Navy navy navy (beans?)

Guess what? It is another post about my house. Lucky you?

Last Christmas we got an awesome TV and since then it has been hanging out on a Lifetime folding table... which isn't so awesome. I knew what I wanted for a TV stand - a dresser with the top drawer removed and a shelf in its place. Nothing too specific right? Ha. But I am cheap and lazy so I never got around to finding what I wanted at a price I was willing to pay. But luckily I have awesome friends who, when they found out my TV stand dreams, sold me the dresser they don't really use.

It went from this:

To this:

I could have left it cream but it wasn't the prettiest against my yellowish-cream walls and I really was itching for something navy. So navy it became!

I wish I could have kept the original hardware as it was pretty and ornate but one of the handles was broken so I had to replace them all. Luckily brushed silver looks great against navy.

My hot husband installing the shelf.

It was a lot of fun to work on this project with my husband - he made the shelf, drilled holes in the back (so cords could be plugged in), and fixed problems with the drawers. I'm so so so happy to have a real TV stand!

The view from my couch. Awww... perfect! Well, except for the husband's backpack in my shot... :)

Color

I really love color. It makes me happy. My house is slowly becoming a hodgepodge of color. Whenever I start a new project I always think of a new color I want to use... so basically my house isn't color coordinated but not-matching is totally in right now, right? Right? 

Here is a chalkboard I made months and months ago (I'm really good at posting on this blog... obviously... *sheepish face*). Isn't it great? I love how big it is. It was originally intended to help my menu planning endeavors but since I just painted directly over a textured painting, it isn't the greatest at erasing... so I just leave it be. I still love it. Also, this is one of the aforementioned wall hangings in my kitchen/dining area.

See, here is what it looks like over my table.

Here are my coral and white curtains (also made months and months ago). I usually get sick of prints pretty quickly (as far as home decor goes) so I wanted these to mostly be solid with only an accent of a print in the hopes that I wouldn't get sick of them within 6 months. So far so good. I still love them. Also, half-off sales are the only way to buy home decor fabric. That stuff ain't cheap (or maybe I just am...).

Does anyone else have a really hard time photographing curtains?

Lastly (for now), is this awesome pillow cover I made only a few weeks ago (surprised it wasn't months ago? me too). If you saw this post you may have caught a glimpse of it in the background. Cute huh? I attached a doily to some mustard yellow fabric and had instant craft gratification.

Speaking of Chairs...

I realized after posting my freecycle chairs that I never shared pictures of my kitchen chairs on this blog. I have a matching set of four, two of which are cream and slightly boring (one pictured below), but the two that I painted last summer are pistachio green and are awesome.

I promise there is a 4th chair, but I keep it in my sewing room.

I sure love color. And having chairs to sit on whilst eating my dinner and/or using my computer. Life is good. :)

Also, I promise my kitchen/dining area isn't as boring as it looks in this picture (I have two whole wall hangings... so it is slightly less boring than it looks). I guess my decorating style could be defined as: functional + simple + color + cheap (but not necessarily in that order). Plus, I can't be bothered with staging photos to make things look cuter than they appear.

I totally labored on Labor Day

Wanna see what I finally finished? These awesome chairs. Last summer we got them from freecycle but the seats were busted. I wasn't in a rush to finish them but didn't realize it would take me basically a year to actually work on them. But I totally finished them and I feel awesome about it.

First, I got those nasty broken seats off. Then painted the frames white and distressed them a little. I don't know why I always feel the need to distress painted wood, but I do. It might be because I don't like some things in pristine condition. Plus, it helps draw out details that would otherwise be masked by paint. And these chairs have some lovely details.

Some of the distressed details

Once the frames were to my liking, we (mostly meaning my husband) went and got some 3/8 inch thick plywood and had them cut down to size. Then I got my high-density foam (40% off coupons are the best as high-density foam is not the cheapest) and cut it down to size (I used my serrated bread knife - worked like a charm).

Then I used my super soft, light-gray pleather remnant I found at Joann's to cover my newly-made seats. My sweet husband stapled the fabric down and will eventually screw those seats down for me (so I guess they technically aren't finished but they are still functional so they still count as done... to me... ). And now I have beautiful and comfy new chairs that were relatively cheap!

Cost breakdown:

• chair frames: $0
• paint (cheap-o spraypaint): $8
• clear topcoat: $3
• plywood: $4
• high-density foam: $8
• pleather remnant: $4

Total cost for 2 chairs:  $27