Pop Some Tags - Thrift Shop Challenge

This past Monday I trekked in the rain and the fog to my local Goodwill to participate in Young House Love's genius, Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge. Since their post last Friday this song has become my theme song! If you haven't heard it yet, check it out here.

First I had to drop off my load of donations. I keep a super cute tote bag my sister made me that says "Give" in the laundry room and it collects Goodwill donations for weeks or months at a time. I just grab it on my way out the door. Anyway - when I rolled up to the donations door I of course had the Thrift Shop song playing. Much to my pleasure, the donations guy was totally into it! He was laughing and made a comment about the song. Which made the whole trip worth it. While I didn't find too much of anything wonderful inside on this trip, I did find some house slippers as mentioned in the song.

Whenever I see a whole bunch of something like this at a place like Goodwill I imagine some crazy woman that stocked up on 30 pairs of something silly like slippers - and her husband made her donate them all to Goodwill. More likely a store donated them, but it is funny to imagine!

Since I do not have any thrifting spoils to show off from this week, I thought this would be a good opportunity to pay homage to all the wonderful things I have found at thrift stores since I started seriously thrifting back in June of 2011. My husband tells me that it has become a hip thing for kids these days to do - so I guess all us DIYers better watch out!





So here are a few of the before and afters of my junk turned treasure. Click the pictures to see the posts about them.

#popsometags!

Thrift Store Finds - November

Sadly, garage sale season has ended... I am counting down the months until they start up again in the spring. Never fear though, thrift store goodies are sometimes an even better deal and are in full swing all winter. This past weekend my sister and I (and her adorable children) hit up a few in Lansing, MI. Here are the highlights of the bounty I brought home with me.

Kate fondly refers to this as the "Rock the Casbah" mirror. I like to call it Arabian Nights. It was only $7.99 at Goodwill and had a sticky note on the back that said "Room 304" - using my excellent detective skills I have deduced it came from a hotel. That and my sister bought the exact same one the week before from the same goodwill to put in her booth. I think it will go in my master bath... I have been cooking up a scheme for what I want to do in there (hint: stripes/stenciled/chevron paint job?). So far it is untouched except for the towel bar rack I took down months ago in an attempt to get started on that room. I think I was a little ahead of myself. (Try to ignore the mess/leaf collection in the garage :-))

This A-MA-Zing chair we found at the same Goodwill for $4.99. It has beautiful lines and I just could not walk away. Even though my house is CHOCK FULL of chairs. You can always use one more right? This one has found a home in the man-cave for now.

This footstool might be my favorite find of the day... surprise... it opens up and has a secret storage compartment, and it was only $4. I am having fun imaging what I will keep in there... probably just magazines, but maybe something more exciting... like remotes. :-)

I also found a ton of sewing patterns and a few volumes of The Family Creative Workshop which I have been wanting to start a collection of. All in all it was quite a productive weekend of thrifting!

Yet to be

As the summer winds down I have enjoyed looking back at the last month and a half of blog posts to see what I have accomplished in my new house. 

This trip down memory lane also reminds me of the projects I still want to complete. I have a million ideas running around my head so I thought what better place to collect my ideas and than publicly on my blog. :-)

 Here goes the list of what is yet to be:

Curtains
I  need to make curtains for the master bedroom, sewing room, and the man cave.
Here is my inspiration for the sewing room curtains (found on Pinterest, originally from here):

I also need to make shower curtains for each of the bathrooms. I have the curtain for the master bath started out of this fabric. It's hard to tell in the picture but it has a nice shimmer to it.

I like the idea behind the curtain below. I might try doing a thicker border with a pattern in the center for the guest bath. To see what the guest bath looks like now, click here. Photo from Houzz.

Gallery Wall
I want to create a gallery wall somewhere in my house. I am thinking in the living room for now. My plan is to spray paint a variety of frames I have and frames I have found white to tie them all together.

Here are some frames my sister scored for me super cheap.

And an inspiration for what I want it to look like eventually. Maybe a little less cluttered. I like that in this gallery wall there are more than just pictures. I see maps and trinkets and art, which I think makes it more interesting. This gallery wall was featured in the Young House Love blog (which is a great blog, I am totally addicted to it!).

Artwork

I still need artwork above the couch in the living room and in the master bedroom on the wall opposite our "H" display seen here.

Because my couch pillows remind me of fall leaves, when I came across this button tree canvas I thought it would be adorable to tie in all my colors. We will see how it turns out! (Picture from Pinterest)

For the bedroom I am thinking a painting that mimics the pattern in my bedspread, seen below and more recently here.

Furniture
I also have a slew of furniture to repaint. Here are just a few of the pieces I have picked up.

Coffee Table

Outdoor Bench (maybe for under the arch?)

Right: Chairs for Sewing Room 

Left: This is a really cool old sewing table. 

The lid flips open and a sewing machine swings up from the inside. 

More on this when I get around to painting it.

We found this little half table at De'Ja'Vu.

Repaint this little guy                                            End Table          

Junk
Of all the junk I've found so far, there are still a few things I'm looking for. T.J. wants a desk and bookshelf for the mancave and I am dying to find some chairs that look like these.

I know they are hard to see in the picture, but they are armed dining chairs with recoverable seats. They were featured on the Nate Berkus show (P.S. if you don't watch Nate you need to start - he is wonderful!) in a blogger design competition. This blogger painted them white and recovered them in green and white vintage curtain fabric. I think they would look great in my living room recovered in the same fabric as my couch pillows. So keep your eye out for them!

Paint

The master bathroom, foyer, front door, and guest bathroom cabinets all need to be painted. Here are their current looks:

Master Bath (also needs new mirror and lighting)

Foyer

Front Door

This ledge also needs to be painted. In the long term we'd like to make this into a bar. The gold walls and wood trim sure are a trip down memory lane!

In the long long term we'd like to paint our kitchen cabinets white and update the hardware. For now, I do think the wood looks nice with the green, but white would really brighten things up.

Whew, there is a lot on my to do list. Should keep me pretty busy though! Is this just how home ownership is? Always something to do? Judging by the "honey do" lists I've seen at my sister's house I'm thinking it is. Check back for progress. :-)