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I have been obsessed with DIY projects since I moved into my new place in July of 2011. A friend of mine has owned this house for years and I've always been in love with it, it oozed charm, so when they said they were going to rent it out and asked if I knew anyone to let them know. I was renting a basement apartment at the time and when they first told me I thought there was no way I could afford to go from a 1 bedroom apartment to MY dream house. Turns out, where there is a will there really IS a way. I told them I wanted it and they were thrilled to be able to rent the house that they love so much to someone they know and trust so it was a win/win. So here I am, stoked to be moving up in the world and dreaming of all the family get together's I'm going have, picturing Summer playing in the back yard and how I was going to decorate. Wait...what? CRAP, I have to decorate a lot more space with pretty much zero dollars. It was time to get innovative and make this house our home. So if you think back to July, 2011 you probably don't remember knowing about Pinterest yet, yeah...neither did I. Thankfully I found my future best friend not long after I moved in and she's helped me with DIY ideas that I've turned into my own masterpiece. Here are some of my very first DIY projects and a little story to go with each:
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| Map Chair |
I bought a desk last summer at a yard sale for $10 and it came with a plain white, fairly stained, chair. After cleaning it the best I could I decided it needed to be covered. The paint was chipped and thick in spots and I didn't have the time or energy to strip and repaint it so I went to my stack of maps, grabbed the Mod Podge and started gluing. If I were to do it over again I would have placed the map a little differently but I initially thought I would only cover the seat of the chair. Since that turned out so well I decided to keep going. I wanted to make sure that all of the cities that are important to Summer and I were easily found on the chair. It is easily in my top 2 favorite completed DIY projects to date.
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| Pallet Table |
My $26 coffee table. I found an idea like this on a blog somewhere and thought it would be perfect for my "beach cottage" style house. I picked up 2 pallets that were in decent shape from a friend and headed to my brothers to take full advantage of his endless supply of power tools, paint and anything else you could possibly imagine a DIY'er would need. First I used a sawzall to cut off the back side of the pallets, ps., cutting through thick, rusty nails is not fun, wear eye protection. Then I power washed both pallets and the 6x6 post I was going to use to separate them. I let them dry for an hour or so but because I knew I wanted the white washed look I didn't need the wood to dry completely. I mixed some left over white paint my brother had lying around with a little bit of water and brushed it on, I even let Summer paint a little too so she could say she helped make a piece of furniture in our house. After 2 coats of the white wash I let her dry. Finally, I cut the 6x6 post into blocks about a foot long and nailed them onto the pallets. Again, if I did it over again I would have cut them shorter but all in all I LOVE my coffee table. You can't sit on it and it may hurt if you try to put your bare feet up on it but hey, it will teach Summer not to do those things at other people's houses. OH, I forgot...the casters...the only thing I actually bought. I screwed big casters on the bottom so I could easily move the table around without scratching up the floors. I found them at Ace Hardware for $6.50 each. I would suggest getting the kind that lock so you don't have a run away coffee table.
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| Jewelry Organizer |
Ok so I didn't "make this" really but I thought it turned out pretty neat so I'm sharing it. 2 years ago I had maybe 3 pairs of earrings and they were probably just different sizes of silver round ball stud earrings. Sometime since then I've found my love of big gold jewelry. As my collection grew so did the unsightly mess on my dresser. I looked on Pinterest for different ideas and had a few I liked. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you ask my bank account), I live walking distance from a Home Goods store so I ventured out to see if I could find a cute framed cork board to work with. There weren't any but I kept moseying around to see if I could find anything that might work instead. I was in the laundry aisle when I saw this cute bright green pant hanger. It's weird when you pick something up and you can already see what it will look like after you are done. The only thing I added was a chain I had purchased in the jewelry making aisle at Wal-mart. I tied it to the top sides of the hanger with just a little bit of slack so the earrings would hang slightly. What is awesome about the pant hanger idea is that the bars unhook and pull out so you can easily slide all of your bangle bracelets onto it and they stay put. I bought a hook that hangs right over the door, placed it so it faces the inside of my closet and hung my new jewelry organizer on it. No one will ever know it's there unless your closet door is open. I mean, I'm not saying I'm a genius but I think this was a pretty clever "upcycle" idea. :)
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| DIY Chore Chart |
Bigger house + More rooms = LOTS more to clean. It is time to teach the kid what responsibilities mean.
I picked up that cute star and swirly tray at Good Will for like a quarter then found the wooden shapes, peel n stick magnets and scrapbook paper in the craft section at wal-mart. I initially thought I would cover the tray with wrapping paper but then decided it was much easier to paint over it with acrylic paint (I did a white base coat and then two coats of this pretty aqua color that I don't know the name of). I picked the 3 different sizes I wanted to use out of the wooden shapes and covered them with the scrapbook paper using Mod Podge . I had printed out some cute little chore clip art graphics that I found on the internet and glued them on also so it's easy for Summer to know which chore chart chip to move over. I used a black sharpie to write To Do: and Done: and divide the tray. Each size chip earns different amounts of money. The big chips earn .50 cents, the medium earn .25 and the itty bitty ones earn .10 cents. Summer loves helping me around the house now and moving her chips from one side to the other, she also loves collecting her payment. $$$
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