Yellow china cabinet

Sometimes I have no plans for the day, but then I find a new piece of furniture or a project around the house comes up and I am busy all day. 
On Friday I drove home from work and a few doors down when I turned on my street I saw someone had put a china cabinet on the curb, so I hurried home and told Chris, of course he rolled his eyes and said yes he had seen it, but had hoped someone else would have picked it up before I saw it.  Wow he knows me too well.
So we get in the car and drive down and he helps me get it.  We have recently downsized cars from a mini van to a small SUV, and Chris had hoped that would mean no more chance of big pieces of furniture coming home, but as this was on our street I could just drive on back home with the trunk open.

I will say the cabinet was not a fine antique, or in perfect condition.  One of the doors on the bottom was broken, but I still liked the style and size of it, and I knew even if I couldn't make it work I could at least give it away to someone else who could use it.

The green was not bad, but in searching google images for "painted china cabinet" my favorites were the yellow ones, so I went and bought a sample can of pretty yellow paint.  I decided to leave the inside green for now, I thought the books and china looked good against a dark color.

 

To solve the broken door problem I just took out the panels (they were just thin plywood), as the bottom shelves I wanted to use for book shelves anyway and I didn't mind it being open.  I could get more glass panels made later on.

 

Trash to treasure, I think so!  Not bad for just $6 for the little can of yellow paint and a days painting.

 

This is my second free china cabinet, I also have this one I painted gray.

 

The one little china cabinet I paid for is more space for collecting.

 

I'm thankful for a patient husband who puts up with me for bringing this junk home, usually he is surprised with the way things turn out in the end.

 

 

Summer house updates

 

It's been quite some time since I updated this blog, not that I am not still doing a lot around this house, we have just had a really busy summer.  On the Sunday before I am due to go back to my teaching job I thought I would share a few house updates for anyone that might still be out there reading.  We have had a fantastic summer with trips to San Francisco, and then New Zealand for 5 weeks so I have lots of those pictures to share too.  I thought I'd share some house pictures in this first post though.

 

I bought these new dining chairs for $20 each.  The person I bought them from said they were made in Dresden, Germany after WWII.  They are in great condition, just needed a little update with the fabric.  The picture below is the original fabric.

 

Then with new fabric:

(I didn't have to buy any, I just re-used from some World Market chair covers I had)

I love my new chairs.  At the beginning of the summer I had started re-painting the kitchen cabinets, starting with the island I painted a darker gray, and all the outer cabinets I painted "Simply White".  I am really happy with the change and the kitchen is a lot brighter and great to show off my vintage Fiesta and other dishes.  I took off the cabinet doors above the fridge to have more display space too.

 

The new chairs go perfectly with my maple Ethan Allen table I bought a few months previous.  Here it is with one of the extra leaves added

 

On this side is all our "everyday dishes" of fiestaware.  I cleared out the drawer below on the left for all my teas.

 

Even the pantry got a little update with new handles to match the other cabinet hardware.

 

And another summer find is this little arm chair, I found at a resale shop for $20.  The fabric is in perfect condition and the frame was already painted that pretty light blue.

 

And even our old door from the garage that leads through the laundry room into the kitchen got a makeover with a coat of dark gray. 

Blue paint

Back in August I wrote about this new pink find.  This looked good in Kate's room and it was good to have the extra storage, but as I was doing her little room makeover, I thought it would really be better for her to have a desk.

So that's why this pretty in pink went from this:


to this:

That little can of blue paint has gone a long way, I used it on the kids' bathroom cabinets, and my dresser/ tv cabinet in the family room

New, very pink find

Last week on facebook I noticed this dresser for sale.  It was already super bright coral pink, but needed some work as it had been used as a tool chest by the owner; Jen from Metamorphose Upholstery and Furniture.  She was auctioning it off and I was lucky enough to have the winning bid - $40.  It really was a great deal, it has 9! drawers and only one of the drawers needed some work re-attaching some wood to the back.  She even gave me some extra paint, so today I cleaned it off and touched up the paint, and then gave it a clear coat of poly to protect the paint.

I added some wallpaper to the drawers for the final finishing touch.

It looks great in Kate's room with her blue walls.

 And it is a perfect match to the New York picture that was already hanging in that spot.

Lots of storage and lots of space on the top for all the stuff that girls gather.

I brought in this low coffee table I wasn't using downstairs anymore and made a bench seat for when she has friends over.  We already had this quilt too and see some of the squares are also a perfect match for the new dresser.

I finally gave in a few weeks ago and let her get a poster, her beloved One Direction, and this is about as good as it gets for a made bed.

Kate's other green dresser is a very similar style and it is now in her closet for storing clothes.

linking here

Another room painted

One room I don't know if I've posted pictures before on the blog is of Chris' office.  It is upstairs and the only bedroom upstairs that has wood floors.  The previous owners in this house had it set up as their baby nursery because it is closest to the master bedroom.
Anyway it's a nice room with wood floors and a big closet.  The only downside is that it only has one window.  It still has plenty of light during the day if you open the blinds though.
Up until this point I did not do anything to arrange or decorate, but Chris had all his books guitars etc set up how he liked.
Of course I was excited when he finally said "Anna, if you really want to you can paint my office, as long as I can pick the colors and it is not a light pastel color".  He wanted to help paint and everything, but as last week was my last of summer break, and he was away in Amarillo for work I decided to get it done.
I didn't buy the paint and start working in the room until about 3 in the afternoon and I finished it all up (except for moving the books and things back in) probably by 1am.
The first couple of hours was all the furniture moving, taping and prep work.

Let me show you some before pictures.  3 walls in the room were painted a reddish brown color, and one wall was just white.

This is one of the new paint colors I picked (benjamin moore "rockport gray")

 Another before picture with his collection of Beatles records 

 His guitars and the one white wall

 Another before - brown walls, brown floor, wood furniture

 The white wall with a sample of the new paint color (sherwin williams "moody blue")

And now the "After" pictures.  I wanted to keep all the same things in the room, I did a little re-arranging and organizing, but I think it worked out good and it still has the same vibe as before, and Chris is happy with it!

 I think this is my favorite wall, I love the way the guitars look against the blue.  I moved the albums to this side (there is more space on this wall if he wants to add more to his collection).  The Who canvas thing is from Target a couple of years ago.

 This little chair is super comfortable and was $10 from a yard sale!

I brought this shelf upstairs from my office to display his typewriters.  He uses the top 2 ones to type up poetry and writes and sends letters to a few people.  Our joke has always been that when we go to a fancy starbucks in the River Oaks (a fancy part of Houston), where everyone is on their laptop or smart phone, that he wants to one day bring a typewriter and start typing.  The typewriters have always been a talking point of interest for Kate's friends who some of them had not seen one before, or probably ever get to use one.  It is a big novelty when they have got the put in the paper and write something.

So different from the IPod generation of kids that who knows what they will be using when they are our age.

 I bought him a new lamp at Homegoods.....

 This print I'd bought off etsy.

Few more things - Chris' little league baseball picture, some collectible stamps of baseball stadiums in the US, and a framed leaf that our daughter Kate had picked up as a toddler - it was from our pear tree in our old back yard the first year after we planted it and it lost it's leaves.

 This original art from Goodwill looks great in a frame, pretty great for I think a $2 purchase, and our family picture from Disneyland 3 years ago.

some of his favorite books, and marathon medals.

 Dr Pepper clock and rusty sign from his Grandfather's farm.

So another room done!  We may start getting some new light fixtures soon, upstairs every room just has the plain white ceiling fan, which we don't use the ceiling fans much so they just collect dust.

So still a few more projects to work on around the house, but I think I've painted every room except our bathroom.  We've been here a little more than 3 years now

Finished Office and Living Room - new paint

I think I am finally done with painting!  My downstairs rooms at least.  I'll just share all these AFTER pictures, if you want to see the rooms before you can read these posts about the green desk

or this one has some pictures of both rooms.  The color was not bad, but just beige, so I was ready for a change and it needed fresh paint as that was a flat paint that showed every little mark.

Here is my office, painted Behr Dark Ash on the top, and Benjamin Moore Simply White on the bottom below the chair rail.  I LOVE the way it turned out.

I found this color online and it has been on my pinterest board for a while (see this picture).

I keep craft and scrapbooking supplies in this dresser:

And the plastic drawers are not pretty but they don't look too bad on this shelf.

I got a few of these white frames from IKEA for $1.99 for a few favorite family pictures........

 With my Mum (I'm in the backpack) and one of my Dad when he was young.

and pictures of my grandparents....

I love the color against the white crown molding.

And this new white curtain rod (also from IKEA).  These curtains have moved around the house in a couple of different rooms but I think they look good in here.

And the living room got painted my favorite light gray - Valspar Seashell Gray.

I'm trying the chalkboard hanging vertical, I read somewhere that hanging things this way makes the ceilings seem higher, not sure if this is true, but I like it this way for now! 

I like Kate's little quote and artwork better than my 'tree' I had as a temporary filler.

and my globe "collection" (I guess 2 counts for a collection, right?)  The little one is a bank so it's actually in use to keep that spare change.

And my other bigger collection has moved back to the family room (this room is also painted Seashell gray)

I love it all in here and the blue-ish fiestaware looks good with my blue dresser.

Emmy is happy she can nap in peace without painting or furniture moving going on around her....

The knitted blanket I bought at a flea market / thrift store in New Zealand last year.

See the cute stool the lamp is on?  I bought it from a blog "friend" Pamela who lives close by.  If you haven't already visit her blog From My Front Porch to Yours.  She is very talented in furniture painting and decorating.

 The blue chest and pillows have also moved back here to co-ordinate with the other blues in the room

Have you been painting or moving furniture lately??