Thrifty Finds

There are many necessities for your home that will require you to spend a lot of money.

A high-quality mattress. Beautiful, durable flooring. A good HDTV for football season.

But many home decor items do NOT have to break the bank! Some of my favorite pieces to brag about are ones I've found for cheap (or free) from thrift stores, Craigslist, Buy Nothing (a local Facebook group-- look for one in your area), and yard sales.

I've scored several larger pieces of furniture on the cheap (like this $10 vanity, this $75 hutch, this free coffee table, and this $10 easel), but small decorative items are great things to find on the cheap, if you know where to look, and if you have some vision for what something could become.

What I'm ramping up to here is an entire blog post of tooting my own thrift shopping horn. If you're not in the mood for self-congratulatory swagger, you should stop reading now. :)

The tray was originally a teal color with fruits and vegetables painted on it (needless to say, that didn't last long.) The desk in the background was a splurge from Target, but on it you can see $.50 candlesticks and a $3 lamp, all from yard sales.

The Michaels frame was originally raw wood and I spray painted it black... I kinda wish I hadn't, because it blends in too much with the black bookcase. I might need to move it.

(Actually, the seller said "$5, or bring me a coffee". I texted her and said, "What do you drink?" So the lamp actually cost about $3.25. It was a tan color when I got it, and I spray painted it purple.)

The mason jar I had on-hand and spray painted silver, and the stars I made from cereal boxes and book pages, following the tutorial from House Revivals, found here.

The lamp was originally a muddy green color, and the candlesticks were brightly colored and just looked dated. This is where some vision comes in. Try to picture the piece without the elements you dislike (such as color, which can be easily changed.) I loved the heft of the iron lamp, and the curves of the ceramic candlesticks, so I grabbed them, and changed the colors later.

The copper-looking flower pot is from Dollar Tree, and the flowers were $1 clearance plants from Lowe's.

The headboard was from a local mattress store that has since gone out of business, and the bedding is from Target.

The basket is an inexpensive one from Ross, and the blanket was $20 at Ikea.

Do you have any favorite thrifty finds?
<3 Cara

Nightstands

Wellll, I was on a roll, and had a smidgin of paint left, so I decided to transform my two ugly ol' nightstands. I've had these since graduating college. I got them at ShopKo and my dad and I knocked them together in my little Seattle apartment.

They've served me well but they are ugly. More of that mission style that I can't stand.

So I took my $1 garage sale saw and chopped out the slats on the sides (I would have knocked them out with a hammer, but I wanted to see if I could use them for another project.) The little curved decorative thingamajigs on the sides, I did just knock off.

Here's the new silhouette:

I used a hand-sander to smooth out the rough edges.

I used this Elmer's ProBond Wood Filler to patch the holes.The directions say to push it in with a putty knife, but I don't have one, so I just smushed it in with my fingers. I'm a rebel without a putty knife.

Once the filler had dried, I used a hand-sander once again to smooth out the bumpy surfaces. Then it was time to prime.

Here's one of my favorite painting hacks: put a plastic shopping bag (which are increasingly hard to come by here in Washington State) inside your paint tray. That way you can reuse the tray and just toss the bag when you're done. Just make sure you put the bag print-side down, or it could pull off and get into your paint.

I primed with Kilz Original, two coats.

Then I painted with two coats of my favorite: Valspar's Caribbean Walk. This is the same paint I used on my $10 vanity, my free coffee table, and my $75 hutch.

After the paint was dry I sealed the top surface of the nightstands with two coats of Minwax's water based polycrylic sealer.

I like the original drawer pulls, so I put them back on.

Here's the finished product, back in my bedroom:

And here's the before and after:

Before                                             After

 Just for fun, here's a look at my bedroom, the first night I slept in my new house:

And here it is now:

I love the changes! And don't worry, I still have the puppy dog, but she felt like she was having a bad hair day and didn't want to be in the "after" photo.

<3 Cara

The Vanity

"I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity." --Diana Vreeland

I *love* a good deal, and that means I *love* me a good yard sale. I always look forward to getting up early on summer weekends and seeing what discarded crap my neighbors are getting rid of treasures I can find!

Last Saturday I went garage sale-ing with my friend Amy, a renowned deal-finder. Riding shotgun with Lady Luck was a blast, I found this vanity at the first sale we went to:

Me: What are you asking for this?
Garage Sale Lady: Make me an offer.
Me: Oh, I really don't have room for it, I was just wondering.
Garage Sale Lady: I don't know... ten dollars?
Me: ...I'll make room.

So I took it home and busted out my leftover supplies from my hutch makeover. The thing was, I really, REALLY, REALLY didn't want to sand. I had sanded my hutch down to bare wood, and it was #1) incredibly time-consuming, and #2) an enormous pain in the behind. Or, literally, the arms.

So I read up about it online, and it seemed like the best solution was to *lightly* sand the surfaces, then use a good primer to get the paint to stick. So I went ahead and lightly sanded with 180 grit sandpaper... and by "lightly", I mean that sanding all surfaces of the vanity (including the drawer fronts) took about three minutes. Boom, done. Much more my style.

Whoop! All done! After sanding, I wiped down the vanity with a wet rag, and once it had air-dried, it was time to prime. I used Kilz Original primer, which is oil-based, and the Lowes Guru Lady told me it'll be discontinued soon, because it's so bad for the environment. (What's the opposite of eco-friendly? Eco-hostile?) To use it, I wore a mask and latex gloves (which I picked up in a ten-pack from Dollar Tree). All the supplies have to be discarded at Hazo House when I'm done, too. It's bad stuff.

But I'll tell you what: the paint sticks.

I forgot to take a photo of the priming step of the process, so please accept this dramatic re-enactment:

I let the primer dry overnight, and the next day I rolled on two coats of Valspar's Caribbean Walk, the same paint I used for my hutch. It has great coverage and I love the creamy, slightly off-white color.

Funds are low this month (too much garage sale-ing?), so I couldn't afford new hardware. I liked the mid-century feel of the original hardware on the vanity, though, so I kept those and spray painted them black with Rustoleum's Satin Black.

After everything dried it was time to re-assemble.
During this process I inexplicably lost two screws, so a Lowes run was in order.

Here's a close-up of the spray-painted hardware. It turned out great!

Side-note: Does anyone know why this happens? See how the paint got all funkily textured? This happened a few times and I'm not sure why... Maybe because my lazy ass couldn't be bothered to wash the hardware before painting? : /

Here's how the final product turned out:

One more look at the transformation:

Love it! And it was so simple and fast because I had most of the materials on-hand, and I took it easy on the sanding. What about you? Have you had any projects that were actually easier than you expected?

<3 Cara

DIY Sparkly Ampersand

As I have already confessed, I have a deep and abiding love for Pinterest. We get together every night to share ideas for home decorating, DIY crafts, and fashion. And by "share", I mean that I shamelessly steal other people's ideas. 

So. Very. True.

I recently came across an easy and cheap DIY art idea from Virginia at LiveLoveDIY. Easy and cheap?! My two favorite adjectives! I read through Virginia's tutorial for a giant ampersand made from thumb tacks(!), and the one that inspired her, by Angela at Life in Velvet. After a few hours and a lot of Netflix, this is what I came up with:

It was actually really fun, and I love the product! And the whole thing cost me... drumroll... eight bucks. I bought a two-pack of 12x12 inch canvases at Michaels for $7.99, so about $4 each. (I'm saving the other to make a piece of word art like this to add to a gallery wall.) And these packs of 300 silver thumb tacks were $1 a piece at Dollar Tree (I bought four packs and used about 1,000 tacks. Whew!)

I used Virginia and Angela's photos to free-hand the shape of an ampersand onto my canvas with pencil. Then I started filling in the outline with tacks. The ones on the edges needed to be hammered in, because I couldn't push them through the wood frame by hand.

Once I was ready to start filling it in, I worked from the outside in, overlapping tacks slightly. I was imagining dragon scales. :)

This is the finished product:

And this is what it looks like adorning the white hutch in my dining room.

I have about 200 silver thumb tacks left, and now I'm imagining all the things I could do with them. I'm fantasizing about thumb tack nail head trim. On everything.

Thank you to Virginia, whose blog is a favorite of mine, and to Angela, who inspired Virginia! Who inspires you to DIY greatness?

<3 Cara