Coral Cabinetry

Hello Darlings! I have made a few adjustments to the blog since my last post. I decided to go for a cleaner more streamlined look. I'm sticking with a white background right now just so that the posts are easier to read and so I can make each post a bit wider.  I don't have the width constraints I did before.  So today's post has been a long time in the making! This project has been done for about a month now, but I am finally getting around to posting.  We had lost our camera charger and cord in our move from Virgina, but finally have found a replacement!

So when we first moved in, we quickly realized that we had on ginormous wall to fill, so I knew we would need a very specific entertainment center. 

I didn't want to wait forever to find one because we where really ichting to get settled in.  We went to a great place around here that sells second hand furniture.  Over the years, my family has found a lot of great steals there. 

We came across a 3 piece bookshelf/entertainment center. Each piece was priced separately but I talked the hubby into buying all 3 pieces because I knew this was the one! 

 The whole thing came out to be a little under $300, but I know it's something that we can take with us when we move and separate the pieces if we need to depending on the size and space of the different places we live. 

The whole set is solid cherry wood.  

This is the center unit. 

 

 And these are the two side cabinets.

 

 

I decided I was going to take on the tedious task of painting the whole set a bright white.  Painting solid cherry wood white, easy right? 

WRONG! 

This is the center cabinet with one coat of Kilz primer.

 I used a foam roller and very high quality paint brush for the whole project.

Here are all of my pieces with one coat of primer. This took about one day. 

There were a never ending about of shelves to prime and paint, both sides of! 

For my next step of painting, I used Color Place interior semi-gloss paint. This stuff is great. It goes on well, and it's easy to clean.

  

The white paint took about 4 coats before all the cherry was completely covered.  I let each coat dry a full day and night in between with fans blowing on them so they could cure completely between each coat.

Needless to say, this took...awhile. Remember all those shelves? Yeah, all 12 of them got 4 coats on both sides too. 

I then taped off the back of each of the book shelf pieces. 

I then used Behr's Youthful Coral for the back of each of the bookshelves for a pop of color!

Here are the backs of each bookshelf with the coral. I think it helps to make this bookshelf a little more Happy!

Then I had this great idea to stencil the backs of each of the bookshelves in this Moroccan tile.

Turned out to be a wee bit sloppy.

And this loveliness right here? Yea, um this took me  4 hours. And that's only like 12% of what needed to be done, if I was going to go through with it.

 

See? I decided it was going to be too busy anyways, knowing that I wanted to put things on the shelves. 

 

So, although I literally shed a tear after all that hard work, I painted over it.

After all the paint has cured up nicely, we moved it out into our living room. I put the shelves on and started to play around with how I wanted it to look.

Here it is with all the shelves in. There are also 2 more shelves in the cabinet part. 

Someone was pretty stoked to have a cool little place to hang out in.

So after fussing with the shelves and getting them just right, it was finally time to accessorize!

(P.S. I had to rip my husband away from precious Xbox time to get this picture. That's why there is a wire hanging down. Nothing I could do about it. It COULD NOT be unplugged! So yeah.) 

I will show how I accessorized everything in my next blog post!

I Love Lucite!

Hello Darlings! I would like to apologize for my absence from blog world for about a month. In that absence,  my husband and I packed up our old apartment in Virginia, he graduated from college and commissioned as an officer in the U.S Army, we moved back to Lancaster Pennsylvania (no we are not Amish) unpacked(ish) all of our stuff found jobs and are now working and still slowly unpacking. I have wanted to blog so many times about the happenings around here, but we didn't officially hook up my new computer until about 2 weeks ago.

I just got an imac desktop computer, (my old and trusty macbook circa 2007 finally bit the dust) and one of the first things I did when we hooked it up was check out my blog.  I was very disheartened when this is what I saw on my screen

 

It looks all wonky! I guess on smaller screens it looks ok, because I have blogged from all different computers before, but I've never seen it look like this!
So I am really hoping that by the end of the month, I can have someone work on it and make it look functional and pretty.  If anyone knows someone who may be able to help me out with this, I would appreciate it!


Anywho, back to the real blog post. The new apartment we're in is A LOT bigger than our old place. We measured the square footage and we figured it's actually a little more than 3 times the size!! So that meant we needed more furniture to fill the space.  We ordered new couches, which we are hoping to have by the beginning of July and we also purchased some secondhand furniture that we are re-doing as well.
We now have an office which I'm really stoked about! I was meandering through TJ Maxx the other week for chairs that could go in our entrance, or in our office and came across these gems.

They are Lucite bamboo chairs. 
{I LOVE LUCITE}

 

 When I found them, my mouth dropped. I also may have squealed in giddy delight in the clearance isle causing fellow customers to stare at me strangely.

 

I snatched them both and bolted for the register.  I was so excited that I when I went home, I got my google on to find out more about them. 

This is what I came up with:

Can you see that red number? It says $189 big ones! 

A set of two? $379! 

I found them again on another site for $53 but with no cushion. 

 Want to know what I paid for each? 

Yep! $59 for each! Priced down from $79.  Um... steal!

The reason for the markdown? A few stains on the cushions.  So what? 

 I have plans to recover those bad boys.


I love these fabrics from fabric.com

{Via}

 {Via}

I think that a bright bold fabric will really dress them up nicely.

I have recently been obsessing over lucite furniture ever since I saw this from the HGTV Green Home

I looovve these acrylic boxes filled with birch wood! I would use them as side tables in my living room in a hot minute.

That got me searching the web for lucite furniture.

I love this ghost chair but not so much the price.

{Via}

This end table is out of control, but comes with a hefty price tag. 

{Via}

Basically in all my google searches, I've found that Lucite furniture is very expensive and sort of out of my reach right now, but I sure do feel lucky to have found such amazing lucite chairs for such a steal. Props to TJ Maxx. Props.

I will start to fill you in on all the other DIY projects I've been working on and will hopefully give you all a little tour of our new place soon! 

What are your opinions on Lucite Furniture? Love? Like? Hate?

Busy Busy Bees!

We have been so busy lately! Getting ready for our big move, my hubby's graduation is next week, our little kitten Eva just got fixed, I sang at a good friend's wedding this past weekend in PA, and we still have a lot of packing and cleaning to do before the move! Then we move on Tuesday May 15! Craziness! But with all the traveling and mayhem, I still can't stop thinking of the decorating I get to do in our new apartment!  I went home a few weekends ago, and while I was there, I managed to find this adorable mirror. I want to paint it and put it near the front door of the new apartment.  Not sure what color I will paint it yet, but it will certainly be getting a new fresh coat!

My dog Libby wanted to check herself out! 

Found this picture on Pintrest, and thought of giving the mirror a coat of coral! 

Since I have developed this new "Coral" obsession, I have been doing searches on Pintrest and Google of coral to get some good ideas. I found this poster on Pintrest for Gotye! Even they have a coral obsession! I am not alone! Pretty cool huh?

I will try to keep you in the loop as we get closer to our moving date and all the changes coming up!