Curbside Mantel

I'm a teacher and leave pretty early in the morning to head to work. About a month ago as I was driving out of our neighborhood, I noticed two pallets on the curb with a "FREE" sign. Um, yes please. I called my husband and asked if he could rush down there and grab them (before any other crazy pallet lady saw them). As awesome as he is, he hopped in the car and drove down. To his surprise there were other curbside goodies to be had, a bundle of scrap wood tied neatly with twine. Weeks passed and then the creative lightbulb went on. I'm going to build a mantel! We have two fireplaces in our new home and zero mantels. Hanging stockings this year was pretty tricky.

I had pinned a great mantel idea from Pinterest that was my inspiration. Let's just say that one took way more engineering skills than ours. We totally winged it. With a handful of tools we went to work. That list included: tape measure, table saw, nail gun borrowed from my brother-in-law and sand paper. 

First step: Make the top and bottom. Easy peasy.

Step Two: Add the front. 

 Step Three: Watch your husband laugh at you and give you that "it's not going to work" look. Then miracles happened and we made a mantel.

There are a ton of discrepancies in this but we just call it 'character'. This is straight from the curb, not Restoration Hardware. Cost: $0

My Happy Hour Table

We have been so blessed with an incredible backyard with an amazing view and before we even closed escrow I was on the hunt for a project table and chairs. Our local Salvation Army here in San Clemente came through once again and I scored a bamboo table, with glass top and 4 chairs. Bonus....it was HALF PRICE DAY!!! The whole set was just $60. Yes, the chairs are ugly, I know this, that's why they ended up being resold and we had to look for chair alternatives.

So I bought these in August and it wasn't until November that I found the chairs that would ultimately be the ones we stuck with. These took some work but not nearly as enough work the ugly ones would of needed. These had 3 layers of fabric all stapled with about 1,000 staples. It was tedius but all layers came off...eventually.

Once the layers of fabric were removed it was time to paint! We purchased an outdoor paint, a great shade of turqouise and applied two coats. We think it turned out great!

Now to cover the chairs! I purchased outdoor fabric from Fabric.com and love, love, love it! After some measuring, cutting and staple-gunning I was done! CHEERS!

You're Making a Door into What????

Well another project was completed over my Spring Break! We recently moved into a new home and our guest room was lacking a headboard, so, after seeing two solid wood doors for sale on a Yardsale group I thought, "That could totally be a headboard." My husband did not see that vision. But for $25 for two doors, I couldn't pass up the chance. Not sure what the second door is going to be, but I had to have them. It was a project that took no more than a couple hours (that includes drying time of the paint), but it looks like I spent hours and hours on it. I love how it turned out!

Step One: Cut door in half

Step Two: Paint it! For color, I added a bit of primer into a dish, added some water and used a clean cloth to wipe onto the door.

Step Three: I added plates on the back and screwed on to secure.


Last Step: Hang it up! It looks awesome! Just what the guest room needed.