Progress of our toy storage part II

Happy belated Mothers Day everyone. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Mothers day. I worked on Friday and Saturday so I wasn't able to catch up on my project. Sunday was obviously Mothers Day so I did't have time but this morning before it got really hot I as able to paint one final coat of white paint and one coat of pink on the back of the entertainment center. I won't be able to work on the project again until later tonight.  It all really depends on my daughters patience.  I'm hoping tonight will be the end of it but we will see. I work tomorrow so for sure before Thursday it will be done.

Well, updates on it include having to paint extra coats of primer. I had to paint about 4 coats of primer in order to cover the bleed through of the blonde color. I've painted a few things white before but the initial color was already white and it just needed a fresh coat of paint so bleed through wasn't a problem. Oh wells, lesson learned.. never paint anything big white again.

Enough chit chatting. Here is one picture to tease you guys. I know pink isn't for everyone but its okay. I like it and I have plans to make Emily's playroom more colorful.

Progress of the entertainment center

It took me two hours to prime one full coat over the whole entertainment center. Its coming along. I really didn't think it was going to take that long to prime just one coat but I had a lot of shelves to prime.  Taking a food break and then back to finish priming the second coat.

Toy storage solution in the playroom

We have a toddler. Her toys have taken over our house. She has her nursery and a separate play room all to herself but her toys are still everywhere in our house. I desperately needed to find a solution to store all of her toys. I've been stalking centsationalgirls billy bookcase  for a while and love the white and pink color combo but with costs totaling $500, it was a little too steep for my cheap self.

I wanted something similar but on a much smaller budget, preferably under $150. I thought about other possible options and landed on entertainment centers on craigslist. I was able to score this large entertainment center for $100. Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the before. This was the craigslist image. It also has doors in the middle.

Other supplies that I needed were:  paint brushes, foam roller, kilz primer, white semi gloss paint, and  pink colored paint. 

All about the supplies

Its so important to get a foam roller instead of the regular rollers. Foam rollers really smooth out the surfaces when you paint. The set that I buy is about $2 at home depot and I just buy extra foam to change them out each time I paint a different color but at $2 a pop its not that big of a deal. 

I have always bought the cheap paint brushes. I usually buy the big pack for about $10 but it comes with a lot of brushes. I throw them away each time I use them. 

As for the primer, I used Kilz primer. Since I plan to paint the entertainment center white I know primer will mask the bleed through of the blonde colored wood. I am going lighter in color so primer is always a must. 

Lastly, paint.... I used cheap Glidden paint for the pink color in the back of the entertainment center. Its not going to be touched and felt by anyone so its okay to go with the cheapest paint. I also choose semi gloss for easier clean and maintenance. I have always used Behr premium plus paint for painting all my furniture pieces. I haven't tried any other brands because I know this brand works well for me and it has never disappointed me. Again, I choose semi gloss for the white paint because its going into a toddlers playroom and I need it to be easy to wipe and clean. 

I'll be back later to give the details on how everything went down. 

The master dresser plus more

When we first bought our house back in 2012 we moved in with literally a few small bags of clothes and maybe two towels from our parents house. It was extremely overwhelming and looked empty no matter what I did to the house. I started this blog to help other people slowly decorate their house on a budget one tiny step at a time. I try to tackle our home little by little whenever I have time.  I can see that its slowly coming together after being here for over a year. Today I added extra storage to our master dresser.

I don't think a woman can ever have enough storage in her home no matter how big or small the home is.  While browsing local model homes I notice a common trend of using baskets as storage. My dresser sits on a large empty wall by itself so adding any type of decor to it would be nice. Today I didn't have much time so I hopped over to Target to look for baskets and found something for under $20.  The basket is dark brown and towels are black therefore I had to lighten the whole picture in order to show the details of the basket. I wanted to look for a black basket but couldn't find any. The dark colors of the basket/towels really blends in well with the black accessories, black handles, and my rug on the floor. 

Our dresser still sits on an empty wall but it looks a lot better in person now then before so I'm happy with our new basket. Now we have a place to put our extra decor pillows and towels. 

The dresser part I

The details on how to refinish a dresser.

My dresser started out with a very thick polyurethane coating. The polyurethane was very smooth and shiny.

Steps

1. Very important step for lazy people. Skip the sanding. :) I've gone to home depot and they always told me I "should" sand it down.. blah blah blah. But from my personal experience with refinishing about 5 major furniture pieces, no sanding is required but I'm not a professional so don't listen to me. Skip the sanding if you're lazy and sand your heart away if you want to be perfect. I do sand down bumpy or rough spots to get a smooth surface so when I paint it will feel nice and smooth.

2. Wipe down the dresser so its nice, clean and dry.

3. Use a good separate primer only if you are going for a lighter color. For example, if you want to paint something dark brown and the existing color is blonde then bypass the primer. But if you want to paint something white and its currently blonde then use a primer. Paint on thin coats of primer until you get even coverage. I also like to sand very lightly with very fine sandpaper after using the primer so my project is nice and smooth. When i'm talking "sand very lightly" I'm talking about 15 minutes of sanding for the whole piece.

4. Special for my dresser. I used grasscloth wallpaper and covered the center of the drawers. I applied the wallpaper by wetting it and pasting it onto the dresser. I found the wallpaper at Homedepot for under $10 a roll. It can be found near the contact paper and liners section at Homedept.

5. Hardest part of the project. Pick a good paint color and paint the whole dresser. Paint two thin coats. Make sure to let them dry in between.

6. Once everything was dry, I used single nail heads and hammered them into the dressers one by one. I did not have to do any measurements. I just made approximate guesses that looked good and started hammering.

                           Here is a close up picture of the grasscloth wallpaper and nailheads.

Before picture just for comparison