresser at Goodwill for just $35 and it included 2 matching nightstands and a mirror! I painted the nightstands gray for the guest room and they look great. This is what I'll use for a dresser/changing table for the baby's room. I also found 2 great lamps at my favorite Arc thrift store. One I took back to Kansas and painted for my sister Alexis for her nursery and the other one I painted orange for my nursery. I love the way the dresser and lamp turned out! 

Gray Nightstands & Turquoise Lamps

Our Guest Bedroom is another space that I really haven't paid much attention to.  I needed to find matching nightstands and lamps but didn't want to spend a lot of money. 

I love finding cheap old shiny brass lamps with a good shape and painting them a new color. I found these 2 at a thrift store for $3 each!

I love the lines and style of Louis XIV furniture, especially with a new coat of paint to modernize it! 

At Goodwill months ago I found the perfect Louis XIV dresser that I have been searching for to use as a dresser/changing table in our nursery. It was only $35 and just happened to come with 2 matching nightstands and a mirror! At the time I didn't have a place for the nightstands but quickly realized they are a perfect fit for our tiny guest room. The furniture is from Bassett Furniture, a really great furniture company that has been in business since 1900. They do all solid furniture and dovetail drawers, so these are very solid pieces! 

Here is the nightstand before with the newly finished glossy turquoise lamp

And here it is complete, I love the gray/turquoise combination. I really think the gray modernized the nightstands perfectly. Now I might just have to repaint the guest room someday...

Powder Room Makeover

I decided to remodel our Powder Room. Our whole house has the unfortunate "Golden Oak" cabinets from the early 2000s. I researched & researched until I finally found a way to make change them without stripping and sanding them down to raw wood. It's called a gel stain and it's really not that hard, just time consuming and messy. I decided to start in the Powder Room first to see what it takes and I'm still debating on whether or not to tackle the kitchen, it would be a big job! So for now I have just added modern hardware to the kitchen. 

The Powder Room was a space that I have never really paid much attention to until now.

Before:

Before:

Before:

Staining the oak cabinets with a gel stain, this took 3 coats, this is a photo after the first coat

  

New darker cabinet color and new hardware, big improvement!

 

Next I used a dark turquoise paint to dramatically change the space. I really like the feel of dark Powder Rooms, I think they are very elegant. 

Another fun little project that I did was I recovered the light switch and outlet with a fun wallpaper. I love the way it turned out!

Shelf

I found this shelf on the curb on big trash day last year. It sits in my office and I finally painted it my favorite color, I think it's a huge improvement! 

Thrift Store Finds! Chairs, Chairs, Chairs!

Usually when I'm shopping for used furniture upholstery can be tough to find. It seems like upholstery is usually in pretty bad shape. I was determined to find a few chairs for our new house though!  Accent chairs from a typical store are at least $100 each (or way more) and usually they do not have that much character--which is fine, but I love to add as much character to my house as possible, some might find it funky ;)  

First, for my living room I needed one little chair. I found this cute little lady chair for $29! The upholstery was in perfect condition! At first I thought, grandma chair? and then I thought, no--with one of my orange elephant pillows it would be perfect! Joe got suckered into buying the orange pillows outside of a movie theater in India by a good salesman--at the time I thought I wouldn't use them, but now i'm happy he got them! (why did we go to a movie in India you ask? it was so hot we had to get some a/c!)

Here is my little lady chair in her thrift store waiting for me to take her home:

Orange "Boudoir" Chair

This one is awesome and totally funky--and perfect for our front sitting room. I saw this one fun day when I was out "antiquing" in Ottawa, KS with my mom, Rudy, Larry, Alexis & Lilli. They probably thought I was crazy but I thought I just have to have that chair! So, my mom got it for me for my birthday! I think it was like $50, but later when we got it home we found a price tag on the bottom for way more

so it must have been marked down :)

Last, but not least, my Blue Tufted Wingback Chair. I love tufting and the classic style of a Wingback chair. This one was the perfect color so I had to have it.

Here is the front room with the Wingback and Boudoir chairs. 

I love how they are different but still complement each other well.

Here is the living room with my little lady chair

Thrift Store Find! Retro Metal Shelf $6

I have a space in my dining room that needed something small and narrow. I thought a shelf would be perfect because we have a lot of knick knacks and photos from travels and life (probably a few too many!) it's hard for me to resist souvenirs from foreign countries, especially when they are such a bargain and I know will be full of memories!

I found this not so cute metal shelf but imagined it would look great in my new favorite blueish turquoise that I have been using everywhere--including my front door! I got the leftover paint from our painter so I'm going a little crazy with it. I think it is almost a neutral color in our house full of color.

(do you like the fake wood grain on the metal ?)

 I left the brass parts brass to coordinate with my Indian Brass vases. I think it's funny that I like some gold accents on the interior of my house but not the exterior! ;)



Thrift Store Find! Spindly Table $2.75

I found this little beauty is and thought it would be a perfect plant stand for

my pencil cactus in our dining room area.

I had extra yellow paint from my nightstand project so I thought that would be the perfect color. I love the way it turned out and the pencil cactus is a perfect fit!

My mom has had the same pencil cactus for like 40 years that she brought to Missouri from Arizona. She has made new cacti over and over with the same plant from cuttings. This cutting was 1/4 of the size last year, she brought it in a little ziploc bag--look at it now! Awesome! It's great too because I never have to water it. So far I haven't developed a green thumb so it's the perfect plant for me.