2 Down, 2 to Go

As you may remember in this post of yore, I scored some sweet goods on Craigslist with the intention of re-inventing them for our house. 

Well, I have successfully completed item number 2 of the 4 I purchased.  This guy!

With a little sanding, cleaning, priming and spray painting, I was left with this.

Just a few facts, the top of this nightstand is white melamine, so I did not paint it.  It was in good shape after some cleaning so I just taped it off with painters tape to prevent over spray.  Also, melamine is not the easiest thing to get paint to stick to. 

I replaced the knob with this pretty mercury glass one I scored at Home Goods a while back.

The inside of the drawer was not in great shape, in fact it looked pretty darn gross.  It had some staining in the bottom of the drawer. 

So I drug out some of my leftover wallpaper from the dining room project and cut it to fit in the bottom of the drawer.  The wallpaper had ready to use paste on the back, so I just wet the paper and applied to the bottom of the drawer.  Voila, a perfect fit with the perfect amount of adhesion. 

All in all, it was a quick, simple, inexpensive ($10 table, paint and primer I had on hand) project that makes a big difference for me.  The new table is much bigger over all.  The top affords much more space for my reading material, which are often times rather large hardback books, (I'm reading The Passage by Justin Cronin, and I am totally into it) along with my alarm clock and telephone.  It also provides some space for some pretty things like a vase (that will someday have flowers in it) and a candle with our monogram on it.  And, can you spy my helper behind the curtains?  Remember you can't see her if she can't see you. 

The transition is happening slowly in this room, we went from this...

to this.

And still, there is work to be done.  A new headboard, re-paint the walls, something fun with the curtains and a small bit of convincing my husband that he would really enjoy a new nightstand courtesy of my Craigslist finds.  I will be slowly working on the latter.

 

Update: Sister's House

Remember way back when I was talking about helping my sister with her remodel project in her home?  Well, it has been a labor of love with special emphasis on the labor.  It isn't complete, but I can share a few updates at this point.  

Remember how dark and drab it was before?

And the new plan to make it come to life? 

My mom and sister tested the paint color I chose, to make sure it would be great, so my mom went crazy testing the color all over the house!  Remember: this is a long distant project for me, my mom and sister are doing the bulk of the work, with my general guidance. 

The bookcase wall is the dark blue pictured in the color board above.

The back door to the garage received some sunny yellow paint! 

The major stuff is done, like painting EVERYTHING.  I mean the walls in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and hall are all done.  Oh and after getting all the painting done, we decided all of the trim had to be painted also.  It appeared super creamy instead of white, once all the light blue paint was up.  The fireplace also got a nice coat of white paint. 

The blue paint made the entire house feel light and airy, a stark contrast from what it was before.  Here is a little glimpse of the blue paint.  

  

We've been working on putting it all back together with new furniture pieces and accessories.  The main purchases were the sofa and arm chair from Dillard's and they are gorgeous. 

The majority of the new pieces are from Craigslist.  No one likes a bargain more than my sister so this was the perfect way to bargain shop for her new living room.  We have found so many wonderful items and have made them uniquely hers.  Let me just say two words to sum up the entire Craigslist adventure, Spray Paint.  We should have invested in spray paint before we started this process. 

But totally worth it.  Here is a sneak peak of some of our bargain finds and painting projects. 

I have slowly been working on the main frame collage wall that is a major focal point in her living room.  Slowly but surely, we are filling that wall with some of her favorite things. 

It is coming along and looking so much better.  It is going to be so cute when it is complete.  I of course will reveal the finished project to you all when we get to the finish line. 

How about you guys?  Any of you helping out a family member?  Painting the interior of an entire house?  Rejuvinating an amazing Craigslist find?    

Updating Our Curb Appeal

With the spring comes beautifying our outdoor spaces.  You have heard us talk about our Big Backyard Plan here and here (which we are getting closer and closer to starting), but in the mean time, we decided to do a small project in the front yard.  Well, we thought is was a small project considering the space is small.  This "small project" ties into our overall plan for landscaping in our backyard as well.  Let me explain. 

This is the future backyard plan, (minor things have changed, but that is another post).  I have noted the "issue" of a huge gravel pit we have in the back yard currently.  It is where the previous owners had a child's play scape.  

As you can also see in the plan above, we do not anticipate incorporating sad said gravel pit into our new backyard plan; therefore, we are finding useful and creative places to use the tons of pea gravel that currently occupy that large corner.  This is the culprit.

Enter our front yard plan. 

Below is a rough plan.  Items seen in color are either existing upon moving in or recently completed projects, while the items in white, are future projects. 

 For now, we will be talking about this particular strip of our front yard. 

It is the small strip of yard that lies between the sidewalk and the street. 

The issue with the strip is that the 4 sprinkler heads that are located there primarily spray the hard scape rather than the grass, and the grass in that area is...well...mostly weeds.  So in an effort to minimize water use and give the strip a face lift we opted to get rid of all of the grass and replace it with the pea gravel that we have an abundance of, and some ornamental grasses that require little water.  2 birds, 1 stone!

Simple right?  Well, digging all of that earth out of the 3 foot strip of lawn was tough.  We spent the entire day Saturday just removing the grass.  We dug down a good 6 inches or more if you include how much the grass was mounded up.  2 reasons.  #1, we wanted to modify the sprinklers that supply the strip, and #2, we wanted to fill that sucker with as much pea gravel as our biceps would allow. 

Here is what it looked like from our front porch Sunday morning after we almost died taking all of the grass out.  A special shout out to my big hunk of husband who kicked that grasses butt!  Another special shout out to Ibuprofen for keeping our muscle pain at bay.

So day two included the sprinkler re-work, installation of weed cloth, planting of new plants, and finally moving of gravel. 

We had 4 sprinkler heads to deal with.  3 in the large strip and one in the small strip on the other side of the driveway.  Devin converted the 3 in the large part down to 2 so we would have a total of 3.  He also replaced all of the heads with these super cool drip system heads.  Each kit from Home Depot, was about $11, and each kit replaced one head.  This would solve the problem of spraying the street and sidewalk and concentrate the irrigation only to the plants we have planted there.  SWEET!

The weed fabric went down super fast.  We used some that we had from this front yard project we finished last year.  Then the plants went in.  NOTE:  we actually dug the holes for the plants prior to installing the weed fabric.  It was much easier to dig without having to work around the fabric.  We then simply sliced the fabric where our holes were to plop our plants in quickly. 

We used 5 Mexican Feather grasses, and 2 Rosemary plants.  The Rosemary essentially flank the driveway. 

Oh and you can see in the picture above that we installed two pave stones in this large strip.  You can see on our plan, that we eventually will extend a paved walkway all the way up to our front door. 

 After we had the plants all planted, and the drip sprinklers in we could start hauling the rock from the back to the front yard.  YAY!

We finished the small strip to the right of the driveway first.  Notice the sprinkler head in the lower left side of the gravel, it has 4 quarter inch drip hoses going to the rosemary planted there.  It is all under the pea gravel.  Cool huh?  We think so, but we get excited about those types of things! 

Moving the gravel went fairly quickly, much faster than digging out the grass the day before. 

We finished up before the sun went down.  Then it was the time that Devin had been waiting for since the first shovel full of grass came out.  Power washing all the mud off of the sidewalk and gutter.  Cleaning it all up to make it pretty was definitely the finish line.

Now for the before...

and after!

We love it!  We are excited to watch these new plants grow and thrive.  What outdoor projects have you guys been tackling?  Any of you rockin' the gravel like us?  We would love to hear.

Easter Weekend

So I'm a little late with this post, but we had a fantastic Easter weekend with my mom and sister in town.  We were able to spend a lovely day Saturday at the Zilker Botanical Gardens here in Austin.  The weather was perfect which made for a perfect visit to the gardens.  Mom captured a few dozen pictures of our visit with her phone, I will share just a few.  The pics didn't turn out too bad...

Nice view of downtown Austin from the gardens.

The gazebo at the reflecting pond.


I love all the different levels and textures here.

Striking a pose.



My mom with Devin.  Love it!



My sister's turn to strike a pose with a waterfall.  She is better at it than I am.



On Sunday we just happened to spot someone on their way to work I am assuming.  

Can you tell who it is?  Well it is the Easter Bunny of course.  On his/her way to hide some eggs I'm sure. 

I always wondered how the Easter Bunny got around, now I know it is a super sweet 3-wheeler motorbike thing.  And you can't ride one with out the goggles, very smart Easter Bunny, very smart.

There you have it, a nice Easter in Austin, Texas.  Keepin' it Weird folks!