Our new craft center

When I showed my pantry re-do, my sister-in-law Rebecca gave me an idea to put a craft area in my pantry since there's so much space. While that idea really intrigued me, I knew my kids would NEVER leave my craft stuff alone if I had it all out, so I decided against it. But you did inspire me, Rebecca! :-)

We've had a dresser that Derk's parents gave us several years ago sitting out in our garage. We've been using it to store completely random things that should be put somewhere else anyway, so I decided to move it into the pantry and give it a new life. With Derk being out of town this weekend for business, I took advantage of the extra spare time and got the project done. It was really quick and easy. The longest part was letting the chalkboard paint dry (it takes 24 hours before you can write on it). I can take full credit for this idea, which doesn't happen very often! ;-)

Before:

After:

I might rearrange the drawers as we see how this arrangement works, but it's working out great so far! All these things used to be taking up 2 cupboards in my kitchen, and now I have all that space empty and calling for me! :-)

Kitchen teaser

I know it's taking a LONG time for me to post the kitchen reveal pictures, but I'm still not quite finished. Here's a little teaser, though! ;-) My goal is to show the big reveal next week!

I'm in love (again).

Friends and family, may I present to my new best friend. How I love her already! We just met today, and I don't know how I've lived for 27.5 years without her. She's lovely and wonderful, and she makes my life easier and happier. Her name is Dymo!

I recently stumbled across a blog out there in the blogsosphere that greatly inspired me. It's all about food storage, and the way this woman organized her pantry made me giddy to follow in her footsteps. GIDDY, I say!!! I had to wait a couple of weeks before purchasing anything, and it was torture, pure torture! My head was swimming with ideas.

Today I was finally able to make most of my purchases. I couldn't WAIT to purchase this baby, and I knew it would be love at first sight. Someone like me buying a label maker? Watch out, world!

Just to give you a taste of what I'm doing, here's a little teaser...

Gah! Can you stand it?! I can't!!! I don't care how dorky this makes me, either. Labels and mason jars (among other awesome organizational tips!) in my pantry is making me ridiculously excited! I've only just begun this little project, so stay tuned for the big reveal sometime soon!

An ottoman redo

I LOVE our ottoman. The cushions come off, and there are 2 huge storage areas underneath. The problem was that the upholstery was torn in numerous places (thank you, kids and cats!), and it looked horrendous. I was seriously embarrassed for people to come over and see it. Derk told me to just trash it and buy a new one. But I love that thing! I store our movies in one side and our blankets in the other side. I'd have nowhere to put those things if I didn't have that storage, so I really wanted to keep it.

So, I figured why not ask my mother-in-law to help me redo it while she was in town for Kyrie's baptism! She knows how to do pretty much everything under the sun (seriously, she even made her own tooth to save on dental costs!). So off we went to the fabric store. After a lot of searching, I finally found the perfect fabric. It ended up costing around $50 to cover the whole thing, but that's a heck of a lot cheaper than replacing it would have been. And now it has my own personal touch. I think it turned out awesome!

Before
(sorry about the awful glare from the lamp!)

After!

My mother-in-law helped me do the base, and I did the cushions completely on my own. The base fabric matches the lightest square in our rug, and the cushion fabric is an exact match of our couches, the red wall and the lightest square in the rug as well. It's still not quite done yet. Underneath the cushions, I stapled the fabric on, and I want to do something to cover up the staples. I'm not sure what yet, though. I'll have to walk around JoAnns to get some inspiration.

Here's a close-up of the cushion fabric. The stripes are raised and feel almost like a corduroy type of fabric.

Thanks for your help, Mom! You're awesome!!

You really can paint laminate furniture!

Derk says I'm way too anal. Maybe he's right. But it seriously bugs me that my girls don't have matching furniture. For example, Cambria's bookshelf and her toy box are white while her bed and dresser are wood. It just drives me up the wall. Since Derk wouldn't go for the idea of buying them all new furniture (I was only half serious when I suggested it anyway, lol), I decided to paint instead. I chose to tackle Cambria's furniture first (we're buying Kyrie a new bed soon, so I want to wait until after we get that picked out). I read up on how to paint laminate furniture, and despite Derk telling me it was a bad idea and wouldn't work, I went for it. And it turned out pretty great! There are a few small things I need to touch up, but it actually worked!

We took the drawers out and then moved it into the garage. I took all the hardware off the drawers, and then we sanded everything down. You have to be careful not to sand all the way through the laminate to the particle board. You just sand until you get the shiny finish off. Then you prime. I did 2 coats of primer, just to make sure it was really well covered. Once that dries, you're good to paint.

The drawer pulls gave me some serious grief. I thought having a white dresser with pink drawer pulls to match her walls would be really cute. So I got some spray paint and thought that would be super easy. Well, apparently I really suck at spray painting. Or something. Because it didn't work at all. I ended up having to soak them all in paint thinner and then spent a good amount of time today scrubbing all the paint off. And let me tell you, breathing in all those fumes wasn't good. I felt so loopy! At least Derk had fun making fun of me. ;)

Before

During

After

Next week, I'm doing her bed!