Dresser Dilemma

Our dressers are old. And cheap.

They used to belong to my parents, who bought them a long time ago.
My mom told me that they bought them cheap at an "unfinished wood" type of store back when they were young and trying to afford furniture for their house (hmmm, that sounds familiar).

I think they are pine and are just stapled together.

The dresser set was handed down to me from my parents when I was in college.
I gave them a makeover back then by sanding them and painting them cream.
I left the top part wood colored by staining it.

I remember having a huge issue with finding new pulls for the drawers.
The hideous handles that were on the dresser were a funky size and I could not find replacements to fit.
So I improvised by spray painting some washers black and using those to cover up the old screw holes.
Then I had to special order some pulls that were wide enough so that I could conceal the old holes.
When Jacob and I first got married, I was moving one of the dressers from my parents house to our new apartment. I had it in the back of his truck and it fell out while I was driving up a hill! Whoops!!
That left a big dig in the top of the dresser and I must have lost one of the handles too.
Now, seven years and 3 moves later, our dressers are in pretty bad shape.
They are falling apart. And they look tired.
Another handle has gone missing too.

I'm all for re-purposing furniture, giving it a facelift and making stuff last, but I think these dressers have just about had enough.
I was going to repaint them white (they are cream now) and get new drawer handles, but I'm having some issues...

I can't find handles I like that fit (and don't cost and arm and a leg).
The washers I spray painted to cover the old holes are now permanently stuck and I can't get them off without gouging up the drawers.

My husband has always hated the dressers anyways -
can't say that I blame him since they are always falling apart.

So my dilemma...
Should I revamp them once again and just deal with their crappiness?
or
Should I have my husband build me a new dresser?
This would mean more money, more time...

I'm leaning towards having him build me one similar to this one from PB.
I think this is going to take a while...
Jacob has never built a dresser and we don't have any plans to go off of, just the picture above.
So I guess that means I have to play the waiting game...

I'm not good at waiting.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

I did a lot of thinking and browsing and trying to find some kind of unique art to hang above our new gorgeous bed. I had been saving these pictures (below) in my idea files because I love the look of oars used as room decor.

I loved the look so much that I decided that I wanted to hang oars above our bed.Photos courtesy of Pottery Barn

Photos courtesy of Coastal Living

Photo courtesy of Just Beachy

Slight problem though...
I didn't have any old oars.

I spent nearly 2 months obsessing over finding oars.
I knew they had to be old and rustic.
And cheap. I wasn't willing to pay more than $25 on them.

I searched craigslist every day. I even put a 'wanted' ad on craigslist.
Nothing.
I looked at thrift stores. Antique stores. Garage sales.
I called all of the boat yards in the area. They all said, "Have you looked on craigslist?"
I put a 'wanted' ad on freecycle.org. Again, nothing.

I was about to give up and buy some new oars and try and rough them up to look old.
I decided to give it one last ditch effort and ask everyone I knew if they had any oars.
Someone had to know someone who had some old oars lying around.

So the first person I called was my mom.
Shockingly she told me that my step-dad had tons of oars lying around!
I was ecstatic!!!
Why didn't I ask her sooner!?

So I got my oars. Finally.Originally I thought I would clean them up, sand them and maybe stain them.
But after seeing them in the room as is, I decided that I like them looking really rustic like this.
I did clean them and sand them a bit, just to get rid of the dirt and splinters sticking out.

And then to give them a bit more personality, I did this...
Seven-nineteen. Our anniversary.

I got the idea from Karla's blog, It's the Little Things that Make a House a Home
See her tutorial HERE on how to transfer letters/numbers onto wood.

I'm very happy with how they look!

Thanks, Mom and Ken!

The Piece De Resistance

I've been oogling over Pottery Barn's wood headboards/footboards for years and years.

With prices ranging from $899-$1,399, I knew I'd never have one.
But one can dream, right?

This bed is $899 for the California King.
I love the white finish and the thick, chunky posts.

This headboard is $499 for just the headboard
and it doesn't come in California King...
But I love the vertical slats and the straight horizontal lines across the top.
This bed is just gorgeous.
Love everything about it, just wish it came in white and didn't cost $1,399.
Photos courtesy of Pottery Barn

Then one day while I was lolly-gagging in Blogland,
I came across an absolutely amazing blog called Knock-Off Wood. It's written by a gal named Ana who makes knock-off PB (and other expensive stores) furniture and then draws up the plans and blogs all about how to make knock-off awesome-looking furniture!
We were so impresed with her blog that we now refer to her by name in this house as if she is one of our best pals.

Anyways, she had the plans for the PB Farmhouse bed...
you know the one that retails for $1,399.Photo courtesy of Knock-off Wood

I was jumping out of my desk chair when I came across the plans!
I showed it to my hubby and he got excited too (and he doesn't usually get excited about my big plans)!

So we bought the wood and my man got to work. Ana suggested using pine wood to save money, since it was going to be painted anyways. We ended up buying wood that was a little more expensive than pine, so the bed wasn't as cheap to build as we would have liked.

Then we sanded, primed, and painted (and painted and painted).
Then I sanded the edges a bit more to give it a rustic look.
I LOVE the finished product.

It makes the room look SO much better.

So proud of my husband. He did an amazing job!

I love the new PB bedding too (a bit of a splurge, but thanks to my awesome sister-in-law who gave me a PB gift card for my b-day, it wasn't too bad).

No more fantasizing, I now have my dream bed.

I'm also posting this at
Miss Mustard Seed's Creative Blog Furniture Feature Friday
and

We were also featured on Knock-off Wood - Click HERE to see the post!!!

and we were also featured on Fingerprints on the Fridge.

Why Not?

If I can hang a pretty wreath on my front door for all of the neighbors to enjoy looking at, why can't I hang a wreath inside my house for us to enjoy???

Since nobody is stopping me...
I hung this gorgeous seashell wreath on our master bedroom door.
My fabulous mother-in-law bought it for us at Ben Franklin.

It's perfect.

It makes me smile every time I walk into our room.

DIY Beach Sign

I saw this adorable sign while cruising the internet one day and I fell in love with it.

I knew I had to have it hanging in our bedroom.
I was not, however, willing to spend $27 plus tax and shipping on it.

So I decided to try making it myself.

We already had scrap boards hanging around in the garage.
And leftover blue and white paint.

So I painted the board white.
Once it dried, I taped off the edges and painted the middle
Benjamin Moore Wedgewood Gray.

Then I printed off the lettering I wanted to use from my computer and taped it to my board.
Using transfer paper, I transferred my lettering onto the board.

If you look carefully at the picture below you can see the white outline of the letters I traced onto the board.

I used a white paint pen for the "At the beach" part and a
brown paint pen for the wording underneath.
Then I sanded it a bit to give it a weathered look.

And TA DA!
My super cute beach sign.

Made for $3.99. The only thing I had to buy was a brown paint pen.
That sure beats a $30+ price tag!

I'm also posting this at
A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day
and
The DIY Showoff's Project Parade

Dressing up the windows

Our windows needed some interest, so I decided to dress them up with some curtain panels.

I found these beauties at Bed, Bath and Beyond. They are the color of sand and they have a wonderful texture; they almost look like soft burlap. I love the square grommets; they give the curtains a more contemporary feel.

Before heading out on my curtain shopping trip, I searched online for BBB coupons. I didn't find anything, but I did find this tip...

Did you know that you can just ask the cashier for a coupon and they will usually give you one? I'm not a very ballsy person, so I felt a tad embarrassed asking for a coupon, but it paid off because the cashier ended up giving me 20% off!

While finding great curtains was a breeze, finding the perfect curtain rod was not.
I wanted something chunky and made of wood. The problem was that our windows span about 10 feet and all of the wooden curtain rods I could find were only 9 feet long.

So I made my own!

I bought a 12 foot long, thick, wooden dowel at Lowe's. I stained it a dark wood color and had Jacob cut it down to size for me. Then I bought some dark wood finials and screwed them on the ends of the dowel. I also bought some matching dark wood brackets and
Voila! Just what I had in mind!

First Thing's First

Paint. What an inexpensive, easy way to give a room a whole new feel.

I love water. And the beach. And all things beachy.

So naturally I wanted our room to feel like a beach sanctuary.
Think calm blue, crisp white, and warm wood tones.

So first thing's first. We painted the walls the most perfect blue.

I had originally bought this paint to use in our family room a few months ago. It wasn't easy picking the perfect blue. I brought home piles of blue paint chips. Then once I narrowed it down to my favorites, I bought the small sample cans to test out on the walls.
Once I chose my favorite, we started painting the family room. It looked bad. Our family room has wood colored trim, wood colored window casings and it is right next to the kitchen with all of the wood cabinets. The blue was beautiful, but not next to all of the wood finishes. It made the room look cold. I was so disappointed.
And now I had 2 gallons of paint sitting on a shelf in the garage. What a waste.

That is, until I decided to give our master bedroom a facelift.
The paint looks fabulous in our bedroom against all of the white trim.
We both absolutely L-O-V-E it.
It wasn't a waste after all!

The paint color is Stratton Blue HC-142 by Benjamin Moore.
For those of you that have used Benjamin Moore paint before, you know it's a little on the pricey side, but the color selection is amazing and the paint quality is superb.
It runs about $39.99 a gallon, but I happened to have a 50% coupon at our local hardware store that I had been saving, so I ended up getting a pretty good deal!