Cheap DIY White and Turquoise Desk and Chair Makeover

Cheap White Desk and Chair

Turquoise 

DIY

Makeover

Chevron

Pottery Barn Style

Girls Room....
you ready for this?

For Christmas this year, my 7.5 year old daughter badly wanted a desk for her room more than anything.  She's starting to feel like a big girl, growing out of the princess phase and coming into a creative big girl phase where she wants a place to sit down and write, read, be creative and she needed lots of drawers to keep all her papers, note cards, and arts and craft supplies organized.  So...although she's grown out of princesses and realized the princesses at Disney are just pretending...she hasn't grown out of Santa quite yet so she asked Santa for a white desk and chair.  

I was more than happy about this request as it made it excited about reading and writing which was our biggest battle all last year...working on reading and writing.  So if she had a place that made her inspired to do those things on her own...I was all for it.  Then I started shopping for a white desk with drawers and a wooden chair to match...um....wow...Santa wasn't planning on spending $400 on one person.  So I started searching craigslist and a thrift store that is near our house regularly.  Even on craigslist, white wooden children's desks are not cheap!  I really didn't want to spend more than $100 and in my search, for like $80-100 I could get a really cheap white desk at Ikea, Target or Walmart but with no drawers...just simple white legs and top...NOT what I was looking for.  So I stayed patient and just kept looking.

One day I dropped her off at gymnastics and then popped into the thrift store and there it was...a dingy white wooden desk with lots of drawers and a wooden chair.  The paint looked nasty...like it was yellowish and a really bad paint job and the chair had really ugly flowers painted on it...but I was SO happy!  I was ready to strip and primer vintage wooden desks I had seen on craigslist that were more that this one and this one needed a lot less work since it was already white-ish.  So for $40 I got a cheap white wooden desk and chair with 7 drawers.  So I got a small can of semi'gloss white paint and home depot and the next week knobs and drawer pulls were 50% off at hobby lobby.  I found these pretty turquoise "glass" knobs and this awesome turquoise chevron drawer liner paper that was also 50% off and I was all set to go!  

My inlaws came for Christmas so while Grammie and Grampa enjoyed the kids, I was able to sneak downstairs to "Santa's Workshop" and in no time had this baby sanded, painted and put back together.  My only hiccup was I was so excited to use the power sander for the first time.  We found it in the basement when we moved in.  I started and it was AMAZING!!!!!.....for about 1 minute and then the foam pad that holds the sanding paper to the sander started to disintegrate and foam started flying everywhere.  So I had to sad the rest by hand....which wasn't a huge deal but getting the chair smooth where those ugly thickly painted flowers were took some elbow grease!  

The paint dried fast so I would paint a coat on everything, come upstairs and be with the family...then run down later and do another quick coat...it really wasn't as big a job as I thought it would be.  

So without further ado....here is the cheap DIY white and turquoise desk and chair makeover!  My daughter LOVES it and was so excited it had lost of drawers, and was even more excited when she opened the drawers and saw the pop of color inside with the turquoise chevron drawer liners.  I love it too!  

Christmas Morning!

 side note: My son got what he wanted too, a punching bag like at karate - another thrifty find....Santa got that on craigslist!  lol!  You can't tell though, someone had bought it for their kid who did karate but who didn't use it that much...plus...really...how much wear and tear is a kid going to put on a punching bag practicing their kicks and punches...they aren't that strong! lol!)  When I picked it up from the family, the mom was laughing at me and said I was hilarious I had the kids in the car and put a black garbage bag around it and told the kids we were picking up some spare tires for daddy's car. lol!  I think she also thought it was funny that I was getting a christmas gift on craigslist but seriously...he's 4.5...I don't know how long he'll like karate for...why buy a brand new one just for the sake of having it be new when this one looks brand new anyway?

 

(hubby hadn't trimmed the end of the knobs yet because we were pretty tired Christmas eve when everything was wrapped up but it's a simple thing to do)

It really pays to be thrify and put in a little elbow grease!  Even if you can afford to buy the $400+ desk from pottery barn,to me it's more fun in the end to have gone on a treasure hunt, found the right thing and then made it pretty again...I enjoy it more, plus kids stuff rarely stays nice forever anyways so when it does get dinged up, at least I have the matching paint for touch ups!  

Here is the before & after shot...I was so excited to get started I didn't remember to take a real "before" shot before getting started.  I took a these with my iphone 3 which has a horrible camera and the lack of quality actually makes the desk and chair look better than they were! lol!
The drawers also had different colored knobs with big screws in the middle....not too cute.  The sides of the desk were a mix of not full coverage white and yellowed paint with drips.

Welcome House Name Signs

Welcome Family House Name Signs

Dress up the Front Porch/Entry Way!

I visited a friends brand spankin' new house recently that she some how magically Mary Poppins style decorated in no time to perfection!  I really wonder if she had a magic bottomless bag full of cute decor and just sang and danced as it all came into place in a day! I'm too indecisive, frugal and DIY-er to get my house together that fast, and too ADD to notice that things are still not done...but her home did inspire me.  I fell in love with her custom family house name sign on her front porch and wanted to make my own.  I did a little research to find out what I liked and then made a mashup of a couple styles of family name signs put together.

My inspiration were these

 

By Longfellowdesigns on Etsy

And this gem I found on google image search by Mango Seed Designs...I cannot for the life of me find this again to post the link as I had saved the pic on my phone...

So anyways, Here is mine

I had an old canvas with a hideous reddish purple-y abtsract painting I had started long ago...I brushed on some turquoise craft paint and once that dried, I lightly sanded it so some of the darker colors underneath would show through.  Then Free handed the rest so yes it's imperfect, but isn't the the beauty of homemade/handmade items?  Not perfect!  At least at my house!  Anyways, I'm excited to finally not have a naked front porch!

I really like the chalkboard style welcome family name signs, but since I didn't have any black paint on hand and love turquoise I decided to make it a turquoise welcome house sign!  And being frugal, those bales of hay are dual purpose, it's future fresh hay for the chicken coop!  I can't believe it's like $8 or more for those tiny little decorative bales of hay when you can go to the feed store and get actual bales of hay for like $5!  Now...looking at this picture I just remembered I better go water those mums!  And...I guess I can take down the spider now that Halloween is over!

Chalkboard Pedestal Table Makeover

Chalkboard Pedestal Table Makeover

So about 2 weeks ago I was driving to the dollar store and as I drove past the thrift store in the same strip mall, they had this octagon pedestal table out on the sidewalk.  I decided we hadn't looked there in a while so we stopped and I walked up to the pedestal table and saw that it was marked down from $10 to FREE.  Suddenly I hear Jordan squealing because she found a princess scooter parked out front too and has been wanting one for a long time.  It was a whopping $2.98.  So we got the princess scooter and I heaved that pedestal table quickly into the trunk of the minivan (yes I love having a minivan now...never say never!!!)  I didn't look at it more than a few seconds, long enough to see it was free and so I just grabbed it, we were in a hurry.  Later, I realized the table was pretty gross looking, but kept it in the back of the van for the rest of the week (I couldn't get it out myself this thing is SOLID and HEAVY!)

When My husband finally saw it, he was like what in the world!?!? Why is my wife driving around with this nasty disgusting table in the back of her van all week?  We were all together in the van that weekend and I didn't know what to do with it and we are already busy trying to sell our house...so I said "fine lets just drop it back off at the curb on the way home...but when we got close...I couldn't do it and said "give me a week to figure out what to do with it and if I don't know we'll dump it back off".

When I FINALLY took the pedestal table out of the minivan, I knew even LESS what to do with it at first...I had originally thought it could go in the dining room with a vase of flowers since we have no table and it's pretty empty, I was thinking to paint it with the dark espresso paint we used on the cabinetry in the bathroom.  But once I stood next to this octagonal pedestal table, I realized it was not only disgusting and filthy, it was a really weird height...too tall for a coffee table...too short for any adult to sit at.  I also realized the top swivels around.  What in the world was this table EVER used for?  I thought okay, well I have to take it back, no wonder it was free....it's the weirdest table ever!  And went inside.

Let's spin it around to a new spot

Later, when I was in the garage with my daughter riding her scooter, I realized the table was a great height for kids and decided to keep it and make it into a fun activity table.  I've been wanting to try a chalkboard paint project for a long time so this was my chance.  A gave the table a good soapy wash down and lightly sanded the table top but not the base.  I let my daughter pick out the spray paint for the base of the pedestal table ( After I told her no pink or purple...)  I even let her help roll the chalkboard paint on the top!  It was a pretty simple project, did a quick coat of spray primer BIN 123 (i think it's called) all over.  Then spray painted the base turquoise which took no time at all.  And got a good enough covering in 1 coat with 1 can.  The next day I taped around the edges of the table top and we just rolled on our Rustoleum Chalkboard Paint and repeated 2-3 times throughout the day...but each coat only took 5 minutes to roll on with a foam roller.  So, I'd say the most effort put into this free pedestal table was getting the heavy ol' thing into the back of my car MYSELF!  I noticed people driving by slowly, watching me struggle probably either laughing or contemplating helping me before I broke my back but I managed.

The kids L-O-V-E their new pedestal chalkboard table!  We put it in the den in our basement so the lighting isn't great in the pictures but it's a good spot for it.  The kids love drawing in one spot, then spinning the top around to get to a fresh spot and then wiping it down with rags when they want to start fresh.  I put some sidewalk chalk in these cute little metal buckets I had picked up at the $1 section at Target for them to use.

J was drawing Caillou and his family for B...he kept asking someone to draw Caillou...Rosie, Cat...Caillou mommy and Caillou Daddy and J was more than happy to meet his request.

The Dress - Painting with Plaster

The Dress

Painted with Plaster

The first time I made a painting where the image was made with plaster and then painted over for a 3D effect was in college when I was doing some works for a production at the Yakima museum.  I made six 6x6 ft paintings...each one themed after the music compositions that were being performed.  My sister choreographed a dance to go with each song too so the production was a combination of live jazz, dance and visual art.  It was cool.  The plaster was used on a painting called Punctuation.  I made a huge punctuation mark on the canvas with plaster, then painted the whole canvas a solid color and then splattered it all jackson pollock style...I thought it went with the theme of punctuation with the punctuated marks they left.  ANYWAYS, I really enjoyed using plaster and have wanted to do it again ever since.  I have ALSO been wanting to make a dress painting for a long time too...like .....Then, a few months ago when I was researching faux finishing when I was getting ready to do the bathroom makeover  I discovered Segreto Finishes by Leslie Sinclair and fell in LOVE.  Then I was looking through the Segreto Art Gallery and saw the paintings by Rachel Schwind and saw the paintings she made with plaster and was inspired.  Her dress paintings with plaster are like the perfect combination of the 2 types of paintings I've been wanting to do for the last few years!  So I made this for the master bedroom.  

work in progress...

work in progress....

I wanted to make it more greyish and muted the way Rachel Schwind does, but wanted to have some blue undertones so I painted a mix of grey and teal on the background and then just teal over the dress.  I started adding a white-ish wash to the background..toning it down...but then I couldn't bring myself to do it over the dress...it wasn't what I intended...but I loved the pop of color...it still has the simplicity I wanted anyways.  I used plaster and painted it on with a palette knife.  waited for it to dry and then added paint.  Only mistake...I should have not done this on a canvas...the plaster is cracking like crazy so I am going to get a bunch of midge podge and paint that over top of the whole thing to try to keep it from cracking further and hopefully keep any plaster from cracking too much and falling off!  I would be so sad.  The cracks aren't too noticeable unless you get up and look real close but they make me nervous!  The punctuation painting was on canvas too and there was no cracking...even after trasport in a u-haul but maybe it was because that canvas was so thick and sturdy...these canvases I've been buying are really inexpensive and are light and flimsy...I'm not even sure if it's real canvas..it's almost papery because if I get it too wet...the edges start to fray...so maybe that is the problem.  But large canvases are EXPENSIVE!  This one was $16! and it's a good size!  you get what you pay for I guess.

And after I made this dress painting, my 5 year old, who is dress obsessed, wanted to make a dress painting too and design her own dress so I did a google image search for dress paintings and let her pick out a reference picture and she made this, all by herself and she is so proud of it she keeps saying we need to send it to a factory so they can make it into a real dress.


When she seriously wants to draw something, I sit down and give her a little instruction by drawing the same picture along side her on my own paper and explaining what I'm doing as I go and then she draws hers at the same time.  It's from the Monart method when I was teaching art classes and it's nice because I never touch her picture and she can look at it after and be proud that she did the entire thing by herself.  As you can see I turned mine into a silly clown picture as we painted along side each other.  She wanted it to have polk-a-dots so I had her make the dots with crayons and then paint watercolor overtop, a 5 year old couldn't paint a polk-a-dot dress it would be a mess...so this worked well and kids always love seeing the crayon resist the watercolor.  When is was dry she added glitter.

While doing the google image search for "dress paintings" we found the artist Roxanne Rossi and I am LOVING her dress paintings.  So simplistic and beautiful I had to share!  Almost made me wish I painted something like this instead of the plaster dress....(almost! still love the plaster dress painting)