My "new" secretary

I am so excited! I finally finished my secretary! You know, the one that has been sitting in my garage for weeks months. The worst part is that it has pretty much been done since March, all it needed was one last coat of paint and a good distressing. But I live in Houston and it gets hot, and I didn't want to paint it when it's that hot outside because I knew I'd be miserable and sweaty by the time it was done. So I procrastinated, and then procrastinated some more. I even considered waiting until the fall to finish it. Then last weekend I had a BRILLIANT idea. I thought to myself "why don't I just bring it inside to finish it?!"

The irony is that this idea was not brilliant, but totally obvious. I have no idea why it took me so long to think of it.

So, with this epiphany, I headed to Sears for a drop cloth. Less than a week later, I'm done! Here's the transformation, step by step:

Above is what it looked like before. By the way, I found this on Craigslist for $140. Gotta love a bargain!

Then I sanded the entire thing and taped off the glass. After that I totally cheated. I didn't know how to paint in all the tiny little crevices where the shelves are, so I just spray painted them. The shade of white was close enough to the paint I used on the rest of it, so it blends in perfectly and you'd never know I didn't work painstakingly in all those little crevices with a brush. Here's a close up:

Then of course, I primed:

And then (three months later) I took this bad boy inside for the final coat of paint and added a subtle distressing (sorry I forgot to take pictures of those steps). I'm really happy with the final product. What do you think?:

This project only cost me about $150 total because I used the leftover paint from our kitchen renovation (read about that here). I did have to buy a drop cloth and another roll of painter's tape because I ran out about half way through, but all in all, I think it was well worth the work, and a total bargain!

Hope you've enjoyed my most recent project!

-Jesse

My Gallery Wall

Happy Thursday! I was snapping some pictures the other day in my living room for a different blog post that I'm planning when I realized I'd never shared my gallery wall with you guys! I created my gallery wall over the course of several months because I couldn't afford to fill the whole thing up at one time. Take a peek:
 

Some of the things you see here are store bought (Ross and Home Goods are two of my favorites) but some of the art I created by using old frames I already had but wasn't using. All I had to do was paint them a fun color and frame pieces of fabric that I bought at Goodwill. I cut up two pillow cases and an old curtain. The little white shelf was a Goodwill find too :)

 

I like my gallery wall, but I'm already itching to update it! And its only been about a year since I completed it! I might just have to whip out my handy can of white spray paint to get rid of some of the darker colors. What do you guys think? Should I keep it colorful, or make it more neutral?

Thanks!

-Jesse