Think Spring!: Bulletin Board

Back in September, Nathan and I went to Nebraska City for Applejack, and one of our stops was a flea market where I picked up a frame that I planned to use for jewelry. Then I realized that I missed having something on my desk for photos, etc. so I decided to make it into a bulletin board for that.

As you can see, it needed a fresh coat of paint.

After the paint, which was silver, I cut the corkboard to fit inside the frame and hot glued it to the inside. It wasn't especially sturdy, so I then cut a piece of cardboard to fit and hot glued it to the back of the corkboard.

Here it is finished, though it still needs some momentos on it.

Think Spring!: Desk Storage

Now where were we? When we last left off in the story of the desk update, it had gotten a pretty new coat of stain. But there were some other updates that have been going on, including new fabric-covered boxes.

 

I am somewhat of a box hoarder, and with all of Nathan's Newegg shopping, we have a lot hanging around. I took three of them that were about the size I wanted and found some fabric to cover them with. A lot of the tutorials I found via Pinterest involved a sewing machine, and I was, well, kind of lazy. So instead I turned to my spray glue.

 

Here's Shelby checking out my materials, which include: two kind of fabric (I used a solid pink and a striped pink and green, and the amounts you will need will vary based on the size of your boxes. But you will need more of the one that you'll actually be covering the boxes with.), spray glue, ribbons, fleece, and scissors.

 

 

Step 1: Measure the box all the way around, then cut your fabric to fit.

 

Step 2: Spray the back of the box with the spray glue (probably outside) and then apply the fabric to the box. Continue until the entire box is covered. It doesn't have to look perfect.

Step 3: After I had finished, I realized that I wanted some fabric on the bottom so my desk wouldn't get scratched. So I got some white fleece and cut it to fit the bottom of the box and used the spray glue. As you can see, the white fleece wasn't cut perfectly, so I trimmed off the extra.

 

Step 4: I took the second fabric and cut it to fit the width of each individual side of the box and about half the height of the box. Then I used the spray glue to attach each panel over the top of the box so it was even on the outside with the other panels surrounding it.

 

Step 5: After everything was attached, I didn't love the way it looked when it was left unfinished, so I added a ribbon yesterday. I think it looks much more finished now.

 

 

There was another upgrade to the desk, and that is my jar of shards that I finally cleaned and put in a jar after almost a year. And, the bulletin board is also a new addition--check back tomorrow for a tutorial on that.

Think Spring!: My Desk Makeover

It was more than two years ago that Nathan and I (or just Nathan) took on my desk project. To refresh your memory, here it what it looked like when we finished.

 

 

And that above is what it has looked like for the past two years. (Except for the fact that I got some marker stain on it. And there's a ton of stuff in all of the shelves.) It wasn't that I didn't want to stain it, but more that I couldn't commit to what color exactly I wanted it.

 

But that decision was finally made (officially) back in September. Nathan got me a new chair as a surprise that matched the dark wood of these framed prints that I got for my birthday also a couple of years ago.

 

 

    

 

We had a very scientific way of finding stain. Because the frames matched the chair pretty well, we decided to take one off the wall and with us to the hardware store. We picked out stain and brought it home, but as I was applying it, it wasn't quite the color it needed to be. Luckily we still had some stain leftover from when I finished our Ikea nightstands. It ended up being the perfect match for the chair and the frames.

 

It seemed like it took forever for it to finally be finished and ready to put back inside. There were many coats of stain and poly. But it turned out just right and it looks much better than it did before. I'm really glad that we took the time to build something that works just right. Here's what it looks like today. Literally. I just took this picture.

 





Think Spring!: A Guest Bathroom Update

It feels like a huge accomplishment that we finally painted the last room in the house that needed to be painted. Surprisingly, the last one was the one that I think I hated the most, but it was the last to go.

Our laundry room/bathroom is in the basement and has a tiny window that is covered up, so why in the world it was painted dark gray/brown, I will never know, other than obviously different tastes. On top of that, the space behind the washer and dryer was still a completely different color, so that bothered me pretty much every time I did laundry.

 

Here you can see the color on the walls and how dark it is even though we have all of the lights on. I always felt bad about sending our guests down to the dungeon...

 

Here is the inspiration for what I wanted to do with the laundry room. This laundry hamper came back with us on one of our trips from Colorado. I like having a hamper down in the laundry room for all of the household laundry, like dish rags and towels and such. Before it just sat on the washing machine.

 

Here's what it looks like now. We painted the walls yellow to kind of match the top of the hamper. Also, we have tons of yellow paint left from painting our bedroom.

 

 

All of the trim got painted white instead of gray and it makes everything seem a little happier now. We also replaced the dark black rugs and striped shower curtain with white, and that bird rug is kind of my favorite thing. It took many a trip to Target to find just the right one. I laugh every time I look at it though because I think, "Put a bird on it!" from Portlandia. But I did. I put a bird on the bathroom.

 

 

Now my cute vintage hamper looks less out of place than before. I also found a place to hang up most of my Christmas card photos. I got this frame as a graduation present, and it's pretty cool because you just take the top part of (it's magnetic), lay everything out, and then put the top back on. At least that's how it's supposed to happen. I held it up and all of the photos came flying out, so I had to tape everything down to keep it in place.

 

I'm not going to say that doing laundry is really fun now that the room is cute, but it does make it a little more enjoyable to be in a room that's a lot less gloomy.