Butler's Pantry

My kitchen pantry was a closet with a laminate door. After buying the house I installed wire shelving and have re-organized it more times than I care to count. When I used it as a food pantry, food would fall off the shelves and spill in the back where I would have to spend hours removing foodstuffs in order to clean it out. Then I tried putting my kitchen appliances inside, but the shelves couldn't handle the weight. I tried storing my cleaning supplies and my paper goods. It didn't matter how I tried to utilize the closet, it never worked.
When we decided to remodel the kitchen in order to make it more user friendly and to give it a more custom look, I was more than happy to sacrifice my frustrating pantry to the cause. My husband pulled out the shelves and removed the door and door jamb to the studs and sheetrock. Then he widened the opening to match the depth of the closet. He added a plywood arch and rock-tile and had a light wired into the ceiling of the closet.

This isn't exactly complete. The final stages including backsplash and hiding the electrical wires will take place as we finish the kitchen remodel. This is just one of the steps.

Theater Room

When we purchased our home it definitely had "character." I personally liked this about the home, but it also meant that there were some strange things about the design. One of the oddest was a large bedroom directly off the garage. The only way into the room was to walk through the two-car garage. This was extremely difficult to do once we had actual cars in the garage.

It took us quite a while to figure out what to do with the room. It started as an office that no one wanted to work in because it was dark and isolated. Then it was used as a workshop, but it was dark and too small. Then we tried using it as a workout room, but no one used it because it was dark and isolated and we don't really like working out all that much. I think you can see a pattern here. So then we started brainstorming ideas on what kinds of rooms work well with dismal lighting and being far away from the heart of the home. Bingo! A Theater Room.

There were several problems with the idea. Firstly, no one wanted to walk through the garage--even to watch a movie on a big screen. We also weren't sure what to do with the window. We tackled the first problem by giving up enough of our garage to build a hallway to the room.

We solved the second problem by constructing faux columns along the walls and placing padded fabric panels in between the columns. That way we could leave the window, but the fabric panels hid it and did a fabulous job blocking out all light.

We always construct on an extreme budget, so opted to put in a projector (much cheaper than a large plasma) and construct a screen on the wall. We built the back of the room up by one step so we could put in a mini-snack bar since we didn't want food everywhere.

The room was too narrow and our budget too small to accommodate theater room seats, so we put a comfy couch with big ottomans below the snack bar. Eventually we found a great overhead microwave at a garage sale to install over the fridge for popping popcorn.

We wired for surround sound, and made sure to insulate every step, column, ceiling and wall--otherwise the sound will crash around your room. The total cost for the entire project came in at just under $5000, but took many weeks and lots of elbow grease.

One regret--we put the audio-visual components behind the snack bar, so the remote controls won't work when you're sitting on the couch. If you're tackling this type of project, make sure you can run all your gadgets from the seating area.

Teen Surf Room

My son wanted a fun room that was also grown up. He settled on a surf-shack theme with the stipulation that we didn't go the the darkside with a Honolulu cheesy tourist theme. Thankfully we're surrounded by incredibly talented men. My husband cut surfboards out of plywood, and my brother-in-law painted them. He also painted the palm tree that hovers over the bed. Thanks to a fabulous deal on a bed-in-a-bag at Walmart.com, the theme felt complete.

We included a book nook using a boat shaped bookcase that I picked up at a garage sale. The boat was painted hunter green and better suited to a cabin theme, but a couple of coats of turquoise spray paint and it looks ready to paddle across the North Shore. And we added a few vintage berometers that I also picked up at garage sales.

Take a look--let me know what you think!

Haunted Bedroom

In honor of Halloween, I'm showing off the Harry Potter bedroom that has recently been dismantled to make room for the sports room (pictures on that later). This was a great theme we did on an amazing budget. I picked up the bedding and throw pillows at a garage sale, then kept my eyes peeled for accessories that worked with the theme. It's amazing what you can find once you have an idea in place.
The lamps were also a garage sale find. Wrought iron curled like a spell had been placed on them. We found the stack of books (really a clever treasure box) at another yard sale. And the chilly accessories you see on the magic shelves came straight from an upscale home decor store, but I picked them up on the 75% off after-Halloween sale. The curtains were purchased as separate sets of panels in the famed Griffindor colors that I paired together.
Finally, the headboards were my husband's brilliant brainchild. He found plastic gates at the Habitat for Humanity store (where new and used items are donated) and welded brackets so that they would attach to the bedframes. He also hung the Hedwig--which is really just a throw pillow--from the ceiling using chain from a hardware store.

The overall effect is a happily haunted hideout with a price tag of just under $200.

Room Fit for A Princess

I had to show off my daughter’s princess room. It transitioned easily from a baby room to a little girl’s room. Once again my super talented brother-in-law painted the beautiful mural.


My mom made the bedspread. We picked fabric with multiple colors to give us more colors to work with. I don’t suggest jumping into a licensed theme (like I did with the Harry Potter room) unless you either got major components of the room for dirt cheap or you really can’t achieve the look without using a licensed character, but bear in mind that you’ll pay more for everything and have less choices along the way. My daughter wanted Disney Princesses, but I achieved a comparable princess look without the price tag.

The bedspread was made so that it was fitted at the foot of the bed. This was shear genius on my mother’s part. It makes the bed look tidy and a child can easily make the bed without the bedding being lopsided or hanging off the side unevenly. Wish every bedspread was fitted.

First of all, let me explain that I am the Garage Sale Genie. I’ve never had any sort of super-powers before but, when it comes to finding what I want at a bargain I’m amazing—seriously. If I want something, give me six months and I will find it—generally at 80-90% off retail. So, when I set out to do a princess room I made my wish list and garage-sale/thrift store/craigslist shopped my way to it.

The curtains were new in the package for $7. I bought them off the lawn of a lady who had made a regrettable purchase and was now willing to unload it for a bargain. The color would only have worked in a juvenile room, but they came with the panels, the valence and the tie backs. I added pink sheers that I already owned and we had a fairy tale window.

I wanted pink heart-shaped pillows for the bed and I almost bought furry ones at Walmart during Valentine’s Day, but then I found them at a garage sale. Again they were brand-new and had the cutest rosettes all over them. I liked them way better than the furry pillows I had considered. People sell a ridiculous amount of brand new stuff.

The Barbie dressing table was another used purchase that works so well in the room. My husband made the table and chairs. The glass shelving unit came out of a commercial store. Commercial displays are a surprising furniture pieces in the right room.

I think we really pulled off the princess-look for the room. Best of all, when she gets older she can use the glass shelves for a Barbie condo—I always wanted one when I was a kid.

Bar Stool Makeover

I picked up these bar stools at a garage sale. They were price at $25 each and I picked them up for $20 each. I only needed four stools and they wanted to sell these as a set of five which was perfect. When you're buying a used set of items it's always nice to snag an extra--especially if you want a matching set and you're purchasing furniture. These are swivel bar stools with one ruined cushion so I now have extra hardware (from the extra bar stool) that I can use to make sure all the stools are in working order. I also liked that the cushions were covered in vinyl. It's easiest to recover seats if you don't have to remove the original fabric, and the cushions will keep their shape better. And it saves tons of money if you don't have to include an upholstery shop in your makeover.

Prior to purchasing the stools, I inspected them and made sure that the seats detached easily so that I could recover the cushions myself. I love neutral colored furniture with easy-to-recover cushions because then you can change them out multiple times depending on where you're using the piece. The other thing I noticed is that they were DIRTY!

I took them home, attacked them with my screw gun, removed the seats and scrubbed them within an inch of their life. These were obviously used in the kitchen and rarely wiped down. There was enough food on them to stick small children to the seats permanently. Ice cream had dripped down the legs and jam was petrified under the armrests. I also had to scrub the seats and let them dry overnight because the leftovers would have attracted ants if I had just put my new fabric over them.

When you re-do garage sale finds, you have to be okay with vintage finishes. No matter how hard you try, there will be signs of wear that can't be erased. Although my plan is to repaint the iron, a lot of finish had been rubbed off and I wasn't sure how well the paint would adhere in the long run. Also, we had to try several finishes to find a stain that would adhere to the back of the stools where the stain had been rubbed off, so it's not perfect and I'm okay with that.

The final step was to recover the seats with my new fabric and my trusty staple gun. A few screws and the seats were back in place.

This project took about nine hours to complete with a final pricetag of $121. The fabric cost $9.20 for 2 yards and it took two cans of flat black spray paint. I used stain that I already owned and I have about 1/2 yard of fabric and 1/2 can of spray paint leftover to use on another project.

80's Denim Redo

Whenever I spend a Saturday on the Garage Sale circuit I always leave with the belief that American's could clothe the world with their cast offs. So there's tons of things to pick from, and since most are priced between 25 cents and a couple of dollars, you can't go wrong--even if your do-over goes wrong.

This is the denim dress that we all wore in a past decade. It wasn't missing any buttons, but they all got stitched back on (more securely this time) while I was catching up on Grey's Anatomy. I bought a size bigger than I wear and went to town.

I cut it off to make it into the kind of shirt dress that's being shown in the magazines for fall. Then I fitted it so that the skirt had more "swing." I finished off by purchasing 48 cents worth of leopard print cotton fabric (and I have a lot left over), and ironed it on over the pockets to add a little detail to the dress. It looked great with boots and a belt that was already in my closet.

Prom Dress to Skirt

I loved Nicole Kidman's wardrobe in Bewitched. Although I'm not normally that romantic of a dresser, I was especially taken by the full skirts she wore in the movie. (Not my image--owned by the studios and all that.)

I decided to embrace the full skirt by making a special occasion skirt out of an old prom dress. I picked the prom dress up at a thrift store for $8.

It's a bad picture, but the dress was burgundy and had a stretch-velore top with a satin skirt. This transformation took more sewing skill than I possess, so I enlisted my mom. She helped me remove the top, create a waistband and shorten the skirt by approximately 10 inches. I LOVE the end result. Now I have a grownup special occasion skirt.

Magazine Wallets Twilight Style

I made these a while ago and I'm just getting them posted. I'm a couponer. Whew--finally out of the closet on that one. Anyway, I love food coupons, those loyalty cards that earn you free sandwiches and burritos, and gift cards that come free with a purchase. They take up too much room in my wallet, but I have to carry the darn things around or I never use them. Hence--the coupon wallet.
It's made out of scrapbooking paper, but can also be made out of magazine pages, family photos or whatever paper interests you. This is one I made in honor of the New Moon movie opening--which leads to another embarassing admission that I am a Twilighter. I'm also a Harry Potter and Fablehaven fan so I guess I'm at least 20% geek. My sister (Team Jacob) uses hers as a full on wallet.

Thanks to a great tutorial I found from my friends at Craftster.com, this wallet came together pretty easily. You just need an 8 1/2 x 11 double sided sheet of paper and a plastic sheet protector. I tweeked mine with an additional credit card holder, but that's completely optional. Hope you like it!!

Jewelry Displays from the Kitchen

Okay, so there's been a little time between posts. Mainly that's because I've been off looking for stuff secondhand. It's remarkably time consuming but equally fun. It's amazing what you can find when you dig in and go for it. I've got several projects underway and I'm asking all my family and friends to turn in their great projects too so I hope this blog will give you more great ideas from more creative brains than mine.

This one is a no brainer--I think. I only own the cheap costume-type jewelry, but that doesn't keep me from feeling like a celebrity when I pick out my accessories in the morning. I shopped my house and a couple of garage sales and came up with some beautiful ways to display my jewelry.

I have my earrings hanging on tiered plate holders and yes, the plate holder does double duty and is used at parties for actual plates. The other one is a tiered bowl set for fruit. I picked up the glass bowls, dishes and a funky rotating mirror that reminds me of a disco ball at garage sales. My bracelets, rings and pins are all displayed like pieces of art. I used fabric left over from my curtains (when I shortened them) as the backdrop. I have mine in an entertainment center shelf, but it would look beautiful on top of a dresser too.

I wanted a shelf in my daughter's bedroom, but true to character I didn't want to pay for it. So I hunted the garage sales and came up with these two possibilities for a couple of bucks each.

Can't you just picture roosters on these gems? I bought both because I wasn't sure what size I wanted in the room. Eight long coats of paint and $6 for new glass drawer knobs later and I had a great shelf that could grow with my daughter. The glass knobs will hold her necklaces long after the dolls have been packed in boxes. Total cost for the project $10 with a shelf leftover for another project. I could have spent a lot more for some beautiful glass prismic knobs and it would have been like hanging a piece of art, but it wasn't going into MY room! Repainting a shelf and changing out the hardware is a quick and easy project with nice results.

Buttons into Magnets

This is a project shared by my mother--the queen of creativity. She's also just as bad as me about throwing anything away so she had a drawer full of button earrings that were as outdated as shoulder pads. So she took the earrings, removed the posts, attached magnets to the back and repurposed them. Aren't they beautiful?

Outdated pins and vintage buttons would also look amazing as refridgerator magnets.

Repurposed Chandelier

I bought this light fixture off of the nicest man one rather cold morning. It was probably the brisk air that made the price so low--he wanted to sell everything and get back in to his cup of coffee I'm sure. He was thrilled that I could use the fixture and told me all about the dining room that held the white flowered light. That's the thing about garage sales. You meet nice people who are truly happy when you can use something that they've gotten their use out of. So I picked it up for $4 and took it home.

The entire lamp, including the lampshades had been painted with a white textured paint so that it looked like it was covered in white sand. Once you paint lampshades with a heavy paint like that, they no longer glow, so the lampshades were unusable. I knew that when I first looked at them and so I automatically knew that they would have to be replaced and I budgeted for it.
What I really wanted in my family room was a red chandelier. So initially I painted the entire fixture red, but it lacked dimension and didn't look special. So I painted the candlestick holders flat black and misted the entire fixture with gold fleck paint. Then I purchased six brand new gold lampshades for $45. The end result was exactly what I wanted.

I Had No Idea My Child Was This Exceptional

I about had a heart attack when I received a notice in my son’s backpack declaring that, because he tested so highly on his CRT’s (not sure what that stands for exactly), he is eligible for the Gifted and Exceptional Student Program.  Bear in mind that this notice was marked “Third and Final Notification”, which means that my son’s backpack ate the last two notices, and that the paper was wrapped around a dirty sock that he was carrying around in his bag.

This is the same child that got worked up about doing a Science Fair project last year.  He was so excited that I honestly believed that some fabulous teacher had finally sparked an interest where one didn’t exist previously, and so I rushed out and bought stick on letters, poster-board and other stuff totaling $35 earmarked for “higher education.”  We worked on the project for a couple of nights before my husband casually asked his son why he was so excited about doing the Science Fair this year.  Our son beamed from ear to ear and said, “Because my teacher promised us a 2-litre bottle of any soda we want if we enter the Science Fair.”  My husband laughed and said, “I’ll buy you any soda you want, you don’t need your teacher to buy it for you.”  Needless to say, we didn’t enter a project that year because his interest evaporated faster than a bottle of Root-beer.

But if the school thinks he’s exceptional, then who am I to disagree?  The questionnaire simply asked me to site specific examples of times when my son showed an unusual affinity or enthusiasm for an academic project that was unusual for his age.  It gave examples such as, “has your child gotten so involved with a project that he gives up other pleasures in order to work on it?”  Unless you count the time that he sat through the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy without so much as a bathroom break, I couldn’t think of an example.  As a matter of a fact, I couldn’t come up with any examples for any of the questions asked.  The bottom line is that my kid isn’t gifted.  He’s just a typical kid with a strong competitive streak.  If you turn it into a competition, then he wants to win—and tests are just competitions.

I thought about lying to the school.   I daydreamed about hanging out with the other football moms and casually mentioning a few thousand times that, not only did my son just make that amazing tackle, but he’s also an exceptionally gifted student.  I’ve never had anything to brag about in the circle of moms before.  They brag and I’m generally left to tell some ridiculous story about how I ended up in the emergency room after my brilliant offspring engaged in a “rock fight” and had to have $695 worth of stitches.  

I almost did it.  I almost made up a few phenomenal stories, but I just couldn’t do it.  We are boringly normal.  I don’t need CRT tests to tell me that.