Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone! I showed you our dining room and living room decorated for Easter earlier in the week and here is our family room. We didn't do much but I figured I would show you anyway:

 

The hot chocolate bar finally got put away although we did keep the chocolate chips out for Lillie and I to "sneak".

Unfortunately the coffee table only looks like this about half the day. Lillie and Lola's new favorite game is to taken everything off the table and first have a "party" (not sure what exactly makes doing this a party but they've been playing it every day for weeks now) and then after they have their "party" the last couple of days they have started racing some of their cars on the coffee table.

Last Easter we brought our little munchkin home from the hospital!

I hope you have a blessed Easter!

Chalkboard Frame

 

Since Christmas I have just had some random things over here on this little wall between our family room and kitchen. In early February I moved our little hot chocolate station over here for easier access and so I could decorate in the dining room. I will probably keep it out just another week or two and then once the warmer weather is here for good I will put it away. I think Lillie will be quite disappointed seeing when the chocolate bits are moved and she won't be able to "sneak" any more. I haven't let her in on the fact that if she asks to "sneak" two chocolate chips it kind of makes it not sneaking. =)

I was torn on what to put above here since I moved everything around in the fall. I had a canvas of the girls over here the past month or so but it wasn't the right size. I had a few ideas for something I could make but then when I was cleaning the garage I found an old framed poster and figured I could add some chalkboard paint to it while I was cleaning. And sure enough, by the time the garage was clean I had something new to hang on that little wall! Yay! It will probably be temporary until I can do the larger project I have it mind but for now I really like how it looks. Especially seeing how our other chalkboard wall (you can see the whole post here) is really more for Lillie:

(sorry, phone pics aren't the greatest)

 Anyway, here is the old framed poster that was in the garage. (I had painted the frame a few years ago).

First I taped around the edge and rubbed some sandpaper on the poster in hopes it would flatten out the bubbles and make the paint adhere easier although I doubt it was necessary:

Then my helper rolled on the paint and I trimmed the edges.

Nice and simple and best of all FREE!

I feel like our family room is starting to feel more complete!

We got e-mails asking what we used for our hot cocoa station when we showed it back in January. There are two types of cocoa, marshmallows, white chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and vanilla.

 The Bunny Silhouette Pillow Cover in our family room is now for sale in our shop! My sister, Jamie sketched out this adorable bunny for us! I love how it turned out. Perfect for Easter and spring! I also think it would be adorable in a nursery.

The Bunny Silhouette is also available as a paper cutout!

It's available in two different sizes and along with cream, is also available in a variety of pastel colors!

I hope you all have a blessed Thursday!

Coffee Table Step by Step

 

First, let me start off by saying I am far from an expert on painting furniture. In fact, although I have painted probably about 80% of the pieces in my home I normally just rush through painting them and skip steps and then always end up regretting it later. Well, I don't normally regret that I painted the piece (I LOVE painted furniture), I just regret that I didn't take the time to do it properly. This time I decided to take my time and at least attempt to do it right. I photographed the step by step process of stripping the top. I didn't bother to photograph the painting part because I figured that wasn't really necessary. Anyway, like I said, I really don't know what I am doing I generally just "wing it" and hope it turns out. If you want to really learn more about painting furniture I highly recommend visiting one of these blogs, where these lovely ladies have a wealth of knowledge and give far more detailed information on painting furniture: Marian at Miss Mustard Seed, Shaunna of Perfectly Imperfect, and Kate at Centsational Girl.

Okay, so here is what the coffee table looked like before. We bought it about 5 years ago. It was a floor model at Pottery Barn and was hugely discounted as they were clearing things out plus it had a few little dings in it. I LOVED the size of it and the fact that the drawers pulled out on both sides (there are four drawers and each one is really long and can be pulled out from either side).

When we moved here three and a half years ago the movers damaged most of our furniture. In those first few weeks I painted so many pieces (with help from my sisters) I thought I would scream. The coffee table was on the list but I never got around to it and I just decorated the top to hide all the damage. Over the past few years it has gotten more and more messed up and finally last week I decided to fix it up. I had originally been planning on painting the whole thing one color but then decided it might be fun to strip the top and stain it for a more natural look and then paint and distress the bottom. I figured worse case, if it didn't turn out right I could just paint over the top. 

The top had all sorts of marks like this:

So, here is what I started with:

I followed the directions on the can and brushed on a coat over the whole top and then let it sit for about 20 to 30 minutes.

Then I started scraping away.

In some spots it came off ridiculously easy and some spots not so much.

So, I brushed on another layer of the gel:

Here it is after two rounds, looking better but still not done:

Lillie loves "helping" with my projects but because this wasn't a child-friendly project she just watched and made sure I was doing it right. =) She was allowed to help paint the other two projects I did last week, though (a chalkboard frame and an armoire).

Whew! Three rounds later here it was! I could already tell I was going to love it! I have to say even though it did take three rounds it really was quite easy. So much easier than I had anticipated. The last project I did using stripper was a nightmare and I had been scared to use it since. This was remarkably easy and it was even quite fun watching the old stain just peel right off!

After that I used my little sander to sand the whole top down. You could just use regular sandpaper too. I bought this sander at Lowe's five years ago for less than $30 when I was fixing up a pair of twin beds for our last house (those poor beds got damaged so badly in our move I could only salvage parts of both and made the daybed out on our back porch with the pieces that were usable). Anyway, it was a worthwhile investment as I have used it over and over for quite a few different projects.

Once I had it sanded down I used this stain and applied one light coat. After that dried I added a second coat and that was it!

And that was it for the top!

 For the bottom of the table I used Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter. I used one coat and then touched it up in a few spots with a second coat. After it had dried I hand distressed it with sandpaper. I plan on sealing the top but just haven't quite gotten to that yet.

And don't forget today at noon we will be having our largest batch ever of Growth Charts available! Yay! And if they sell out don't worry we will continue to be making much larger batches as long as their is still a demand for them!

I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!