Old2New - Thrifted Sconce Shelves

Things that are currently making me happy: 

1. This video of Stephen Colbert telling the story about how he met his wife. Trust me, it's the most ADORABLE THING POSSIBLE!!!!! 

2. Devou Park in Covington, and the absolutely breathtaking view of the city you're treated to when visiting "The Lookout". 

and lastly...
3. These sconce shelves I saw at the thrift store, left behind, IMMEDIATELY went back to rescue after a day of deliberation, and now am sharing with YOU! 

They're heavy, kind of green, and just begging to be given new life. 

Primer + paint = DONE! 
I love the look of a traditionally classic piece, revamped in a sleek modern color. 

I picked up these matching vases at At Home - The Home Decor Superstore, which if you've never been, you're totally missing out. It's as if Home Goods and Sam's Club hooked up, had a baby, and that baby is a gigantic warehouse stuffed full of anything you'd ever want for your space.

Of course I enlisted Eric's help when it actually came time to hang them.
To finish things off, I tossed a few sprigs of yellow flowers into each vase, and just like that we're done! 

I love having a little sumtin' sumtin' flanking the window, and the pop of yellow against the wall is just perfect. 

So there you have it! 
Was this the most complicated project ever? No way. Does it fill me with joy? Absolutely!

With the addition of our new rug, and now these sconce shelves, bit by bit our living room is transforming into the bright and cheerful space I always dreamed of. 

Focus on what makes you happy people! 

Eric's...I mean...OUR Summer To-Do List

Summer is here and SCHOOL IS OUT! 

It's been years since I've been in school, but having a teacher as a husband makes these next few months especially sweet. Yes I envy that he gets to stay in bed and snooze while I have to go to work, but I wouldn't trade those early mornings for a classroom of students if my life depended on it.  

No freaking way. 

Eric doesn't rub it in too much. He usually gets out of bed when I do, has dinner ready in the evenings, and tries his best to keep the house somewhat tidy. One year I made him a "Eric's-home-for-the-summer-let's-get-sh*t-done!" list...but that didn't last too long. I'm pretty sure it's stuffed in the couch somewhere. 

Having his whole day open REALLY comes in handy when we're working on the house though. Last year he busted out our banister like a boss, and blew my mind with his craftsmanship skills.

This summer brings with it a whole new list of "To-Do's" that we plan on tackling, the biggest being our backyard makeover.

For a while now, we've been toying with the idea of building a pergola over our patio. The plan is to reshape the patio pavers into more of a rectangle, and define two eating and visiting areas. Although it's not 100% scaled to size, below is an example of what we're leaning towards.  

Eric's only requests is a "grilling station" and maybe an outdoor bar of some sort. Honestly, I just want a place to hang a chandelier and some breezy and beautiful curtains. 

Moving back indoors, something I am determined to complete is painting and recovering our dining room chairs. I originally brought this idea up last February when we finally bought some chairs, and vowed to begin eating dinner at the table and not in the living room. 
Yeah, that hasn't changed. 
Totally still in love with the contrast white chairs have when paired with a dark table. Fingers crossed it'll actually happen. 

Another project that's been simmering since January is our guest bedroom. Ever since we moved our old bed in, and a lot of the random junk out, it's actually appeared more like a bedroom and less like a storage space. 

Progress! 

I really want to do something dramatic with this room. I've been LOVING the trend of dark blue walls, especially when paired with jewel tones and natural textures. 

I've even been pondering the idea of only painting half of the wall. There is a strange slope to the ceiling, and bringing the ceiling color down on the walls may give it the illusion of normalcy. What do you think? 

The good thing is if we paint it the first way, and end up hating how it looks, we can just continue with the color and cover the entire wall.  

Other projects on the list include:

• Give all ceilings a fresh coat of paint 
• Find a bed frame for our bed (yes our mattress is STILL on the floor) 
• Headboards for our bed and the guest bed 
• Create a workbench and tool space for Eric in the basement 
• Organize the office 

But before every great storm there is a calm, and that calm is a family vacation to this place:

One week, completely off the grid. 

Trust me though, when we get back, that To-Do list is GOING DOWN FOR REAL! 

Nesting Tables Go Glam

So it has officially been a month since my last blog post. 

....

woops. 

Honestly, after plowing through so many projects before our party last month, we just haven't been that concerned with our To-Do List. That and our summer has been INSANELY busy so far. I think every weekend we have had something or another planned, which resulted in us blinking and BOOM it's basically August. 
Our community always has a huge picnic the first weekend in August, and as a kid I remember thinking how summer vacation was pretty much over after that. The Coldwater Community Picnic was the last "hoorah!" before we all had to go back to school. Well CCP is NEXT WEEKEND, and even though I'm not in school, and my schedule wont change at all no matter what season it is, it's still a bit sad. 

But enough dwelling on the end of Summer, here is what we accomplished during our vacation! Eric and I took a trip to visit our great friends in Delaware, then met up with my family in New Jersey. We spent a couple days exploring NYC, and then took a train and ended the week in Boston. 
It was an absolutely fantastic trip. I'm already planning another trip to NYC, and Eric definitely wants to go back to Boston.

My family is a crazy bunch of Segway professionals, don't try this at home. 

Once we got back, and into our normal routine, I was able to finish a project that has been neglected waiting patiently for me up in our guest room. 
Eric has been hauling these little nesting tables with him throughout college, our apartment, and now they have found themselves in our living room. They're a set of three, and actually have worked quite well as end tables. Their light oak color though did NOT match our current vibe, and were just begging for a makeover. 
I didn't snap a "before" picture, but I found this image online, and it's pretty close to what they originally looked like. 

After I lightly sanded them, they each got a coat of KILTZ primer. I found that a combination of using a brush to get into the tight corners, and then rolling over the tops and legs gave me a nice finish. 

Another couple coats of Simply White by Benjamin Moore, the same white we've been using on all of our trim, and these uninspiring wooden tables were looking pretty sharp!

Fast forward a few weeks, and I finally brought them outside for one more light sanding, and to be sealed. I first sprayed the largest and smallest table with Rust-Oleum Clear Gloss, but had other ideas for the middle one. I wanted to mix up the table tops so when they were stacked together you had some visual interest. After trying (and failing) to draw a herringbone pattern with a gold paint pen, I decided to spray the top of the entire table with Rust-Oleum Metallic Gold spray paint. 

I taped the top off with paper so no extra gold could drift onto the legs, then gave it a few even coats of paint. Once it was completely dry, I finished up with a few coats of the clear gloss to seal everything. 

I love love LOVE the pop of gold you see when the tables are all nested together! This has turned into quite the glam corner between the tables and my updated gold and white lamp.  

Now they don't look so out of place compared to the rest of the living room. 

It really does feel great to scratch another project off the To-Do List after our little hiatus. Hopefully it won't be so long before we can do it again!