My Teeny Tiny Home Office

We don't have much extra room in our home so I have all of my computer "stuff" (oversized printer, silhouette machine, camera chargers, etc) and paperwork stored away here in this big armoire. I hate for wires and electronic stuff to be out in the open so this works perfectly. I have never really liked the way this piece looked, however, I LOVE it's functionality. It's a long story but I actually got it for free a few years ago and design-wise it has always driven me a little crazy because it was so clunky looking and really too large for the space, but practicality-wise, I have to say I couldn't live without it! So, seeing how I have been on a painting frenzy lately, I decided to go ahead and paint it to see if lightening it up would help. I like it so much better now! Unfortunately, thanks to the fact that we live in a townhome and therefore have very few windows in our whole house, the only windows in this room go off to the porch so the natural light in here is awful for taking photos. Especially on this side of the room. I was too lazy to get my tripod out so these are pretty grainy and the color looks lighter in these pictures than it does in real life. It is a darker grayish/tan than it appears in these photos.

I am happy with how it turned out and the best part - not only did I get this piece for FREE a few years ago, I painted it for FREE too! They were giving away free quarts of paint at our Ace Hardware so I of course snatched one up. The paint was a different brand than I usually use but I had them mix up a Benjamin Moore color for me - Valley Forge Tan. I would say it more gray than tan though.

Here it is before. The other night when I was about to start painting I realized I wasn't sure if I had any pictures of it before so I took this one. Thanks to the fact that it was in the wee hours of the morning and with no natural light it looks worse here in the photo than it actually did. (Although it was very heavy/clunky looking!)

When I looked through my photos later I could just find glimpses of it. Seeing how I never liked it I always made sure it was cropped mostly out of pictures.

I want to get rid of the glass and add chicken wire like I did for my parents hutch, but the glass is not going to be as easy to take out of this piece so I'm not sure when I am going to attempt that.

 

I think this new color works so much better in this room now. This is a photo from earlier this year when it was still black and you can see on the left where it sits in relationship to the rest of the room.

I hope you all are having a wonderful summer! We've been quite busy. Dana was here this past weekend and we spent most of Saturday at Busch Gardens. Here she is with Lillie:

And here is a picture of Lillie and Jon with the ENORMOUS flamingo Jon won for her. I think next time we will play something that Jon is not so good at so we don't get stuck with any more ridiculously oversized toys. =) It was quite the challenge getting it in the car and takes up about half of Lillie's room. I have no idea how I am going to ever be able to "discreetly" get rid of it - haha!

I hope you all have a fabulous Wednesday!

A Little French Cabinet Makeover

We pretty much have zero storage space in our home. Because of this I am always on the lookout for pieces of furniture that can be used as storage. Upstairs we just have one teeny tiny linen closet and then each bedroom has a small closet. Neither of the bathrooms have one so trying to find space for towels, washcloths, and bed linens has always been a challenge. I have been on the lookout for either a tall dresser or cabinet/armoire that would fit in the little space in the hall upstairs. I have found a few things over the years but they have always been too wide and would not have fit. I had pretty much given up until I saw this piece in a used furniture shop here in Williamsburg. It was a good price and I loved the lines of it and it looked like it just might be narrow enough. After measuring the wall again at home to make sure it would indeed fit I got pretty excited about it and my mom and dad bought it for me for my birthday. Last week I finally got around to painting it!

Here is what it looked like to start with:

For this project, I simply added some tape to the wire to avoid getting paint on it and then started right in painting it. I used Benjamin Moore's Gray Owl for this piece. I wish I had of gone one shade darker but other than that I LOVE the color of it. It's a great gray, although I think it's kind of hard to see the true color in any of these pictures. =(

Once the whole outside of the piece was painted I sanded it down in some areas to give it more of a distressed feel. After that I painted the inside with a darker grayish blue by Benjamin Moore called Cobblestone Path (I think....I will have to check that one to make sure). I did choose the Gray Owl intentionally but for the inside I just went out to the garage and looked through my stash of extra paint and I thought this color complimented the Gray Owl best. If I had been able to just pick any color I would have gone for a slightly lighter less blue color but I am still happy with how this turned out.

After the inside dried completely I got really torn on what to do with it. I had been wanting to paint something chevron for a few months now but really didn't have the right place/piece to do it. I thought it might work but then realized how much work it was going to be so I kept talking myself out of it. Plus I was worried it might look a little too modern for this particular piece. Eventually, though, I knew I would be disappointed if I didn't at least give the chevron a chance so I started taping it out. Ugh! It was a total pain and I have to say I don't plan on doing it again any time soon! In fact, I almost gave up midway through. I wanted my chevron stripes to all be the same width, but in order to do that I had to tape accordingly, which makes some of the lines look skinnier (although once you pull the tape off it will make them even back out). It was a hair confusing to start with but not too bad once I got going.

Once it was FINALLY all taped off (I will make a mental note to NEVER attempt to do a wall) I painted every other chevron stripe with the Gray Owl I used on the outside of the piece and went to bed (sorry for the grainy phone pics for these shots).

The next morning Lillie helped me take all of the tape off and yay! It was worth it! It was far from perfect but seeing how it was the back of a piece that was going to have shelves and things on the shelves I knew it didn't have to be perfect.

Now that it is over with, I am so glad I did go ahead with the chevron. I think it adds a little quirky touch to this otherwise traditional piece. And when I get sick of it, it will take about two minutes to just paint over the back and then try something new (I had thought about wallpapering it or doing a damask stencil originally). For now, though, I love the chevron!

 

As usual, Lillie likes helping and for this piece she got to do the back all by herself! =) Believe it or not, it actually took her a really long time to do this.

Now we just have to get it back upstairs. These pictures were taken down in our entryway area because it hasn't made it's way back upstairs yet. I can move it from room to room but can't get it up stairs - it's heavy and rather awkward to lift. A few of Jon's players originally helped us get it up stairs when we first got it back in early January, then our friends Austin and Kelly came over and Austin helped Jon get it back downstairs last week so I could paint it...now we just need to rope one of the players into coming back over and helping us get it back upstairs.

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Linking up to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday!
and The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday!