Spotted: Goodwill

The four-year old and I made a quick trip into a local Goodwill here while out running errands last week and we found some STUFF.  I hadn't planned on going in and taking pictures to show you the treasures because I haven't had much luck finding things at thrift stores recently but after I spotted a few great things, I thought "why not?"  (If you're reading and you're local to the Mobile area, these were all seen at the Goodwill in Semmes.)  

I know it might be disheartening to you for me to show you what I found here - things you can't buy there since they're here, but my whole point of these "Spotted" posts is to show you what potential lies in those little (and big) things laying around inside thrift stores around the world.  You just have to open up your mind a tad and picture those things somewhere besides on a thrift store shelf surrounded by a random assortments of objects.

I didn't take notes on the prices of what I saw but everything was under $5, with the exception of the lamps.

It took a fair amount of back-and-forth mind conversation to convince myself I didn't need this wallpaper:

(I was juggling things in my hands so I struggled getting a good picture of the whole roll.)  If it were the modern peel & stick kind, I would've pounced.  But, having torn loads and loads of wallpaper off the walls in this house within the last year, I'm still raw about the idea and so pasted wallpaper isn't on my list of things I would like right now.  However, this pretty roll that mimicked a beautiful blue sky with wispy white clouds would look dreamy on the ceiling in a kids' room, inside a closet, on an accent wall, just anywhere.

String Light Nightlight | DIY

It's the very end of July and therefore, finishing up the kids' room is first on the agenda.  I've got one tiny little thing left to do and then I'll snap some pictures and get those fun afters up here!  I'm going to sneak ahead of myself quick though and show you one little corner.  This one:

That, of course, is what it looked like prior to a whole bunch of wallpaper removal and wall sanding, popcorn ceiling removal, you know, alllll the things.

Here's what it looked like a few days ago (and ha!  It's even changed since then with the addition of some new art!):

I'll get the current situation up with the room reveal but let's talk that lit star on the wall.  In our rental, the kids had this big lamp on their dresser that was uber cool but also, uber heavy.  It was great for awhile until they started thinking they could turn it on (the knob to turn it on was on the very top of the lamp and pretty much out of their reach) and started reaching and pulling the cantilever part down, down, down.  Not my most kid-friendly piece of functional decor, that one.

Yarn Art

Last, but not the least tweak in the living room, and over in that back door corner is a little yarn art.  I’ve seen these made on Pinterest a hundred times but took a notes from Andrea at Harlow & Thistle to make my very own. 

For a little bit, I struggled with what to hang on that door.  Since it got painted white and kind of blends in with the wall, which is great, I still liked the idea of adding some sort of wreath or hanging decor.  It had to be fairly simple and I didn’t want anything floral.  I didn’t want to add any holes to the door so it also had to be something light enough to hang from one of these magnetic hooks*.

I know you can find this tutorial a thousand times over elsewhere, but hey, “Here I go again on my own...” 

All You Need is…

L O V E…and a little bit of white paint.  Maybe and maybe not but with all of the orangey-wood trim in this casa, I don’t know what else to go for and I’m playing it safe! 

I do know, however, that it has been so great shaking up the living room to take it from the heavily curtained, brown, brown, brown before:

to an in-progress and better after:

End Table to Planter–DIY

My last post dove into my most recent thrift store excursion, as you might’ve read, and I noted somewhere in there that I had walked out with only one thing that day.  This was that one thing:
Only it didn’t look like that as I walked out the doors of Goodwill that day.

Spotted: Goodwill

We’re trying to get on more of a weekly schedule over here.  We’ve got our daily schedules down pat pretty much but we’re trying to organize our weeks so that we know where certain things are going to fit in.  Things like me getting a little break from the kids for just a smidge of time.  I think they call that self care, right?  It sounds so whiny and poor-me-I’m-surrounded-by-littles-all-day-long and I hate that because, as you know if you’re a mama, one of the hardest things is to be away from your kids…yet getting a little breather once in awhile is good for the sanity aspect.  It’s one of those catch 22 things I suppose.  Mother bear can’t rip herself away from her babies she loves oh-so-much yet if mother bear is asked one more question about why the toilet paper is white or why a marker is called a marker or why we can’t stick things in our ears, mother bear might actually turn grizzly.  You know.  I bet that, if you’re not a mom, you might be able to relate in dealings with coworkers sometimes, yes?  Anyway, our budget doesn’t allow for a mothers’ helper or babysitter (nor does mama’s-girl Gianna) so we’re working with Anthony’s work schedule which makes things a little more difficult on the planning side but as you probably know, challenges are looked square in the eyes ‘round here.   

So far, we’ve pretty much figured out a morning when I can get a couple of hours to do whatever I want/need to do and last week, I spent that morning perusing a thrift store and it. was. awesome.  I feel like my most recent (of which there have been few) thrift store visits have left me feeling disappointed – I’ve found nothing of interest – and like thrifting as a spectator sport is dying out.  Around where we live, there are lots and lots of people trying to make money off of refurbishing furniture and things and so, if you’re not the early bird or the frequent peruser, you’re not the one getting the worm.  So basically, with the ability (or should I say the lack of ability) for me to get to thrift stores early and often, it takes some serious luck for me to bring in a thrift store win.

Anyway, I’m seriously rambling here when really I hopped on to share deets on that thrift store excursion from last week.  For this one, forget about all I said about the luck and stuff because I found SO MUCH GOOD STUFF! 

Look!

Marble Tray ~ DIY

It’s going to get real original over here today yo.  I’m not the first and I definitely won’t be the last to type about marble contact paper.  There are a myriad of pinned projects using just the stuff and mine will be just another to add to the collection.  There are a huge basketful of bloggers and DIYers who have written/talked about using the stuff and so I’ll just add my voice to the queue.  BUT, I betcha that of all the marbled contact paper projects you find out there, mine will roll in as the cheapest.  Not bragging…that’s just the fact.  You know how I do.  ;)

Internet, meet marble contact paper project…again.

Distressed Chandelier Diy

When we moved into our second house, one of the first things we replaced (if not the very first thing) was the chandelier in the dining nook.

Before we moved in.

The existing one wasn’t an electrical light but a candelabra-type thing and, as romantic as daily candlelit dinners sounded, we prefered the 21st century and a little light if we needed to wander into the kitchen at midnight.  Thankfully and in line with our hopes, there was electrical running to the box from which the candelabra hung so we grabbed a brushed nickel, $70 chandelier online, said “let there be light”, and whoop, there it was. 

We didn’t put much thought into its style at the time because we just desperately wanted something electrical, something that jived with the metals in the kitchen, and something that wouldn’t break the bank so, later down the road, I started dreaming of something prettier.

Wrapping Paper Mat

Are you sick of me writing about a juvenile bathroom yet?  (I’m pretending that was a nonchalant, no…color me oblivious.)  Oh good.  Because there’s more.  I’d fill in space between these bathroom posts with something oh, I don’t know, not about a bathroom but one, two, three, four kids and they all nap at different times these days so, no.  Not happening.  Bigger fish are not being fried here…at least not right now.

Back to the subject matter though…

You might’ve read about the kids’ bathroom mini-overhaul, specifically everything that went on on the right side of the room but now let’s slide on over to the left side.  Here’s what it looked like after a fresh coat of paint several years back (the lighting and poor photography make it look worse than it actually did):

And here it is now:

West Elm Knock-Off Rug

I was set on a black & white rug to set down in the kids’ bathroom.  Black & white screams “gender neutral” to me and since I needed all of that I could get in this little bathroom for two girls and a boy, that’s the direction I was headed.

Enter this little thing:
Not black and white (even though it could argue the gender neutral case pretty well) but a great path to getting there since the other side was a blank slate.  You probably read the post about this rug and how I sewed, cut, and frayed the edges to get fringe. 

Now enter the Torres Kilim from West Elm…aka, my inspiration.
I saw it first on an episode of Fixer Upper and knew it would be super easy to imitate since the lines are perfectly imperfect.  Rug.  Kids’ bathroom.  Now.

Spotted: Goodwill

On my way to pick up our groceries last Saturday (Walmart grocery pick-up*…life-changing…order online, they shop for you, and you just park while they load your car!), I did a quick run by the Goodwill that’s across the street from Walmart.  I walked out empty-handed but here are a few things that caught my eye:

These chairs:
I always make a beeline to the furniture section because #fomo is real and I just know that if I don’t, someone is going to beat me by seconds to that one thing.  Okay, so maybe that’s a smidge dramatic but 1) I really do suffer from #fomo and 2) the furniture section is the most exciting section imo.  Anyway, you probably already know that I have a love for all things bamboo so you can understand why I loved these.  My head went right to how amazing they’d look reupholstered with some Swaying Palms fabric (Deme, I know you’d agree wholeheartedly!)  The bamboo was in great condition but the foam, not so much.  I hemmed and hawed over whether or not to grab them but, in the end, I felt like the $24.99 per chair was a little high so I moved on over to…

this chair:
It was obviously someones guinea pig for a reupholstering project that I wouldn’t exactly call successful.  There was more puckering on that chair than on a millenial female’s insta feed but, the legs.  It’s always about the legs.  I did an awful job of documenting prices on this quick trip but I think it was $14.99?  Don’t quote me.  It obviously needed a fabric facelift but it had the potential to be a great accent chair!

I didn’t think much of this chair upon my first pass through the furniture arena but decided later that it would be so lovely painted a bright color.  Mint, fiery red, jade green, or even toned down to a distressed, creamy white.  Heart eyes.  :)
Also, I hate to admit it, but I’m not a farmhouse decor fan.  It’s just not my style.  I mean, I LOVE Chip and Joanna but I wouldn’t want them to fix up my house.  However, they must be rubbing off on me a tad because this chair definitely falls into that category.  :) 

This was an odd-shaped basket thing I thought might be cute in one corner of a kitchen countertop:Or really any little lonely corner.  In a bathroom it could be the corner basket to toss your straightener/curling iron or in an entry way it could hold keys atop a foyer table with one side against the wall and the other along a row of books.  The color was on pointe too.  It’d bring a natural element to a space.

This planter was gorgeous as is:
Had I a plant in need of a home, it would’ve come with me.

This planter was cute too.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the colors but spray paint does a quick transformation make.  The scalloped edge up top is what reeled me in.  It might even make a great pendant light – upside-down with a hole drilled into the bottom for the light kit to fit?  Can you see it?

When you’re thrifting, it’s always helpful to look at pieces individually without gazing at them amidst their gawdy surrounding neighbors.  Such is the case for this tea pot/vase thing:
There were some pretty ugly things around it and, in fact, I glanced right over it at first but was drawn back to all the colors.  It was so, so pretty.  I pictured it on our kitchen countertop with the white subway tile backsplash letting it be the star.

And finally, had we more space on our kitchen countertops, I would’ve snatched up this spice rack: It was just downright cool…much cooler than the jumble of differing spice tins and jars we have going on in the bottom shelf of one our our cabinets…

I’m going to drop back into this Goodwill this weekend again, I think, to see if those bamboo beauties are still there and to see if they’ve been reduced.  What do you think?  Is $50 for both a steal or too steep?  I don’t know if we’d keep them or not…I might love them so much I’d sell two of our current bamboo chairs in turn.  Or, I’d could set them at the ends of our dining room table…ooh, there’s an idea!!  But then again, they might make a fun project and a great profit to be shoveled towards student loans…ugh.

Want to see more of what I’ve spotted in my thrifting adventures?  Click here. 

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*The Walmart grocery pick-up link is our referral link.  If you click and order groceries through us, we’ll get $10 off our next order and you will too (minimum of $50 order)!  Happy shopping…or not shopping…which is what I prefer when it comes to groceries.  ;)

Raise the Living

I’ve been trying to add more plants to our house…I’ve probably mentioned that before.  Luckily, they melt right in as easy decor so you really can’t go wrong with placement or type or anything like that.  I don’t know if it’s just in the past few years or if it’s always been this way and I’ve just never noticed, but I don’t think there’s a picture in any popular home decor mag or blog these days that doesn’t have a plant in it.  Aka, it’s super popular to have plants growing in your casa in the twenty teens.  But, that’s not the main reason why I’m sneaking them in to our house.  Anthony, who has always been against plants in the house (because he thinks they attract bugs…is he right?  idk) all of a sudden changed his mind when he read an article about how they filter and clean the air in your home.  I love the natural look plants bring to a space so you can bet your booty I grabbed a few to bring home as quick as I could after his change of heart.  Certain plants clean your air more than others so I’ve been trying to be very intentional about the plants I buy – I really only want those that clean the air the most.  The big Peace Lily we have is one of those plants.  In the past few months, it’s been playing musical room, going from the kitchen to the laundry room and now to our bedroom – all rooms that get a good amount of natural light.  I think it’s parked in our room for good though and I’m popping in today to show you exactly what it’s parked in.

Several months ago, I came across a couple of big planters at Goodwill.  You could tell they were pretty old and had been well loved by the plants that had once inhabited them but, well, they were stuck together.  Like, one was nestled tightly and seemingly-permanently into the other.  But, they were both marked at $1.99.  I didn’t feel like paying for two planters (even if they were cheap) if I coudn’t get them apart though.  So, I pulled and wiggled and wiggled and pulled and even had a strong male employee try for me but the planters looked like they were stuck for good.  Thankfully, Goodwill let me pay for one even though I got two, since we both figured I’d have to break one to end up with one.  And then, I got home and my amazing, incredible, fantastic, what-a-guy husband separated the two planters without breakage!  Huzzah! 

You can kind of see one of the planters in this Instagram shot and here is the other:   

This is after I cleaned it – it had some sort of grainy film on it that I had to painstakingly scrub off – but before I used up some old spray paint to liven it up a little.  I thought I took pictures of the process but they are nowhere to be found.  Basically, I painted everything but that little indented part on the bottom navy blue (Krylon), taped off the bottom of that big top part, and then painted that indented part on the bottom gold (Rust Oleum).  You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

Going Deeper

Updating the hardware on cabinetry makes the biggest difference in the world.  It’s kind of amazing how something so seemingly small can make such a big impact but the truth is, it does.  We learned that when we recently swapped out the drawer pulls in our kitchen for some more modern ones and we learned it again with those in our bathroom a couple of weeks ago.   
 
The existing drawer pulls had 1973 stamped on the back of them so, vintage.  Good vintage?  I don’t think so.  Back when we painted our vanity, I gave them and the door hinges a coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint to hide the dirty bronze they were. 

Here’s an  old picture with a better view of the vintage things:

The Budgetiest Bathroom

There are a couple of rooms in this casa over here that I haven’t visited via the blog in many moons.  One of those rooms is the master bathroom.  I’ve tweaked a few things here and there since the last you heard about it and I guess none of them seemed newsworthy (not like anything on this blog is though) until last week.  I added a few little somethings that made a world of a difference and it only cost me $16.  I’ll get to that in a minute.  First, let’s get up to speed by starting at the very beginning.

Here’s what the room looked like when we were touring as potential buyers:
Too much plain and too much brown, if you ask me.

That’s a Wrap

Today I just want you to tap into your memory store and think back to the year 2016…back to the post in which I introduced this new and improved dresser:

You can get all the details on its new paint job if you click here but if you want to go inside, keep reading.  I decided that adding some glam in the form of a gold dip wasn’t enough so I took it one step further and lined all of the drawers with some gold dotted wrapping paper by Sugar Paper that I found at Target for $6.  (PS, I found it in the Christmas section but I’m hoping it wasn’t just part of a Christmas collection so that anyone who wants to follow suit can go grab some!)


I’ll tell you all about it, the good and the bad, but first, let me tell you how hard Sugar Paper made this decision for me.  Their papers are gorgeous!   
 
I choose a gold dot because I thought it would appeal to more buyers since I was going to sell the dresser but, if it were my own dresser, I probably would’ve went with the black and gold feathers on the gray backgroud (which, btw, would look amazing in Grace’s dresser) and if I we were keeping the dresser for the girls, I would’ve went with the colorful striped paper on the right.  So fun you guys!  <3

But there will always be more dresser drawers to line I’m sure, so let’s move on to the how on the current ones.

Measuring

Before you line your drawers with whatever paper you’ve got, you’ll have to measure each drawer to figure out how much paper you’ll need.  Stating the obvious, I know.  You can grab the old ruler or tape measure and write down measurements or you can do it the easy way.  :)

The easy way consists of grabbing a few sheets of computer paper, scrap paper, and/or used coloring book paper and laying it all out inside the drawer so that it overlaps, thereby making a template.

Making sure the paper is covering every square inch of the bottom of the drawer, tape it all together along the seams.
If you have any drawers that are the same size, just make sure the template you just made fits inside all of them.  (I made this template inside the top drawer and hooray, it fit inside the next two drawers down too!) Chances are, it will fit just fine.  On the rare occasion that the drawers are a smidge different, just make another template.

So easy, right?

Next, place your template on the wrapping paper, trace, and cut it out.  (Note:  Turn your template upside down and trace it on the underside of the paper so that there are no pencil/marker marks on the top of the paper that might be seen.)
(It helps to place something semi-heavy on top of your template as you trace to keep it from shifting, hence the ink cartridge package.)

Template (if necessary for different-sized drawers), trace, cut and repeat until you have all of the pieces of paper needed.

Papering

As far as adhering the paper to your drawer, there are a few ways to do it.  For a more temporary lining, you can just use double-sided tape at six-or-so inch intervals around the perimeter of the drawer to stick it down.  Then simply pull it up when you want a change.  For a more durable lining, I used some satin modge podge I nabbed on clearance.  Nevermind the sponge brush though.  I took this picture before I started which was also before I realized how much I hate sponge brushes.  Just grab a small paintbrush instead.

Ok, here’s where things got a little dicey for me.  I’m just telling you so you know what NOT to do. 

DON’T brush the modge podge onto the entire bottom of the drawer and then proceed to lay down your template. 

It doesn’t matter how much painstaking effort you exert to lay out the paper so that there are no air bubbles and wrinkles, they will probably come.  Think they’ll disappear once everything dries?  Nope, think again.  And then hold back tears as you rip out and waste a beautiful piece of fairly expensive wrapping paper.

So maybe that’s a little dramatic but I can assure you, the frustration was real.

Now, let’s skip over to the greener grass.  Here’s what you SHOULD DO.

Before you even think about laying the paper into the drawer, grab some clear acrylic or laquer spray and spray the back of each piece of paper.  This will form a nice barrier between the modge podge and paper; the modge podge won’t saturate the paper causing it to get all soggy and wrinkly.
(Random note:  I used this Krylon clear acrylic I had on hand and look how *not*clear it sprayed!  It’s a couple of years old so maybe it yellows over time when kept in the can but I guess I was just glad I wasn’t using it to spray something I wanted a clear coat on!  I didn’t have much left in this can so I also used some clear spray laquer and that was still clear despite being a couple of years old too.  Moral of the story, buy the laquer instead of the acrylic.)

I sprayed all of my pieces of paper one-by-one and then set them out flat to dry.  Once they were all dry, I went back to lining the drawers.

First, I laid the piece of paper in the bottom of the drawer so that it was exactly where it needed it to be.  Then, to hold it in place, I grabbed the kids’ pencil box (because it was the closest thing) and set it on one half of the paper to hold the whole piece in place. 
Next, I folded one half of the paper over so that I could brush modge podge onto one half of the drawer bottom.
And then I slowly folded/rolled the paper back down over the modge podge from the middle to the far edge.  It helped to grab a washcloth and rub it as I went.

See?  No wrinkles!

Once that side was done, I moved the pencil box to the other side and repeated.

I wish I hand one more hand to catch a video of how I did this but with the washcloth, I just rubbed up and down across the paper as I was laying it down.


I let all of the papered drawers dry overnight and the next day, I went in and brushed a thin layer of modge podge over the top of each piece.  I was a little nervous that this would take away the shine of the gold so I held my breath but phew!…once the modge podge dried, the paper looked just like it did pre-modge podge.

I LOVE the added beauty the lined drawers bring to the dresser!
It was definitely worth the extra steps to use this paper.  It’s the perfect compliment to the dresser’s paint job!  If you’re not in the mood to deal with paper to line drawers, check out this post on how to line drawers with fabric!

Also, you might remember that behind the doors on each side of the dresser, there are a couple of shelves that I set storage baskets on.

I made paper templates and cut out wrapping paper to line the shelves with but then I decided against papering them.  I was too afraid that, when sliding in the baskets, the paper at the front edge of the shelf might catch on the basket being slid and rip. 

But then I had those rectangles of paper laying around.  I could’ve saved them to wrap small presents but instead I stuck one inside our to-do list frame…

…and the three others went into the three frames hanging in the living room, specifically because I thought they’d be pretty behind the wreaths I hung on each for Christmas.

Which brings me to a tangent…Christmas decor.  The weeks leading up to Christmas were super busy here so not much seasonal decorating happened here.  :(

The plans I had to make Gianna a stocking never happened.
And thankfully she’s too young to care this year anyway. 

The rest of the decor was quick and simple.

I had a hankering to hang wreaths on the picture frames mentioned above so I grabbed some faux garland from the dollar store, unwrapped it to ruffle it up a little, and then wrapped it back up into a wreath shape.

Then I grabbed some red glittery ribbon I also got at the dollar store and hung those wreaths.
I also used some of the leftover strips of paper to disguise this almost-empty candle as a vase:

I’ve still got a small piece left and I’m thinking I might wrap a book with it.  It’s really hard to toss pretty pieces of leftover paper, ya know?  Haha! 

Anyway, that’s my drawer plus wrapping paper experience.  Have you ever lined anything with wrapping paper or any other paper?  If so, how’d you come out in the wrinkle department?  Maybe it was just me or maybe you had the same problem.  And maybe you’ve never lined any drawers but are now eyeing all the dresser in the house.  I know I am.  ;) 

Happy New Year folks!  I hope it’s been a good one so far!

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