Update and Upgrade

Update! We made it safely down to Florida and are greatly enjoying the warmer weather.  We also found a spectacular house and are currently under contract. The inspection will happen this Friday and if everything goes well we look to be closing and moving in by the end of January. We already have many DIY projects planned for the house one of which is to completely redo the kitchen. Can’t wait to start sharing projects with you, but let’s not jump the gun we don’t even have an inspection completed yet!

Another hand-me-down upgraded. My husband has had this chest of drawers his whole life. It even has the original manufacturer tag from 1987 on the back. After it had been sitting in our house for a while we thought about replacing it with new furniture. However, it seemed wasteful to get rid of such a solidly-build chest, so before we gave up on it completely I began looking for ways to re-use it. I thought that we could cover the drawers with wrapping paper and Mod-Podge it down. That would work if my husband and I could agree on what wrapping paper to use. We visited many different stores and were not sold on anything. It’s really hard to find something appropriate for a nice furniture piece when you’re looking at wrapping paper, since its intended purpose is to cover a birthday or Christmas present and be torn open then thrown away. Well when at Joann’s, (and when am I not at Joann’s?), I came across a fabric that I loved and went with our anticipated bedroom theme of black, white, gray and yellow. After showing it to my husband he had the idea to use fabric instead of paper as a cover for the front of the drawers. Genius! It’s more durable than paper and the pattern is better than that of any wrapping paper we could find. So we went out and purchased 2.5 yards of the fabric and a bottle of spray adhesive 77. Alex was sent outside to spray paint the dresser white and all I had to do was cut and past the fabric. To do that I held the drawers over the fabric, traced around it leaving an inch or so on all sides, and cut along those lines. I sprayed both the fabric and the drawer with the adhesive and then carefully placed them together, pulled the fabric tight and stapled the excess to the inside of the drawer. Our biggest expense was the new hardware. We found the knobs at Home Depot. They were expensive at $3 a pop, but were the best ones for what we wanted so we splurged and voila we have a very cute chest of drawers. I promise it looks better in person and the pattern is not as crazy as it looks in the photos.  

The "before" photo was taken right before Alex started to spray paint and I had all the drawers up stairs in the apartment. So, not knowing at the time I was going to start a blog to document our projects, I just rushed down stairs and took a quick photo with one of the drawers in place. 

 "After"

Cost Break Down 

Spray 77 adhesive: $12 (but we still had a lot left for other projects) 

Drawer Hardware: $24

Fabric: $7

Total: $43

Show Me The Money!!

Well it's moving time here at our house. We have not been able to create much as we pack everything into boxes. I do have some DIY projects that I have yet to post so hopefully I have enough to last me until we are moved into a house in FL. One that I haven't really thought about till I was packing and taking things off the wall is actually my favorite, simplest and probably first project. I created this when I was in high school and upgraded to a better frame after we got married. I used to live overseas back in the stone ages when each European country had its own currency. My family left Europe right before the Euro started to take effect. During my time over there I compiled a good collection of paper money.  I decided that framing and displaying it was the best thing to do. So I painstakingly ironed each bill and arranged the currency in a two sided frame so if I wanted I could see the back too. I used small pieces of sticky tack to keep the bills in place. I find the sticky tack is kinder and easier to remove than tape.  I continue to add to my collection as I was able to pick up some money from Mexico on my honeymoon and just recently I was able to visit New Zealand and Australia  for a three week vacation.