Better After

17 In kitchen/dining

Out of the Blue

Elisa’s kitchen wasn’t SO outdated that she was like, cooking over an open flame or anything, but it was outdated enough. If you just feel uncomfortable every time you hang out in your kitchen, well I’d say you deserve some updatin’! So she ditched the mismatched appliances, splurged on a splashy backsplash, and painted the cabinets. (Looks like she added some crown moulding under the Christmas decorations too). Oh, and did she spend major bucks replacing those sad, sad, sad blue countertops? Nope, its just paint and epoxy! Coulda fooled me!

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March 2, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

7 In tables/dressers

Back in my hayday…

After Jennifer rescued this distressed dresser from the back of a shed where it was storing garden tools and stacked high with bales of hay (true!), she stripped it down to the bare wood and rehabbed it back to its former glory. She even managed to salvage the keyholes, which you couldn’t even see under the layers and layers of paint in the before. Oh, if only the sweet, unsuspecting lady who sold it to her for ten meager dollars could see it now! She’d probably want to
add a few more numbers to that price tag!

Check out the whole process on Jennifer’s blog West Street Story.

And here’s another dresser that was in such bad shape, parts of it had split completely in half! See the wood putty across the entire drawer? Luckily there are people like Becky who will take the time to lovingly piece it back together, because I would have probably used it to store my extra hay bales. I lovity LOVE the paint/stain treatment she used, especially how the original wood peeks through underneath. If you love it too, you are in luck because she gives a step by step rundown on how to achieve the same look on her blog Doodle Bug.

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March 1, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

14 In lighting

Peer Pressure Refresher

So, have you tried it yet? You should do it. EVERYONE is doing it. All the cool kids do it. C’mon, try it, just once. I guarantee you’ll get hooked! Just give in to the urge to redo a thrift-store lamp already! Look at all the fun you’re missing!

Serena at Thrift Diving found this sturdy but stodgy lamp for a mere $10 bucks at a thrift store. She painted it a canary yellow and, would you believe this, found TWO of those awesomely awesome shades for $2 at the SAME thrift store on a different day! That is some good thrifting ju ju.

Or, if you’ve got the cool lamp but need a worthy shade, here’s a funky option. This fish scale shade was made by painting and gluing individual hand-cut circles out of heavy brown vinyl, from Pam and her tired fingers at Simple Details. Love it! Thanks ladies!

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March 1, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

12 In tables/dressers

Meowzers!

Better After reader Alicia recently acquired this unloved dresser and put it to work as a TV stand instead. Much better use of this piece, I’d say. I don’t understand these types of dressers with the single cabinet, what am I supposed to put in there? A small stack of clothes on a dark little shelf behind a tiny door that I have to kneel down on the floor to access? Must have been made for back in the day when people were smaller and more nimble and could see better in the dark. Hey, that also describes cats! Maybe this was made for fancy little clothes-wearing cats, who knows.

Anyway, isn’t that grasscloth wallpaper so totally hip and modern? Alicia actually found it in an old family friend’s basement circa 1970!

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February 29, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

9 In decor/ tables/dressers

Taking Shape with Painter’s Tape

There are so many things you can do with painter’s tape besides using it for painting. For instance, I am using some to hold up a calendar on my fridge! Woo! Ok, so most of the other things you can do with painter’s tape are boring. Let’s just stick with those that involve paint. Here come two that I am especially digging!

Heather elevated her plain-jane table’s coolness factor by about a million percent with some cleverly placed tape and gold spray paint. Your knee-jerk reaction to the idea of gold spray paint might be ‘yikes, tacky!’ but this look is anything but. It looks amazing against the white too. Seriously, I bet people would pay mega-bucks for this! See more on her site Hrrthrrr.

(a slightly photoshopped before!)

And I love how the original finish of this old locker shines through these charcoal colored stripes. Such a modern look. Alina was aiming for matte stripes against the shiny metal for maximum contrast, so she whipped up her own chalk paint! Overachiever alert! See the whole how on her blog My Yellow Umbrella.

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February 29, 2012 By Lindsey @ Better After

11 In bathroom

Getting Pragmatic in the Attic

Have you ever wanted to try something hard, like say … running? And talked yourself out of it a hundred times because you are too old/tired/out of shape/busy/cold/hot/whatever? And then you see one of those inspirational stories that have me all teary-eyed just thinking about, like the little kid who was born with no legs, and how he can run an entire marathon before you could even get off the couch, and so you think to yourself, “Self, you have NO excuse. Stop being so lame.” Do you know what I’m talking about? Where is this analogy going? Am I saying I’m going to take up running? Ha ha, no. No thanks. What I’m trying to say is that if Sarah can make a master bathroom out of this … um … what is this? A spare-chimney attic crawl-space? I have no idea.

ANYWAY, if Sarah can make a master bathroom out of this, then every single person out there with a working toilet and four walls has no excuse to not have a cute bathroom too! See the whole story on her blog Lovely Chaos.