Ballard Designs Table Re-do

I was picking up an armoire for a charity project I'm working on and the owner of the home offered me this Ballard Designs kitchen table for $100. After looking up on their website how much it cost originally I was shocked... a pair of the chairs alone are $499 each.

The top was a little very rough. There were a lot of dents and marks from wear and tear over the years.

I whipped out the fabulous Elmer's Wood Filler (the best one I've used). It dried in 45 minutes for shallow areas. I filled the edges around the table and the marks in the center of the table. It didn't come out as smoothly as I hoped the first time. Or the second time. The third time worked a bit better.

Here is the finished product after bringing a chair to Home Depot and having them color match the paint. Yes, I did wheel around a shopping cart with one of those chairs. :)

The chairs were pretty beat up orginally so I recoated all of them and then did some slight distressing to make them look closer to what they looked like when they were bought new.

Check out my Craigslist post for this item if you are interested in purchasing it!

In case you didn't see my makeover yesterday then check out this dresser I'm selling too.

Azores Makeover

Remember this dresser makeover here? Well, I had some paint leftover so when Cathy, AJ's co-worker, found this dresser and gave it to me I decided to use that color for the makeover. Everytime I use it I fall in love with it all over again.

After some Kilz oil based primer, two coats of white paint and then two coats of Benjamin Moore's Azores we had this...

The crystal knobs are from the Building Supply Outlet in Peabody (15 minutes from us). It is an amazzzzing store. They were $3.29 each.

I decided to do a slightly beachy finish instead of covering every single inch with Azores. I like the "imperfect" look.

But, because I've already shown you a makeover similar to this I decided to shake up how I staged it.... a dresser doesn't have to be just in the bedroom like this one below, it could also be used as a buffet in the dining room like above.

For this scene I used an orchid (I love the way the white pot works with the color of the dresser), a large clock from Pottery Barn and two mirrors I snagged at Christmas Tree Shop for $5 each.

Then I decided to stage it like a changing table... I bought this throw from West Elm yesterday for our master bedroom but it didn't work in there so I'm returning it but not before I used the amazing coral color against Azores. :)

I am selling the dresser, click here to check it out! I would love if a blog reader bought it... mainly because I love it so much. :)

Addition to Drew's Room

For the most part Drew's room is pretty cute... but then sometimes his shelf and pegs get a little out of control. Like how it looked earlier yesterday.... Sometimes I wish I could do a blog post on what my house looked like pre and post cleaning because that is all I've done that day... well, today, friends, that's pretty much what I'm doing.

I moved a couple of Drew's big toys into his closet (he can open the door himself and get it if he wants it). I cleaned out and reorganized the basket on the right so that the overflowing books in the middle basket can be split into two baskets.

I moved the jackets to hooks on the back of the door and the cute little outfit to Drew's changing table (see last photo in the post).

My next step was to hang up some metal containers that I spray painted navy.

I used the rope that I covered his trash with (you can see that at the bottom left of the photo above).

My goal is to fill them with practical items. The first one will have some mini trash bags. One will have Drew's summer PJs and the other will have I don't know what... :)

These metal containers were used at my baby shower that my sister and mom threw for AJ and me. It's fun to have some of that history in his room.

I just wanted to show you this view, even though Drew's mobile isn't up (he pulled it down), because I loved how it looked after doing some cleaning.

Don't you just wish that people would clap you on the back and say "amazing! you are incredible!" whenever you do a big cleaning job? Yeah, I do too. :)

Happy Wednesday! We are off to visit my grandfather today so he can see Drew. What are you up to?

Navy & Hot Pink Baby Shower

As I mentioned yesterday I threw my bestie, Danielle, a baby shower this weekend. Here is her adorable pregnant self... I wish you could really take a good look at her dress. It is a maternity maxi dress from Target but looked way more expensive and fabulous than anything you'd ever expect to find at a big-box store.

I asked D what she would like the shower to be like... she said she had in mind navy and coral for the color scheme. I switched it to hot pink because I knew it would be easier to find items in hot pink and after a few invite tweaks here is what I came up with. It was all made in Microsoft Word.

Time for shower details! This sign, written on one of our home's clapboard scraps, greeted guests by the door.

The shower was held in the vestry of our church. This was the food table.... does everyone know what "nosh" means?

Some friends from church brought the granola and bananas for the yogurt bar and two other friends brought the fruit salad. Isn't it so nice when you can count on people to bring things so you don't have to stress out about it?

The stripped fabric is from IKEA, it was $7.99 per yard. I have this aversion to paper or plastic tablecloths so I went to Joann Fabrics and bought some $3.99 per yard navy fabric and then used a 40% off coupon to make it even more of a steal. All I did was use pinking shears for the edges (I didn't have time to do more if I wanted to sleep at all. :)).

I used my recipe for a frittata and edited it slightly for two different variations.

I found this neat idea on Pinterest to made silver dollar pancakes and stacked them on a toothpick. I made them on the morning of the shower before AJ and Drew woke up and then just warmed them in the church's oven for a half an hour before the shower.

Dunkin Donuts probably has never had an apothecary jar brought into their shop before... :)

Doesn't this fruit salad look delish? I wish I could take credit for it... :)

This is the dresser I mentioned yesterday. I put the jellybean favors in the top three drawers and then we put gifts in the bottom drawers.

I was having trouble editing this photo but it shows the room, I had navy cloths on each table and IKEA runners that I made.

Instead of centerpieces I had a vase on the table with envelopes for guests to write their address so Danielle would be ready to rock and roll when it came time to write thank you notes; also in the vase were Bingo cards I made to match the party theme and advice cards.

I made three different versions of the advice cards, each had a different phrase at the top and it was so neat to read what guests wrote to Danielle!

I had a blast planning the shower and it was so fun to surprise Danielle with certain pieces of it.

Have you planned any fun parties lately?

Many many thanks to my wonderful friend Davia for loaning me some of her pics for this post!

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Between Naps on the Porch

Gift Wrap Dresser

My BFF had her baby shower this weekend and to add a little bit of charm to the vestry of our church, where we had the shower, I painted a dresser navy (one of the colors for the shower) and used it for gifts and to hold favors. Here is the sneak peak of the dresser:

But this post isn't about the shower, I'm still collecting photos from people for that...

This post is about what I have done with the dresser post-shower. Are you one of those people who have no idea what to do with all their gift wrap, ribbons, bags, etc? Well, I was that person. Under the bed storage boxes were too small for some of my rolls and I had too much stuff to go on the back of a door like some fabulous organizers suggest. Enter this ugly dresser AJ and Meredith found on the side of the road:

My goal was to give it the quickest makeover ever. Two coats of Ace Hardware's Ming Vase Clack and Kesington Paint + Primer. I didn't use any wood filler and I didn't do any sanding (to save time because I knew it would end up in the basement). I wish all my makeovers were this carefree and simple. :) Here is what I'm using it for now:

My first large drawer was for ribbons of any kind. I grouped all my loose ribbons in containers of similar colors and then used my pallet box to house all of the ribbon on a spool.

This bottom drawer holds all of our wrapping paper and tissue paper.

The top left drawer holds gift bags and clear favor bags.

The far right drawer holds all my paint chips for various furniture makeovers.

Why did I take the time to do this? I have been getting more stationary orders lately and wanted to have all the stuff I needed to wrap up the orders in an easy to find area (and, obviously, so my gift wrap wasn't getting ruined by just sitting on the basement floor or something. :)). 

Here is the order I sent out this morning (see Stationary tab at the top for more info):

What were you up to this weekend? Any painting projects?

Side of the Road Buffet

I got an email from one of AJ's co-worker's on Tuesday afternoon but by the time we'd returned from NY and settled ourselves in at home it was too late to act on her exciting email... she found a buffet on the side of the road in Gloucester that would be perfect for our dining room, only she couldn't fit it into her car. So, I drove to Gloucester the next morning at 8am and it was right where Cathy said it would be. AJ and Cathy both wondered how I'd get it into the car by myself, and I'm not gonna lie, I was having the same thoughts. I texted AJ right after loading the buffet into our Rogue that his wife was He-Woman. :)

I am feverishly getting ready for my bff's baby shower this weekend so I'm going to just post a few pics and call it a day!

As you can see, it's not in perfect condition but it completely works for now! I have plates in the bottom middle drawer, cloth and paper napkins in the top. The left cabinet is filled with clean dish towels and the right has some napkins rings.

In this next photo you'll see only two of our white chairs... the other two are at the desks in the living room because the little monkey keeps climbing on the table if all the chairs aren't completely pushed in...

Maybe you are wondering where I am going to put what we were using for a buffet...

I'm wondering the same thing. I've just conveniently cropped it out of these photos. :)