projects...

all of my friends and family will back me up on this. i love projects...especially when they save money. my roommates in college would often come home to find me doing some sort of project. somtimes they worked out and sometimes they didn't. one time mitchell came home and i had taken off all of our doorknobs and kitchen knobs. they were hideous, so i decided to spray paint them silver. it lasted for about a year until some of the paint would rub off when you went to open anything. when we moved i had to go replace all of them.

i couldn't afford to get a new bed when i graduated college and i knew my mom was about to move...meaning i could get my childhood bed. i needed something to make-do til then, so i made a headboard out of pier one placemats. it ended up costing me $14 and to this day it is my favorite bed.
another time i needed a kitchen table, but i didn't like any of the ones i found...and i didn't want to pay for the ones i did like. i went to big lots and got a farmhouse table. you know the one. light brown top and white legs. the shape is what i needed, but my house is pretty colorful and not so much farmhouse.
so...i painted it red.
there it is in the back.

in my guest room i used old quilts and sort of put them together, but needed something to tie it all together.
so, i went to the fabric store and got some fabric that worked. i framed it in three separate frames and hung them over the bed.

in the room where i'm supposed to be painting...
i wanted it to look nice, but also be functional for me to paint in. when my dad had a bbq restaurant at the beach he had these long tables made. they are HUGE, but they were free! since it didn't have any drawers or shelves i sort of had to make do. they sell galvanized steel shelves at walmart for about $12, but they aren't really sturdy. i drilled them to the wall. probably not the smartest idea, but it works for me. the shelf at the end of the table is a shoe rack from when i was younger.

the other side of the room was bare, so i got an outdoor rug. they are a lot cheaper and i actually like them better because they are thinner. the chairs are from pier one...hey..they were on sale. i have more pictures to hang on that wall, but i just haven't gotten around to doing it.

here is my latest project...
i'm not really sure if it is going to work, but so far so good. i have an old dry erase board from when i worked at the church. the whole erase part doesn't work so well anymore. i can write on it all i want, but it takes a magic eraser to get it off. i was flipping through an old pottery barn and saw a red board. i didn't know if it was chalk or a bulletin board. they don't sell it anymore and if they did i'm sure it was not what i would want to spend. i knew that they sold chalkboard paint and thought it would be cool if i had a fun colored chalkboard. i wondered what a yellow one would look like, but didn't know if you could see the chalk. at lowes they only have the black paint, so i was going to mix the paint myself...i have a recipe for chalkboard paint...just in case anyone is interested. my sister told me to check home depot. they sell tintable chalkboard paint for just a few dollars more than it would take to mix it. it's a whole lot easier to buy it that way than make it. they couldn't mix it yellow, so i chose red. on the right is the dry erase board i started with.
i primed the board white and started painting. it has to dry four days before i can use it as a chalkboard. i'm impatient and had to try out a small part and it worked great. the dry erase board was magnetic, so the magnets still stick to it. i might have to put another coat of paint on and definitely trim up the edges, but here she is in all her beauty...