Monday, August 29, 2011

The File Cabinet Makeover

I bought a file cabinet at Goodwill for $8 in January. It's been sitting upstairs in my spare bedroom since. I haven't even bought folders to organize and file things, everything is just sitting in the drawers like a mess. There were things piled on it, in front of it, it just was not being used to it's full potential.

I told you it wasn't pretty! But not to fear, I had big plans for this little file cabinet.

 In my kitchen I had a cheap brown cabinet from Target that was being used to hold the printer and also to collect junk. I'm not joking basically any random things we didn't feel like dealing with got tossed in there. It was a mess.

 Yikes, not fun to clean out, but it felt good to get rid of all the junk, which is what most of it was. 

I decided to move this little cabinet upstairs to our bedroom for some more storage and the file cabinet would go in the kitchen and hold the printer and we'd actually be able to file things away on a regular basis instead of having it all pile up and be unmanageable. I know it makes so much sense, right?

But I decided that the file cabinet needed a little sprucing because it was a really fugly shade of beige. I picked out a nice sunny yellow color that would be sure to brighten up my kitchen


I just did one coat of primer, which just helps the spray paint stick better, and two coats of the yellow spray paint. It worked out fabulously, and I loved the result, although it was impossible to get a good picture that did the color justice. All the pictures I took either looked really dark or neon, weird I know.

I promise it doesn't look quite that neon in person. After a couple of hours of sorting through stacks of papers and a couple trips to Target for folders, I finally managed to get all of my important documents organized.
And I even had room to store some craft supplies in the top drawer. All in all I would say it was a pretty great success. I love when I can move things around the house to maximize my space instead of having to buy something new.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Good times at Goodwill

It's been awhile since I've gone to a Goodwill to shop. I regularly drop things off after doing a purge of my house. The last time I went I was looking for a file cabinet and I was successful, finding one for only $8.

This trip I was looking for anything I could repurpose. I ended up coming home with a barstool, 4 picture frames, a glass vase, a candle holder and a lamp all for $30! I was super impressed with myself.

My first projects were one of the frames which I decided would be perfect for the print that I have from the Grand Canyon, and the lamp.

Here's what these guys looked like before I got my hands on them.






They were a little worse for the wear, but I knew it wouldn't take much to spruce them up. So I headed over to Lowe's and picked out some spray paint. I decided to do a basic white for the frame and a shade of blue for the lamp


It took a couple of coats to get them looking good, but I was very happy with the result!
















Monday, August 15, 2011

DIY projects

I'm in need of some. I LOVE decorating my house, it's one of my favorite hobbies which I really got into when I started working at Pier 1. Problem is, a lot of the stuff there is pretty spendy, and right now I'm trying to save as much as possible while trying to make my house look like a beautiful home. So I have decided I am in need of some DIY projects. I've found some cool ideas that seem relatively easy to do, I just need to find the pieced to work with.


I think tomorrow I'm going to go scouting at Goodwill for some potential projects. There are two Goodwills here in Lacey, so I'm pretty optimistic. One of the things I will be looking for is a picture frame I can paint. I have this beautiful print that I bought at the Grand Canyon, right now it's just sitting on top of my DVD shelves, not really anything special, but I think I want to move it up to my bedroom and put it in a nice frame.

Another is this,


I think it's such a cute idea, and I need a statement piece to either go over my bed, or over my couch in the living room, I haven't decided yet.

Also, it would be great to find some nice bed side tables I can repurpose.

Hopefully I can accomplish some of these while the husband is gone, I'm almost done with the baby blanket I've been knitting and I really need some new projects. I'll update when I find some pieces to work with!