Gotta Love Spray Paint!!!!

For the first ten+ years of our marriage we have had a forest green color in the kitchen. I have wanted to change it for a really long time, but lets face it, it's an expensive things to do! Well, when we loved here I finally broke down and went to Target and had some fun! I switched over to a burgundy color, which I LOVE!!!! However, I have this calendar that hangs on my fridge that I also love, BUT it's green!
I turned a blind eye to it for a while because they no longer make these and I couldn't find anywhere that sells them, so I didn't worry to much about it. Then I got to thinking about painting it! It's amazing what you can do with spray paint these days and how much better the spraying nozzles are!!!! I love Krylon for their sprayers. When I did a party for my daughter, I went and got a bunch of Burger King crowns and then spray painted them Gold, so they could be decorated. It was an awesome idea, but my hand/finger hurt so bad afterward. It was painful! I haven't had that problem since using Krylon paint. OK, enough of that!
Here is my plastic calendar holder and my Krylon Fusion (for plastic) Burgundy Paint.

First thing I did was carefully pry up the existing white board and cork board.
Then I started painting it.
I had to do a few coats to make sure that I got all the nooks and crannys. Then I glued the white board and cork board back on and put it back on the fridge. I love it, minus the hideous black marker that my kids put all over the cork board, but that is easily covered up with one of the many notes that will be hung on there! Here she is...it's soooo much better!
I figured while I was at it, I might as well paint my stove top covers as well. They had pictures of fall foliage on them, I know it's JULY, sad! And I also know that new ones aren't very expensive, but I figured that I had them already and I had the paint, might as well have more fun! (Have I mentioned how much I love painting, it's a sickness really!) Anyways, here they are. If my kitchen was cleaner I would take a full shot to show how it all goes together, but it's not so, oh well!


I'm linking up to the CSI Project! Go check them out. I love this web site!

Live and Learn

So there is this girl I know that desperately needs a dresser for her boys. A long dresser. One that won't tip over when the youngest climbs up the drawers. One made out of wood that has a chance to be fixed when said child AGAIN climbs up the drawers.

Anyways, I don't have tons of money and it was suppose to be mostly for function, but I was going to paint it a nice dark blue to make it look nice. So I found the above dresser on a local "yard sale" web site and set up a time to go look at it. It was $10, and it said it needed a little work.
So this is where I got cocky!

First of all, upon "careful" inspection I knew that it needed some tracks for the drawers. "No problem!" I say..."I can fix that!" I say. Plus I was in a hurry, I was on my way home from the grocery store and it was starting to get dark. *First mistake-never be in a hurry! Take your time, and really check it out...it's alright to say, "I think I will pass this time."

So now, I haven't been able to figure out how to the tracks yet without it costing more than I want to spend! Right now the drawers just kind of fall out, becuase the existing wooden tracks are so worn down from the metal that goes over it. (Oh by the way, the corner had paint coming off, so I scraped some off to look at it, and then took out my sanded and sanded along the side.)
See. Some "brilliant" person paired wood with metal. The poor wood never had a chance.

If this was the only problem I probably would have been alright. I can eventually find some brilliant way to fix the drawers. However, when I got it home I started looking closer!

One cool thing about fixing up used furniture is that there is oftentimes a story that goes along with it. Sometimes it's a cool story, but in this case I would say a sad story! I think that this was outside in a farm or something, becuase there is water damage over a lot of it, but mostly on the inside. I did see the sides of this drawer, but didn't realize that it was on most of the drawers and especially along the bottom.
Also it looks as though it it was attacked by termites.

I also found in the inside along the length on the inside boards old hornets nests. Luckily they were old! The last thing is that the paint was not done well. They didn't sand down the original wood and didn't use a good primer, so the paint is just peeling off. Because of that I would have to scrape off all the existing paint, sand it down, and then prime it and paint it. SO MUCH WORK!!! (I'm seriously kicking myself for passing up a HUGE, beautiful $30 dresser that would have needed NO work!)

I really don't have the time, energy and money to put into this dresser. There just isn't any guarantee that if I do put the time, energy and money into that it will even help!
I am seriously wondering at this point if it is even worth it, or if I can turn it into firewood!

Well hopefully, I learned something from this, and at least it was only $10 and not more. Although, $10 is $10 and I'm still sad! I might have picked this up for free, and then tossed back to the curb when I realized it was beyond me helping it.