Keeping Busy With Projects

I have a new friend!  Her name is Erin and her husband and Daniel are in the same flight school class.  Not only do we share the same name, but it's almost weird how much more we have in common.  She is one of four girls and she also has a sister named Julia!  We were both college athletes and the more we compare stories the more we've realized that our childhoods were very similar.  We also share a love of decorating and repurposing.  While our hubbys were gone for three weeks at SERE, we spent almost every day together doing projects to redecorate Erin's living and dining rooms.

We started out on a mission to find a cheap coffee table to repurpose into an ottoman.  The problem is that most coffee tables are too tall once you add foam and fabric to make it into an ottoman.  We found the perfect table at the Dothan Rescue Mission, but to our disappointment, it had a sold sold sign attached.  Boooo!  But, we didn't give up.

The attached sign had the buyer's personal telephone number.  We called her and made her an offer on the table that she couldn't refuse.................we would pay double what she paid for it!  She jumped at the offer and, $10 later, we were loading the table into the car.  I don't think the store employees were too happy with our antics but a girls got to do what a girls got to do.........right????

After hitting the fabric store and Lowes, we were ready to head home and get started.  First we sanded and stained everything except the top.

While the stain dried, we made buttons so we could tuft the ottoman.

 Claire enjoyed helping with this part.

  

Then it was time to drill holes in the top of the table for the tufting.

We added foam and batting and then we were ready for the fabric.

The finished product looked great!

 Our next project was making floating shelves.  After getting inspiration from a West Elm magazine, we headed back to Lowes to buy wood and hardware.  The idea was to make a rustic, 6x6, block shelf.  We quickly learned that a 6x6 board was hard to come by and was also very expensive.  So we put our heads together, and decided to go with three 2x6" boards and attached them together.  After we screwed everything together Erin stained the boards (being pregnant I couldn't help with this task).  

I didn't get a finished picture but they look FANTASTIC hanging on the wall and we spent a total of $15 for two shelves!!!

Next on the list, was painting.  Erin bought a $2.50 lamp that was pretty hideous before we put paint on it.  It was a really ugly color green with gold accents.  We painted it navy with brushed nickel accents.

The finished product turned out great!

Then we painted a mirror, a star, and an end table.

Another project that we took on was making pillow covers.  I had the yellow pillows in my closet and we decided to keep them yellow and simply sew a ruffle on them using the same fabric that we used on the ottoman.

We also made some pillow covers for some existing pillows that Erin already had.  We even sewed a zipper on them so they can easily be removed and washed.

One of the last projects that we took on was making cornices for the two windows in Erin's living and dining rooms.  We cheated and had Lowes cut the wood to our specifications but it saved us so much time.  Then we took everything home, attached the pieces using L brackets and them covered them with batting and fabric.

I hate that I don't have a picture of the Erin's living room all finished but we ran out of time before the guys got home.  We did get everything hung up and put together and it looks great!!!  It was definitely a lot of work but we really had a great time doing all of it.  It made the time that the guys were gone go by much faster.