A little DIY: The Tale of Two Pieces of Revamped Furniture

Before we moved here to TN, I had a couple pieces of furniture I wanted to redo before the move- specifically because we actually had a huge balcony to do it in.



Piece #1- our armoire

Piece #2- desk

The first piece was a TV armoire that I found for free at a neighborhood garage sale when Dom was about 3 months. We used it to hold the TV in our room. Mainly because it never matched anything we owned- nasty pine color. The second was a desk Mom and Dad Coffey gave me. The Coffeys are also starting do downsize due to hoping on going on a mission here in a couple of years. They offered it, and I took it. I actually thought it would be awesome to hold all my scrapbooking stuff. Since Dom was born, and we sold our old desk, my stuff has just been floating around. I thought it would be nice to give it a place to actually be stored in.

 

We started with sanding a bit. They are both made of laminate wood. First, you have to sand it, by hand or machine. You got to give the paint something to adhere to, otherwise it will just dry and peel off. That took about a day... for both pieces.

2 coats of white paint later....

 The armoire, I decided to give it  to the baby, since it was free and didn't care what happened to it. Never give children nice furniture....they don't care. TRUE STORY (Dom had a nice armoire that my aunt gave us, and loved whacking it. I had to get it out of his room). This armoire, according to my vision, would be white with some stickers, a mirror, and I was hoping to find a chalkboard/magnet board. I had everything (all donations) except for the board and chalkboard paint. I was given a huge basket that already held most of his toys, and when I found out it fit on the lower half of the armoire, I knew it was meant to be. The extra shelves were discarded, I no longer had purpose for them.

10 year old pixie stick found inside the desk....I actually took a pic of the inside but I'll spare you the disgust....it was all black and no longer dust.

 

 I looked to pinterest for ideas, but nothing seemed within my price range. I decided to go to Lowe's and see what I could find. I ended up finding a small metal board that was magnetic (note- bring a magnet to make sure). I know what you're thinking- why not just get a board and just use that magnetic paint everyone talks about??? Well, let me tell you that I met someone who actually used it, and apparently it doesn't work. The "magnets" in the paint are not strong enough to even hold a paper picture....that's pretty bad. Also, my dad (being an engineer) told me that there was no way (physically) to ever put enough metal in something like paint to make it strong...like a metal sheet. So, that dream was crushed almost immediately. I wanted it to hold some animal noise magnets...so it had to be pretty strong. It was a lot easier and cheaper to just buy the magnetic board (by the way, that magnetic paint kit is like $25, while the board was $6 both at Lowe's). While I was there, I also bought a chalk spray paint.

Once we got home, I spray painted the front of the drawers and the magnet board. I found out that.... I don't like spray paint...it's hard (at least for me- 1st timer here) to get it right. some places was too much, in others it wasn't enough....and I was so nervous to paint the floor and then get charged for it when I moved away. I did find out, that the paint GOES EVERYWHERE. I did this barefoot, and when I walked back inside the apartment, I noticed that my soles were pure black and I was leaving a trail...it sucked. I had to clean that up real quick. If I could do it again, I would do it on  a grassy field, not on concrete with a tarp.

Anyways, it dried for two days, then tried it with some sidewalk chalk we had lying around. Once I knew it worked, the hubs made me a frame so we wouldn't have any accidents- the corners were pretty sharp. That dried for about a day with the help of some wood glue. The wood and glue were just leftovers from a previous project.

toys were already packed and ready to move.

 

Once everything was dried, we screwed the mirror. We've had this forever, I am not really sure where it came from, and it has never really been used, I figured Dom might actually use it more. Then we moved to TN, and once we knew where the armoire was going to go, I put the stickers on the sides. I was afraid they were going to fall off, so I wanted to wait.
 

He really likes having a mirror

Once we arrived in our new home, I went ahead and put the stickers on them.
I loved using leftovers. Mainly, I like the fact that it's decent looking for cheap. I mean everything was here, except for the chalkboard paint and magnet board, so really that's all we had to pay for. Not bad. It's cool to see how your imagination can really do some good in this world. Or in my case, in my child's bedroom. Dom's loves it, and he whacks it constantly and throws things at it all the time, and I....could care less. That's what kids are suppose to do....be kids. We actually would like to put 8 holes in the top half and with  tie 4 bungee cords, create sort of like a "zoo" to hold all the stuff animals. We have some bungee cords, but I think they would be stretched too far, and I'm afraid they'll break or something. So(since we don't really have that many stuff animals)...we'll leave it open for now.

 

 

My scrapbooking desk area looks even better now. We had this over-the-door- pantry thing for a while and I screwed it to the wall next to my desk to keep my other stuff. Now, I like knowing that all my stuff has a place and most importantly...that I have a place where I can shut the door (when baby naps of course....when else can I do anything?) and just de-stress for a bit....

Baby likes messing with the chalk.