Trash to Treasure Continued

I am not one who likes to wait long (eg. August is way too far away to wait for the 4th book in the Twilight series people) so I will just finish with my re-purposing tale so as not to be so cruel.

This project came about by a few different factors. One being the Pottery Barn catalog... I mean who wouldn't want any of the fabulous stuff you see in there. Although I could never bring myself to actually pay those prices. I do have a great love for trying to copy some of their stuff. The other factor was my fabulous family in Utah. Locker systems work and I have seen it in their fancy new homes. I loved the idea of a place for all the kids stuff whether it be their school or sports stuff. So with a great idea and the actual picture from a magazine I went to my sweet, most helpful hubby and laid out my plans. At first we had it in our minds to make it from scratch until one day when we were cleaning in the garage and came across our not 1 but 3 old ugly bookcases that I refused to put into our new home. They had also served their purpose in Jon's office eons ago and then were a useful eyesore in our last house. But I just couldn't do it again.
Here is a picture of what they looked like (the internet is amazing when you need a picture of something. This looks just like the ones we had)


So here they sat taking up too much room in the garage and that's when the lightbulb went off. Ah ha I had it. These were about to be our new lockers. I explained my vision to Jon who seemed to think that it was a good idea. Woo Hoo! Anytime I can get him to see my vision usually means the project will get done. I will give all the measuring, cutting, nailing, painting credit to my dear hubby because he really ended up doing most of the work. He even went the extra mile and made a shoe holder to go with it. Gotta love those handy men. So it sits in my garage with a new purpose now and I love it. It may not look as good as Pottery Barns but it was free and you can't beat that. Anyway, here is the picture of the finished project. (Sorry the picture isn't all that good but you get the idea).


No more "mom, where are my shoes?", no more "mom, where is my backpack?", no more "mom, where is my jacket?" and no more messy house ....who am I kidding that would take much more than a few lockers.

So for now my projects complete....well at least until I stumble upon my next junkie garage treasure.

Trash to Treasure

I have had a few requests for pictures of the projects I have been working on. So I thought I would share. Viewer discretion advised: if you are into fancy home decor that only the highest price tag can afford you may not want to look.

I am probably the biggest cheapskate that I know of (OK I do know a few others but their names will go unmentioned) and my motto is how can I make something for less. So after moving into a new home with no extra money and old furniture I was in makeover overdrive. Not to mention some of the things that I previously had didn't match my new darker wood home. Example - I had a sofa table and two end tables that were in great shape but didn't match. I figured if I tried something and ruined it I wouldn't be too sad because I more than likely would have D.I.ed them anyway. So with multiple cans of black spray paint and a whole lot of hope I went to work and here are my results.


I included a before picture for your viewing pleasure....




What they look like now:

I sanded down the edges to get that very in shabby chic look. I love how they turned out and it was dirt cheap. Mission accomplished.

Then my next project surfaced as an old ugly brown (not the cute famous browns of today) 8 1/2 x 11 paper holder that Jon had used in an office ages ago which had been collecting dust in our garage for so long that I thought for sure he wouldn't even let me move it here. But I knew it had some potential and I was going to find out what it was. So with some more spray paint in hand and a bit of creative cutting and tweaking it became my 12x12 scrapbook paper holder. SOOOOOO much cuter than before.

Sorry, no before picture on this one.

I love it when my crazy ideas actually turn out.

I do have one more project that I will display but that will have to be the next post. For now it is the dreaded......to be continued.