sun dress.

I had this little sun dress sitting in a box of keepsakes.

I wore it when I was a little girl.

My awesome mom made it.

Evidence of toddler play remained in a few spots,

so I gently hand washed it.

I thought I remembered a picture of me wearing it,  

so to my trusty Baby Book I went.

I found one!

In order to display this duo as I wanted,

I sprayed this old, cheap-o frame white.

I didn't have any white spray paint on hand, 

but I did have spray primer.  

That's how it remains.

Is that bad?

Anyway, apparently I wore the dress on my 3rd birthday!

My awesome mom also made that great Cookie Monster cake.

I also spray painted spray primed two clothes pins,

nailed them to the wall, 

and pinched the dress loops into them.

I guess the office wasn't totally complete after all.

glazing.

I learned how!

I bought this lamp at a yard sale.

I tried to color match the curtains, but it didn't pan out all that well.

(the actual color is much lighter in person)

I thought glazing it black would darken it, 

so I watched a bunch of online tutorials to learn how.

It's super easy.

The glazing bug bit me, 

so I tried brown glaze on this chair:

before brown glaze

after brown glaze

Then I tried gray glaze on this lamp:

before gray glaze

after gray glaze

It's a pretty cool finishing technique.

painted panels.

Our workout room didn't have much to say for itself:

Boring.

Pretty disorganized.

 

 Zero character.

Since I choose to keep the walls white,

I thought dark curtains might be nice.

I couldn't find a graphic fabric I loved,

so I just bought a bunch of this teal

and made 4 panels out of it.

I purchased a stencil several months ago on a whim,

and thought it would be interesting to try it out on this project.

So, I painted the panels!

 

With a little rearranging, a yard sale end table, and some curtain lovin'

 this room is much more put together.

 

 

 

I am a fan of paisley.

updated fan.

The guest room had this dated fan 

that made me cringe every time I walked in the room.

I disassembled it, including taking the gold parts off the blades,

which left me with this stuff still attached.

I wanted the gold gone, so I wrapped everything all up nicely,

and sprayed it black.

I also sprayed the gold attachments to the blades before reassembling.

Home Depot had a decent globe that helped too.

Makes a huge difference!

curtains and complete.

The final touch for the office was to hang curtains.

I bought 8ft of this sweet graphic fabric,

tried Stich Witchery for the first time,

and hung them up.

The office is complete!

Let's take a look at some before & afters.

This room contains a few different feels:

a bit of family history,

vibrant colors and patterns,

a bit of Africa,

traditional antique furniture, 

a bit of personal history.

I think *hope* it all melds nicely.

pantry door shelves.

This vertical-pantry-turned-horizontal-storage-shelf

had second contribution to make to the office.

Its doors.

I removed them,

sanded them,

re-stained them,

 shortened one of them,
hung them,

and filled them.

This room just keeps getting better.

grandma francisco.

Barbara Francisco, my maternal grandmother,

was the ultimate repurposer.

She used to say,

"Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without."

If the internet was around in her day,

her DIY blog would have been super.

These are the spools of thread

she used for punch embroidery.

In the box, I found a handwriten list of country songs.

She and my grandpa Jack were line dance instructors,

and this may have been a playlist for one of their classes.

I'm glad to have some of my grandparent's

values and personality traits displayed in our home.