home: redos.

So, getting into the real world makes me keenly aware of one thing: I want cool things. By "things" I mean stuff for my house. I didn't care quite as much when I was in school, as I had the poor college student mentality. But now, I want the sleek modern digs (with a coziness that makes it home) of my dreams. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a materialistic person, but my living environment is very important to me. Aesthetics make my knees week and my heart melt. Good design makes me feel good; unfortunately said design can often come with a hefty price tag. But it doesn't always have to. A couple of weeks ago I posted on the table my dad and I built together, for a mere 150 bucks (okay, and about 60 hours of labor). The table was even featured on one of my favorite Web sites, design sponge; link here. 


Table aside, Dave and I have a plethora of things in our home that have been repurposed or handmade. For example, much of the wall art consists of either paintings of my own (the one behind our table is my fave) or funky postcards, greeting cards, ads, etc. that we have collected over time. A book I'm currently reading, Weird Ideas That Work, describes "seeing something old in new ways" as a key principle of innovation. I try to accomplish this daily and one of my most recent projects involves giving an old dresser a facelift.


When I first moved out of a dorm and into a real (well, college) house, a family that I nannied for gave me this awesome 1920's bedroom set. I've since given away the bed (it weighed about 1,000 lbs and creaked at the mere twitch of an eyelid) and the side tables, but kept the dresser. It is currently in our spare bedroom and although the vintage appeal was there, I needed something a little more parallel to my mid-century/semi-modern taste. However, being unemployed and horribly broke, I'm learning to improvise. Alas, a gorgeous new dresser was born.


The best part about this project was that I only had to buy new knobs for the dresser. All of the paint was leftover from previous projects. The black chalkboard top is my favorite; people can leave messages when they come to stay with us or just be downright silly with it. The chalk paint was leftover from our bedroom--we painted the wall behind our bed with it (I know, I need to post the bedroom). The white paint was left over from a failed rug painting experiment (not ALL my projects are a success) and the blue was leftover from painting our living room.


Refinishing this was actually pretty easy. I started by taking the mirror off and prepping the entire dresser with an orbital sander. After that, it was just lots of taping and painting. I then decided that the dresser was much more to my liking without the mirror, so off it stayed. I happened to have another dingy brown mirror lying around that needed a little TLC, so I actually ended up painting it to go with the dresser. Made a huge difference, eh?

Before. Sorry, this was post-sanding. Although, it really didn't look much better pre-sanding. The new mirror is hangin' out off to the left. 

 After! We also painted the walls Behr's gorgeous "Timber Wolf Grey." I have a soft spot for grey--it's definitely my neutral of choice. Colors just pop against it.

 And that would be yours truly, getting down and dirty with the sander.

Cheers,

SK