I wish I needed a study area....

It's back to school time, and unfortunately Mr. Husband and I no longer need a back to school space.... Actually we're quite happy we don't need one! But my little sister is starting her first semester of college, so it will be a nice place for her to study when she comes over asking us to do her homework for her... Just kidding, well... not really :)

Here's my inspiration for this space... I had actually starting painting everything already, and took a break to go window shopping over the weekend. When I walked in to Pier 1, I just about had a heart attack. When I saw this table and chair, I knew exactly what I wanted!!

Isn't it to die for!!! I wanted the blue so bad, but went with white instead just because I knew the room I was working with needed to be lightened up a bit.

Here's what I had to work with. I bought this desk off of Craigslist almost 3 months ago for $10. I hope I'm not the only one that buys stuff and thinks "someday I'll get to that desk, or chair, etc." I'm kicking myself right now, because I also bought a chair from the thrift store for $9, but forgot to take a picture of it! Imagine a bar height chair with pretty curves.... yum yum!


After a full day worth of sanding and painting (because remember, I basically had to start from scratch after I saw the Pier 1 set), and sawing the legs off the chair to make it the right height, here's out she turned out...

I was really going for a super distressed look with the chair. I learned some cool stuff and some not so cool stuff when it comes to distressing! I'll have to share in another post...

Thank goodness for Hobby Lobby and their half off knobs! They worked so well with this desk!

Then it was time for some accessorizing :)

First, I wanted to make a seat cushion similar to the one on the Pier 1 chair, but a little more shabby. I've quickly learned adding burlap can give that effect real quick :)

I had this lamp in my Craft room, but spray painted her with this blue (forgot the name) and covered the lamp in burlap (NOTE: I won't be using the lamp... I'm pretty sure the burlap won't take the heat from the light bulb too well. I know from personal experience!)

This is also the first wedding picture that I've used in the entire house... lol ... I'll have to get to that soon!

Because this room is getting a entire re-do (later post:) ), I knew we weren't going to be using Mr. Husband's Ikea painting from his college days...

so I recovered it in some of my (favorite) leftover fabric from the "Script the Chair" re-do. I only used double sided tape, so if we ever want the picture again, it would be super easy to take off(but I don't anticipate that happening). I also made my own version of the book paper wreath after seeing so many awesome versions in blog land!

Picked up this frame for $2... I knew it had some potential.... the magic of spray paint!

The tea canister was a fun find at Marshall's... only $.70 because it was missing the lid, and I didn't need it anyways!

One more before,

and After!

Linking up to CSI's Back to School Challenge, and Thrifty Decor Chic's before and after party!

Audrey, the "Thinking Chair"

Meet Audrey, the cute but needs to be updated wing back chair. Audrey was another Craigslist find. A couple of months ago my sister was over and we were crafting in the craft room (go figure), and my sister said "sissy, I think you need a thinking chair", and so I said, "Mo, I think you're exactly right"!

Thus, Audrey was born :)


Audrey was neglected for a few weeks for two reasons: 1) She was a bit bigger than I thought (I learned the hard way that I should measure before I buy stuff), and 2) I couldn't for the life of me figure out what kind of fabric to cover her in. I love love love damask, and know that it's super in right now, but I didn't want another damask fabric.... but I gave in :)

I started with the front, and worked back for this chair, and didn't use ANY piping. I would like to say I don't use piping because I think it gives Audrey a more modern look, but it's really because I'm too lazy to use piping on a huge chair, and too scared I'll mess it up. One day though, I'll give in!

Isn't she amazing!?!

And yes, now I have a thinking chair that I think in ALL THE TIME!!

Now she just needs some cute "Thinking" pillows.... more on that to come : )

Meet Script, the Chair

Here is one of my first Craigslist "chair" finds. I was always terrified of Craigslist, but it turns out that not everyone is too bad! This chair came from a nice old man who was downsizing and needed to get rid of lots of stuff. I was like "so.... how old do you think this chair is", and Mr. Old man was like "well, it's been in my family my entire life, which means its older than me." Good answer Mr. old man! That's exactly what I wanted to hear!


For that reason alone, I was a little scared to give him a makeover (yes, the chair is a him, and I named him Script). But look at Script... he looks awful and worn out, but still has some AMAZING detail work!

So, trying not to think what Mr. Old Man's grandmother would say if she knew what I was about to do, I went to work :)

We live in a new housing development, and there are no houses (yet) to the West of us... I know it's because they know if they got rid of my "Spray Paint" field, I'd go c-r-a-z-y :)

This is probably one of the easiest chair's I've redone. I'm not a fan of gutting the chair and then starting from scratch if it already has some good cushioning!

Needless to say, Script feels much better now!

and now we just need to find a place in our house for him to go :)

"The Chair"... One of my first projects :)

One of the things I had found to be super popular in blog land were gross, dirty, rusty, old chairs. Then I got jealous and was like, "D, you need to go find a super ugly, dirty, rusty, old chair and fix it up because it looks like so much fun"... and that was where it all started for me! Now I have a obsession with finding gross, dirty, chairs, and making them look so fan-freakin-tastic! But now I have to hide them from Mr. Husband and tell him when the timing is perfect that I bought more chairs, or I just let him find them on his own... but more on that later : )

So here she is... the first chair I birthed :) (FYI, half of these pictures were taken in my apartment prior to moving to Mrs. Amber) I had also purchased a cute lamp and table, for a grand total of $11. She actually doesn't look so bad in this picture, but it simply does not do it justice as to how gross and icky she was...

She must have been from the 70's... she had some nasty gross vinyl fabric print.

So, the ladies out in blog land rarely mention the treat I found... They never tell you about the possible Tetanus shot you might have to get from taking these things apart!!! G-R-O-S-S...

Some super nice, old padding underneath...

Then from all the nice tutorials in blogland, I laid out all the pieces to act as a template for the new fabric.

I had to stop and take a picture because the whole process was going too well.... so I wanted to catch it before I messed something up.

But as it turns out, I didn't mess it up, and after staining her legs with a Ebony stain, she now resides in our new home :)

Here she is alongside her trusty side table (which I simply spray painted black). The lamp was spray painted and used downstairs in our living room... pics on that later!

Not bad for a first project :)

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chics Before and After party!