Free to Fab Inspiration

While gathering my daily decorating inspiration by reading through my favorite blogs this morning,
I saw this at Knock-off Wood.

I thought it was SO cool that I had to share it.

Ana took this...

 A FREE PALLET!

and turned it into this beauty...

Photos courtesy of Knock-off Wood

A beautiful reclaimed wood collector's shelf.

That is definitely one to save in the idea files!

A niche, a vignette...I just call it CUTE

I'm on a little hiatus from The Master Bedroom Project...

My husband had to go to Alaska for a few days for work,
we celebrated his 30th birthday when he got home,
all three kids got one doosy of a flu that lasted forever,
and then the weather got super nice, so we've been spending lots of time outside
and so...
decorating the bedroom just kinda got put on hold.

We are still working on things,
just very sporadically.
Jacob is working on my new dresser
(he's got most of the wood all cut)
and I have figured out my nightstand "situation"
(but more on that later).

So between cleaning up throw up, doing massive amounts of laundry, and trying to stay (somewhat) on top of running the household,
I managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of spring decorating.

Using a foam ball, some fake moss, my glue gun, and a stick from the backyard,
I made my own little topiary.
Using this treasure I found for $1.99 at St. Vincent de Paul...I spray painted, sanded and added some twine
and it turned into this beauty...

I added in a wooden watering can found at Safeway for $9.99
and a little bird house from our local craft store
and viola...A little display of Spring greets you as you walk in our front door.


I'm also posting this at:
Shabby Chic Cottage's Transformation Thursday: Spring Fling Edition,
Just Something I Whipped Up,
Beyond the Picket Fence's Under $100 Linky Party,
Fingerprints on the Fridge's Feature Yourself Friday

No matchy-matchy here

I'm not a big fan of matchy-matchy bedroom sets. I like furniture pieces to look good together and to complement each other, but I don't believe that you have to buy all of your furniture together for it to look good. In fact, I prefer buying pieces separately. It gives a room a more unique look instead of looking mass-produced.

We bought our nightstands when we first got married and I like them okay. I just don't love the color of the wood. I don't think painting them white would look good either since they have black exposed bolts and hardware. I could sand and re-stain them, but I am hung up because our bed and dressers are white...so would wood colored nightstands look alright???

So I started browsing around the internet looking at bedrooms and I noticed that a lot of bedrooms that I like, have nightstands that aren't the same color as the headboard. In fact, I like it better when they aren't the exact same color. It makes the rooms look interesting...

Photo courtesy of Country Living

Photos courtesy of Pottery Barn

Photos courtesy of Coastal Living

So after seeing all of these beautiful bedrooms, I was convinced that it was okay to re-stain our nightstands and not have them be white like the rest of our furniture.

Here is a what our nightstands looked like before.
I did no tidying up for the picture; this is what it looks like on a typical day.
(Mental note: invest in some storage for all of those well-loved books and magazines!)And here's the after.
I sanded and then stained (3 coats of Minwax Polyshades in Antique Walnut Satin - same color stain I used on the curtain rod).(It looks more reddish in the pictures that it actually is)

I loved how it looked when I was in the garage.
Then I got it upstairs...and I have to say that I'm just not feelin' it.

I don't know what it is though...
Is it too dark?
Is it the brushed nickel lamp base that makes it look weird?
Is it too polished looking - does it need to look more rustic?
Do we have too many different finishes going on?

Here is a picture with both nightstands -
the one I re-stained and the one I haven't touched yet.
What do you think? Advice, anyone???

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.