first housewarming gift

less than 12 hours until we get possession of our house and we already got our first housewarming gift -  thank you to the future in-law's! The Lost Art of Being a Man: How to Keep House is full of practical advice and a bit of humor, were definitely excited to read it. hopefully it has an entire chapter devoted to doing laundry, jesse definitely needs it!

the makeover of the make-up table

my final project of the weekend was the make-up table my mom got for me about ten years ago at a garage sale. since i am still getting in the habit of this blogging thing, i completely forgot to take a picture of it before i began refinishing it so unfortunately there will only be after pictures of this piece. i painted it in the same paint as the nightstands, ostrich by BERH. as you can see, jesse did not pick out the hardware for this piece haha i just had to do the crystal handles - i love them far too much not too. its a make-up table for god sake, its supposed to be girly! plus, this wont be in the master bedroom but in the spare instead, so he wont have to look at it too often. its a shame that i cannot  incorporate it into the master, it turned out exactly how i envisioned it.

*sorry about the poor lighting, it is still getting dark pretty early here.

tufted is tough

so i have always wanted a tufted headboard. i think they are so classic and, in their own way, incredibly romantic. the one i really wanted from Pottery Barn called Georgetown Tufted Headboard was about $700 more than i could afford to spend, even after a major price reduction. yikes - as i have stated, most of my taste far exceeds my budget. anyways, i decided i was going to make one. now this definitely wasn't as easy as the instructions said it would be. while the instructions said it would be moderately challenging, it would have been completely impossible with out the help of my mom and sister - although i do recommend the instructions i used, i would definitely get a couple friends to help me out since it took about 4 hours with three people to complete mine. all in all i would say it cost me about $250 bucks to make: $40 for the plywood, $35 for the fabric, $35 for the buttons, thread and upholstery needle, $20 for the batting and $90 for the foam (which was surprisingly pricey in my opinion). all in all i am incredibly pleased with the end result. my only worry is fastening it to the wall - its very heavy. i'll let you know how that one goes later in the week...

night sidetables

so tomorrow is the big day and since we aren't actually moving in tomorrow, instead of packing like normal people do, i spent all weekend refinishing furniture. i have recently come to the conclusion that unfortunately, my taste in furniture far exceeds my budget at the moment, so i have opted for refinishing old stuff rather than buying the crappy ikea quality substitutes that i can actually afford at the moment.

here are some pictures:

Night Stands Before

- i found these night side tables at an Interfaith Furniture place and fell in love with their shape, although the gold trim and dated hardware conjured a completely different emotion, needless to say. they were originally priced at $70 each, but we got them both for $100.

  

Night Stands After

- jesse actually picked the hardware and i personally think it completely makes the piece; since the french provincial style is so feminine they really needed something modern and masculine. i love them now. they are exactly what i wanted and for half the price. after paint (BERH ostirch, $18.00) and hardware (4.25 each) i basically got two tables for the price of one if i were to buy them brand new, even from somewhere like HomeSense.