Dining Room Table Turned in to a Vanity

Here is the before picture. As I was taking off the hinges for the leaves, it dawned on me that it would be nice to have a before picture. So, it is upside down but you can see how big the table originally was and you can see the orientation of the table legs. I didn't want it to be this really long vanity and as luck would have it I could remove the sliders and reattach the legs to the short sides. I removed the leaves that fold up, they are great pieces of solid oak, so you might see them re-purposed in to some other project down the road. My husband did have an idea to use one of them.

***finally finishing post 2 years later***

So finally I will be finishing this post that I started over two years ago. I was looking through any drafts I had a post and came across this one.

As you can see the vanity is well used and loved. I ended up sanding it and painting it and covering the top with a faux marble contact paper. It has stood up for two and a half years of use and continues to work well. My daughter doesn't use it so much as a vanity yet but uses it as a place to do artwork and displays a variety of her art and craft pieces above it.

I had also sanded and painted a chair to go with it and recovered it. I use the same fabric to recover this chair as the one I had done for her years ago which is still in great condition but doesn't have room in her room for it currently. Someday when she is older she will appreciate that she has furniture that is all painted the same color and his matching that way.

Thrifty Thursday: DIY Bunkbeds for Under $100

You can see the measurements below, but this post is not a tutorial. I just wanted to share that you can build bunk beds for under $100 in lumber and screws. Of course, you can paint it as well, but since this is in our rustic cabin, we kept it the plain wood.

We had looked at bunk beds in stores and the ones that cost under $200 just seemed chintzy and not very sturdy. I want sturdy for my kids who will be climbing up and down all the time, and sturdy for someone sleeping over the top of me. We ran in to this same issue when we wanted to have a clubhouse and playground in our backyard for the kids. Everything in our price range was small and didn't seem very sturdy or that it would last them a long time, so we built them this DIY Clubhouse.

This bunk bed is sturdy and not going any place! The kids can climb up all they want.

GIVEAWAY and Review: Chamberlain's Leather Milk Conditioner

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

 When I decided to review Chamberlain's Leather Milk Conditioner, this was the project that I had in mind I was going to try it out on. We have had this leather ottoman for about a decade and so it is well worn and stained. Once we had kids there would be drink rings from glasses left on here or markings from a young child learning to color. I really wasn't sure if any product would make a difference on this piece of furniture, but thought I had nothing to lose. You can just see for yourself how it has conditioned and brightened the leather. Sure there are still discolorations from the kids spilling things on here, but I think it already looks so much better.

 I was so impressed with how our ottoman turned out that I immediately wanted to try another leather item, so I went searching through my purses and picked out one of my black leather ones (and realized I have way too many black leather purses as a result of living a couple miles from a Wilson's Leather store). I didn't think the purse looked in too bad of shape until I used the Chamberlain's Leather Milk Conditioner and saw what it could look like and does now. In the before picture you can kind of see some spots were there leather was worn or there were scratches. After applying the milk conditioner and buffing it, I was able to buff out all those spots and have a purse that looks new with just a little work. I was just thinking my current purse (not leather) needed to be swapped out so I am going to see what I can do to bring back life in to my old purses instead of going to buy a new one.

Again, I was impressed with this product and you just have too look at the pictures to see for yourself that it works. But now I get to give one of my readers the opportunity to win your own bottle of Chamberlain's Leather Milk Conditioner and Buffing Sponge. WHO WANTS TO WIN????

ONE LUCKY READER WILL WIN THEIR OWN SET FROM

CHAMBERLAIN'S LEATHER MILK

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I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Recovering a Freecycle Children's Chair

This post isn't going to be a tutorial, I just wanted to show the children's chair I obtained from Freecycle that I recovered. I removed fabric and recovered this 4-5 months ago and had intended to post a nice little tutorial, but I was just too buy this summer. Now as you can see, 4-5 months later, my children have used & stained the chair.

This fabric was purchased to cover the entire chair, but after examining it closer I realized that only the fabric in the arms and seat were torn & worn. So to save myself  A LOT of time and have fabric to use for other projects, I only replaced the arms and seat. Plus the blue fabric matched nicely with the blue in the car print and added a bit more overall vibrant color to the piece of furniture.

So, with that leftover fabric I have used it as backing to a (cheater-panel) Thomas the Train quilt I made for my son for his birthday, a pillowcase, puppet theater curtains (to be featured later on Northern Cheapskate), and a book sling (yet to be made, but a tutorial will be coming). There is just a small section of the blue fabric left and I am sure I will come up with something to use it for.