Ana White- 6 cube bookshelf

Have you been to Ana-White.com? If not, stop what you're doing

and go there...now!! 

This site is amazing. It has step by step tutorials on making

just about any furniture item you can think of! I'm addicted

and hope to never buy a piece of furniture again....ok,

that's a lie. I just bought an amazing island for my kitchen.

But somethings I'm just not capable of making! 

Back to the bookcase. We have a corner in our living room

that I wanted to make into a little nook for Gianna to keep her 

toys and books. However, the bookcase that I wanted was a bit

too expensive for me. 

Target $189.99

Then I found the exact.same.bookcase on

Ana-White.com for half the price! Right away I sent Jeff to the 

hardware store for supplies!

The total cost of the project was around $60 and took Jeff (and his 

friend Alec) about 3hrs to make. It fits perfectly in the corner and my

favorite part is that it hold the cloth bins from Target!

And for the finished pictures.....

TaDa!!

Gianna's pink chair is from Amazon.com. They

have a bunch of different colors available! 

We really love it, I only wished that the cover

came off for easy washing!

The only thing this bookcase needs is a little 

something on top. I'm thinking about doing some 

yarn wrapped letters similiar to these...

photo from sarahortega.com

Maybe have it say "READ"...

Revamped Dining Room

Do you ever get in a sewing rut? I felt like I was getting into one so I took a break from my machine...and decided to redecorate! We've lived in our home for 4yrs now and I was getting tired of the colors... plus I wanted something more calming, more cottagey, more kid-friendly.

You see, we live in an old township. Our house is old, which I love (and also hate sometimes!) but I didn't feel like our decor really matched our home. So over the last week or two I've been redecorating!

Before....

After!

I started in the dining room. We purchased a table/chairs a few months ago that I had been wanting to paint. I got the chairs painted and recovered them with plastic (hello kid-friendly!) and then Waverly Pom Pom Play in Spa fabric. LOVE IT!

I also did some thrifting with my mom and sister a few weekends ago. I picked up a bunch of knickknacks for cheap! I also fell in love with the Vintage Willow China. I told Jeff when he bought me my big, huge, old farm house I was buying a full set of that china ;-) But for now I purchased my first piece...at .50cents I couldn't pass it up!

Here's my new shelves... I just used my old shelves and repainted them. I primed them with Kilz Oil based paint (sticks much better to fake-wood surfaces). Then painted them Gris from Sherman Williams. I sanded them a bit to give them a more distressed/old look.

No, the bottom shelf isn't crooked. I have no idea what's going
on there!

The little turquoise box was something I already had, only it was dark brown. I repainted it a turquoise color and then watered down some brown acrylic paint. I painted the acrylic paint on, then before it drys; wipe some off. It gives items like this a distressed look. I love how it turned out! Plus, it was free!

As for my owl, I was going to paint it all white but my hubby likes it the way it is. What do you think?

That's my dining room! I pretty much love it now. Next I'll show you my entry area...this is my very favorite part of my redo :-)