My secret plan

I have a plan for my new house that I am so excited about.  I always new that I wanted a mudroom for my boys to enter when we bought a house, but unfortunately, it doesn't have one.  Let's face it, boys do not come into the house, open the closet doors, put their shoes and knapsacks in nicely and then hang their coats up.  No, instead, nothing makes it to the closet and everything ends up on the floor.


So, I have a plan that my husband does not yet know about.  Here is my plan:

I want to turn this closet:

Into something like this:                                                       

  

Or this:

It's called a mudroom closet.  I can't wait to start this project and complete it.  

The way the house is at the moment, you come in from garage on the left, and hang your coat up in the closet, or, you can hang it on the ugly, country hooks below:

Which can be seen when you walk past this hallway and into the kitchen:

But, it makes much more sense to convert the closet because at the end of this hallway, it turns right into this hallway:

Which nobody can see.  

So, once I start this project, (hopefully soon) I will post some pics.  

Our keys to the new house

Today, in between the clinic, a hockey tournament out of town, and a very sick boy, we received the keys to our new house!

Yaaayyy!  Let the fun begin.....

Another find at the estate sale

So, after being at the estate sale house twice already, the girl kept trying to get me to buy the dining room set.  At first I had no interest in it.  By the third visit, I started to think, "ya, maybe I could use it."  So I gave her $300.00 and brought the entire dining room set home.

It's been piled up in my garage for the last month.  I haven't taken a picture of it yet but, this picture I found is practically the exact same table and chairs:

So here is what I plan to do with it:

Something along this idea.  I think I will keep the table top stained and not painted, just like they did above.

Now here is a real pic of the hutch I got with the set:

And I want it to look like this:

Again, keeping the top stained instead of painting.

Here is a pic of the chairs that came with the set:

I'm going to reupholster the seat and paint the chairs either black or white.  Not sure yet which way to go.

They might end up looking like this:

But I'm going to cover mine in a material more like these below:

I started to disassemble the chairs.  I removed the seats and stripped the first layer of material off and found the seat covered in this material originally:

Close Up:

It's actually nicer than what they covered it with.  It looked more like a yellowish, beige, terry cloth.  Is terry cloth even around anymore?  Here is the original one more time:

Once I finished all six chairs, I left them sitting like this:

All piled up collecting dust, lol.  I'm scarred to death to start sanding them but, I'm going to have to start before we're ready to move.  

I'll posts the pics as I finish a chair.

When I was at the lady's estate sale buying the secretary desk, I also saw these:

Pretty ugly eh?

But, I stopped to look at them because I had previously seen a picture like this:

So I started thinking and bought them on the spot.  The five frames cost me $20.00   Some might say I got ripped off, but I'm ok with the price.

I brought them home and removed the 10 thousand nails that held the backings on, I brought them downstairs and spray painted them.  Now they look like this:

(after 5 coats, maybe I should have sanded them first)

Now I just have to decide what to put inside of them.  Maybe mirrors.  Something like this:

Or maybe something like this:

But, I would use paper like this:

or this

I will paint the walls in blues like this:

And I want a couch in the office, similar to this:

I'm hoping to have the office finished by the time we move into the house in the new year.  I'll post the completed pics when it's finished. 

Projects I'm working on at the moment

A couple of months ago, I needed to make myself some office space to do my school work.   I found some inspiration with this pic:

The room I was going to use was this:

With the space I had on either side of the window, I figured I could make it look similar to my inspiration pic.

So I started looking on Kijiji to buy a piece that looked like the piece in the inspiration photo and I found a lady that was selling everything in a house for her elderly friend.  I went over and I purchased this:

I know it's very ugly, right?  It is called a secretary desk and it is really old.  (I must not have taken a pic of it before I started to sand and prime, that's why it looks really, really bad!)

But here is my inspiration for buying it:

And this one:

Now it's not looking as ugly anymore, is it?

So, on a warm fall day I brought my secretary outside and started the sanding

Top piece

Bottom piece

I used my new sander that my husband bought me and I love it!

It's so cute!

But, then our plans changed.  After looking for a house for the last 14 years of my life, we found one and bought it.  So, I stopped with my idea of the room here in this rental and I began to think of what I will do in my very own office with a door.  (very excited, and dogs and boys will not be allowed in)

So here is my up and coming office.  Its quite ugly for now, but hopefully that will change by the new year.

Bad pic

I'll be back with some updated pics of my secretary desk soon!

My future en-suite bathroom

Can you feel my pain with this colour of countertop?

But, I have a plan.  Instead of spending a lot of money on this, I have decided to work with this colour instead of working against it.  I no longer call the counter top "Mint Green".  I now call it "Seafoam Green"  Makes me feel much better (like it's actually in style)

So here is my inspiration:

Love this!

And this one is not too bad either!

So, this is what I am going to do.  I will add a wallpaper similar to one of these to the walls on top of the mirrors. 

Hard to see the true colour on here but they really are my "Seafoam Green"

Remember, the paper will only go on top of the mirror where the lights are.

I also want to frame out the mirror with this easy to install product from:

http://www.mirrormate.com/pages/makeovers-3.html

Here is a before and after pic of what a mirror looks like once you frame it:

Before

After

Now for the rest of the bathroom:

I will paint the vanity white.

And then I will change the lights to something like this:

Then I will also paint the closet area and toilet area a colour like this.

I also want to add a chandelier to the closet like this:

or this:

So, that's it for now.  Hopefully I will have some completed pics up soon.