Rome was Not Built in a Day, Nor was My Dresser Found as Quickly

I have been searching for months {months!} for a small dresser for an entryway makeover project I've been working on. We near a Goodwill, and I shriek, "Stop! Let me go in and see if they have a dresser." They didn't. For five months, not one of the four Goodwills, thrift stores or garage sales I've been to has had my dream dresser. I know full well that I could go into any furniture store any day of the week and have my pick of dream dressers, but I'm too frugal for that. I knew that if I was patient, my day - and my dresser - would come. Friends, it came.

The girls and I had dropped Charlie off at a birthday party a couple Fridays ago and were just about home when I saw it. "What is that? What is that? WHAT IS THAT?!" Greta thought I must have spotted a deer or a skunk or some kind of vicious animal for the amount of commotion I was creating, but there was no vicious animal in sight. Instead, at the end of my good friend Emeigh's driveway was my dresser. She was all alone sitting in the sun {the dresser, not Emeigh}. Emeigh was sitting in the sun, too, visiting her mother in Arizona, but I knew that her husband was home. How did I know that? Only because I saw him outside on the second and third time I circled the house to make sure that my eyes had not been deceived. I pulled up next to Emeigh's side yard like a lunatic and proceeded to ask her husband, "Are you guys getting rid of that dresser? Why? Why? Why?" He said I could have it and I could paint it. And then I texted Emeigh: "You're getting rid of that dresser? Why?" Emeigh also said I could have it and that I could paint it.

I called Dave at work and told him asked if he'd mind picking up my glorious find on his way home. Less than three hours later, my perfect dresser was sitting in the garage. And that's how it happened. I still get tingly thinking about it.

Absolute perfection! Thanks Emeigh!

Stay tuned to see her makeover and her new home. I'm pretty much in love.

A Desk for a Boy

I just shared the Goodwill Hunting desk I finished for the girls' room. We've been making a lot of changes to the kids' rooms lately, mostly centered around new beds that my father-in-law agreed to make the kids for Christmas. Charlie was slated to receive a lofted bed, and I planned on putting a large desk underneath it. As luck would have it, the desk for the girls' room had a twin. The same Goodwill {I'm a regular at four} had a matching huge white desk marked at $20 when I bought the identical one for $10. Seeing how well the desk worked in the girls' room, I sent my wonderful husband back to Goodwill to purchase the $20 twin. Guess what? The lovely people at Goodwill had marked down the massive beast to $10. They must have thought if someone had purchased the other huge white one for $10 then they could get rid of this one for $10, too. I would have paid $20, but the $10 price tag made my day.

So home came desk number two, and I went right to work making it just right for Charlie. I gave it a quick coat of primer.



And while the primer dried, I dug out a couple of the colors we used on Charlie's walls. Red would go on the outer walls of the desk and a light brown on the inner ones. Remember that chalkboard paint I never used in the girls' room? It was going to be perfect for Charlie's desk. I painted the top, edges, and back wall of the desk with the chalkboard paint, giving Charlie the perfect place to express his creativity. When the trasformation was complete, Charlie had his own brand new $10 desk.

And just in time for Christmas, my father-in-law finished the beds. He did an absolutely gorgeous job. I can't describe in words how special of a gift he gave to his grandchildren.

Charlie is in love. And his new desk is pretty cool, too. This is what it's been looking like lately.

The girls' beds are finished, too, and theirs are just as breathtaking. I'll be sharing those soon.

The Desk Was Saved

Remember the $10 desk from Goodwill? Remember how someone didn't tell my husband exactly how big it was and it fell out of the truck on the way home? {That might have been me.} Remember how it was left in pieces?

Well, my friends, the desk was saved. My husband is not only the Green Bay Packers' #1 fan {he doesn't even change out of his shirt and tie if he works on a Sunday before throwing on his jersey}, he's also pretty good at repairing things I manage to break.

With the desk in one piece again, I set out to give it a makeover. You didn't think I'd actually leave it unpainted, did you? My original plan was to paint a wall with chalkboard paint and place the desk in front of it. Since the desk I managed to find was so deep, however, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to have a chalkboard wall behind it. The girls would need to stand or kneel on the desk to reach the wall, and I didn't want the desk fall apart again. With that, I decided to save the chalkboard paint for another project and finish out the painted wallpaper I had done on the other walls of the room.



Louisa's crib in front of the final "wallpapered" wall.

The desk received a coat of primer and two coats of a pretty grayish-green paint. Ready for the finished product? Here's our brand new $10 Goodwill Hunting desk:

I stole the chair from our computer desk. I'll be on the hunt for a couple of just right seats to work for the girls' desk.

Have you saved any furniture disasters lately?

Save the Desk!

I was on a Goodwill Hunting trip today and came across the perfect desk for the girls' room. It was big. It was sturdy. It was deep. It could hold tons of paper and crayons and markers and stamps and glitter. Wait - glitter? I hate glitter. It lures you in with its pretty sparkle, but it waits to hide in your carpets and hair and clothes. But yes, the desk could handle even glitter. It was huge, and it was $10.00.

$10.00?? How could I pass that up? I couldn't, so after making sure that the store would hold it for me, I convinced my good husband to pick it up with his truck. Only... I'm not so good with measuring. {Who am I kidding? I didn't measure anything.} I failed to tell him just how big the big desk actually was. On his way home, I received a phone call that went a little like this:

"Hi Baby. I'm on my way home. I just put the desk back in the truck."

"What do you mean 'Back in the truck?' "

"You didn't tell me how big it was. It fell out of the truck when I pulled out of the parking lot."

Hmmmm.... Not so good. So the perfect desk came home in four pieces instead of one, but my wonderful husband spent an hour or so putting it back together. Thanks to him, the desk has been saved.

She's in her new home and waiting for her finishing touches. Then comes the good part - little girls and paper hearts and markers and crayons and glue and maybe even glitter. Maybe. Stay tuned for the finished product.

How We Mantel

I love our master bedroom. It's in the basement, it's very large, and it's all ours. When my husband and I bought our house, the whole basement was unusable space to us. It was unfinished and had been used as a wood workshop by my husband's grandfather (the previous owner). After a couple years of thinking and drawing and dreaming, we remodeled the entire basement, adding a second family room with a bar and transforming the former wood shop into our master suite.

One problem: we were so busy moving into our new space and putting our furniture in place and our clothes in the new closet (not to mention moving one child to our old master and then having a third and then fourth baby), that we sort of forgot about accessorizing. See that big old empty space above the bed?

A huge amount of empty wall begging me to do something, anything!



Remember the two brand new mantels I scored from Goodwill for 15 bucks a piece? I knew one would be perfect centered above our bed. I originally saw the idea in the latest Pottery Barn catalog and fell in love.

Pottery Barn Decorative Ledge

Rather than fork over $349 for Pottery Barn's version, I decided to create my own. Enter Goodwill $15 Mantel Number One. The mantels had a light maple finish (which would just not fly), so I painted both of them with the same white paint we'd used for all of the downstairs trim. Because I wanted a slightly distressed look (not as drastic as Pottery Barn's), I brushed them over with the warmer creamy white that we used for our upstairs trim and cabinets.

The finished product:

A closeup of the paint to show you the warmer color I used over the white.

I threw a wreath and a candleholder from other Goodwill trips on top of the mantel and then did a little home project framing a W to complete the look.

Stay tuned to see where I used our second Goodwill mantel!

Goodwill Hunting

Here's a little series I will update from time to time, and I'm so excited about this! I love when someone is visiting my home and says, "I love that! Where did you find it?" and I can answer, "Oh that? I picked it up at Goodwill." Everyone's heard of the famous secondhand store, but do you shop there? I get so excited to check out the potential treasures that I can barely stay buckled as we pull into the parking lot. My husband doesn't find it quite as exciting, but he'd rather I spend a couple bucks on a new something or other for our home than $200 (and who wouldn't?).

Most times an item just needs a little cleaning, paint, or nails, and it's good as new, a price I'm willing to pay for something unique to fit our home just right. These are some of the goodies from my most recent trip.

For less than $50.00, I have secured three candlesticks, two (brand new!) wooden mantels, a tiered appetizer platter, a wooden wreath, a new cup for the master bath, a new cup to replace the one that sat atop the water carafe on my nightstand (one of the munchkins broke it way back), a pretty glass tealight candle holder, a cool white cup/dish thing that will look fabulous in the master bath, a pretty silver dish to hold candy, and (not pictured) a huge basket that I plan on displaying in one of the bathrooms to hold towels. Whew! That's quite a haul!

A better look at the silver dish.

Someone received this beauty for Club Woman of the Year in 1969, in case you can't read the inscription on the back. And now it belongs to me! Club Woman of the Year 2010!! Originally marked at $6.99, but purple stickers were half off - WooHoo!

See the new candlesticks in action?

The silver offering plate-looking Woman of the Year dish waits for some of our favorite treats.

The new cup to sit atop my carafe (no, I don't actually use the carafe, but I like it, and it makes me happy).

A bit hard to see, but can you spy our new bathroom cup?

The white dish/vase now sits on a shelf above our master bathroom toilet.

As for the two mantels, large basket, wooden wreath, tealight holder, and tiered appetizer tray? Stay tuned!