The Finished Dresser

Last weekend I painted my grandparent’s dresser for Aedan’s room. Then I spray painted the drawer pulls.  This weekend we were able to move it into Aedan’s room.

Before:

And after:

I love it! I don’t know what to do with all the drawers. At least 2 of the big drawers are totally empty.

When we moved the old dresser out, we also moved out his rocking chair. Now Aedan has so much more room to play. I spend the afternoon organizing his toys and decided he has way to many setting them up on his toy shelf.

The bins hold stuffed toys, wooden blocks, foam blocks and then random toys. We used to have a lot of toys in a basket in the living room, but now that he has more room to play, I wanted to move most of them to his bedroom.

Oh and speaking of blocks, Aedan totally into building with them. For a long time he was into knocking them down because I taught him how to do that when he was about 6 months old he is a boy. But now he really likes to build and I love to watch him.

Really I love to watch him play with any toys. I work really hard writing and planning programs designed to teach my clients how to play appropriately with toys, so to see Aedan just do it is pretty fun.

Our new floors get installed tomorrow! I am so excited!! I also found the perfect rug for our living room so I’ll post some before and after pictures soon!

-Lauren-

Dresser Drawer Pulls: Update

I decided to take my mom’s advice and try my hand at spray painting the original drawer pulls for 3 reasons.

1. I already had them so the project only set me back a can of spray paint.

2. The drawer pulls came with the dresser so they obviously fit unlike all the new ones at Home Depot.

3. And of course, because everyone knows that moms are always right. ;-)

So Aedan and I dropped by Home Depot again this morning. He didn’t wear his my sunglasses this time because it was actually raining! It rained for about 4 minutes and I actually had to think twice about how to turn on my windshield wipers.

Back in Home Depot, I picked up this little can of spray paint. I have to say, I am not usually big on the whole spray painting idea. It has been awhile since I have used it and when I did it was a MESS. All over my hands and I could never get an even coat. BUT I have heard great things about this stuff so I went for it.

Oh my goodness, this stuff is amazing! It took me all of 3 minutes to get the first coat on and my hands were totally clean. The paint went on even and looks great even after just one coat. I’m super excited!

 

 

Before:

Progress (I need to add at least one more coat before they are actually finished):

I think we are going to move the dresser into Aedan’s room this weekend so hopefully I will have some true after pictures soon!

I have been looking for some fun wrapping paper to put in the drawers but I am coming up empty handed. Any good store/sites I should check out? I thought about using scrapbook paper, but then I would have seams where the papers would have to line up…

-Lauren-

Painted Dresser

Back in the day, you know, before Aedan came around, I actually used to blog about crafts and DIY projects. For the past 17 months, I haven’t done too many projects. Shocking, I know.

BUT, this weekend I tackled a project and I thought I would share the details.

Last year, after my grandfather passed away, my grandmother moved to an independent living community. In doing so, she needed to get rid of a few pieces of furniture. One of them was the dresser she and my grandfather bought together in the 1950s.

I have been wanting to get a new dresser for Aedan because I hate the one that came with his crib. We have been pretty happy with the crib, but the dresser is awful. The drawers fall apart all the time and it is just cheaply made.. We decided we would get him a new dresser when we move him to a big boy bed. But since my grandparent’s dresser became available I jumped at the chance to have it.

Growing up, I had my great grandparent’s bedroom furniture in my room and now Aedan gets to have his great grandparent’s furniture in his room, love it!

I decided I wanted to paint the dresser – hence the project post. Here is the dresser before.

Well, not exactly before, since I had already removed all the hardware and then remembered to take a picture, but you get the idea.

I love that it has so many drawers! I haven’t decided how I am going to organize it, but I will do a post on that soon.

Last Friday Aedan and I made a trip to Home Depot.

What? Doesn’t everyone wear oversized sunglasses inside Home Depot? Seriously, he wore these the entire time we were in the store. Clearly his shirt says it all. :)

I picked up some tinted primer (a must have), some black paint, foam brushes and a roller. Then we stopped to look at the hardware selection. Here is the drawer handles that came on the dresser…

In this picture they look black, but they are not. I think maybe they used to be a gold, but they are pretty weathered now. I thought it would be easy to pick out some new ones.

I was wrong (and this is quickly becoming the longest post ever!).

Apparently now most drawer/cabinet handles are either 3 inches or 5 inches long. Guess what mine are…4.5 inches. Lame. I haven’t decided if I am going to shop around and find something that fits or if I should just spray paint the ones I have…

Anyway, back to the project. So I started by priming.

Then I applied 3 coats of black. I totally could have gotten away with 2 coats, but I painted the second coat at night (you know, when it was only 99 degrees outside) under poor garage lighting so I missed a few spots.

 

Oh and here is a painting tip that I love. When you know you are going to have to paint multiple coats and hate washing brushes, just put them in a plastic bag and stick them in the refrigerator.

I am going to let everything dry for a full 48 hours, which is so hard for me. I haven’t decided if I want to leave it straight black or distress it and stain over it, but hopefully I will have some after pictures soon (which I will take with my nice camera and not my iphone). :)

Oh and I did sand it down before and after the priming stage to get it nice a smooth. while I am not going to paint the inside of the drawers, I am thinking of putting some fun paper in the bottom of them like this.

Have you ever painted furniture? Any tips? Any advice on where to find a large selection of drawer handles?

-Lauren-

I Wear My Sunglasses…

Yesterday, Aedan and I did a little shopping. I was picking him up some shorts at Children’s Place and saw that their sunglasses were on sale for $2. Not bad.

For a long time now, Aedan has loved to pull our sunglasses off and wave them around. Sometimes I put my sunglasses on him and he laughs and then takes them off. I wasn’t too sure he would wear sunglasses if I bought them, but for $2, I thought it was worth a try.

Um, he loves them. He wouldn’t wear them for very long inside but as soon as I took him outside and put them on, he totally got it. Then we went back inside and he didn’t want to take them off. He thinks he is pretty cool. :)

Sorry about the quality, but look at that face! Talk about attitude! haha!

-Lauren-

Something to make your feet a little warmer

Last week I decided to break out the sewing machine I bought over the summer…you know the one I have used soooo much since buying it in August. Opps. I’m going to to blame it on having horrible morning all day sickness for about 15 weeks and then being busy with school. 

I decided to make some rice filled toe warmers for Jon and I. I got the instructions here. She breaks everything down and has great pictures so it made it pretty easy.

Here is my final product

I thought the fabric was cute and it matches our bedroom and living room so it looks cute wherever I leave it. I just heat it up for a couple of minutes in the microwave and it is great a warming cold toes or relieving sore backs (which is happening more and more often with me).

My photography class was great on Thursday night. I learned a lot in just one night, I can’t wait to see what I learn as the class goes on. He gives us assignments each week, which is perfect because it will force me to practice and hopefully that will help the information sink in.

I was playing around with my camera this morning and since Aedan is not here yet, this little big guy will have to suffer through being my subject for awhile. :)

 

As you can see he is thrilled.

We are going to lunch with Jon’s family today and then hopefully picked out a color to paint the nursery! I’m going to get Jon to take a 30 week belly picture today…I can’t believe I am already that far along! We have got to get busy!

-Lauren-

Because I can’t just sit still

I got bored watching TV today so I thought I would do a quick craft project.

I took these 3 things…

And made this…

I like it in its new spot on the kitchen counter.

Here are the cabinets pretty much all done. They don’t look perfect, but I am pretty happy with them. There are a few places where the paint is not exactly even, but at least it’s done.

Before:

After:

*The bath rugs were in the washing machine when I took this picture.

-Lauren-

Catch up post

Okay, so this week I have been slacking on the blog postings…sorry! This will be a recap from our week in a nutshell. Its going to be a long post so feel free to just skim. :)

First I’ll start with some crafts…I did these over the weekend but I have been too lazy to move the pictures from my camera to my computer.

I had all this blank wall space above my new desk area. I thought about buying a picture, but then I remembered this idea that I saw a few months ago. I can’t remember where I saw this, but I didn’t make this up (I wish I was that creative). PS, we do plan to paint the very boring white walls this summer. :)

I started with 2 sheets of thin styrofoam. I was going to get the thick sheets but they were twice as much and since I had never done this before I thought I should spend as little money as possible. Next time I may try the thick foam, but I will have to use cardstock to cover the edges since they will be more noticeable.

The foam was 36 by 12 and I needed 12 by 12 squares so I cut each piece into 3 blocks.

I bought a book of scrapbooking paper that I feel in love with. I found 6 sheets that I thought would add some color to the wall and go together.

I used double sided tape to stick the paper onto the foam. Then I used sticky tack to put the blocks on the wall. All in all it was pretty easy and quick.

I also made some quick mistreatments for the window. I got the fabric for $3 so I couldn’t pass it up. Its a little too short for the window, but you can’t really tell. Eventually when we paint the room I will find some other fabric.

Okay, now for the week recap. Monday and Tuesday I was in a pretty blah mood. Not really sure why. Monday night I went out to dinner with my small group girls. When haven’t been able to get together in a long time. 2 of the girls just had babies and another one is due any day. With our busy schedules it was nice that we could all get together for dinner. Hopefully this summer we will start back with our regular weekly meetings.

Wednesday was our 2 year anniversary! I can’t believe it has already been 2 years. I had to work all day and when I got home Jon said he wanted to take me out somewhere (he loves to take me out an surprise me as to where we are going). He will even drive a round about way so that I don’t guess where we are going. Anyway so we leave and of course he doesn’t tell me where we are going. As soon as we pulled out of our driveway it started pouring! First we drove a few miles because there is a new housing community near us and I have this strange obsession with looking at new homes. When I get bored at home I just start looking at random floorplans online. So as we drove by the pouring rain turned into pouring hail. Ultimately Jon told me where we were going and it was way across town. Needless to say we decided it would be better if we went out another night and just went home. So we ordered pizza and enjoyed a quiet night together.

We are planning on going out tomorrow night. We are going to go look at wood floor options (our anniversary present to both of us) and then we are going to check out The Grove. Its a wine bar/restaurant.

I hope everyone has a great Friday tomorrow!

-Lauren-

more crafts

Today I decided to tackle my curtain project. I got this idea from this amazing craft blog. She is so talented and creative. These are called mistreatments and do not require ANY sewing! Which is good since I do not own a sewing machine. :)

This is our window before...very boring!


I got this amazing fabric 75% off at Calico Corners in Plano. I started by laying it out, clearly my little helper is testing to see how comfortable the fabric is...


The piece I got was a little over 2 yards long so I trimmed it to about 2 yards (I didn't even use a measuring tape). The extra fabric should be enough to make a mistreatment for our bathroom window but that will be another day. After I cut my fabric I folded it twice...I didn't want to cut it anymore in case I change my mind and wanted to use it somewhere else...


Next I used my hot glue gun to glue on this trim (it was also on sale at Hobby Lobby).


Finally I hung it up using upholstery tacts. That's right, no curtain rod to hang or clips to buy! Just a pack of $.99 upholstery tacts. I got decorative ones that have a hammered finish so they look great with the fabric. Here is the finished product!

You can't really tell from this angle but I hung the mistreatments up high so that the bottom is almost at the very top of the window. As soon as you walk in the room the window looks much bigger than before! :) I think it turned out pretty good for my first attempt. I am looking forward to mistreating the other bare windows in our house.

I also decided to recover my messenger board. I feel like this looks a little bit more me. I also got an iron on tree decal for the bottom corner. I think it matches out kitchen perfectly.



Okay I think that was enough crafts for one weekend. Since I have the day off tomorrow I am going to spent a few hours on homework tonight and spend tomorrow relaxing. :)

happy valentine's day!

I had a relaxing day, which is exactly the way I wanted it to be. This morning I met up with Jesse and we did the loop around Town Lake. It was a little cold but I think that just made us walk faster...after 7 miles we weren't feeling so cold anymore. When I got home I started going through the data I took this week on my new client. I am in charge of writing his initial report and I wanted to get started. I worked on it for awhile and then decided I should relax. Sooo...I went shopping :) I didn't find anything at the mall clothes wise, but I did pick up a few of my valentine's favorite cookies from The Great American Cookie Company. From there I headed to Hobby Lobby and got everything I need to finish my curtain project (which I hope to get to tomorrow). I also picked up a few thing for this small project.


Here is what I started with

Just a sheet of scrapbooking paper ($.50), a sheet of card stock ($.30) a pre-cut matting sheet ($1.60) and a 5 by 7 table frame ($5.99). I wrapped the matting sheet in the scrapbook paper. Then I downloaded a pretty font from here and printed out our monogram on the cardstock. After only 10 minutes this is what I ended up with...

I think it turned out really cute. Wouldn't this be a great little house warming gift for some newlyweds or with the right scrapbook paper a new baby room? Hmm...I will have to remember this one around the holidays!

Ohh look what was waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday.

He got me flowers, did the grocery shopping and put up some laundry...don't I have a sweet husband? I love him!!

I hope everyone is having a Happy Valentine's Day!!

Finally a lazy Sunday

Last night Jon asked me what we needed to get done today (Sunday). I stopped for a second and thought about it...then I realized we don't really have anything we have to get done today. I have a paper I need to edit, but I don't need to turn that in until Dec 1st. We don't even need to go to the grocery store. Its nice to finally have a day to just be lazy.

Since we don't have anything going on I am getting our good friend Aaron to take some family pictures this afternoon. I need to order our Christmas cards soon! Aaron and his friend are in the process of starting up a photography business and have been asking to take our pictures as practice for awhile. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. I am hoping to get some candid shots with Hiro too. I'll post some as soon as I get them. :)

Jon took me to see Twilight last night...he is such a good husband. I give the movie a C+. There were parts that seemed very cheesy and the effects are very poor. It was more like a made for TV movie in my opinion. Regardless I am glad I saw it and I still love the books (they get an A+).

Ok I am off to make some my great grandmothers French Toast...yum!

Here we go...

Okay, so I am going to try out this whole blog thing. Hopefully I will keep up and have enough to write about to make it interesting enough to read.

Where I'm at right now...
I have been married for a little over a year and my husband and I are loving living in Austin with our puppy, Hiro. I am in my second semester of grad school at Texas State. I am getting my masters in special education with a specialization in autism. Someday I hope to be a board certified behavior analyst and autism specialist. For now, I am in school and working as a private ABA therapist with two wonderful families! I truly love the kids I get to work with.