Caught White Handed

Oh no, she got hold of the spray paint again!!  Every man for themselves!

I'm not sure what spoke to me about this hand vase (must have been sign language...), but when I saw it at an estate sale this weekend, I felt compelled to pick it up immediately.  $4? Ok, if you insist.  I've never seen anything like it before.  Even the strangest things can look elegant in white ceramic, right?

I tried cleaning it up, but it still looked like dingy old off-white with a bad manicure.

After checking it to make sure there were no markings that this was a priceless heirloom (spoiler alert: it wasn't), I took to it with some fine sand paper before I let her have it.

Flat white spray paint was all I had on hand (pun intended, but also true).  The white paint was just what this piece needed to make it look fresh and clean.

I borrowed an air plant from the kitchen to test out my vision.  I need to get some more air plants.  In the past year I've only killed 1 out of 5.  That's pretty decent for me with plants- I've kept 4 alive!  Throw me a parade- I'm a saint here!  Too far?  Anyway, so HAND!

For $4 you could get a fancy latte at Starbucks, but I think spending it on weird hand vases is so much more fulfilling.  It looks exactly how I pictured it on my shelf and I kind of love it.  High five! Sorry, sorry, I'll stop with the hand puns, scouts honor.... ok that was the last.  really.

I've been picking up cool old books at tag sales and estate sales, so my living room bookcase is just screaming for a full restyle in the very near future and not just the shelves that end up in hand photo shoots.

Apparently I'm feeling very cheeky pre-coffee this Monday morning.  My apologies if my cheese level was off the charts- I'll try to be more docile in Wednesday's post.  No promises.

Happy Monday!

Color Blocked Deco

I know you must be on the edge of your seat with anticipation- What did Karen spend her last $3 on at Brimfield??  Fear not, I'm here to put you at ease! Piled under other several other items, I discovered the most adorable wood and metal deco tray.  The handle caught my eye and once I moved the junk piles from it, I realized that it was in amazing condition.  I would've paid more than $3 for it if necessary- that's how much I love it.

At first I just cleaned it up with a little wood conditioner (which worked miracles!) and fine steel wool on the metal, but I wanted to kick it up a bit.

While adorable on it's own, it needed a pop of color.  After racking my brain for what pattern this little guy wanted- herringbone?  diamonds?  free-handed feathers?- I kept coming back to color blocking.  Why resist the urge?

It's the perfect size to hang out next to my computer and corral the everyday necessities.

My sexy mac is in the shop, so I'm borrowing Hubby's extra lappy currently, hence the less-sexy black box.  Hopefully only another day or so.

Considering I used paint, wood conditioner, and steel wool that I already had, the only cost here was the $3 tray!  And what a pretty $3 tray it is!

I'm so happy that I could keep the integrity of the piece and give it a quick update.  My favorite type of DIY!

So, what do you think?

Office Glitz

IKEA's pretty devious if you ask me.  Every time I end up there to buy a flip house kitchen or such, I end up spending money on my own house as well. After drooling over this lamp for 6 months,

my resistance wore down.

It fit's perfectly in my office.  Not too big, not too small, and just enough glitz.  Check out that cord and gold accents!  Well done, IKEA!  (it's also available in silver, but the white just called to me)

I also purchased drawer inserts for my office's expedit cubbies.  I've tried to keep flip reciepts and paperwork organized with just open shelving, but it hasn't been pretty (read: looks like a bomb went off).  Once I got 4 sets of drawers home and assembled one set, I noticed an issue...

As you may know, IKEA's expedit line has now been replaced with Kallax.  Same product, but a little sleeker.  And, apparently, slightly whiter.

Not kosher.  It wasn't close enough to be the same and not different enough to be different, if you know what I mean.  The way I saw it, I had 2 options.  Go back to IKEA and pick up the drawers in the wood tone...

... and IKEA's 35 minutes away and at this point was a weekend.  I don't do IKEA on weekends...... I like myself too much to do that to me....  so where does that leave me?

Paint them, naturally.

I went with a light gray- just gray enough to add a bit of contrast to the white and get away from the clashing white tones.

Some fancier brass pulls are in these drawers future, but until then, I also sprayed the knobs gold.  Can you tell how excited I am for the weather finally to be nice enough to start painting outside again?

Once I get the office organized once again and tweak a few more small things, I'll give you a full office update.  Until then, I'm totally excited to have a little bit more style in this tiny room.

Well, I'm off to meet the contractor at Grover!  Happy Monday!!