Project Office/Craft Space Makeover: my {kinda} new desk!

Hi everyone! Oh my gah...I know I've been MIA, but as I mentioned this is the busiest time of year at my job, so I'm always swamped at work, working overtime, coming home to take care of the munchkin & then exhausted, so I tend to pass out on the couch pretty early. I'm tired right now - ugh, but I need to get this post up since I've been telling myself I would do it over the last few days. I CANNOT wait till this fiscal year comes to a close & I can breathe a little. Anyways, I want to say sorry again for leaving y'all hanging..hang in there with me, would ya? After September 30th, I'm back in full effect - promise! And & I'll have TONS of Fall DIY projects to share since the munchkin's birthday is pumpkin themed & I'm doing most of the decor! Plus I have munchkin's 10-11 month updates & more WIWBW!!

So today I want to share my first B-I-G project for my office/craft space makeover...my desk! Here she is today in all her painted, distressed, new hardware mixed with old hardware glory:

 
Sorry for the crappy lighting - it was in the evening in the basement, so umm, yeah - the lighting sucked! But what do you think? I lurve the way it turned out....remember what it looked like before?

It was actually in decent condition overall, just needed a face lift - now it looks fab!

And here's how I did it... I started out by removing all the drawer pulls, filling the top three drawer pull holes in with wood filler, then sanding her up real good by hand. I sanded just enough that the finish was scuffed up & ready to take on the paint:

I wiped the sanding dust off with a damp cloth to prep it for painting. And speaking of paint, I used Antique White Glidden paint from Walmart, which is sort of a creamy white with a slight antique'y {I know, not a word} tint to it. I used the interior, semi gloss 2-in-1 paint + primer so that I didn't have to do a separate primer coat. I also used a small foam roller & a brush to get in all the cracks & crevices. I think I did about 2-3 coats & the whole painting project - from setup to cleanup - took me about 3 hours. But I'm a little neurotic when I paint, I have to make sure every inch of the piece, wall, whatever looks uniform, so it might take a non-neurotic normal person a little bit less time to paint.

Then, I let the paint dry about 2 days - 24 hours probably would have been sufficient, but I didn't get to it in exactly 24 hours, so my desk had 48 hours to dry completely. ::wink:: After that, I started distressing with both  fine and  rough sanding blocks. I found that the fine one took for.ever to get the parts distressed to my liking, so I started with the rough & softened/finished with the fine block. I basically just distressed in the normal places you'd expect on worn in pieces - corners, near the bottoms, along the edges, on the drawer corners. Then I put the old antique brass hardware on the bottom six drawers & put my awesome birdie knobs on the top three. Love the knobs?! I bought 'em from Etsy seller RiRi Creations - Rita's super nice, the knobs are totally cute & affordable & they shipped fast!

Oh & I finished up the project by adding contact paper that I had left over from covering the bottom of the master bath vanity cabinets. It's nice & neutral, so it works perfectly in the drawers - sorry forgot to snap a pic. So that's it! Definitely wasn't as hard, expensive or time consuming as I thought it would be...I probably spent about maybe $50 total on this project, including the cost of the desk & knobs! Awesome. And I love how it turned out - exactly what I was looking for, woo!

Wanna see my office/craft space progress from the beginning?! Check out the sad before - more to come soon :) Hope you enjoyed this installment of Project Makeover. 'Till next time!

Project Office/Craft Space Makeover: a sad "before"

Hi there friends! I'm finally ready to announce my newest DIY/D&R makeover project series...as I'm sure you can surmise from the title of this post, it's my office/craft space! It's a space in my house that has long been neglected & this revamp is WAAAAAY overdue. I originally planned to work on this space before the munchkin was born conceived, but clearly that didn't happen, so I'm starting now! Better late than never right?!

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with crafting & decorating as much as I used to - I think I took a break because I was adjusting to my new life as a mama, but my daughter's starting to get older & get into more of a predictable routine, so I'm slowly {but surely} returning to my crafting roots ::fist pump::, lol. So, my office/crafting area is just a tiny area of the basement (aka my husband's mancave, which I'm sure he's thrilled to share with his amazing wife) in my very small house. Before the munchkin was born, I had my office & craft stuff in her room (the former office/guest/craft room), but once I got pregnant we had to clean it out & get it set up as a nursery. When we do buy a bigger house, I'm definitely making sure I have a suitable crafting room. Sigh. I *wish* that I had an entire room like some of you luckies out there, but alas, I do not & so I'm working with what I got....

Here are a few before shots of my very sad craft space (please excuse the photo quality, took them on my iPhone right before I started the desk cleanup):

I'm totally embarrassed to post photos of the sad, sad state of my office area, but the time has come! This is a view of the desk/printer area & a closeup of my cluttered desktop. Remember this post from oh, about a year ago, regarding my CL find. Got this desk for $25 last February & then I got preggo. The hubbs kept saying he would re-do my desk, but he never did (figures!) & now, over a year later, I'm finally gonna give some new life to this little beauty!

I'd also like to re-finish the side table we have the printer sitting on to match all the espresso/dark wood colors the hubbs has in the basement already.

And ideally, I'd also like to see some wall storage hung over my desk & I'd lurve to have those frames cluttering my desk come off & go somewhere else, which brings me to my next & final (told y'all it was a small space) before photo...

The misc. junk corner, which I have claimed as a part of my office/crafty space. In this area, I'd like to loose the chair; although, my original thought was to re-do that too, add a cute chair cushion & have a little coordinating chair for my desk. But, I have an awesome, comfy computer chair with wheels & I love it, so I'm gonna stick with that for now. And since I hate clutter {& we are running out of storage space}, this little guy's gotta go. I'll be Freecycling him sometime soon. After I get rid of the chair, I'm going clean up the space & add some storage, likely a book shelf, in that area.

I'd love to see the entire basement painted & am working on the hubbs to make it happen, but he hates painting, so it may take a little while! Or it may never happen because we wanna sell our casa...I'd love it if we just sold & never painted downstairs, but we all know how the market is! Anyway, I'm not letting that slow me down - I will finish this project & I will do it before munchkin's birthday party on October 15th. That means I only have a small amount of time to finish...follow along on my newest D&R/DIY project, won't cha?! And wish me luck, I'll need it!! 'Till next time!

My awesome CL find!

I apologize for being a bit absent from the blog. We are doing fine, but I have been super busy at work & have had a lot weighing on my mind lately. And, unfortunately, I haven't been DIY'ing or crafting as much, so I'm sometimes at a loss on what to post. But, one thing I have been working on lately is finding a newish desk to refinish or paint. I was looking for a desk that met the following criteria:

1. Cheap
2. Wood
3. Ability to fit in a small space, but have sufficient storage space.
4. Cheap (opps, did I mention that already?!)

So, off to Criag's List I went to search the hundreds of desks posted there every day & I saw a cute, small desk that looked perfect for my project! And, the best part about it?! It was only $25 for the desk & a small wood chair that came with it! So, I shot the seller an email & couldn't believe she actually still had it for that price. We headed over a couple days later to scoop up this awesome find. Oh, the awesomeness...can't take it. Behold:

 (This is the seller's image)

Isn't it so cute?! Doesn't it have so much potential?! I'm excited for several reasons about this, but mainly b/c it's the first piece of furniture I'll be re-doing for my house, yipee!! So, in the next few days, I need to decide if I want to re-finish or paint it, pick out colors, then get to sanding. It'll be going in our basement, at the bottom of the stairway & I have lots 'o plans for this to be my new & improved craft area. A huge step up from my current one, which is basically just a blue plastic bin at the end of my guest bed (I'll have to take a pic of that one day for you guys), lol. I'll keep you guys appraised of the situation! And, thanks for hanging in there with me...I hope to have more exciting things to blog about soon!

Man oh man...Thanksgiving is over!

Wow. That's all I can say is wow. Thanksgiving is over - actually it was over hmmm, 3 days ago. I apologize for JUST now getting around to writing this post, but I have been extremely busy for several reasons...mainly I was cleaning & cooking non-stop until Thursday night at about 10:30pm. I am happy to report that I got all of the things on my Thanksgiving to do list done by the time the big day rolled around, got all the food cooked. And everything was huge success!

My husband's family arrived on Thursday morning about 9:30am & I hadn't started cooking the hot food yet, but I was up soooooo late on Wednesday night finishing up the MBath cleaning & general house cleaning, then the cooking of the sweet potato pie, potato salad & cranberry sauce, so I decided a little sleep in time was in order. Anyways, I got started on that stuff shortly after they left to go check in to their hotel & chill out until it was time for dinner, which I said would be served at 4pm. Guess what?!?! Everything was DONE by 4pm! That never happens in the House of Dennifer! I'm usually a little behind, so that alone makes me very happy. Second thing that makes me happy: everyone LOVED all the food I made, yay!! I was hoping everything would turn out great & I guess it did! Woot. Now, on to my holiday planning/shopping/decorating - much to the chagrin of my hubby! I was at Michaels for about an hour today stocking up on some great crafty stuff for my holiday decor! Inspiration pics coming soon to a blog near you. :o)

The CRAZIEST part of this whole weekend though....Black Friday. Yep, that's right - we braved the stores (well, store) & got my hubby his new lova:

Yep...we are now the proud owners of this lovely new 40" flat screen. The hubbs was soo happy to finally get a TV for his man cave (the basement). It was seriously one of the the craziest things I think I have ever done! We literally got to the Target parking lot @ 11:10pm. We were the only ones there, but more people started showing up by 1am & so at 1:30am, we got out of my warm, comfy Stella (my *new* SUV) & went to sit on the cold pavement in front of Target. It is probably the only thing we will be purchasing for down there for a while. And I also scored a digital photo frame for $30, so it worked out for both of us!

In other news, the master bath is DONE, but we have had a little hold up with the over toilet storage unit - a bag of dowels we needed are missing (& HD/Lowes don't carry the size we need), so we had to contact Overstock for the replacements - takes 2 business days for a response...still waiting to hear back. So, once we figure out everything with that, then the hubbs will put it up & I will finally be able to post some after pics! Worth.the.wait...believe me. My husband is summoning me upstairs since we have to be up in 5 hours for work tomorrow - ugh...the end of long weekends SUCK.