Showing posts with label guest room. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest room. Show all posts

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Desk it Yourself

Another great Craigslist purchase has finally made it indoors. If you look very hard, you can tell that this desk was sort of a Southwesty beige color. Not sure why it's Southwest, but it felt that way, and it looked pretty ugmo.


Note the little drawing left by the previous owner, a 7-year-old girl. :) We hauled this thing away for $100, which wasn't bad considering it has a light and a hutch. Perfect for my guest room and my Hello Kitty sewing machine. Please pardon the junk already piled beneath it. I sorta suck at taking blog pictures.



But now the dilemma is what to do with that cork board. Much as I love the little drawings, I painted without tape and with the plan to cover the cork with something. Paint? Fabric? Metal? I've had a few good suggestions from friends. This is what I've fashioned using the free image software called, no kidding, GIMP:


Slate blue. I have other blue accents in the room. This is probably not my favorite idea.


Argyle? I stole this image from Google without looking closely at the pattern, which has little skulls. Not sure I would find this at Jo Ann's, but I might be able to find a less skullish argyle pattern.


This is probably my favorite idea. I like the swirlies. Definitely looking for more ideas! And now that I have a space to work on more sewing projects, I could even sew this mutha. Very excited to finally have this addition to my space. I had been searching for the right one for months, and then had to take the required time to prime, paint and cure. And wipe off the little paw prints left by the numskulls known as Beverly and Merriweather!

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Putting the FUN in FUrNiture!

This post is all about a labor of love called the Armoire For the Guest Room. I bought it for $50 on Craigslist. As usual, I forgot to take a "before" pic. But it kinda looked like this:

I armed myself with some Internet-based instructions and a dream to paint it white. The armoire was laminate pressboard, which I've always heard is difficult to paint. But after sanding and priming, the paint rolled on pretty easily. I was feeling great! So I followed my favorite bloggers' advice and moved on to the next step: coating it with a clear polyurethane. So easy! I left it alone to dry for extra awesomeness, and went out to the garage today to put it together and enjoy my new life as an armoire owner. But it soon became clear that the poly coat was not.


Can you tell how YELLOW it is? Can you tell how MAD I was by the use of these CAPITAL LETTERS? I ended up having to buy more paint and add two more coats. But I guess it was OK because it inspired me to repaint the dresser I've had since I was 5, which also lives in the guest room. (New knobs from Anthropologie made it even better!)



ANYWAY, after a long day and a slight setback thanks to some poorly timed sprinklers, I finally got the armoire into the guest room and started turning my life around:


Now, one more detail about this armoire. It came with a super lame feature designed to help you set up your TV:


At first I was just going to paint over it, but was inspired by a cool little product at Target -- a sticker made for college dorm rooms. With that and a roll of sticky white shelf paper, this is how it turned out:


I love it. I also need a break from painting furniture. Maybe my next piece will be purchased the way I actually want it.