habitat restore

Habitat Restore Headboard Find

Habitat Restore is a fabulous place to find treasures. I’m usually there a couple of times a week – More if I’m looking for something in particular.

For the first time ever, I came across a headboard for a king size bed. Not a common find at my Habitat store! The color is “non-traditional”, but perfect for my room.

Habitat Restore carries a lot of the materials you would need for a DIY makeover… paintbrushes, caulk, paint trays, tools, hardware, and wood. The prices are C.H.E.A.P.!

Check out your local Habitat. Even if you don’t think you need something, it’s almost guaranteed you will walk away with something “you just have to have”.

$45.00 bargain from the local Habitat Restore. Perfect color for my newly repainted bedroom.

The color of the headboard is a blue-ish gray. It was meant to be mine.

Here’s some other “finds” from the Habitat Restore.

Sanding, paint, and new hardware gave this old desk a new life.

I have two of these chairs. $15.00 each. I have seen almost identical chairs in the Ballard Designs catalog for hundreds of dollars.

This chair was $10.00. Just needed a little glue. I added a cushion and DONE.

Linking to:
Twelve O Eight

By Laurie|April 16th, 2013|DIY (you can do it!), FYI (ideas & info)|8 Comments

DIY Tiled Planter Box

What do you do with left over wood? You make a planter box. Then you let the planter box sit on your porch for a couple of months, completely out of mind. Next you go to Habitat Restore and discover sheets of stone tile for only $2.50 and buy it just because it’s only $2.50. After that, it dawns on you to add the tile to the planter box you just remembered you forgot, and then get excited to have a new project to work on.

This is how I operate. Not always cohesive. Not always with a plan. Somehow it works out.

This planter/flower box cost less than $10.00. I had the wood already. I only bought the tile and the stencil. Cheap Cheap Cheap.

And just a note: My hope in sharing projects and ideas with you is to inspire you to try something new. I’m not an expert at this crafting/DIY stuff. I’m just a girl whose mind is always turning and thinking, and for whatever reason, thinks she can do what she sets her mind to. I believe you can too.

The finished box. Very easy. No mitering.

Apparently I painted it white. Wish I could remember what the original plan was!

I bought the whole box of tile. It came four sheets to a box. The piece you see in the picture is actually folded in half. A sheet and a half was enough to cover the whole box.

I cut off rows of tile. The tile came pretty much butted against each other so I didn’t have to pull off one piece at a time to get them close. That made me happy because I didn’t want to mess with grout.

Moving a long. Occasionally I had to pull off some individual pieces and trade it with a smaller or larger piece to make the row end neatly at the sides.

I used silicon adhesive to adhere the tile to the wood. I would suggest something stronger though. The tile is not falling off, but I could pull it off if I wanted to. I just used what I had.

I picked up this template at Hobby Lobby.

I used black acrylic craft paint to “stencil” with. Since I haven’t stenciled much before, I didn’t have the proper brush. I just gave an old, small paint brush a trim and made the bristles shorter. I worked pretty well for “pouncing”.

I need to get more flowers (hydrangea?). I picked these up at Michaels, but my mind couldn’t remember how big the box was. But you get the picture.
Also, I added trim to the top of the box and painted it white, to give it a finished look. I didn’t take a picture of that though. I used the trim left over from my latest Bathroom Makeover.

Linking up to:
Savvy Southern Style – Wow Us Wednesday
House on the Way – Twirl and Take a Bow
Made in a Day – Made U Look
Someday Crafts – Whatever Goes Wednesday
Coastal Charm – Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
DIY by Design – Winter Blues Wednesday
Finding Fabulous – Frugalicious Friday

By Laurie|January 31st, 2013|DIY (you can do it!), DIY Decor|12 Comments

DIY Hand Painted Wood Sign

Happy Friday!

Last weekend, a couple of my girl friends and I went to a big antique show. It was so exciting!! (I will have to do a blog on the crazy things I picked up.) Towards the end of the day, we came across these cool wood doors. Piles of them. For only $2.00 each! I picked up eight of them without having an idea what I was going to do with them. (That happens a lot!)

One of my friends suggested making hand painted wood signs for the Holidays. Here’s how I did it.

I printed out the words I wanted to use. Not having tracing paper, I just took a regular pencil and scribbled on the back side of the letters. Then I traced the outline of the letters and the pencil mark transferred to the wood door. Woohoo!

Now the tricky part for me was filling in the letters. I only had paint and a paint brush, reading glasses and one working eye! Depth perception is not my strong point! It took me FOREVER to paint the letters. Either I thought I was touching the wood with my paint brush and wasn’t or I aimed for the outlines and completely missed. If it wasn’t so frustrating, it would have been comical! I would strongly suggest a paint pen. I didn’t have one. And two working eyes would be helpful too.

I should mention that before I painted the letters, I gave the center section a coat of off-white chalk paint. (I still didn’t know what design I was doing at this point.) After the letters were painted on, I painted the rest of the front with the chalk paint. Then I taped off diagonals lines with blue tape and painted them red. After the red paint dried, I sanded everything to distress it a bit then I applied a light-colored wax to seal it and age the off-white paint a little more.

And here it is… This House Believes. And this house also believes you can Do-It-Yourself. Had to throw that in! Just FYI… Doors in many different shapes and sizes can be found at your local Habitat Restore. Some used, some new, and they cost very little.

I’m going to put eye hooks in the top edge of the sign and use either ribbon or a small chain to hang it outside the front door. Maybe embellish it a bit with Christmas picks or decorations.

This was really an easy project to do! And the first Christmas thing I’ve done so far. I love the Holidays! Have you started to think about decorating for the Holidays yet?