Furniture Remodel - Part 1

So it's been QUITE a while since i've posted... my apologies.  I'm going to try a post in the style of my mother and her blog The Cottage in the sense that it's about a furniture re-do.  or something like that.  Point blank - my vanity is getting a face lift! One that i've been dying to do for almost a year, but have somehow just not had the time.

Here's the vanity:

She's a beaut, idn't she?!

She was my mom's for 20 some years before i received her.  My mom found her in an antique shop on Clinton St. in Binghamton, New York, shortly after i was born.  She bought it after my dad added on to our home in New York to give them a nice big new master bedroom so she had room for it.  She paid around $50 for it.

Last May when I moved home from school my mom informed me that she planned on selling/getting rid of her vanity, unless I wanted it.  I thought it over not claiming it right away because I used to have a vanity that I have since gotten rid of because I didn't like it.  So i didn't want to claim this one only to not like it again... but i thought about it and realized it was the specific vanity i had that i did not like, not the idea of a vanity as a whole.  And i love this vanity of my mom's, so i decided to take her up on her offer.  Right after taking it i asked if it was okay if i painted it... (the dark wood wasn't really my style).  She said she didn't care so i began dreaming... and kept dreaming for about a year until this weekend.  I finally had 3 days off in a row with NO PLANS (or work!)! And the weather was nice and my room was clean enough to handle taking on the contents of my vanity drawers for a few days.

So alas, Saturday afternoon, I emptied the drawers of my vanity and my mom helped me move it out to the garage.  From there my dad helped me remove all of the hardware and the mirror.

drawer pulls and mirror hardware

mirror-less vanity ready to be made-over

My dad then also provided me with some brief sanding lessons and i sanded the vanity, the mirror frames, and the drawer fronts - which was extremely time consuming (probably more so for me that it would have been for anyone else because i'm a bit obsessive compulsive).

Then my dad helped me use some wood filler to fill in the tiny nail holes on the drawers as well as the indented circles from the drawer pulls (because i bought new ones several months ago)

drawers with wood filler :)

Then came Sunday afternoon - (after observing Mike run the Med City Half Marathon!) my wonderful mother helped me to prime the whole thing.  And let me tell you something about primer - it is STICKY. i felt as though i was painting with elmer's glue! and that vanity has more freakin nooks and crannies than i ever realized (which make it VERY difficult to prime! - especially for an inexperienced primer/painter like me!) I had to head into work at 5 so my very kind mother finished priming the half of the vanity that we had left (thanks again mom!)

Today (Monday) my mom and i worked together to get 2 coats of paint onto the vanity which went very well! (no pictures of this step!) And tomorrow we'll do the final steps and hopefully tomorrow night or wednesday i'll get a post up here with the final reveal! (No promises though, it may not happen til this weekend, or a week from now!)

That's all for now folks! thanks for reading my super long post!

Progress... not Completion

So I didn't finish my project. :( bummer! BUT! I did make quite a bit of progress! and by the pictures below, you wouldn't know it, but really, i did! And I'm going to continue working in small spurts throughout the weekend then hit it hard again this next weekend to hopefully finish it up!

I have a few more "Before" pictures as well as some "In Progress" pictures to share!

My left closet "Before"

My right closet "Before"

ugh! scary!

Vanity "Before"

Vanity Drawer 1 "Before"

Vanity Drawer 2 "Before"

Vanity Drawer 3 "Before"

Wash Table Drawer 1 "Before"

Wash Table Drawer 2 "Before"

Wash Table Drawer 3 "before"

Behind the Door/Dresser "Before"

Kinda scary how many "Junk Drawers" I've accumulated over the summer! All unintentionally of course! Please be gentle, remember, i'm being very vulnerable by sharing all of my messy, disorganized, cluttered life with you!!

The Process:

Step 1 for me always when cleaning my room: Wash the linens! love sleeping in a freshly washed bed! :D

Part of the Process: Sorting! My mom gave me these "tupperware" bins which I used to sort things into the following categories: Miscellaneous, Memory Stuff (pictures, cards, etc), Games, Shoe Accessories, Electronics, Books, Office Supplies, Magazines, Stuff that's not mine, and To be Donated! (plus others that were added later!)

Believe it or not, this mess is progress being made! I have, or now had, many many many boxes and tubs scattered throughout our house: in the storage room, garage and under my bed, that were full of SHTUFF! This is part way through some of those boxes and bins!

There is still lots of work to do, but much was accomplished over the weekend and I feel good about it! Hopefully by the end of next weekend I'll be able to give you some more updates!

That's all for me tonight! I've got my first day with the students at school tomorrow! My lunch is all packed up (now hopefully I won't forget it tomorrow!) And my outfit is picked out! Hopefully everything will go great!

Wish me luck! :)

p.s. What did YOU do with your Labor Day weekend?! :)

Weekend (hopefully!) Project

The goal this weekend is to tackle my bedroom.  Not just clean it, which it so obviously needs, but to deep clean, organize and purge it of LOTS OF SHTUFF! I have way too much stuff that has accumulated over the years, most of it unnecessary to keep for anything.  So this weekend I'm hoping to get rid of lots of stuff, organize the remaining stuff that is hopefully only the stuff I really need, and maybe even tackle a few of the decor projects I've been wanting to do for a while!  So me posting this here is to help keep myself accountable so I can hopefully show you so after pictures instead of just leaving you hanging on the before pictures for weeks on end! So here goes nothing! It's about 12:40 on Saturday afternoon and I hope to have it all done by Monday evening! YIKES! better get to work!!

The pictures below are taken from each corner of my room in it's current state.  I did nothing to fix it or make it look better before snapping the photos, so be gentle! I'm being very vulnerable here! :)

from the door corner

from the vanity corner

from the bed corner

from the towel hook corner

and from standing on my bed :)

Did I also mention that I have a few things left to do/organize in order to be prepared for my first day with the kiddos on tuesday?! AH! (which means tuesday is the first day with the students at the school for my student teaching!)

wish me luck!

p.s. Just a note that today would have been my grandparents (dad's mom and dad) 59th wedding anniversary!  My gramma passed away in June 2004 just before their 52nd and my grampa just passed away in January of this year.  So this is their first one together celebrating in the best place they could since their 51st! Happy Anniversary Gramma and Grampa! I miss you both very much! 

No Promises

Hello Friends!

Been a while, huh? I am simply going to blog, with no promises of continued blogging, because I think every time I make those promises, I break them :)

Facts/Details from my life as of Late:

1. I'm a senior in college

2. I'm 22 years old

3. I am loving living with my best friend, Katie in our "new" apartment

4. I'm obsessed with Lady Antebellum

5. My apartment is INFESTED with asian beetles, and they're disgusting! (sitting in my living room right now i can count 20 and there are easily 20 more hanging out just inside our front door)

6. I'm working on making an "evolution of hair" collage with pictures of my changing hair styles from the past 4-6 years, when finished, I'll post it here

7. I got a job working at a childcare center here at school, and I love it

8. I ride the shuttle to campus almost every tues/thur morning, and Jerry (the driver) is awesome

9. I would like to take more pictures

10. I am working on being more artsy/crafty

11. Working with kids this summer and at school now has really helped me become more patient than I already was

12. I am still somewhat in shock that I am starting to have friends who are getting engaged/married... I don't feel old enough for that!

13. In case you're wondering, I've had more bloody noses in the past 2 years than in my entire life... mostly because until last year, I'd never had one

14. I am growing my hair out... again. (and hopefully succeeding this time!)

15. I have a new found accessory obsession... watches.

16. I still think we're in the second week of school, even though we're in week 7

17. Two weekends ago, I attended a gopher game at the new TCF Bank Stadium - my 2nd gopher game and my first at the new stadium... it was really cool!

I'm off to take a nap now before my night class. I am hoping to do SOMEWHAT better with blogging, but like I said at the beginning of the post, NO PROMISES! :)

snip snap snout, my tale's told out!

New Title - I NEED YOUR HELP! :)

So i'm not digging my new blog title... i like it - i think it's clever (b/c i'm clever... haha j/k) but i don't think i'm THAT much of a drama queen... some of you might agree, some might not... but either way... I think i want a new name... maybe the new one will have the current one "confessions of a 20-something drama queen" as the sub-title.... maybe not.

so basically what i need from you - the very few readers i have - are suggestions! :)

now if you give a suggestion and i don't end up using it, PLEEAAAAASE don't be offended... i'm an EXTREMELY undecisive person so these things are hard for me! i want something clever and that captures me and since pretty much all of my readers know me pretty well, that's why i'm asking them... or you. whatever.

also - i might not even end up using anyone's suggestions... i might come up with one on my own! but either way, here is my plea for help - please post a comment with your suggestion(s) and maybe my next blog will be a voting session on my favorites!! thanks so much for your help!!