Tag: cheap

Furniture

Console Table Magic

Jessica Smith

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted on the blog and I’m happy to share that my tomato tally has crossed the 100 tomato threshold! Yes, this weekend we hit a Tomato Tally of 102. I probably have a dozen more needing to get picked, too. Craziness.

Anyway, this isn’t actually a post about tomatoes. Shocker, I know.

Ever since we rearranged our living room to accommodate my slipper chairs, I’ve wanted to get a console table for our living room.

Slipper chairs

The room is starting to really come together. New chairs, new pillows… and now, new table!

Console before

I found this console table on Craigslist for $25 and an office building 4 minutes from my house. I emailed and was super pleased to hear that I was the first person to reach out and the table was mine if I was interested.

I left work in a hurry to make it to the office complex before they closed at 5, bargained them down to $20 and left with a new table!

The table was wobbly and a bit dated with the gray glass, so I took the glass out and tightened all of the bolts with a ratchet set. Then, I whisked myself off to Home Depot to buy some wood to replace the glass.

IMG_0434

I roped in this kind gentleman to help me cut the wood down to size since we don’t have a table saw (and 51″ is too long to cut even remotely straight with a circular saw). Twenty minutes later, I walked out with two new shelves and some scraps.

IMG_0435

I set up shop on our patio, sanding and staining the wood. I mixed a walnut brown with a light gray stain to lighten the brown color a lot. I ended up with a light brown with hints of gray in the knots of the wood. Two coats of stain, two coats of poly, one light sanding and voila!

Console After

Love love loveeee. It fits perfectly against the wall opposite our bay window where the couch used to sit.

Console In the room

It even matches the style of our coffee table (You can see the style better below when we used them as end tables).

End Table

I waited a day to let everything dry and cure completely before staging it.

Console2

I’m still working on that, but this is stuff I had all around the room just waiting for a home on a nice console table like this one.

Console3I just love having a spot to put out pictures and flowers 🙂

All in all, this project cost a little less than $70 — not too bad for a new console table, especially when it’s twin at Ballard goes for $350!

Next up, a mirror for right above the table, which is centered with our bay window. The mirror will bounce the natural light around the room and really anchor the table with the wall. Now I just gotta find one I like!

Hope you all had a great weekend! Between the console table (I did this whole project in one night after work last week), a BBQ and a river walk, my weekend was a blast.

RemRiv

Rem had a pretty good weekend, too.

Happy Monday!

Thrift Store Finds

Thrift store finds: Ballard End Tables

Jessica Smith

If you follow me on Facebook you saw a couple of weeks ago that I got an AMAZING deal on two Ballard Design end tables at a local thrift store. I’m talking ah-may-zing.

I paid $9.99 per table which retail for $199.00! At least brand new ones do. These had a 2011 sticker on them, so they aren’t brand spanking new, but still fabulous.

Holy smokes was I excited when I realized (actually, my thrift store buddy showed me the Ballard sticker) what I had found.

The tables were in really good shape, minus some gum stuck to the bottom and 12 or so missing screws. After scrubbing the heck out of the tables and replacing all of the screws, I decided that I was definitely keeping these tables for myself and not doing anything (yet) to refinish or alter them.

End Table

They don’t match perfectly with the couch, and I’m really liking the different styles paired together.

End Table

I also love the shelf on the bottom. I’ve got our scrapbooks proudly displayed on one and all of my BHG magazines on the other.

End Tables

Truthfully, I am just grateful to have finally found tables for this room and at such a steal. I’ve been looking for some time and am really happy with these babies.

Also, don’t judge my lack of shades — it’s a work in progress 🙂 And I’ve been dying to get these lamps out of my craft room for more than a year now.

Now I need to tackle that blank wall above the couch. I can’t decide between a huge mirror to reflect the light from our bay window or a gallery wall of photos. What would you do?

Home Improvement

My mint tiles

Jessica Smith

OK, guys. I have a new obsession and that obsession is Restore. Habitat Restore, to be exact. And it is amazing. AH-MAY-ZING!

My neighbor first introduced me to Restore in Baltimore and then Restore came to Columbia! Are we lucky or what? (Hint: The answer is yes!)

I go there pretty often now and had to share my newest find: Mint Green tiles!

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Dirty Tiles

I scored about 50 of these beautiful tiles for $.25 a square foot. Yes, $.25! I paid $4 total 🙂 Love it!

As you can see in the photos from the store, the tiles were pretty dirty. I scrubbed the tiles for over an hour and they cleaned up beautifully.

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Clean Tiles

Neither of those photos do the color justice, but this one is a better representation:

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Color Shot**drools**

You might be wondering why I bought tiles? Well, for my birthday gift next month we are going to redo our master bathroom.

Here’s a couple of not-so-hot pictures of our bathroom. It’s teeny, so it’s hard to get the whole thing in one shot.

Out bathroom looks a little different now with a shower curtain and a few pieces of art hung on the walls. But it’s nothing spectacular.

Here’s what I’m thinking….

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Sketch

Yes, it’s a sketch. And yes, this will likely change. But anyway… I am thinking a faux wainscoting treatment to the bottom half in white with a neutral color on top. We’ll replace the vanity to get something a little larger in the space, update the medicine cabinet and the lighting…. and then add the mint tiles as accent tiles. Like I said, the final product probably won’t look a thing like this… but this is my inspiration for now.

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Bucket

And for $4, I was willing to take the risk that these beautiful tiles will fit into my not-so-final master plan.

Happy Tuesday!