Home Improvements: Part III.

I realize I haven't blogged in WAY too long, 

I do apologize. 

I did try and blog some last week, 

but the website was on the fritz.

Crazy. 

Anyway, 

I wanted to share some more of my home improvement efforts.

Over the summer I inherited some old furniture from my parents,

who recently moved.

So I set out to refinish a chest of drawers and an end table. 

I had an idea of what I wanted to do,

but I wasn't really following any sort of plan;

I'm more of an "off the cuff" kinda gal. 

So here's a glimpse of the LONG refurbishing process.

Here's what I started with:

The chest of drawers. 

The end table. 

First,

 I sanded them down to get the shiny finish off,

so I could paint them.

I did the same to the end table. 

Next, 

came the first coat of paint!

I wanted the two pieces be able to go together if need be, 

but not necessarily match.

So I went with a base of navy blue for the chest of drawers, 

with off white for the handles. 

I decided to go with a base of off white for the end table. 

The next step proved to be the most time consuming...

Painting all THE DETAILS!

I do love details. 

After MANY hours spent in the garage working,

and MANY hours of watching Netflix while I painted,

this is what I came up with. 

The chest of drawers!

The end table!

I was so excited to get them to Ruston,

so I could get them into the house!! 

I ended up using the chest of drawers for extra storage in the bathroom!

And the end table became my much needed bedside table!

So that's the story of my furniture painting!! 

It was a lot of work, 

but it was well worth it!

I love how everything turned out! 

Home Improvements: Part II.

I wrote the first installment of my home improvements back in April,
with my new coffee table made from an old window.

Back in the spring we had our windows replaced at my house here in Ruston.
It was quite the endeavor, but it taught me a few things.
The main thing it taught me,
was that our mini blinds were DISGUSTING.
They were ALL broken,
dusty,
crooked,
and just plain nasty.
So we decided to forgo the blinds and replace them with curtains!

Only problem was...
we didn't have any curtains.

So my task over Easter break was to fix that!
I found some relatively inexpensive fabric at Wal-Mart and went to work!

With help from Mom,
(lots of help)
I started sewing curtains for our living and dining room.
They weren't too complicated,
just time consuming!

The edges of the fabric had a nice selvage,
so all I had to do was make two nice big seams at the top and bottom,
and there you go!!

The Before:

The After:

The living room

The dining room.

On my way home from Kamp, 

I stopped off here in Ruston to spend the night.

I found that our next door neighbors had cut down the 3 or 4 trees along our side fence,

leaving my room no longer hidden by lush foliage. 

So I was needing some better window coverage! 

So I set out again to make me some curtains!

I bought some discounted fabric at a local store in Lake Charles,

and to work I went. 

(With lots of help from Mom and MomBond)

We decided to make tabs out of ribbon to hang them, 

instead of the big seam like the other curtains. 

This material also had a nice selvage, 

so no side seams!!

Wahoo!!

We used hem tape to be able to make the bottom seam look larger without losing length. 

So a couple seams, and a few tabs later here's what we got!

I decided to use the new curtains I was making, 

and the ones I already had up, 

to make my room that much more private. 

So hopefully these do their job and keep what's inside in, 

and what's outside out!