Yesterday, I promised to share with you another furniture make-over that “sits” to the right of the {dresser}. If you guessed a chair, DING, DING! I’d say you win a prize, but really you just have common sense. I really should have made the clue harder.

So, several months ago I was thrift store shopping with my friend Megan (hi!) and we came across this chair. At $15 it was the perfect price to add to the guest room. The only issue was that it looked like it came straight out of a lawyers office. Not really how you’d want to welcome your guests. Luckily, I had a can of spray paint and the perfect $2 fabric I had snagged way back in { this post }.

If you want to find a chair that you can easily re-cover using fabric and a staple gun, flip the chair over before you buy it and check to see if the seat easily screws out. Trust me, it’ll make the whole project much, much easier.

After I had removed the screws, the back and the seat easily popped out of the chair and I was left with two ugly cushions, and a chair frame ready for painting.

Since the wood of the chair had a smooth finish, I lightly sanded it and first sprayed a coat of primer. This helped the white spray paint to adhere much easier than if I just used the white paint alone. A few coats later and I left it to dry while I re-covered the cushions.

The first step in re-covering the cushions was to remove the old fabric. I simply used pliers to remove all the staples holding the fabric down. Once the fabric was removed, I was left with two bare cushions.

I cut out a large square of fabric, placed the cushion on top, and got to staple gunning! The easiest way to do it is to start with one side, then do the opposite side. That way you can make sure to pull the fabric tightly across the entire cushion.

When it comes to the corners, just pretend like you’re wrapping a present. Pull one side tight and staple, tuck the corner in, and then pull the other side tight and staple.

Once you get everything covered and the chair is dry, start to reassemble! The fabric wasn’t very thick so I was able to feel around to locate the screw holes and push the screws right in to attach the cushions to the chair base.

Here’s the after!

I chose to run my seam on the front of the chair back (follow that?) and am going to add a row of buttons up the seam to add a little more character. It’s on my to-do list, which means we’ll see if I get around to it. This year.

Not a bad make-over for under $20!

I’ve mentioned it a few times lately, but things have really kicked into gear at the Smith house. Something about bringing home a baby in less than six months really makes you jump to finish any and every project you’ve ever thought of before. And some you haven’t.

Justin is out of town this week in San Francisco (lucky) and here was a short conversation we had before he left…

Me: “So I’ve been thinking about a few new projects I want to do when you get home. What do you think of x,y,z?”

Justin: (breaks into a cold sweat) “Umm, I think we have enough now with the office, the guest room and the baby’s nursery. Maybe?”

Me: (secretly plotting how to get everything done) “Ok, we’ll see how it goes.”

(I love that hardworking man.)

Anyway, we did get a little help with our guest room make-over last week. My dad came up for the day and helped me (aka, I supervised) re-paint our old bedroom dresser. It used to be a blonde wood but I painted it a dark brown back when we first got married. Since we’re using it in the guest room, I wanted  something lighter and brighter. I already had the soft teal ceiling paint leftover, so being a cheap-o, decided to use it!

Here’s what we started with…ugly right?

A few coats of paint later and done! Easy and free transformation. Best kind in my humble opinion. If you can’t really tell by the picture, the dresser is now a very, very, very soft blueish teal. Much easier to see in person.

I have another room project I’ll share tomorrow that was under $20 and “sits” to the right of this dresser. That’s the only clue I’m giving so check back tomorrow!

This week I’ve shown you { before pictures } and { after pictures } of my latest project. Or shall I say, part of my latest project. There’s still lots to come. Yep, lots!

Today I want to show you an easy and in-expensive project that you could do in one day. It’s guaranteed to update your space and add a bit of drama to any room. Ready?

Tip: Paint your doors.

If you’ve never thought about painting your door a different color before, take a second to look around your home. Chances are you have one door that would make a fantastic feature in your home. It doesn’t have to be a drastic color, just something different than builder white. Most of the time, the best option to paint is actually the back of your front door.

Here’s a perfect example from the entryway I just finished. The door started out white and didn’t add any character or architectural interest to the space. The space had gorgeous trim everywhere, but it was hard to notice in the sea of white. In this specific room, I thought painting the door black and leaving the trim white would make a great statement and update the room.

Tada! Isn’t it amazing what a coat of black paint did for the space. It didn’t hurt that the walls were re-painted, but the biggest difference in this room is the door. Modern and yet classic. Perfect fit for my clients. Oh and ignore the light fixture. I took this picture mid-project.

So there you have it, painted doors. For other great colors, you could do a soft turquoise or a pale yellow. Bright red closet doors or a fun green pantry door. The options are limitless. If you do go with a bold color, try to go with a color you haven’t used in your decor. For red doors, try a color scheme of creams and blues. You never want to walk in a space and feel like everything matches.

Have fun with it! Your home should reflect your personal style and too often doors get forgotten. An unexpected door will make you smile every time you open it.

Promise.

We’ve done quite a few things to our bathroom since we’ve moved in, not all of which I’ve shared on the blog. Today I’m getting you all caught up!

Here’s the bathroom in all of it’s original glory. If glory is ugly and painted like Kermit the frog.

Aaaannnd here it is today. Sorry for the weird yellow glow but that’s what you get for using your i-Phone. The biggest change was painting the room a nice, calm bluish-gray. It really is  amazing how much a $30 gallon of paint can change a space.

We also replaced the gold chandelier with a much sleeker recessed LED light. This was the first electrical project Justin and I took on together and when it actually worked, well, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder. We’ve found out that the wiring in the house is a bit interesting, so we’re approaching future projects with a it’s-going-to-take-much-longer-and-more-effort-that-you-think attitude. For now, we’re extremely happy to have said good-bye to the gold!

Another extremely affordable project I tackled was spray painting the cabinet hardware. Since we really want to completely re-do the bathroom down the road, I didn’t want to invest a lot of money on new drawer knobs right now. Instead, I spent $7 on a can of spray paint and in an hour had completely “new” knobs. In case you can’t remember what the old ones are, or don’t want to scroll up, they were gold. See a theme here?

The last big change in this space so far has been the window. If you remember, there was a faux stained glass window insert that I blogged about removing { here }. Once the insert was removed, we were left with a completely blank canvas.

When I was in Home Depot one day, I happened to pass a curtain panel in the pattern below. It wasn’t the right style since it was a single long panel, but I figured I could work with it. Using my favorite no-sew tape I hemmed the curtain to fit our window and then layered the fabric to give the appearance of a roman shade. I started at the top left and every six inches or so I hand sewed a stitch. I repeated it for every row and it added a fun effect to the curtain.

Here’s a better picture from the side. It’s almost ruffled, but in a more relaxed and imperfect way. We finished it off by adding a set of blinds for extra privacy and have been very happy with the results!

We’ve also managed to replace the ugly shell toilet, but I didn’t figure you guys needed to see that. I mean it’s a toilet. Not such an exciting project. There are still a million things to do for this bathroom but all in good time. The big things on our list are to find a rug, add some artwork and replace the faucets. Again, this project is more about updating this bathroom as cheaply as we can since we plan to remodel down the road.

For under $150, we took this bathroom from outdated to updated. Not too shabby, I’d say.

Somewhere along the line of planning out my closet, and in a desire to put my husband’s carpentry skills test, I decided I wanted to build a shelf. The shelf was a smaller part of what you’ll later see turns into a wall of jewelry.

That’s right, a wall of jewelry.

Before I get to any of that, here’s how we built a shelf for the corner of my closet. I wanted something strong enough for me to put a few trays for earrings, as well as give me lots of room underneath for added storage. Luckily, Justin was on board so we got to building!

We started with a piece of plywood that they cut to size for us at Home Depot and a couple of 1×6 boards.

The first step was finding the studs and nailing the first board into the wall. The top of the board was going to hold the shelf, so we made sure to measure the height to exactly where we wanted it. Next, we did the same thing with the remaining board.

Once both boards were up on the wall, we double-checked that our brackets would fit snugly underneath the shelf. One bracket got screwed on the right side of the shelf and one in the middle. The picture below shows the bracket after it was screwed into the back board, but before we screwed it into the front of the shelf.

Meanwhile, I prepped the plywood and trim pieces. They each got a coat of glossy white paint. There’s nothing a coat of glossy white paint can’t fix. Amen.

Here it is after the brackets have been affixed and the trim has been nailed in place. For some reason the right side looks like it wasn’t painted, but it’s actually just a shadow. We chose trim that would create a lip around the edge of the shelf in case I knocked over a bowl of jewelry. It’s not like I’m clumsy or anything *cough,cough*.

Once everything was up on the wall, I took some white caulk and filled in any seams like you can see in the picture below. A friend told me to tape either side of the crack before you caulk and pull it up right after. It worked perfectly!

The last step for making this shelf was to create a fabric skirt to add a little more closed storage. I laid the fabric on the table and cut it to the correct length.

Next, I broke out one of my favorite inventions ever, no-sew tape. This stuff is great! It gave me crisp, clean edges without ever having to break out the thread.

And finally, the finished product! You can even see a sneak peak of the rest of the jewelry wall. I love the bright white paired with the dark fabric. It has such a fun texture, but since it’s black it doesn’t compete with the rest of the colors and patterns in the room.

Not too shabby for two people with very limited building experience. What about you guys? Build anything lately?

Right before we moved into the house, I went estate sale shopping with two of my best friends. Meghan and Megan. (Yes, it gets confusing telling stories that involve both of them.)

Megan is an expert at estate sales. That girl gets THE most incredible deals all of the time. I was excited to go shopping with her for exactly that reason. Enter the armoire above. It was priced at $300 but I got it for $100!

It’s such a great piece of furniture. Well made, lots of storage and loads of potential for a makeover. I’m still trying to decide what color I want to paint it and new knobs are definitely in the near future.

When we finally moved in, I wasn’t 100% sure where I wanted to use this piece. There wasn’t a great spot to put it in the bedroom, so we took a chance and tried it out in the bathroom. It fits perfectly and I LOVE having such quick access to all of my clothes. Luckily the bathroom is big enough that it can take such a big piece of furniture without making the room feel cluttered.

I also took the time to line the shelves with a really girly black and white floral liner and I love the way it turned out. I can’t wait until it’s all painted!

Ironically, my other friend Meghan bought the matching dresser to use as a changing table for her daughter. You can see the transformation of that dresser { here }. So what’s your vote? Should the armoire get a glossy coat of black, a creamy coat of white or any color in between?

I bought this table several years ago for $10. It definitely had a nice shape, but the wood grain didn’t fit our style. In our old apartment, I simply put a tablecloth on top to give it the same look as a skirted table. That worked great in our old place, but I wanted something different when we moved into our current apartment. Here’s the transformation in pictures!

Step 1: Light sanding.

Step 2: A couple coats of glossy black paint.

Step 3: Taping off the pattern. I went with something bold and unexpected.

Step 4: Remove tape and fall in love.

Finished make-over!

And finally, here it is in the room. What a difference a coat of paint makes!

P.S. Doesn’t it make that $15 lamp look great?

A few weeks ago I found this 70′s style table tucked away in the corner of a thrift store. I had already gone through most of the store and thought I was leaving empty-handed, until I saw this baby. It looked pretty sad–cheap laminate wood, dingy color–but it wasn’t anything a fresh coat of paint and  a fun pattern couldn’t fix! I started by lightly sanding the table and then spray painting a coat of white paint for a base.

Next, I used an incredibly high tech method for deciding which color I wanted to paint the table…spray painting each color on a piece of paper towel. (I’m trademarking that move by the way.) I pretty easily eliminated the green on the right, but had a harder time picking between the two blues. Ultimately, the bright aqua won out.

The last step before painting the table was to tape off the pattern. I simply started in the middle and worked my way out. I cut dozens of small strips of tape to make a chevron pattern. It was pretty time intensive, but definitely worth it. Oh, and I decided to do all of this in a hot garage on a 90+ degree day in Georgia. I design. I never said I was brilliant.

All in all, I LOVE how the table turned out. When I showed it to my husband, the first thing out of his mouth was how great it would look in a baby’s nursery. Well, it was actually more like “that looks like a color for a baby”. I inferred the rest.

Distressed Edges

Side View of Distressing

I’m selling this table, so if you love it as much as I do, it can be yours! It’s $75 and only being sold locally (sorry!). If you live in the Atlanta area and are interested, email me at somethinglikethatdesigns@gmail.com!