Our newish dining table

We tackled this project earlier this year, amidst our wedding planning & projects, I found this solid dining room table at a garage sale for $50! I couldn't pass it up, as we were looking to replace our pub style table for something more homey and less bachelor-pad-esque. Zach wasn't thrilled, but like how it goes with most of our projects, five minutes didn't pass until he was knee deep in sanding, staining and varnishing our beautiful table :)

We had some trouble sanding down the round legs and certain parts of the wood just wouldn't absorb the stain, but we ended up loving the results of our shabby, imperfect dark brown stain. We also took off the legs of our cool World Market chairs to stain them the same color as the table (they were painted black). Overall, it's a proud piece in our home now!

I bought the table from a family of 4 at a local garage sale. This had survived the '89 earthquake in California and was a centerpiece for their families since the 80's! I'm talking crayon marks, names etched in the wood, and more. This is the table BEFORE:

I spent hours sanding this bad boy down. It took us a month probably on the weekends.

We finally got smart when Zach came around :) 2 out of the 4 legs done! Miles & Molly are thrilled and looking as fat as ever :)

First stain on top! We thought it would absorb the color, but for some reason it didn't in certain areas.

Stained the first pass...looking good!

Final results!

 I love that you can see the texture of the wood in the left picture. 

Instagram Picture Frame

One of my favorite things in our house is my instagram frame! I found this idea off of Pinterest, duh. Made my own template and I love how it turned out! The colors go perfect with our new wall piece.

Here's a downloadable template for Photoshop: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/106489759/instagram-picture-template-16x20.psd

Have fun!

Inspiration: 

DIY Necklace Knob Hanger

I made this a while ago but didn't take any pictures!! I really made this for practical reasons, but love it for much more now. I have 2 jewelry boxes, 1 jewelry plate, a revolving jewelry stand with mirror and an earring-jewelry tree. This is my favorite!

This is a piece of wood from an old palette. Lucky for me, my dad keeps wood scrap in their pasture, so I just have my pick when I have a new project! Zach sawed, we sanded, and I painted. I didn't even need to distress it, the white acrylic paint that I used soaked in and I didn't even try to give it a nice paint job because I wanted a worn look.

The knobs came from World Market! I originally wanted to collect unique knobs from different places but I didn't have much luck...and World Market has the COOLEST knobs (now I just collect from World Market hehe).

Pretty straight forward and I love it! (Excuse our crazy reddish-orange wall) I can't recall if I found the inspiration off of Pinterest because I never pinned anything like this until I already made mine. But at least you can find more thorough tutorials out there! Have fun!

Inspiration pinned after I made mine, hence the caption: "Made this! but a white washed wood version." It must be known. :)

DIY Distressed Dresser Refinish

I fell in love with a dresser one day on Pinterest (pictured at the bottom of this post) and set out to find a dresser for the top of our entryway stairs. Here's what we used:

- A dresser from Craigslist
- Electric sander to get the layer of finish off the dresser
- Sandpaper (60 and 150)
- Color paint of your choice
- White spray paint
- Lime/baking soda mix to clean brass knobs off

 The before pictures:

(UGLY knobs)

The knobs taken apart below, they were so worn from age...Zach looked up how to clean them with lime and baking soda and it scrubbed right off. Also, the surface of the dresser below, so scratched and worn!

Sanded down

Let the distressing begin! Distressing was easy, we didn't use vaseline, we just carefully used the sander to do all the edges. Like most blogs say, you can't really mess up distressing it, it's all about your taste. Below you can see how amazingly the knobs turned out!

You can see distressed detail better in the iPhone picture below. 

Final product: So proud!

Inspiration:

Feel free to ask questions!