Plumbing Pipe and Wooden Shelves

Hey, y'all! It's Friday!

I wanted to post this real quick before I go sit in traffic for an hour or longer... blah!

Hubs and I are making these shelves! Made out of plumbing pipe, they have a lot of character and are great for an office or any home decor. This particular one was made for an office - very basic. Share with your family and friends and let me know if anyone wants to get going on their Christmas shopping! We'd love to make you a shelf!

I thought this would also be a good shelf to have in your kitchen to hold spices, flour, and sugar. You could also easily screw hooks in the bottom to hang coffee mugs on. 

KC Tip: You know how I always say flip things around, turn them over, and look at them at all different angles?? Well here's a tip with this shelf...flip it upside down! When you flip it over, the top (or bottom..?) still works as a shelf and the bar in the middle becomes a towel rack. This piece would be great in bathroom to hold a towel and some toiletries for your guests. 

Xo! Have a great weekend and as always, stay safe!

KC

New Bottoms, New Nightstand

Good evening, all! It's Sunday night which means I unfortunately have to go back to my day job tomorrow. Sunday's also start this horrible emotion that I like to call "Sunday Grumpies" which basically means, I've had such a fabulous weekend spending time with Hubs, doing some household crafts and furniture redo's (of course!), and thinking about how much I wish I could do all of this for a living. But hey, we all have to work, so back to the grind tomorrow!

Things have been a little crazy for Hub's and I lately. Busy busy! There have been weddings, trips, and life that have really been keeping us on the go! Oh, and we also decided to go to India to see a dear friend celebrate his wedding (coming soon to a post near you in December! Eeek!!). So, yes, I'm a little behind on the posts!

Okay, enough excuses as to why I haven't been posting. Let's get down to business! I had mentioned in  previous posts, Barn Wood Bench and A Vase and a Lamp Shade, that Hubs and I have a list of things we needed for our bedroom. Well guess what?! Today I finally get to cross everything off that list! We finally found the prefect nightstand to perform a little bit of Consigned Design magic on. Excited? I am!

Here's what we found:

Flea Market find: $100....minus $40 after a little bit of negotiating. This thing is ugly but it had great bones...well sort of. I'll get into that a little later.

First step was to get all of this ugly paint off of this poor piece of furniture. Little did we know how much paint was actually on this thing. LAYERS and layers. So, needless to say, this took a little a lot of elbow grease. I couldn't have done this without my friend, Paint Stripper. Actually, we used a spray on paint remover that worked great! You should be able to find this at any local home improvement store.

PLEASE be sure to use protective gloves, eye wear, and long sleeves to do this. If the wind catches any of this mist and gets on you, it will burn a little. This stuff is no joke. So please use with extreme caution. Also, do this in a well ventilated area, aka - outside, the smell is intense.

First, just spray the paint remover on like spray paint. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes until the paint starts to bubble (be sure to read instructions on the can as well!). The longer you let this sit, the easier it is to scrape off the old paint. Then use a steel paint scraper and get to scrapping! It's best to work in small sections. I started with the drawers and then did the rest of the piece.

Since there was so much paint on this silly thing, we had no choice but to sand off all the excess. But, I still think it's a good idea to do just to make sure your surface is nice and smooth. We used 80 grit sand paper for this.

Ignore the gardening, I never said I had a green thumb!

Back to the bones: Here's a little reminder to you while you are out junkin' (definition - going into the most run down places that have piles of crap in them and dig for a gem) - be sure to look at your piece entirely. We made the mistake of only opening the top two drawers of this piece while at the flea market, but once we got it home we realized the bottom drawers were falling apart. So, we decided to go ahead and put new bottoms in all of the drawers. Hubs went out and got some fancy ply wood (yes, I said fancy) and made new bottoms for each of the drawers. They turned out great!

I really wish I had taken a before picture of these drawers. You would have been shocked to see what the bottoms of them looked like.

Next step, prime! This is when I think the piece really starts to look like a new.

Last are the finishing touches. You can really finish this up however you would like. We actually bought a piece of furniture (I know! It was the first piece of furniture that we had actually bought new in a long time. Ha!) that we loved the finish on so we were trying to match it. We used the same antique gray paint we had finished our Barn Wood Bench with. Remember - once you do a coat of paint, let it dry for 24 hours, sand it down, and paint it again. I always try to do this a few times. It takes A LOT of patience but it's worth the extra time and work. Once the painting was complete, I sanded some key parts of the nightstand to really give it an antiqued look. After I got it roughed up a bit, I used some glaze and dark stain to complete the look.

Oh, and I can't forget about the new hardware! The original "hardware" (if you can call it that) that was on this piece only needed one screw to get it secured into place. We wanted to switch this up so we covered the old holes with some wood filler. Then Hubs got the new hardware put on. Here's another reminder - always measure twice. Don't tell him I told you this but the bottom drawer's hardware is a little off....actually its way off...which is why the final pictures are taken at an angle. Ha! Hopefully you can't tell.

Finished product!

Cost of redo: Approximately $70

Total cost of nightstand: About $130

Alright - bed time. Night y'all! Stay safe.

KC

PS - I will upload a picture soon of the finished product in its new home. You'll love it!

Burlap Bubble Wreath

It is so hot in Texas right now. And unseasonably, it has been raining every day which is NOT helping with the humidity.  I made a comment the other day that I was over summer and I am now ready for the cooler temperatures of fall and winter (well as much fall and winter you can get down here). Why do I live in Texas, again? I miss having 4 seasons!

So, with fall and winter on my mind, I decided it was time to start stocking up on holiday decorating! Actually, in all honesty, I really don’t like decorating for holidays (except for Christmas, of course) just because I don’t like the hassle of putting everything away. It makes me feel like I’m moving every other month. So, solution to that….door wreaths!

I’m thinking I might turn into a crazy wreath wife. I’m sure my husband will love that! But I had so much fun making this wreath that I see many many more in the future.

Here’s the list I plan on accomplishing:

Every day/Summer

Halloween

Fall/Thanksgiving

Christmas

Birthday (this will be in place of Valentine’s day)

Easter/Spring

Fourth of July

First of all I will say that I quickly learned that you need more burlap than you think (especially if you like a tighter look to your wreath). So, buy a little extra and if you don’t use all of it you can always take it back. Oh! And I will mention that the tighter woven jute is much easier to work with than the lose weave.

All you will need is your burlap ribbon/garland – I used 5 inch wide and 20 yard long spool but you can buy it in many variations – found in the floral section of your favorite craft store, a green wire wreath, pipe cleaner to match your burlap, and your accessories. You can choose to accessorize your wreath however you’d like but in this case I used barrette flowers  

So, when I first started this wreath adventure I couldn’t find instructions ANYWHERE on how to do this. I found people that sort of kind of explained it but most people just said “there isn’t a wrong way so just do what works for you.” That’s great advice but I need instructions! So, with their advice, this is the best way I found to do it and now I’m going to share it with you!

You may think I’m completely crazy but start out by unrolling your entire spool…..just do it!

1. Start by tying a knot on the inner most ring of your wire wreath (for a little extra support you can actually tie it to one of the divider pieces that runs perpendicular to the rest of the wreath).
2. Now, you are going to start weaving your burlap through the wires. Over, under, over under....
3.  Pull all 20 yards through your wire wreath and pull tight.
4. Now make your loops. You can do this as fluffy and loose or as small and tight as you want. I’d say my loops are on the small side - Personally I think it makes for a cleaner look.

     5.   Now go the other direction

     6.   Pull tight

     7.   Make your loops

     8.   Continue! 

Once you come to the end of your first roll of burlap you will need to tie off the end in a way that will keep what you’ve done, nice and tight. This can be done simply by using a pipe cleaner. Be sure you get pipe cleaner that’s the same or close to the same color as your burlap. Oh, and notice my helper in the picture below? He’s showing you how much of the wreath 20 yards of burlap covers.

As I mentioned before you can use whatever you would like to decorate your wreath. I found that the easiest way to do this is with barrettes. Craft stores have tons of these things and in several different colors and sizes (or you can even find them at girls accessory stores, too!). Barrettes are the easiest thing to use because they clip on to the burlap and will always stay put, AND they are easily changed out if you want a different look!

And here’s the final product! Simple and chic.

Oh yeah…I would suggest doing this outside. Apparently burlap sheds….EVERYWHERE. The shedding is worse than the big orange cat's. But if you do want to craft on your couch (like I do) then the shedding is easily cleaned up with a dryer sheet and/or a lint roller.

Have fun y'all and stay safe!

KC

Breakfast....cupcakes?

So, I wouldn't consider myself a really awesome cook. BUT I do like to try out new recipes. Hubs always gets mad at me gives me a hard time because I never follow the recipe exactly. But, hey! I’m my own person and I like doing things my own way. Ha!

One thing that’s really hard for me is breakfast. Unfortunately, I have a day job and even more unfortunate is that it is an hour to an hour and half drive from my front door to the parking garage at my office. Blaaaah! So needless to say I’m typically in a pretty big hurry when I am getting ready for my day. I get into these really bad habits of stopping for breakfast (yes, I too have a Starbucks addiction) but I’m trying to come up with easy breakfast ideas that me and Hubs will both like.

This was one we tried this week and it was a pretty big hit! Hashbrown Cupcakes! Easy to make, grab on the go, heat up at the office. Super simple and pretty tasty! There are many different ways you can do this. Personally, I’d prefer to add some onions and peppers into mine but Hubs would wrinkle his nose at that…SO we stick with the basics.

First preheat your oven to 350 F.

Then, all I did was brown 1 pound of sausage (you can use turkey sausage to make it healthier!) and mix that with one bag of frozen hash browns (thawed), a little bit of milk, 5-6 eggs depending on size, 1 and ¼ cup of shredded cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.

You can make this as a casserole but for the purpose of it being a “grab and go” meal, I decided to use muffin pans! This mixture makes about 18-24 cakes depending on how many eggs you use and how full you fill your muffin pan. Be sure to grease your pans first because the hash browns WILL stick.

Then start filling your muffin pans. Quick tip for a not so messy process -  use an ice cream scoop!

Now, place in oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Be sure to check on them every once and a while…you don’t want them too crispy. Once they start to turn golden brown, pull them out of the oven and let them cool in the muffin pan for about 10 minutes. Once cooled, you can use a knife or spoon to get them out. They make such a perfect little cupcakes!

Reheat instructions: 25-35 seconds per cake in the microwave

Hope you enjoy! If you come up with any fun variations, please share in the comments! I’d love to hear about your creations!

Stay safe.

KC

Bar Stock Couples Shower

Hey y'all!

I recently hada bar stock shower for one of my best friends. She's getting married in September (I can't believe how close it is!) here in Texas and we can not wait!

Thought I'd share a few pictures from the shower. I'm not going to go into detail about every thing I did so if you have questions or would like to know "how to" just shoot me an email!

The theme was "Love is Brewing." We had a beer tasting, played a couple quick games like guessing how many bottle caps were in the vase and you win a prize. We also did the Shoe Game for the bride and groom - if you have never played this game, you definitely should! It is always a hit. Then we followed it up with some beer pong, corn hole, and of course Cards Against Humanity.

Enjoy!

If I get more pictures from guest, I will be sure to share! I am usually all over taking pictures for things like this but I was more focused this time on making sure the Bride and Groom had a good time! 

KC

Barn Wood Bench

Ya'll, this might be my favorite thing yet so I'm really excited to share this! 

Good morning and happy Monday! I had mentioned in a previous post (A Vase and a Lamp Shade) that I had a list of things we needed for our bedroom. Well today, I got to cross one off! Here's where we stand:

List of things we need:

Nightstands

Lamps

End of bed bench

So, back in the spring we went to one of my favorite flea markets in Round Top (Like, seriously....it's huge. A junkers haven!) and found this nice man who was selling old barn wood out of the back of his pick up. Hubs and I didn't have a clue what we wanted to do with it but we new we loved the looks of it so we bought over 50 feet for $15 bucks. Crazy! 

This seems to happen a lot, but Hubs and I spent hours shopping for a bench to go at the end of our bed. It was shocking how expensive those suckers were! $200 bucks here, $500 bucks there. What?! No way am I spending that kind of money on a bench I will probably never sit on (let's be honest - it's really just for looks, right?) So I told Hubs that we should just try to make one. After several discussions, we finally had a light bulb go off and realized we had an old table that we weren't using anymore and we could salvage the legs for our bench. THEN we remembered about our barn wood and decided that would make a unique top for our bench. Done and done! Let's get started. 

First, I laid out all of our barn wood, picked my favorite pieces, and got them arranged how I liked. We decided to make the bench 4.5 feet long (remember - our bed is huge) and about 18 inches wide. So, I measured the wood, made my marks and and started cutting! 

Yes, that giant saw still scares the crap out of me!!

Second we removed the legs from the old table and sanded them down to their natural state so we could paint them the color we wanted later. Since they were already used as table legs, it made assembly really simple.  

We even used the old hardware and leg supports from the table to attach the legs to the bench. Then we cut a couple smaller pieces to support the top (just in case we ever did decide to sit on it!) and for easy attachment to the barn wood. 

In this picture you can see the corner leg supports. We just paid close attention to how we took the legs off the old table and tried to replicate it when putting the legs onto our bench. It worked out well! Oh - and a Kregg Jig will come in handy for this project so you can make pocket holes and attach your supports easily. 

*Quick side note - I thought the underside of the barn wood made a neat pattern as well. I always suggest to play with everything you have. Turn it upside down, flip it over, and look at it at every angle before you make a decision. Something really simple could really change the looks of your piece.* 

Once everything was in place we gave it a quick sanding and a coat of paint. I didn't do anything fancy with this paint. All it took was a couple quick coats of the color you decide on. We used an antique grey. Oh! And that bottom piece, it was just shelving wood you can pick up at your local home improvement store. We splurged a little on that purchase (I think it was around 20 bucks)! All in all I think we ended up spending less than $30 on our bench! 

And for a little extra storage, I bought these wicker baskets at Garden Ridge. They had a HUGE selection of any shape, color, size, and style you like. It's a great place for extra tee shirt storage (if you have a ton like me) or even extra blankets and pillows. 

KC

A Vase and a Lamp Shade

As you saw in a previous post, Hubs and I made our bed (Headframes and Bedboards). Since the bed is extremely customized, we were having trouble finding the right sized....anything to go with it. 

List of things we need:

Nightstands

Lamps

End of bed bench

After some research, we decided that we should give in and buy our "nightstands." (I say "nightstands" because we need something that's at least 36 inches high....have you ever seen a night stand that tall...? Probably not! Well we started at a flea market because we'd rather redo something and give it new life than buy something manufactured. We found a small chest of drawers that would work perfectly but it needs some TLC and we didn't want to touch it until we found it's partner in crime for the other side of the bed. A few furniture stores later, we found something that will be perfect for a "nightstand." We got it ordered and it is currently being made and stained in the color we want. Whew! One item off the list...well sorta. I'll get back to the nightstand redo in another post...

In the mean time, I figured I needed to work on decorating the top of the "nightstands." Most important thing...lamps! 

We have been struggling to find bedside lamps big enough to stand next to our almost 8 foot tall bed (and I was probably being a little bit picky)...so what do we do to solve this problem? Make them, of course! All you need is a vase and a lamp shade (okay there are a few more components but that's the main ingredients). 

The vase I'm using is something simple I got at a local craft store for 50% off. You can use any vase that you like the shape of. Even if it's from a 1980's garage sale, it'll work!

*Quick Tip - If you aren't crazy about any vases you have laying around the house but are still on a tight budget and don't really want to go out and purchase one, try turning one you have upside down. This will give you a new perspective on the look of the lamp as a whole.

Once you find the vase you like, you will need to go to your local home improvement store to pick up the "guts" of your lamp. This includes the 3 way socket kit, harp, and finial.  Oh, and don't forget about your shade! If you want to use one from an old lamp that you already have, that will work just fine (you can even spruce it up with some ribbon to trim the edges)! Or, I picked this one up at a home improvement store for 15 bucks. Not too bad! 

First step in all of this is to get your vase painted, or if you already like the design on the vase, leave it as is! I wanted to do some kind of mercury glass finish but I was struggling to get the right look on my practice glass panes. So, I decided to wing it and see how it turned out. Well, when I got the first layer of my base coat on I decided I really liked the looks of it and stopped there. Not only did it look good, but it made my life a little easier. To do this, I used basic Valspar Metallic spray paint. It only took a couple coats and then I finished it off with a high gloss top coat. 

I took my own advice and decided I liked the looks of the vase better when it was turned upside down!

Once the vase was painted and dry, hubs drilled holes in the vase so we could send the wire all the way through it. He did this with a glass bit on his drill. Tape up the area you are drilling with duck tape to prevent cracking, be sure to spray your drill bit down with some water (it WILL smoke if you skip this step), and wear safety goggles. This may take a little bit of time and effort but it is worth it to be able to hide the cord in the back .

All that's left now is to put it all together! Here's the finished product. Once we get the rest of our room put together I'll be posting a better picture. 

Have a good week!

KC