Home updates

I've been tinkering with a couple of home projects lately, but before going on about furniture that doesn't really make sense for our current apartment, I'll explain:

Josh and I bought a house!

Well, we're in the process of buying a house, anyway. It's a Craftsman bungalow with three bedrooms and two porches in a neighborhood we love, and I can't wait to tell you all about it once we close next month. While we'd love to be settled in our new home sooner, it's good to have time to prepare for the move. For now, I'm having fun brainstorming furniture and room and garden layouts (and we're slowly starting to organize our current belongings).

Despite that enthusiasm and excitement, I'm sort of trying to hold off on purchases and projects until we actually are living in the home—and ideally settled in for awhile, to be able to see how we use each space. But there are a couple of exceptions, including a little cabinet that I bought off Craigslist that we're hoping to use as a TV stand (first idea), a buffet for our dining room (second idea) or in one of a few other places (if the others don't work). We also wanted to just figure out how to do this kind of project. We stripped the stain off—which we may or may not have needed to do—then sanded it and painted it white. (I've learned there are some strong opinions out there about painting over wood, but I like it on this one.)

Before:

After!

In search of knobs that tied the white and brass together, I bought a different set (not pictured) but Josh said those knobs looked like disco balls and then of course that's all I saw, too. Then I found some other knobs on Etsy (also not pictured) and I think those are actually going to be the winners.

I also wanted to add some comfortable chairs to our (eventual) front porch, and I was hoping to find at least a temporary option to maximize the number of evenings out on that porch this fall. Last month I (literally) ran by a garage sale and saw a pair of wicker chairs for $5 each. All they needed was a fresh coat of spray paint, so I hurried home and drove back to pick them up. I added some self-imposed urgency to the chair project when our patio furniture sold faster on Craigslist than I expected, leaving us with an empty patio for the rest of the summer (or until I finished the chair project).

Before:

Halfway through:

And after! (The true color is probably a cross between these two photos.)

Then our makeshift patio set-up needed some sort of table, so I looked in our basement for something to use as a side table and found an old Ikea Lack table that was already navy blue. It was a good size but seemed like a little too much solid navy when paired with the chairs, so I went in search of some gift wrap or fabric to Mod-Podge over the top. At Patina, I found a sheet of matte gift wrap that was a fun version of a Minnesota map (and incorporating a bit of blue color to boot!), and I decided to go with that. I adhered it to the table with Mod-Podge and then added a couple of topcoats to seal it.

We've since shifted our focus to organizing and packing, but we both learned a lot even from just these two projects—and we're excited to learn more in the months and years ahead.