DIY - a rather ugly table gets an update

This little desk found its way to me through fortunate coincidence.  I was looking for a desk for my study and had trawled eBay, stalked Freecycle but all to no avail.  Mr E & I were driving past our local church when I noticed a furniture sale, I persuaded him to stop and let me have a little look and there it was.  Unloved, an ugly colour but the right size, a pretty shape and only £15.  

I had hoped that I'd be able to strip off the original varnish and restore the wood, however after a vigorous afternoon spent with Nitromorse and steel wool it seemed that the wood underneath wasn't up to much.  Painting it was then.  I didn't really fancy stripping off the rest of the varnish so decided to try chalk paint.  It alleged that you could paint over anything - no need to sand, no need to undercoat.

I had read so many rave reviews of the paint that I was expecting to fall in love with it instantly.  To be honest I didn't really like it that much.  It was super thick and rather like painting with cream cheese.  Still it did the job! It's a little more shabby chic than I was hoping for but all in all I am pretty pleased.

I changed the handles for some Laura Ashley glass ones that I picked up in the charity shop and lined the drawers with some scented papers.

I've added a rather fetching pen pot and letter rack and it all looks lovely.

A room of one's own...

...part two.  The furniture.

Unfortunately my room isn't as big as my the study that inspired me so in terms of furniture I had to be a little more restrained.  I knew I wanted a desk, some shelves and a comfortable chair.

I wavered between a dark wood desk, like the one in the photo below, or a white desk similar to the one on Emily's blog.  I am on a budget though so either way it wasn't going to be an expensive piece.

One Saturday Mr E and I drove past a furniture sale in our local church yard and I found a rather ugly table that just happened to be the right size and upon closer inspection was actually a rather nice shape. It was the princely sum of £15 so I snapped it up along with a little wall mounted shelf which was the grand total of £3.

I decided to keep an open mind about the table and its eventual colour until I'd had the chance to strip off some of the dark varnish and see what the wood was like underneath.  It wasn't up to much so the paint came out and it was transformed into the lovelier piece that you see before you.  A full before and after post will follow.

The shelves also had a lick of paint and now look rather super against the pink walls.

I'm still working on my other shelves so they will follow in due course and I am searching for the right fabric to recover the chair.  But that aside I am super pleased with things so far.

A room of one's own...

...part one.

This room was actually the first one that we tackled, I have waited until now to show you everything as it was mine for all of 5 minutes before Mr E moved his studio in.  This was a necessary evil as he needed somewhere to work and that room needed rather a lot doing to it to make it usable.

I had quite a clear idea of how I wanted the room to look from the beginning.  I'd seen Emily Schuman's office on her blog Cupcakes and Cashmere and had fallen in love with it immediately.

Luckily the room was in a reasonably good state and all we had to do was re-plaster the ceiling (every room in our house has horrendous Aretx) and strip the walls. I say all we had to do, there were layers of paper and paint, and paper and more paint.  Then came the filling and sanding and finally the repainting.

I tried out about four different pink paints until I found one that I liked.  It is a shame about the name as it is truly dreadful but the winner was Crown's Fairy Dust.

We finished it off with a lovely curtain panel from Ikea and a giant paper lamp shade.  I love having a room that is all mine where I can sit and read, sew, make my cards - generally anything that I want! Despite being very pink the room is calm and quiet and I can while away many an hour here.

Details on my furniture in the next post.

A birthday bag...

I love nothing better than making things by hand whether it is cards or cakes, or in this case a tote bag.  Imagine that coupled with the thrifty side of me and you'll start to get the picture of how much pleasure this project gave me.

I had a couple of birthdays last month and decided to try my hand at sewing the gift.  I used fabric samples that I picked up in a charity shop for the front and some left over curtain fabric for the back.  I didn't use a pattern as such - you barely need one for this.

I was really pleased with the results and they were very well received.