Recycled Dresser Mirror

Work is underway in my guest/sewing room. I am finally reclaiming my lost space that had devolved into a storage heap! While doing some rearranging, I moved a dresser that formerly occupied that room to the living room. Since it was placed under a window, I couldn't use the mirror that had been on top.



I decided to repurpose it as a wall mirror in the guest/sewing room, but felt it was lacking something when I hung it up. I decided what it was missing was a shelf underneath, so I decided to build one using some materials I had on hand...a 3/4 inch thick board, and some cheesy plastic brackets that I found at Goodwill a while back.



To start, I measured and cut the board to about eight inches longer than the length of the bottom edge of the mirror.



Then I sanded the rough sides of the board as well as rounded down the edges to make a bit of a softer line.



This is how it looked when I finished sanding.



Next I painted the board and brackets. When painting the brackets, I left a little bit of the underlying gold showing through for a more aged look.



Here it is all put together. It was painful for me to share this photo...you can see in the mirror reflection the mess I'm still working through to reclaim the room.



Here are a couple of detail shots. First, the top of the mirror.



And where the shelf and mirror join.



All in all, not too bad for a freebie project, don't you think? Work on the room is going slowly because of some extra hours at my job, but it is coming along. I'll have lots of innexpensive project ideas coming out of this re-do, so I hope you'll check in with me again soon.

Until next time,
Sheilla

This post is shared on "Show and Tell Friday" at Cindy's gorgeous blog, My Romantic Home. You should check it out....lots of great ideas to discover! My apologies Cindy! Due to a cut and paste error, I am late in crediting your party! So sorry!!!

Simple as Black and White

I seem to be on a black and white kick lately. While I've always loved lots of white in my house, lately I've been deviating a bit from my usual pastels and adding some graphic punch with a number of black and white accents. I thought I'd show you some of my recent finds today. I'll start with an old photo that I came across at Goodwill last week.
While searching for some picture frames to use in the photo wall in my office, I came across this old black and white photograph of a little dog. It was housed in the most diabolical picture frame imaginable and I started to pass on it for that reason, but I kept going back and looking at this little guy, just literally begging for attention. Perhaps he belonged to a person who recently passed on. At any rate somehow he wound up at the Goodwill store because someone didn't cherish his memory, and that made me feel a little sad. I felt even sadder when thinking that someone else might buy the garish frame he was housed in and just throw away the picture, so I decided that I had to "rescue" him. Although I didn't know this pup, he will become a part of my adopted family and find a new home on my photo wall. Now I feel better!
I picked up the black and white saucer at a yard sale last weekend. It is surrounded by a bunch of great postcards that I lucked into for a dime a piece at a local close-out store.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the saucer when I bought it. Goodness knows I have more china than I know what to do with, but it was calling out,

"buy me, buy me", so I did. This is what I came up with:
Didn't it make a nice little photo frame? All I did was trace out the circle in the middle of the saucer, cut a photograph to fit and glue in place. By the way, that's me as a little girl with my grandmother's dog, Rusty.
I love old letters and numbers but rarely come across them, so I was especially excited to find this letter "D", as it is the first letter of my last name. It started out as a coat hook, though. The "D" sat atop a small wooden platform that was attached to a large hook. I sawed the platform off and painted it black.

My final find was one of those unexpected, unplanned purchases that you just know was waiting for you when you see it.
Isn't this old car just too much fun!

It found a spot on my bookcase next to the pic of my parents old Studebaker. I think they look pretty cool together. This was a tight budget week, so I think I did pretty well

with my $5.00 "allowance". Gotta love a bargain!

Until next time,

This post is shared on "Show and Tell Friday" at Cindy's gorgeous blog, My Romantic Home. You should check it out....lots of great ideas to discover!

Bare Bulb Dilema

Maybe you're lucky enough to have avoided them...but then again...maybe not. Many homes, especially older ones have a bare bulb somewhere. Pehaps yours is lurking inside your closest; or maybe it's hiding out in the garage, basement or laundry room.
Or then again...maybe not...perhaps I got them all. I have seven such fixtures in my former pizza restaurant turned rental house!

I haven't quite figured out what the person who designed the lighting was trying to achieve. Maybe they just needed lights and were on a tight budget. Whatever the reason, every room, save the kitchen and bath is at least somewhat illuminated by these creatures!

My first impulse was to replace them all with chandeliers, but that idea hit a few roadblocks. The first one was the expense of purchasing seven chandeliers. The second is my phobia of working with electricity, and finally I have to keep in mind this IS a rental house! So what to do?

One day it occured to me to replace the lowly incandescent bulbs with chandelier lights. That helped a little, but not a lot.
Then I had another idea...what if I dressed them up with some crystals... The bare bulb fixtures at my house apparently had some type of globe at one time, and the screws which once kept it in place are still here. Using that as a starting point I dangled some pretty drops from the screws. That was better, but it was still missing something.
So I layered on lengths of rope crystals to give it a little more depth. I thought about painting the fixtures, since they are pretty chippy, but decided against it as I like the contrast of rustic with refined. While still not my choice of lighting fixtures, the crystals have made the bare bulbs quite a bit more bearable than they were in their original state.

For the five bulbs in the open living area I stayed with pretty much the same design, but by the time I got to the bedrooms, I ran out of crystal chain. Time to improvise again.

This time I used a combination of crystal beads and pearls that were salvaged from old necklaces.
Perhaps one day I'll overcome my fear of electrical wiring enough to try something different. Maybe I'll come across a gorgeous chandelier that I just can't resist, and replace the central fixture with that. But in the meantime, I've learned to make do and turn my lemons into lemonade so to speak. Most of my visitors compliment my creative fixtures, so maybe they're not so terrible after all.

If you have a bare bulb lurking somewhere, you might want to try a similar treatment. If you don't have the screws to drape the crystals from, try using small cup hooks screwed into the ceiling. This approach would give you even more options when designing your "bare bulb chandelier".

Until next time,

My Little Office

My office is one of my favorite rooms; good thing, too, since it seems to be the one in which I spend the most time...and aside from the computer, it was one of the least expensive rooms to decorate. I thought I'd share some of my thrifty finds and decor tips with you today.
As you can see, the focal point of the room is a grouping of black and white family photos on the wall above my desk. Almost all of the frames were yard sale and thrift store finds, many of which, I've re-done. One of my favorite techniques for doing old frames in metallics is the use of floral spray paint. It has a sheer quality about it which adds color, but allows a little of the woodgrain to show beneath, much like a stain. I like to layer on various metallic paint colors until I reach an effect that I like.

I also like to incorporate other types of objects such as plates, cherubs, vintage postcards, and memoribilia related to one of the pictures. For example, I hung my mother's dog tags from her time in the navy

	during WW2 over the edge of the frame holding her navy photo. In another instance I attached a patch that my father received when winning a volleyball championship to the photograph of him accepting the trophy.
My mother's dog tags adorn her Navy photo.

In order to achieve a pleasing effect when doing this type of arrangement, one must be careful to keep balance in mind. The arrangement need not be completely symmetrical, but objects of similar visual weight should
	In order to balance an 8 X 10 photo on the other side of the display, I hung a similar size frame around this plate.

be used to balance one another. Another trick is to keep frames somewhat similar in tone, i.e., all gold, or all black; or if mats are used, stick to a single color. Also, I've found that an arrangement of photographs generally looks best with all black and white or all color images, but not a mix of both. If I had used color photos here, I would have kept the accent pieces to a single solid hue.

The desk is one of my favorite junk shop steals, at $15. Of course, when I found it, the veneer was peeling badly, so I just stripped it of the veneer, painted it white, and distressed it.
I also decoupaged a rose cut-out from vintage wallpaper as a cheerful accent. The hardware is original and by itself worth at least the price of the desk! The chair is a standard issue cheapie office number, which I slipcovered to dress it up a bit.
The hutch above the desk was another junk store bargain at $5. It is in actuality a shelf that I painted white, but it serves the purpose just fine and keeps some of my favorite collectibles in easy view.
The bookcase was an ugly wood-tone laminate piece that I nabbed at a yardsale for next to nothing. A good coat of primer plus some white paint and vintage knobs completed its makeover.
As you can see, I've made jackets for most of my books using wrapping paper that coordinates with the room. Another trick that I like to use for making a bookcase display more interesting is to keep some books upright and others lying flat. The horizontal books make a nice pedestal for display; in this case, for the first camera that I had a child. I've also accessorized the shelves with an old silver trophy and some small vintage garden books.
My loveseat was picked up curbside for free! This time a few white sheets came to the rescue in the form of a slipcover. I've made a number of cushion and pillow covers of various materials and change them out to suit my mood. By the way, whether you need to hide ugly upholstery or not, if you have pets, slipcovers are the way to go. Just pop them in the wash and never worry about your furniture being soiled.
If you're a regular reader, you've seen this chest before. It recently made the move from my livingroom to the office, where it still provides much-needed storage and display space.

While not, perhaps the things you'd drool over in your favorite magazine, the major furnishings in this room were purchased for well under $100. A little imagination and elbow grease were all that was necessary to turn them into the foundation of a room which is both livable and fun. So in closing, I'd like to encourage you not to put your decorating dreams on hold, even if the budget is. Upgrades can be made later, but in the meantime, making do really isn't so bad...

Until next time,

This post is shared on "Show and Tell Friday" at Cindy's gorgeous blog, My Romantic Home. You should check it out....lots of great ideas to discover!

STYLE FILE: Ready, Set, Go!

Well, the bunk beds are finally gone, so it's time to get busy and figure out my guestroom/sewing/craft area. A few weeks ago in my posts, Origins of Style Parts I and II, I mused about why we are drawn to certain looks.

For me, deciding on a look or combination of looks is one of my favorite parts of putting a room together, but equally important is following a few basic principles that will
	My messy, but soon to be decorated guestroom

guide the design process and insure that the room will live up to its expectations. In this post, I’d thought I’d share some of my essential “pre-decorating” tips.
Before the first decorative decision is made, I think the single most important thing to ask yourself is, “How will the room need to function?” In this case

I need space for a guest, a place to sew, and lots of storage space for linens, out of season clothing, paint, fabric, and various arts and crafts supplies. While I love the open floor plan of my house, I want to restrict my pets' access to this area, so a room division will need to be included in the design. That’s a pretty tall order for a 13 by 14 foot room, which leads me to the next consideration, "constraints".

Accumlated craft supplies completely block access to my sewing machine and must find a permanent home.

Probably the least fun portion of any decorating project is detemining the constraints on it. One of those is space, as I mentioned above, and planning for the funtionality needed in the available square

	footage. In my case I live in a rental cottage, so no structural changes can be made. This unfortunately includes the flooring, which is blue commercial tile, so that must be
Space, time, money and pets are things to consider when planning a room.

worked into the color scheme to avoid a major clash. Another constraint to consider is time. For me, I need to have all of my projects wrapped up by mid October so that I’ll be ready to entertain a guest. The final constraint that I must account for is budget, which is unfortunately quite small. Looking on the bright side, however, tight budgetary restrictions often spark creativity in ways that more lenient funds may not. There are lots of great flea market bargains waiting to be found, and fixing them up is certainly one of the most enjoyable aspects of putting it all together!
The next step for me is editing. I like to take an inventory of what is already in the room, and decide what needs to stay and what needs to go. If something is already working well in the space, then

there’s a pretty good chance it will be a “keeper” although it may need to be revamped to fit in with the new plan. If something is definitely not working, it needs to go….either to another room, to your favorite charity, or if you’re just not ready to part with it, to long term storage. For this room, the “keepers” are two armoires. I believe one will work without any changes and the other will have to be

This armoire is used for storing linens and will remain in the room.

restyled to compliment the new decor. The “goners” are the bunk beds and dresser that have been residing in the room. My sewing table and a small wicker table fit into the “maybe” column.

At this point, I like to sketch out a plan which will accodate all the functions of the room. Included in the plan will be all pieces of furniture that will be staying as well as plotting a space for new additions required for the room's functionality.
	One of the plans that I created for my guest/sewing room

A room plan can be done by hand or with software. There are several free internet applications which do this. The plans shown here were done using the room planner software at Conlin's site. Of the ones I've tried, I found this to be the most user friendly.

Some alternate plans for the room

If you like, you can even import the image files from the site and tweak them a bit more with graphics software such as Photoshop, as I've done in the pics directly above. Sketching things out first can save a lot of mistakes when it comes to bringing in new pieces. The sketch will show how much space is allocated for each item, and will be an important reference when shopping.
After needed items are identified, I like to shop my house to see if I already have anything that will fit the bill. In this case, the sleeper sofa from the living room

	was already ear-marked for a move. I also have a coffee table that may work in this space as an interim piece until the storage ottomans I want can be constructed. A small wicker stand that I already own can sit in for the vintage dress form on my wish list.
My dog, Lucy, who is lounging on the sleeper sofa that will be relocated to the guest room.

While my current sewing table is smaller than than I'd like it will probably remain in place temporarily until time and budget allow for a replacement.

Alternate room plans using interim furnishings

In keeping with the title of my post, I've gotten READY; a plan is SET; and now it's time to GO! It's time to enjoy some digging into blogs, magazines and such for ideas, and searching out the perfect treasures to complete the room. Let the fun begin!

Until next time,