0

Living Rooms

Kitchens

Furniture

8 In kitchen/dining/ tables/dressers

Layer it on me!

Since wearing stripes is supposed to be slimming … do you think painting stripes on your table would have some sort of slimming effect and cause you to subconsciously eat less?  I bet it totally would.  As if I needed another reason to love this striped beauty from Jesse at Nine Red!

Jesse is always up to his elbows in furniture refinishing, sometimes literally, as he dug through – count em’  – EIGHT layers of fabric on these old chair cushions before getting to the original foam.  Woah.  And also, ew.  I think I spy a bedspread in there!  Looks a million times better now, and probably a billion times more sanitary!  The table looks fantastic too, it almost appears to be glowing! Check it out HERE.

.
Pin It
8 In tables/dressers

Coocoo For You

The last time I mentioned to my friends that I needed a new coffee table, do you know how many of them ran out and bought not one, but TWO tables just for me, and then personally repainted them in two distinctly whimsical schemes and let me pick my favorite?  NONE OF THEM.  Obviously, I need some new friends.  Friends like Amanda from Mommy is Coo Coo, because that’s exactly what she just did for a loved one. She’s a keeper!  Which one would you choose?  I’d pick the red and blue!

.
Pin It
13 In kitchen/dining

Color me Carly

Carly’s kitchen just wasn’t screaming “Carly!”  There were too many contrasting wood tones, a paint color that did none of them any favors and a countertop that I can only describe as ‘barf-speckled.’  The only one who could stand it was that cat, and that’s because he’s colorblind.  (Are cats colorblind?  I just made that up.)
Anyway, since she had always wanted a white kitchen, fresh paint was first on the list!  Then, she tried out a creative mix of countertop paint and roll-able stone coating to achieve exactly the look she wanted on the counters, and finally, a pretty sea foam green for the walls. Grand total … $300! Check out tons more lovely details on her website Carly Kmyta.


(special thanks to Better After reader Tara for submitting this!)
.
Pin It
8 In kiddie

Hello Dolly!

So, did I ever tell you about that Victorian mansion dollhouse from Fisher Price that I triple circled in the Sears Christmas catalog every single year of my life and never got? No?  Well, I’m still suppressing my rage about it.  AAARrrrghIwantedthatdollhouseSOBAD.  Instead my dolls lived in my bookcase.  I tried to pretend it was their charmingly sparse flat, (they were British), but it never quite cut it for me.
This old dollhouse that Natalie inherited from her home’s previous owners wasn’t cutting it for her either.  So she whipped out her glue gun and dolled it up (pun!) as a surprise for her daughter.  Best mom ever! You could totally make something similar with those square bookcases from IKEA, if your daughter doesn’t have anything against putting her dolls in a bookcase.  Siiiiiiiiiiigh.

But, if you find yourself standing there in IKEA, getting a little overwhelmed at the idea of taking on a project of this magnitude, don’t worry. Steer yourself over to the Latt table section instead!  Dress it up with fun colors and chalkboard paint!  Easy! AND you’ve still convinced your kids that you are awesome! See this one in action on Julia’s blog Chris Loves Julia.

.
Pin It
7 In tables/dressers

Making the Gradient

So I guess all the cool kids are calling this style ‘ombre’ now, which is way cooler and more succinct than what we used to call it: ‘varying shades of paint that gradually go from light to dark.’  Just kidding, we didn’t really call it that.  Back in my day, we did no such things at all.  Our furniture makeover supplies consisted of modge-podge and a the torn-out pages of Tiger Beat.  I heart JTT!  (Obviously I was never one of the cool kids). Annnyway, before this post meanders any further, let’s check out the following dresser makeover from Madison. Verrry chic. Not to mention a curbside freebie find! See it on her blog HERE.

And look!  Here’s another one!  Better After reader Ashlei planned to redo this little $10 yard sale dresser, but didn’t want to spend $50 on new knobs. Darn right she didn’t. That would be crazy! So she got creative and just covered them with her favorite fabric! So many possibilities there, especially if you are like me and have a large collection of fabric even though you don’t sew and really have absolutely no use for it, but yet you can’t seem to make yourself throw it out, and you’ve hung on to your tattered boxes of now out-dated fabric for over a decade, and oh my gosh you guys, am I a hoarder?!

Ahem.  Anyway.  One more!  From Sandi at Making it Homey who also found this dresser for ten measly bucks on craigslist and gave it new life with a stunning coat of red. It looks so much more confident and proud of itself!  It’s sure come a long way from that broken-down box of sadness that it was before.  Thanks ladies!

.
Pin It
18 In decor/ innovative idea

What a hoot!

Lori at Bleak 2 Unique is in the furniture refinishing business, so she thought she had struck gold when she found this bentwood rocker chillin’ curbside.  Unfortunately, no one was interested in buying it and she didn’t have room to store it, and it was dangerously wobbly anyway.  So did she get all ‘bent’ out of shape?  (Did you see what I did there?)  No! She did what anyone else (ok, probably NOBODY else) in that situation would do.  She … well, just see for yourself …

Oh, my gosh you guys, she made it into a big orange owl! A BIG ORANGE OWL! Did you see that coming?  I didn’t!  I like this plain orange version, but she be-jazzled it even further with giant gemstones and sparkle:

“Whooooo think’s I’m cute?”  Ooh, I do!  The things people come up with, I swear.

.
Pin It
Protected By
Shield Security PRO