Big Things and Small Things

The last couple of months I have really tried to get some things done around my house. Let's just say I wasn't as successful as I had hoped I would be.

 I did dress up my Ikea cabinet.

This white cabinet is designed for shoes, but holds file folders of mail, receipts, school work, and other paper trails created by family members. It works great for a filing system! Originally it came with metal "feet." Not only did I not like how they looked but they also made the cabinet too tall. I added some silver numbers to the drawers. These numbers are from Lowe's and are house address numbers. I went cheap this go round with plastic numbers that I taped up (yes, taped). I wanted to be sure I liked the look before spending fifteen dollars and making nail holes.

I'm waiting for a warm day to paint a frame to hang above the dresser, and to paint that red basket white. It holds junk (i.e my husband's stuff) and sunglasses. The red makes it stand out more than I would like.

My husband painted our pantry door for me. I have hated the etched glass design (a fruit basket) on the door since we moved in. We painted it with magnetic and chalkboard paint.

I like the chalkboard, but not the magnetic paint. The magnetic paint dried very rigid and would not smooth out despite sanding. It gave the glass the texture of wood. But it is better than what it looked like before!

One of the big things I did this Fall was to make my own painted curtain. Here's what I have to say about it: unless the real thing is out of your budget, don't do it! Even using a fabric medium the painted part of the curtain was stiff. I felt like it looked like a cheap version of the real thing. But the funny thing is, I'm not sure that it is cheaper. Because I used a dark paint I had to put on lots of coats. Considering I had six panels to do, the cost of paint would have been almost as much as buying striped fabric, but a whole lot more work.

After doing one panel, I decided to go a different direction. And not just because of the work, but because the look as a whole didn't work with the room.

I decided to bite to bullet and splurge of this fabric:

Duralee Kalah Blue.

 It was pricey at $20 a yard (from fabric.com), but it is so beautiful! It just came in the mail and I am working on getting my curtain panels made.

The other big project I did was to make over chairs for my kitchen. I found these chairs on craigs and really like them. They looked great painted a shiny silver and with new fabric. The only problem? I forgot to prime!! Arghh! So dumb, I know. I'll blame it on pregnancy brain! So needless to say, I'm waiting for the weather to warm up so my husband can strip them for me and I can repaint them.

Here's to a more productive new year!