DIY Cooking at Home

Hi there! I'm proud of this project, guys, because I was able to use a couple of things from our basement to create a totally new side table for our bedroom.  I happened to have a round table top left over from one of those decorator tables you're supposed to cover with a round tablecloth. I also had one sad, lonely bar stool. Happily, these two items had just the right dimensions to make a nightstand that would fit into the narrow space beside our bed. First I sanded and primed both pieces. The table top, however, was made out of that really rough chip board (I think that's what you call it), and it just wouldn't sand out smooth. I had plans to stencil the top, but that just wasn't gonna work. So, I went to plan B and decided to cover the top with fabric so I could achieve a smooth finish. This worked out great!  After spray painting the stool, I Mod Podged fabric onto the table top. My husband cut shelves to fit on the rungs, which I also primed and painted

Hey there, party people! How are you? I love a good IKEA hack, don't you? I've got to show you our Leksvik cabinet. We've had this thing forever. I have this to say about IKEA furniture: It lasts. A long time ago I painted our cabinet cream. It served many purposes...as a dining room hutch, as a place to store our printer when our home office was in the dining room, as a food pantry when our kitchen was being remodeled, and most recently, as a useless piece of furniture in our family room. Here it is, sad and pointless: But then we decided to get a TV for that room because we hated not being able to enjoy the fireplace and watch TV at the same time. So we took the doors off the top of our old IKEA Leksvik cabinet, and put the TV in it. Unfortunately, the TV stood out like a sore thumb and it looked like we took the doors off an old IKEA cabinet. And if there's anything you don't want, it's for people to know your secrets. So, I painted it black and w

It's National $5 Chair Makeover Month! What, hadn't you heard? Ok, I may have made that up. But it feels like it in our house! I painted a $5 desk chair for our daughter last weekend, and then I turned my attention to this $5 mid-century metal beauty. Isn't the seat pretty? I thought about keeping it that way. And then I thought the tape might scratch my butt. So I changed it. If you haven't tried to make over furniture before, I'm telling you, there's no better time than National $5 Chair Makeover Month. (Again, that might be a made-up thing.) Seriously, though, chairs are the easiest pieces of furniture to make over, in my opinion. For this one, I unscrewed the seat from the frame and removed the old cushion and its vinyl cover with the help of a utility knife. I was left with just a rusty chair frame and a plywood seat. Then, I sanded the frame with a sanding sponge to remove the rust and wiped it down with a damp cloth to remove dirt and dust

It's almost time for back-to-school! I'm ready. I think the kids are ready, too. We've been spending the last couple of days cleaning out closets, donating old toys, and making room on desks for homework-time. We bought our youngest a small, corner desk awhile back and I finally painted an old desk chair I found for $5 for her to use with it. She loves it! It's an industrial desk chair; it has a heavy metal frame and a wooden seat that's cracked in a couple of places. Here are some before pics: As much as I love the industrial look, it wasn't right for her room. So I went with hot pink, and orange and white chevron stripes on the seat. As you can see, there was a lot of rust and chipping paint, so I had to sand the heck out of it first. I still missed a couple of spots, but hopefully it will be OK. Then I taped off the seat and sprayed the frame with Rustoleum's Painter's Touch Raspberry in a gloss finish. After that dried, I covered the frame