Table Makeover

About 5 years ago my aunt informed us of a friend she had who was downsizing and moving. This friend was in the process of selling various things in her house for very reasonable prices just to move things quickly. Chris and I were living at our Fayetteville duplex at the time but knew that we would be moving in a few months since we were planning to buy our current home in the spring of the following year. We decided it may be a good idea to just go check out what she had and see if we could find any new to us, fun pieces to add to our home collections. We had a successful trip that included this small accent table...

I fell in love with the table right away but not so much the colors. I never was a huge fan of peach or gold but thought the table could have some future potential somehow. And so the years have gone by (quickly I may add) and I hadn't found the perfect spot for this table until recently. When Chris and I remodeled the basement area, we relocated the water softener and water heater out of the bathroom/previous utility room so that it wouldn't be so cramped. When the bathroom project was complete, I knew the table would be a great fit for the newly opened space.

So I had finally found the perfect spot to put it but the colors just weren't working for me. Thanks to a few Pinterest ideas and a new find of 'Valspar's Antiquing Glaze' the following pictures will walk you through my table transformation process.....

(All primed and ready to paint.)

(Painted one coat - Ready to sand down some of the edges before the antiquing process.)

(Antiqued and ready to put a coat of Minwax Wipe-On Poly on to protect it.)

(All finished and put back into place! :)

Over all I was pretty excited with how well it turned out. I wasn't sure what I was doing at first but it was fun. :) Now I'm eyeing up more pieces in my house to antique......:)

Pinterest, Baubles, & Bargain Fun

About a month ago while I was perusing the vast library of Pinterest, I stumbled on a picture of a very colorful and uniquely decorated Christmas tree. I was instantly drawn to it and pinned it right away thinking that it may be a fun idea to do some year down the road.

Last year Chris and I purchased an artificial Christmas tree for our upstairs living room so that we could enjoy the holiday lights much longer than the amount of time a real tree allows. In the meantime we finished our beloved basement space where we spend most of our time now and were sad that our Christmas tree was so far away this year and on a different floor of our home. We attempted to make the tree fit in our basement but with the suspended ceiling, there just wasn't enough space between the floor and ceiling to make it work. We decided to put it in the upstairs living room just like last year and enjoy it anyways.

Fast forward to this past Friday. Chris got off early and we headed for Hagerstown to run a few errands. We stopped at Target and everything in the Christmas section was 50% off. I knew I was in trouble but we had to at least breeze through and take a look. It was really busy and of course everyone was bustling around trying to grab up all the best deals they could find. Then it happened. I spotted these...

ONE HUNDRED glass ornaments that instantly took me back to the Christmas tree I had found on Pinterest. The box of 100 originally sold for $30 but now it was only $15. There were two boxes left on the shelf. Chris said I should get them. I quickly pulled up the Pinterest picture on my phone and we tried to figure out roughly how many I would need. We decided that it would be best to get both boxes. $30 instead of $60 for TWO HUNDRED ornaments. "Baubles" as Chris calls them. I'd never heard them called that in my life. HAHA. :) I was so excited about my new bargain find that I wasn't even really intentionally looking for.

We looked at the artificial Christmas trees they had left but there wasn't much of a selection anymore so we decided that we'd probably try to get one on sale next year so that we could use these fun new ornaments and have a second tree in our basement.

Now fast forward to Monday (yesterday). Chris and I were in Chambersburg running some other errands and we decided to stop at that Target to return some pants we got the day before that didn't fit well. We went to the Christmas clearance area and would you believe everything was now 70% off?? I'm a sucker for a good bargain. They had a perfect looking slim Virginia Pine tree that was originally $185.00 marked down to $55.50. We couldn't pass that one up either so the tree was bought and away we went.

And I forgot to mention that before Target, we stopped at Hobby Lobby and found some pretty ribbon that was 66% off! 90 feet of wide wired ribbon for $3.33!!! I had all the pieces to my project puzzle.

By the time we got home I could barely contain myself. I suddenly and VERY unexpectedly had everything I needed to complete the Pinterest project I had fallen in love with but had no intentions of it falling into place so soon. So today, I was faced with a dilemma. Christmas is over and this project was definitely something that would have been best to do a month or so ago but there was no way I was going to be able to put my mind to rest until next Christmas as it was on overload wondering if I would be able to recreate the Pinterest creation.

The Pinterest Inspiration:

I went for it. The following pictures show you the results of my afternoon...

~Fluffing the new tree.~

~Adding the reds.~

~Reds are done. Hera checking things out.~

~Adding the pinks.~

~Pinks are done.~

~Adding the purples.~

~Purples are done.~

~Adding the blues.~

~Blues are done.~

~Adding the greens.~

~Almost finished! One last step.~

~Adding the ribbon.~

MY Finished Version:

So Chris and I are enjoying an extended Christmas in our basement now for at least a few weeks. :) As I was finishing up the lengthy process I threatened that the tree will just have to stay up the entire year. I'm sure that won't be the case but for now we will enjoy it and hope that I can recreate it later this year when Christmas time rolls around again. :) What a project! Special thanks to my talented hubby for photographing each step of the process for me and for taking some finished project shots. :)

Random fun facts about this project:

1. Only 1 ornament hit the floor and shattered during the entire process. Thus the smart move of blankets covering the floor after I realized just how fragile they were and how hard the floor was.

2. I ended up using 165 of the 200 ornaments.

3. The project cost me $88.83 instead of $254.99 which would have been the non clearance total price.