My First Blog!

Hello internet! After years of reading blogs and getting so much inspiration I finally decided to add some of my own projects to the blogosphere. My name is Elizabeth and I have been a DIY, crafter, thrifter whatever girl for as long as I can remember. I see things at the store or in catalogs and I always tell my husband why pay so much for that when I Could Just Make It? So that's what I do. I make things in the most frugal way possible. My husband loves how cheap I am. My projects are all over the place, often taking on totally new things that I have never tried before. I accomplish these things with the moral support of my husband who always reminds me that I am "good at things" when I hit a roadblock and am feeling down, and also with the help and usually tools of my amazing dad. My dad has done a little bit of everything so he is the first place I go when I want advice on how to make a picture in my head become reality. He's my Google. Anyway enough about me, here is my first project.  And since I am new to the whole blogging thing please forgive me if it takes me some time to figure out how to do stuff! Unfortunately I decided to feature this piece of furniture after it was already finished so there are no awesome before pictures, which sucks because I love a good before and after! Anyway here she is and in case anyone is wondering I will give you a little insight on how she came to look this way.

You can still see the drill on top hehe

So the hubster and I have been calling it "The Thing" because we're not really sure what purpose it was originally intended for. the very top knob pull out a shelf like thing, kind of like a keyboard tray on a computer desk except you cant store anything on it. my dad says it is for entertaining and it gives you extra space to put out food or whatever. Anyway. There is a sticker on the back from Pier 1 but I found her at a local thirift store for 12.99. She started out with ridges on the front and when I bought her I wasn't in love with them but wasn't sure what to do with it but still wanted the furniture. It's nice to have something that is taller and sturdier than most of the end table I have seen around (this is next to our couch btw) since we have a large rambunctious puppy who has ruined more than a few things by knocking drinks over on our current coffee table/ottoman. So. That is her practical purpose and I had to move a chair to make room for her but that's how I convinced the husband we needed her. Now onto how I made her more stylish. First I thought I would have to buy new wood to make new drawer fronts and that was not an ideal solution since it would cost more than I paid for the thing. I told my dad this plan and being the experienced man that he is took one look at it and said I could unscrew the current drawer fronts and turn them around! He says these things and afterwards I feel like DUH! why didn't I think of that? But I never do. Maybe I don't try hard enough to find my own solutions since I know I can just ask him how to do it. That's something I need to work on. The main reason I run to him right away is that yeah I can probably figure out how to do stuff but he usually knows the right or at least a better way. His way is usually easy or just looks better. Ok sorry if I am a rambler! I will try to learn as I continue with this blogging business. So I unscrewed the drawer fronts and turned them over. I filled in the old screw holes with wood putty, sanded and painted them a glossy black that I had in the garage and matches pretty closely to the rest of the piece. At first I was thinking I would paint them a fun color like Aqua or Salmon or something but I got these cute cup pulls from Martha Stewarts line at Home Depot (my favorite store after Target) and they looked so good against the solid black. I sanded them a little after the paint dried so they wouldn't look like they just got a fresh coat of paint. but I couldn't just leave them black. that seemed so boring. I just went on a long rant about my kitchen but I deleted it for your sake and will save it for another post about my kitchen. That will have to wait till I clean it. Long story short, my inspiration for this piece came from the pattern I painted on my kitchen wall. phew. Just avoided a very long tangent. Here you can see a couple of pictures of my kitchen. I used a template from Jones Design and cut it out of mat board. 

In the kitchen I did a double line but on the thing I decided to do it single. I taped all of the drawer fronts together using painters tape on the back and then drew my pattern on. I painted the design using a 1/2" artist paint brush and some leftover grey paint from our master bedroom. I knew saving that tiny bit of paint would come in handy someday! I let that dry and then held up my cup pulls...Didn't love it anymore. when it was plain black the cup pulls gave it cool industrial look but now they didn't work. I needed something more exotic. So I went on the hunt. I went to Anthro and Home Depot and finally found some that I thought would work better at Cost Plus World Market. (I love that place) But I got home and still couldn't decide. I even considered using the original pulls that were on it that I had hated at first! My husband thinks I am crazy. Then I decided to put it back together and then decide. So I put one option on the bottom drawer and another option on the middle drawer and when I put them into the thing they looked great! both styles together. So that is the story of how the thing came to have mismatched pulls and I love them. Now, getting them to fit was a whole nother story. I drilled new holes for them and put them in and they weren't long enough to fit through the front and the drawer. So after pouting for a minute and almost giving up and saying I'll just wait till my dad can help me, I got an idea from the way I put the screws in. My dad has recently taught me of how easy it is to counter sink screws and while the screws I used for this project do it by themselves, I thought I could counter sink the nuts for the drawer pulls since they were so close to fitting. So I took the biggest drill bit that My husband has (which is soooo dull btw and not all that big, it's 1/2") and I drill into the hole that the bolt part of the pull would be going through until I could get it in far enough to screw the nut on. I chucked the washers that came with them and here is a picture, it is hard to see but just in case you were wondering. I could paint it all black but it's the inside of a drawer so who cares?

oh and as I was putting it all together I realized that I am not the smartest person in the world and I had to re-paint the top piece because it was upside down when I painted it the first time. ugh. I hate when I do stuff like that. And it's a lot. Well there you have it! Congratulations are in order if you made it through this long-winded  post!