Yay!

I'm super excited to show off my new desk! (Finally!)


So, here she is!

LOVE IT!

Here was my process...

Of course, I started with the bare minimum...

My fab freebie!

 Next, with the help of my awesome daddy, we removed the old hardware and sanded the entire desk with a palm sander and 300 grit sand paper.

This next step got complicated. The old drawer pulls were attached with two screws on each handle. Big screws. My new hardware was not so big screws and the old holes were obviously in the wrong spots. The holes were so big that filling them with wood filler would have been silly, so my daddy helped me cut a wooden dowel into small pieces and glue them in the holes. Here's how.

• We put a pieces of painters tape on the insides of the drawer faces, covering up the holes.
• We put a drop of wood glue in the holes. The tape kept the glue from going through the hole and just dripping off.
• We slid the dowel pieces into the holes and allowed the glue to dry them in place.
• This way, we only had to use a small bit of wood filler to even out the surface.

Then I primed the whole thing.

**tip** when using a new roller, make sure to soak it in water first so that the loose fabric pieces don't get on your surface

So, after waiting and waiting on coats and coats to dry, I painted 4 thin, even coats on the desk (as noted from my favorite blog YHL).

Then added two coats of my Minwax Waterbased Polycrylic Protective Finish in satin clear, allowed to dry, then drilled new holes for the new hardware and installed.

And isn't she beautiful??

I did actually go back with the sander and distress the edges just a tiny bit.
I love it!
And all for about $100!

• desk- free
• pub table- free
• pulls for desk- $44.88
• quart of Kilz oil based primer- $7.00
• Glidden latex paint in semi-gloss (yellow&red)- $20 ($10 per quart)
• quart of Minwax Waterbased Polycrylic Protective Finish in satin clear- $17
• rollers/brushes etc.- $10 (I had a few rollers already) 

      Total- about $100

I hope this can help for your future projects!

 Oh!

 

 

 

 

 

I did just celebrate a birthday and check out one of my presents!!

LOVE!!!

She isn't home with me yet, but she will be delivered in a few weeks!
It is my beautiful Rowe Sullivan Sleeper sofa!

I originally loved this next model... in white of course...

       but Gibson wasn't so comfortable. Beautiful... but not too comfortable. Not for my main sofa.

I love my Sullivan, and cannot wait to meet her!!

Quick Peek!

I'll say more later, but here is the final product!!

LOVE!!!

Pardon My Absence

Hello my many followers... (cricket cricket)

Excuse my little joke. I know, I'm really just not that funny.
No, but seriously, you all have GOT to use your gmail accounts and follow my blog PLEASSEEE and thank you!

On to the real matters of business!
I have been super busy lately, ya know, on vacation and all, so I am sorry for no posts in like 2903 days!
I did get a second job though! Yay for me!

Oh and I actually am picking up my finished yellow desk tomorrow complete with handles and all!
It has been way too long of a process, since I took it home to my parents house to work on and that is a nice hour long trip and $10 in gas round trip, but anywho, the desk is complete and I cannot wait to post pictures!

I also cannot wait to post pictures for the awesome map project here! Let me be the very first to admit that my application method DID NOT work like planned. FIY: do not try to roll out any kind of paper onto any kind of glue thinking it will not wrinkle, IT WILL! Instead, Alan helped me spray the entire board, hold two ends down, then stretch the whole paper across the board and pull the other end down taut. Apparently it smooths itself out this way. Who knew?!

isn't she just huge!

Which leads me to my next point, instead of using cork-board rolls like the original plan here, I actually used an even CHEAPER means! I know. Crazy! I went into Hobby Lobby to buy my cork rolls, and they only had one roll of each different thickness they sell it in. I needed two of one kind. So, I had to rethink some things.

Solution? http://www.samflaxsouth.com/, well not the website but the store SamFlax! I took a maymester 3d sculpture class, and we had to invade the art store like 3 or 4 times a week and we used foam board for our projects. Long story short, they sell huge huge pieces of foam board for really cheap! The website doesn't say they sell it in individual sheets, but they do and I got a 4feet x8feet piece of foam board for $15!!! It is thicker than the cork would have been and it is in a single sheet so the map will be like an actual piece of art to rehang and rehang where ever I desire and the foam will be able to hold push-pins too for whenever I actually start to travel the world! (cricket cricket)

Huge 4x8 foot foam board from Sam Flax! They really only sell huge pieces like this at places like SamFlax or Utrecht.

So, here is another breakdown for this project.

• I cut the foam board to size (4x6 feet) with my exacto knife.
• I sprayed the whole board with my spray adhesive.
• We lined up one side of the map to one side of the board then held that side down while stretching the rest of the map over to the other end of the board. This way it smoothed itself out.
• Then we hung it up!

Simple as that!

This is my favorite spray adhesive, and what I used on this project. You can buy spray adhesive at any craft store.

So, here is the final product!

Again, excuse my camera phone pictures and frumpy sofa. It will be gone soon!

Now for the price break down again...


The Tally Up!

• Cork rolls- $15 x 2 = $30 
• Foam board- $15
• Frame- $10 (will be)
• Spray adhesive- already owned but you can get a can for about $8-$12 at your craft store.

Total- about $25

I will eventually get around to putting trim as a frame, but my projects tend to stretch out over long periods of time when I'm living on a budget!


But I was super excited to save even more money on this project. It just keeps getting better.

Small project with a LARGE impact!

If you didn't notice my new awesome HUGE map.... well then you might be blind!

This monster is 48x77inches of pure beauty!

Well....not yet.

But, I have a cheap project for this map that is going to make it pop off the wall and look just like a frame that would cost over $150 before shipping costs!!!

So, here is my solution.
We want to use this map as a pinboard for future vacations and getaways, so to protect the wall and give something to push pins into, I'll put cork behind the map.

You can find cork rolls at your local craft store for really cheap! For this project, I'll need two rolls of cork and I can cut them down to 77".  Next step, attach the map to the cork. Using spray adhesive, I'll spray the side of the cork I want to attach the map to. Smooth out the paper starting on one side of the map to prevent wrinkles. (You'll probably get some sort of wrinkling, but that's ok!)

Next step. Frame. We've already seen how expensive huge frames can be, so my answer is definitely trim. Hardware stores sell trim & moulding for really cheap. Some sells for less than $1 per foot! For my project I'm going to need 271 inches of wood or about 23 feet.

I'm looking for something similar to this piece of casing. I want something simple, but I also want it to have a little bit of shape. I think this piece will look good as a frame too because of it's thicker outer edge. At 23 feet, my huge huge frame will cost ... hmm.. 23feet x $0.41 = $9.43!

Isn't that outrageous!??
The people at the home improvement stores will cut the pieces for you at 45 degree angles for the corners. Just remember when measuring, that what you're framing is the inner rectangle of the trim, so you'll need to calculate the outer rectangle's length. They might be about to help you at the home improvement store as well. 

The Tally Up!

• Cork rolls- $15 x 2 = $30 
• Frame- $10 
• Spray adhesive- already owned but you can get a can for about $8-$12 at your craft store.

Total- about $40 

So for about $40, I'll get a 48x77 frame for my beauty. Maybe I'll do this today and show you the results!

Money Money Money

It is so frustrating to worry about money sometimes all the time.

I am only 19 years old (almost 20 hehe) and I am already tired of worrying about having enough to pay rent and utilities and still have enough to live on and be creative with and save and blah blah blah money money! It is so heavy. I don't even pay for everything that I have. My parents still help with rent, and they pay my phone and car insurance and stuff. It's such a burden. I want to pay for it all. I don't want them to have to pay for me. I am almost 20 years old! I want all of my responsibilities to lie on me....





...but I can't handle them yet.

My job, well I make really good money. I make more than some people who work full time and that in itself is a burden. I don't want anyone to worry about money! I know that I live a very fortunate life and I do spend money unnecessarily on just silly things like going out with Alan and now I've decided to redo my apartment, but I have to do these things to stay sane. I have been fortunate enough my whole life to be able to do unneccessary things and it is hard to stop. I am sure that I could be perfectly financially stable if I just did the minimum. It is a burden to love unneccessary things.

But I almost feel like these things are necessary, or at least I can justify them. Alan and I go out and spend money to keep our relationship new and fun and alive. And then I feel like as an aspiring designer, my home is my calling card and I would NEVER have shown my apartment one week ago as a calling card and I wouldn't now. Not yet. I don't know if these are excuses.

I want to do 10,000 things at once and be able to do them well. My skin breaks out in little rashes from the stress I put on myself. It is ridiculous. I am ridiculous to let it all affect me, but it does.

The whole point of my little rant is to say that sometimes you have to take what is given to you and make it the best it can be. I can only do so much with what I have, what I am given, and what I am left with after I take. This is why I don't feel silly getting free stuff off of Craigslist or cheap stuff at thrift stores. I can take something and make it mine and give it life again. I can take the plain, old, beat up desk and with a little money, time and effort, I can make it into something that people would pay for. Because of the way I live, I can't buy this stuff off of the shelf, and I wouldn't want to because I know how much it would cost me! But it's not only that, it's the satisfaction I get from making something with my own hands and my own time, and it is beyond the simplicity of paying (alot) more to get the same product.

Be innovative and be willing to try something different. Be conscious of how you spend your money and try to find ways to get the same outcome. Want a perfect example?? Here

Progress...??

Well, the future yellow desk is coming along... slowly but surely and the rest of my living room is adding some character little by little.

As you can see, the color palate is changing and evolving. I'm thinking, not so much green and more blue! (I need a good camera, my phone is just not doing the trick.)

I got the huge 48x77in. map at Amazon.com for $35+shipping and the cute little coffee table on Craigslist for $15!!! (What a steal!) I think the room has already gained character from what it was not too long ago, BORING.

I've GOT to get that lamp out of here!!!

So, with my work schedule, and lack of knowledge for how long it would actually take to sand, prime, paint, fill the original drawer pull holes, paint a second coat, then seal the desk and table. WHEW!

But, with the help of my lovely father, the desk has its first coat of yellow, and the red table I showed before has its first coat of red. I go back home to the parents house Wednesday to finish the project and bring my new lovelies home!

For the desk, I chose these pretties from Myknobs.com. They were $2.99 each as opposed to HomeDepot's $3.39 each. So after shipping, the 13 knobs/pulls cost $44.88.

I really like how the vintage desk will be mixed with the modern yellow and these lovely pendant pulls. My mom tells me these are older style, to me they look more contemporary, so I don't really know how to categorize them, but I think they're going to look beautiful with the desk! I've chosen to lay them out like the picture below. I drew a few different drafts and landed on this layout. I was torn between 1 or 2 pulls on the center drawer, so I drew it with 2 but made a piece to tape over it with 1 pull, this way I could see both and not have to keep drawing more. After showing my friends and family, I decided on one center drawer pull.

What's even cooler about this desk?? Shoved in the back of the drawers were all sorts of receipts and birthday cards and keepsakes. But I found two even more interesting things.
1. S&H stamps, as my post-woman mother called them. Apparently you would save these up and go trade them in for things at the store. Cool? Yes!
2. A letter sent air-mail in 1959!!!! Although the content of the letter was sad and talked about the couples separation, it was really cool to get a little insight into this lovely desks life. I love my little antique Drexel desk!

The sad, but awesome to have, letter.

S&H Green Stamps. Did you know these were first offered in 1896?? I wonder how old mine could be....

I love having a piece of history in my hands! Bringing the past back to life again is something I hope to always achieve with my designs.

Well, off to bed for now. I hope to soon have pictures of my finished products and explanations for how to DIY! Doing things yourself can save a lot of money, and being a working college student in my own apartment in Atlanta, saving money is something I won't sacrifice!

But before I go, here is a price break-down for how I am DIY'ing the desk and the pub table.

• desk- free
• pub table- free
• pulls for desk- $44.88
• quart of Kilz oil based primer- $7.00
• Glidden latex paint in semi-gloss (yellow&red)- $20 ($10 per quart)
• quart of Minwax Waterbased Polycrylic Protective Finish in satin clear- $17
• rollers/brushes etc.- $10 (I had a few rollers already) 

      Total- about $100
                     ^^This my friends is why I don't mind getting used items and putting in some time to make them mine. Similar tables retail at $300 while a I couldn't find a 1950's Drexel desk selling for under $400, and these aren't even the colors or finishes that I would want.

Moral of the story: don't be too good for good deals and hard work.

Refinishing!

Ahh! I am so excited about my recent craigslist.com steal! A man in Austell, GA was getting rid of his Grandmothers furniture since she recently passed, God bless her soul. He is completely overwhelmed and has NO idea of the value of some of the pieces she had. I wish him the best of luck and thanks!

My lovely freebie from him was an awesome antique desk. It needs some love, but it is SOLID wood and with a little tlc this piece will be awesome! It even has a file drawer which is an awesome plus for me!

So, without further ado, here is my beauty in the making!

Isn't she a beaut!?

Add some sanding, yellow paint!, a protective finish, and new hardware (or maybe the same hardware, I haven't decided yet) and this is going to be a GREAT piece!

Yes, I've decided yellow. I've been dying to have a yellow piece of furniture since seeing this next piece one of my favorite blogs 4men1lady, and it will be a pop of yellow for my new living room plan!

It is definitely time to embrace my yellow love and go for it!

Oh and while I am at it, I'm going to refinish a few other projects I've been stacking up!

This lovely's previous owner had cats that just clawed the legs to death!

You can't really see it, but the legs need some serious sanding down. The owner also tried to stain the wood, and I do apologize for being blunt but, they kind of failed. It is super streaky and the wood isn't sealed.

Well I've got my work cut out for me! Thursday is the day! I can't wait for the outcomes!