DIY Pottery Barn Knock Off Mirror...

So, last year, I had my own go at a DIY Pottery Barn Knock Off Mirror. Here's the tutorial if you're interested in saving a good chunk of change (or if you're like me just don't have that much money period, haha): DIY Pottery Barn Mirror Photo Tutorial: AnotherDailyBlog.com

Basically during my den renovation, I moved the mirror around, never hanging it.

Today, while off work, I decided, well, dang, why not go ahead and put it to use, it's just collecting dust in a corner.

I cleared off the mountains of what could have become a mini episode of, "Hoarders" in the making that made up my bedroom dresser, and I placed that beauty atop it :)

I decided I'd go ahead and put a few other things around as well. I LOVE these lighted pumpkins so much, that I keep them up year round (yeah, yeah, I am a little tacky). And I added the lantern form my children's photo session I did for Christmas, along with some lighted tree branches from my best friend's mom.

FANTASTIC!  I LOVE the spot I chose:) Sad to say it took me a year to figure it out:)

A semi master bedroom reveal :)

You may remember the bedroom in the before stages via these links:
Farm house bed
&
Master Bedroom Makeover
Check out the links to see all before & after photos. I started with a solid wood dresser purchased off craigslist. I paid 60 bucks for it, and sanded it down. I painted it with semi gloss Olympic brand paint found at lowes. I used old kitchen floral cabinet pulls from the previous owners and spray painted them oil rubbed bronze. I now have a dresser that would cost me an easy 350+ bucks anywhere else for roughly 80 bucks dresser and supplies included. :)

We visited ana-white.com and used her farmhouse queen bed build plans and spend 250 in lumber and screws to built a solid HUGE piece of furniture. I used the same white Olympic semi gloss paint to paint the bed. (I used an old credit card to slip btwn. the head and food board panels to make sure the paint didn't cake between the crevices). So we have a one thousand dollar Pottery Barn type bed for only under $300!

I painted the walls with wal mart's colorplace brand paint and it only cost 12 bucks for the can.

I did splurge however, and bought the Seinna Paisley duvet, two euro shams and one standard sham from Pottery Barn online. I decided the down insert was out of my budget and bought a 60 dollar one from walmart.com.

We plan to build a side storage bench in place of the nightstand and I hope to find some oversized Pottery Barn inspired lanterns for the dresser. I have no idea what I'll put over my bed but I have a few hints of what I could try.

I am in love with my new bedroom. Bare in mind we have a 65 rancher so space is small, but i am absolutely in LOVE! :)

Farmhouse Bed, FINALLY 100% finished!

This has been such a long time in the making, but FINALLY I was able to get enough time kid free to finish the queen sized farmhouse bed up :) I LOVE IT!


Hopefully next week I'll do the room reveal. In the meantime, if you are interested in building this bed, please visit the beautiful, Ana White, @ Ana-White.com She has TONS of free furniture build plans! Folks like me, could NEVER afford this bed sticker price at PB's website, so it was nice to build it all for under 300 bucks tops when all was said and done.

We love her site so much, we even built the toddler farmhouse bed (see sock monkey room links to see it).

But, even though we built this ourselves, Ana still gave PB business because we then purchased our bedding from Pottery Barn's website and it wasn't cheap but we would of never bought it otherwise. :) Thanks Ana for all you do!!

Painting the Farm House Bed :)

This is what I have been up to all day (4ish hours) haha. I finally decided when I painted our craigs list dresser white I would also do the bed white. It's just hard to get anything done around the house with two little ones and no outside help.

You will notice a ton of my projects come sporadically and take way longer then they should. But then again, I like to take my time on everything I do. I think white looks wonderful :)
Once the paint cures I will add one more coat and call it a day. Hopefully it all gets done this weekend, but my guess will be next. At 28 years old I'll finally have my dream bedroom :) And the 65 rancher is one step closer to being more ours.

Master Bedroom Room Make Over, Progress..

I don't have a before photo, but I wish I did. Some years ago my computer crashed. I lost pretty much every photo from the time MiMi was a baby until she was 3.

When we bought our home, all of the doors and baseboards/trim work was hunter green. I mean, I am sure it could look nice to some folks, but hunter green isn't inviting to me at all. (Green is my favorite color).

On a budget I would paint the trim white with kilz, then the doors. Eventually I bought new doors.

First the room was neon blue, then I decided I wanted something more subtle and calm. I went to Wal Mart, eyed two different colors and right away decided on "window pane". I have to say the 11 dollar Wal Mart brand paint went a long way in covering my ugly electric neon blue ;)







Then one day I stumbled upon the old knockoffwood blogspot page. A lovely gal named Ana who offered up FREE furniture build plans to her readers. We fell in love with the farmhouse bed plan, and we saved money and spent 250 in lumber and build this beauty:

I even covered it with some bedding I purchased but never used. While the bedding is gorgeous, I feel it would better go with tan walls, and I was not about to repaint:


So it sat for months, again, un painted, unstained, not sure what avenue I wanted to take really. Then I thought, well, the bed is a Pottery Barn inspiration, why not check out Pottery Barn bedding. Pottery Barn is NOT cheap by any means, but given the bed is a THOUSAND bucks on their site, I figured I could splurge on bedding.

And I did. I fell in love with the Sienna Paisley Duvet and Sham set:


I decided it was more than I wanted to pay, but then after a week of not purchasing it I said, well, you know what, I rarely splurge let me go ahead and impulse buy.
And one night, up later, with my bank card in hand, I did just that.

(Me, up late with a bank card is not a good idea, late nights make me less frugal) hehe. 338 bucks later (this was s&h and taxes included), the set was on it's way to me.

In the mean time I decided the craigs list dresser I bought originally for my sons sock monkey themed bedroom make over (that I am still in the process of finishing) was bigger than the retro dresser we currently have.

So I decided I would paint it white and re finish it for our room.

AND I did just that:





Then I decided I would finally go ahead and paint the farmhouse bed white to match (this weekend).

In the meantime my GOODNESS was Pottery Barn quick, the memo said I could expect my shipment to arrive April 4th. I almost didn't believe Mr. UPS when he greeted me with a package on April's Fool's Day ;)

Perfect! When it all comes together I know it will look incredible.

Now all that was left to do was find a down comforter for the duvet. I couldn't justify spending almost 200 on one at PB :( Nor at Kohl's, Target sounded tempting, but I ultimatley went with WalMart.com because I had a gift card and it was cheaper and the reviews were excellent, and for 60 bucks (less than that after I applied my gift card credits), I knew it would be the right choice.

SO, that being said, I plan to have a very busy weekend painting this bed, moving the dresser into our room, and starting to sand and stain the old one for Ethan's room. As soon as I finish his bed and dresser stain I will be ready to reveal his super cute low budget room renovation with a price breakdown. And I CAN NOT wait to re do ours and reveal. I'll need to buy a few accessories first, but it is just what I wanted :)

Craigslist Dresser Refurbish COMPLETED :)

I finally went outside today and spray painted the rest of those floral catastrophies with oil rubbed bronze, only I ran out of rustoleum, and Krylon was loads cheaper, so KRYLON oil rubbed bronze, you were my love today :)


Finally, complete!! Now I can start Ethan's!


(See previous blog for price break down and materials used). I really do love how this piece was transformed:)

Craigslist dresser RE DO all under 100 bucks!!

Once upon a time (last April) I bought a dresser off craigs list. It was solid wood, and for 65 bucks, it was a steal!

It was a cherry wood color, with ALL the scratches to compliment it (can't tell from my photo). My original plan had been to use it for my sons room. I sanded her down:

After I sanded it down, it sat for 8 months. YES, EIGHT FULL MONTHS.
Something about it just didn't scream "boys room" to me. And so for eight months she sat alone in our den until I was done painting Ethan's room one day last week and it hit me!

I thought, well we are painting our bed white, and our current dresser is retro (authentic 60's / 70's mod family hand me down) VERY VERY VERY nice, however, the drawers are so small.

It hit me then, that we'd use our old retro dresser for Ethan's room and I would paint this one WHITE to match the farmhouse bed and go with our new cottage bedroom.

PERFECT! This Sunday I put the last coats on it and she came out PERFECT! :)

Ignore the fact I didn't put all the pulls on yet. I was going to buy them off Ebay when it hit me again, WAIT, I don't have to go to a hardware store and spend 2 bucks or more a pop for new pulls, I have the old kitchen cabinet pulls that I saved when we switched out new pulls in our kitchen.

The previous owners had salmon pink walls and elderly people taste, these floral pulls were not my taste at all. I decided to scuff them up and spray paint them with rustoleum's oil rubbed bronse. PERFECT :)


I may fill in that shell design that is on so many pieces of 80's and 90's furniture with wood putty and paint it lol:)

I took my time doing this piece, and didn't cake on the paint, I made sure it would be a wonderful piece, so much infact the wood grain shows right through the paint :) I am so tickled pink!!

The top looks lighter due to the flash. Yes, I have spray paint and etc on my den carpet, don't worry it's my next room redo:) That carpet is so old it's probably original to the home.



Finally, complete!! Now I can start Ethan's!

I am so in love!! You can not touch a solid wood refinished piece for under 400 bucks by us. TRUST ME, i tried every thrift store in this city. They were selling ugly pieces (original beat up stain) for atleast that price.

Total cost breakdown:

*craigs list dresser - $65
*Olympic white semi gloss paint from lowes - $24
*Good paint brush - $13
*Dresser pulls - FREE (old cabinet pulls)
* Rustoleum oil rubbed bronze spray paint - (about 5 bucks had it laying around so FREE)
*Sand paper - $5

Total: $112
You just can't beat that price for a brand new piece of furniture! Can't wait to get this bedroom all together!

Pottery Barn Duvet & Shams: Master Bedroom

So, I decided with all the money we saved building the pottery barn farmhouse bed ourselves, via the plans on knock off wood I would splurge and purchase the duvet and sham set I had been eyeballing for over a year.

The bed cost us about 250 to build, it retails for over a thousand on pottery barn. (Thanks Ana!!) :D

It took me a few weeks of going back and forth deciding which set I wanted, but ultimatley, I decided on Sienna Paisley. More so because it has a splash of green. Even though our bed is a queen, I purchased the King size, so there will be no blanket hogging in the night lol.



After s&h & taxes it was $339.76 for the king duvet, two euro shams and one standard sham (OUCH) I know, but I figured since I never buy myself anything, this was a gift to myself.

Trust me, I tried hard to find online codes before I bit the bullet and spent that much. But to no avail. Too bad for pottery barn, as I intended to buy their down comforter for my duvet, however, I'll just get one at kohl's since right now I earn 10 bucks kohl's cash for every 50 I spent :) c'mon Pottery Barn, offer free shipping or something?? sheesh :) lol. Kohl's will just have to get my cash on that one :)

I spend Sunday painting the dresser white and she's all ready to go just needs some knobs or pulls. I'll paint the bed soon and then hopefully this bedroom will FINALLY be done! :) Oh, and did I mention I am ALMOST done with Ethan's sock monkey room? It's taken me long enough ;)