Finishing up a few last things...

Remember these projects? Yes, I have finished them. Let me show you.


Here is the $5 rocking chair. It was so grungy and disgusting. I know it was quite old and I doubt it had ever been cleaned. But now, oh so pretty. I actually would like to add a decorative wood piece to the top center that I can glaze, but because of the curve it would have to be pretty small. I haven't found one yet that would work. In the meantime, I will just keep my afghan thrown over it.



I got the crochet pattern for this afghan from Attic 24, my favorite crocheting blog. If you like crocheting, flowers, beautiful colors, or England, you'll love this blog! By the way, I crocheted this last fall before I started in on the whole nesting thing. At that time I had NO other projects going. I am ambitious, but not quite ambitious enough to make this on top of everything else. :)



Here is Skyler's "parking garage". He just has so many large-sized vehicles, that his closet was a mess. My hubby built this shelf, and I painted it. Now he has the perfect spot to park his big cars.



Now my blue chair. You'll recall I let my sister-in-law have the other one. I LOVE how the color turned out. I LOVE how the detail turned out when glazed. I LOVE the colors of the fabric I chose. I DO NOT love how the cushion itself turned out. (Too thick, too square). I may have a bit of re-doing in my future. For now, though, the cushion stays.







And last, but not least, a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY to this little guy who turned 3-years-old today!! (Oh! How I just love that little face!!) Click here to read what I LOVE about this little guy!

Okay, I admit it. I'm tired, er, exhausted. I am now 36 weeks + 4 days, which if we go by the fact that I usually deliver at 38 weeks, means I have around 10 days left (!!!!) That sounds incredibly soon. But, considering all the aches and pains that go along with being this pregnant, maybe it's not soon enough. The past week has been on and off again with the weather. I did get my dresser painted, but it's not complete. I need to buy new hardware but I'm being frugal and I decided to wait until it goes 50% off again at Hobby Lobby. Also, the mirror needs to be done. We are probably going to put a frame of some sort around it. I plan to get to it soon, but this weekend has got to be garden weekend.
Okay, so here's a reminder of the before:



And here's the after:



You'll notice the old handles in some of the holes.



The color we went with is Crystal Aqua by Valspar. It is a latex paint, not a spray paint. I was trying different techniques here and I have to say that the easiest technique (and fastest) is still going to be spray primer (Kilz) and spray paint--a la All Things Thrifty. If I had to do it over, that's what I would do. It's hard to tell the color by these pictures. I should've taken a picture of it while it was still outside, but my camera's battery was dead and we weren't patient enough to charge it before bringing it in. Sorry! But, I do LOVE the color. It is a HUGE improvement to the old dresser!



Looking at all the projects left to do in my garage also makes me tired. Tuesday I was too exhausted to even think about sanding/painting even though it was (finally) nice weather. So I sewed instead (I had probably 12 pairs of jeans that needed to be skinny-fied or turned into shorts.)



Yesterday I pulled several items from the project pile and started priming them. Then I did something that filled me with relief. I called my sister-in-law to offer her one of my blue chairs, AND I listed a dresser (not pictured) on KSL. It sold today, so I've got that much more space in my garage and that much less work to do! Hallelujah!! But, I've got to get the rest of these things done in the next 10 days!! (We'll see...) I did start painting the two chairs today, and I finished painting the frames, bookends, and "parking garage". Now I just need to finish painting the two chairs, and finish 2 or 3 other projects that aren't pictured here.

Craft Room/Office Redo: Phases 1 & 2

The last room in the house that has never had any "fix-ups" is the craft room/office. It is down in the basement and there is no window so this room often feels like a dungeon. It's been very disorganized and it's basically a place where things get piled up instead of put away. Half the stuff didn't have a place to be put away! I've hated going in there because I couldn't stand the mess and because I didn't want to be in the "dungeon". Besides the mess, the other major problem is the lighting. As I said before, there's no window, but the lighting is awful too. Not to mention the duct that hangs down which goes across the middle of the ceiling. This duct work causes lots of shadowing.

So, first things first. I needed to declutter, organize and contain the mess. (Not to mention throw away much of it). Here are some before and after photos of my decluttering job. Oh, and I also rearranged a bit. It's hard to tell how good the "after" feels when I'm in the room from just looking at the photos.

Phase two: We spent Friday evening painting the ceiling. They were a dingy-whitish color. I need to do whatever I can to brighten up this room, so we gave it a coat of bright white. While we were at it, we quickly painted the laundry room ceiling as well. Here's my husband, hard at work. Thanks, Nate!

On Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday I spent much of my time painting the doors and the trim in the room. Bright white again. That's FIVE doors, count them! I'm really excited to paint the walls (you can see where I've been testing different samples). But the lighting is so bad that I don't dare choose a paint color until it's improved. This weekend (hopefully) we will be attempting to install either recessed lighting or track lighting. Something that will give a lot more light to this cave of a room. So stay tuned for phase 3!