DIY build it yourself Vintage Farmhouse Style Coffee Table from Rescued Lumber.

Getting ready for Christmas, so I am RESHARING!

Hello again, My BEAUTIES!!

Boy oh Boy am I excited to show you my latest 

PROJECT!

 I have been saving all this found lumber for almost 2 years now and I FINALLY got the time and 

motivation (hubby was ecstatic to get this out of the garage, by the way) 

to create what has been eating my brain for just as long.

 Now most of my regulars know about how I built my own kitchen Table.

But if you are new here, you can see my

 How to build a farmhouse Kitchen table for under $100

 My kitchen table was my motivation for this latest project.

You see when I Dumpster Dove to get all this wood there was a square apron frame

already made sitting in the trash. 

I am assuming it was from an old work bench or work table that had been in the garage of 

the house that I was dumpster diving at. 

The family was selling the house and was gutting the house of everything that they didn't want or need before they sold...It was a score for me~

SO with that frame...I knew what I wanted to do. 

I just needed the TIME (with 4 kids and all my other work that was the hardest part of the whole project) :)

So I gathered all my collected wood pieces and parts that I had salvaged from peoples dumpsters,

and got my plan in action.

 Since the apron frame was already built we just needed to figure out how long we wanted our top boards to be to cover the sides of the apron.

We decided on 51 inches because it gave just the right amount of hang around the outside edge of the apron. 

We measured and cut all our top boards and got to work.

 One of the first things we had to figure out was how TALL we wanted our table to be.

I spent a few minutes walking around to all the coffee tables I have and measured where they landed on my leg..(REAL SCIENTIFIC STUFF HERE, PEOPLE)  :)

with the added thickness of the top boards they would be sitting on we decided on 17 inches for the length.

 This 4x4 was left over from my kitchen table build, That means I have spent ZERO dollars on this project so far.

I cut the 4x4s into 17 inch lengths and put them aside.

 Next we had to measure our cross lats for the apron bracing.

This keeps the apron square, and also adds area to attach the top boards to.

I measured and cut the boards and put 3 Lateral brace boards into the apron.

I used nails to tap them into place just to set them so I could get them even and level to to the top of the apron. When they were set where I wanted them I then screwed them in.

 Once the lateral braces were in ti was time to attach the table top.

Now since my table was already RUSTIC looking I didn't want the added look of screws going from the top down, so we did the same as our kitchen table and screwed from the bottom up.

You just need to be sure your screws are not too long and won't go all the way through the top of the table.

Each brace board got a 2 screws on each of the top boards.

 Here you can see as we are screwing in the lateral brace boards to the table top.

Now it was time to attach the legs. 

 This is where you find out if your cuts were even..:)

We simply sat our legs in the corners and screwed the legs in by the side of the apron

 We decided to counter sink some of the screws since we already had some 

old nails and screws showing from the original table.

 Here I am finishing attaching the last leg and then it was time to see if it was level!!

 We tested it and it was PERFECT...Now it was time to make it ME!!!

I brought it in the back yard and power hosed off a lot of the old gunk and stuff that was on it and left it out a couple days to dry.

Once it was dry I could have my fun!

I used some old Deck stain we had from a previous project and put that on the top.

For the legs I just mixed up some custom exterior paint I had in my basement.

I ended up with the great vintage green color.

At this point I knew I was in Love!

 You see last year I redid my patio.

I had done some outdoor pieces but it needed one more PIECE 

You can see

 Painted Patio Makeover HERE.

 I think you will agree!
It just works out there.

I love how its not PERFECT.

Its rustic and little bits of the old apron frame paint pokes through.

 Hubby keeps telling me I need to sell it in my booth.

I keep telling him "I CAN'T" :)

Maybe I can just go COLLECT some more wood and

then I can HAVE this one and I can make a new one for the booth.

SO this beautiful Recycled, Rescued Lumber Vintage Farmhouse style Coffee Table

cost me ZERO dollars to make.

I think that is what makes it even more beautiful.

Lots of discarded little bits of what someone considered trash

put together in a different way and now its something
BEAUTIFUL!

Kinda like life HUH??

:)

I hope you were inspired to go grab some junk and

make it into something BEAUTIFUL!

Painted Kitchen Cupboards Makeover REVEAL

Welcome back my BEAUTIES!

I am FINALLY getting around to posting our Kitchen Makeover REVEAL.

You may remember a couple weeks ago I promised you I would post the reveal the next week..

UMMMM......YEAH....I never got around to it.

Wanna know why?

For REALS???

Here goes..

I JUST DIDN'T FEEL LIKE IT.

I LOVE my Kitchen so much now, but between painting the cupboards,

doing the DIY blogger roundup in Chicago (which was at the same time as me making over my kitchen)  and the plethora of other projects I have going on for different companies I honestly could not bring myself to photograph edit and post about it.

For the Non DIY'ers who don't understand the "Process" that a post takes; let me explain.

Its not JUST the project...that I do on a daily basis.

BUT, once the process is done there is about a MILLION other things us bloggers need to do.

First thing being....CLEANING UP OUR MESS.

You see we tend to be BIG mess makers, so while we are working on a project I tend to push all the CRAP that was in the room aside, and have to keep taking pictures of the process.

Then after the cleaning we have to STAGE.

(which is not my THANG...I am sure I have told you before)

Being A.D.D. I know I have a limited attention span before I get tired of staging and move onto something else. (this is one reason I am sure my home will never be magazine worthy. I can't see myself NOT ever being so busy that I have time to do a proper staging because I know one of my 4 kids or hubby...or dog will come in and mess it up in seconds)

NEXT, Photographing time.

This can take anywhere from a half an hour to a few days.

In this case it was WEEKS.

We live in an old house and no amount of external light systems or natural light 

would show in the pictures how it looks in real life.

THAT caused me the frustration to postpone my post; and my A.D.D. to flair up and find Lots and LOTS of other projects to focus on until the kitchen makeover nagged and nagged at the back of my mind to make me JUST DO IT. 

:)

and that finally happened.

SO HERE YOU GO...

FINALLY! 

(and thanks for listening to my little explanation of my METHOD and what my BRAIN goes through on a daily basis)  

Oh and even writing the above was a procrastination :)

 

 As I showed in the BEFORE post, this was me trying to decide on a color.

I was mixing and trying to decide how DARK I wanted to go. 

Well by the time I decided I went with a color straight out of the can.

I chose General Finishes 

QUEENSTOWN GRAY.

It was just the deep hue I was looking for.

and since it was in the kitchen I chose their HIGH PERFORMANCE finish in Satin.

So I spent the next few days painting cupboards which as you know is always a FUN time.

The nice part about this  makeover is that I was leaving my upper cabinets the cream color 

that I had painted previously.

You will see from the pictures that although we are in an older home (built in the 60's) they LOVED storage.

WE have a U shaped kitchen with tons of cupboards . BUT that means lots to paint, so not painting the uppers saved me tons of time.

So now that the cupboards were painted it was time for some new hardware. 

I am normally a copper or a bronze girl, but I really wanted to do something fun and different with the hardware.

That's where HICKORY HARDWARE came in.

They had these fabulous pulls and knobs that look just AMAZING with the dark deep gray.

I chose the stainless steel pulls

and the Euro Contemporary knobs.

They went together like peanut butter and jelly.

I couldn't have been happier with how it looked.

PLUS, as I was getting ready to write up my post someone shared this post from HGTV...

Hey that color looks almost like mine.

For once in my life I just might be ON TREND..(probably not but I can dream.:))

I loved how the hardware pulled together the stainless steel appliances but yet still looked good with all my vintage kitchen decor.

I have to tell you. This paint is so awesome. Since it took so long to post, I had a crazy amount of time to see how it did in the kitchen. 
IT IS AWESOME. 
My kids and I love to cook, and even more..make messes. This paint has withstood all of that.
I love the added strength that the hard finish added.
And its still looks like I JUST painted it.

So there you have it.

The Reveal is done with the best pictures I could get.

Its funny because I took about 300 pictures and I didn't like any of them.

I have gotten so critical with myself with photographing that I can see each and every single FLAW.

Where the light is reflecting off of a door,

or where there is a shadow that I can't control no matter what kind of lighting I used.

I finally had to make peace with the fact that no matter what I did I was going to find something

I didn't like about how I staged it and just like life I was gonna have to LOVE them for what they were.

The pictures may be slightly flawed but that's what makes them REAL.

And I couldn't be happier.

So there you have it.

The Kitchen Reveal that took longer to post about than it did to paint it.

I hope you enjoyed this unusually LARGE and wordy post.

 I finally accepted my imperfections and I am happier that way.

Until next time.

Have a Beautiful day.

To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections. ~ Sandra Bierig

 

 Disclosure: Remember all opinions I share about the products in my post are 100% my own with complete honesty.The post contains sponsored links

http://www.casawatkins.net/
http://farmhousechicblog.com/2015/inspired-by-you-1/

Rescued wood turned Michigan "FALL" scrabble tiles.

  

FEATURED on the HUFFINGTON POST!

 

 While I run around like a chicken with its head off 

getting ready for the Randolph Street Market

I thought I would replay a FALL

craft I did last year!
I hope you enjoy!

Good Morning my Beauties!

Well guess what?

It has been feeling like FALL lately here

(which means I have been freezing my tookus off)

That being said....it did motivate me to create some Autumn Decor,

including decorating my mantle.

 While we were camping the summer (oh how I already miss summer :))

My Father in Law pulled a box of these wood squares out to burn in the campfire.

Now you all know me by now...

I looked at him and said...
"woa, woa, woa,......whatdayathinkyourdooingtherebuddy?"  :)

To which he replied.".Just getting ready to burn some kindling to start the fire."

I looked at him and said.."hang on"

I went next door to my camper and grabbed a bunch of kindling...and said..

"HERE....I am trading you"! 

He knew.....I couldn't let these perfect little square pieces of wood be burned.

He accepted my offer and I brought the wood home....

where it sat........in my garage....

My hubby was thrilled.......NOT!

He said.."what are going to do with those?"

I said..."Make scrabble tiles"

To which his reply came in the form of a NON VERBAL 

response that can only be heard by wives...

It was the sound of his eyes ROLLING into the back of his head with 

the classic "YEAH RIGHT" look on his face.  :)

 Well I took it as a challenge....I didn't know when I was going to make them.

But now I HAD to.

So one night while the hubby was teaching at the college

I stained up some of the squares to look like scrabble tiles.

Then I pulled out my Silhouette cutting machine 

and created scrabble letters out of vinyl

and for the "A" I used a state of Michigan graphic that I have 

used on other Projects. 

You can see those HERE.

Now this is the part where it almost turned into a FAIL...instead of FALL craft.

I laid out my vinyl on my squares...

as usual things were not going smoothly.

I got all the vinyl transferred to my wood blocks but they were

 not sticking for NOTHIN...

I thought...I will use some poly to spray over top of them...

Well, I didn't use the normal poly spray I normally do.

This stuff must have had some other alcohol or acetate chemical in it.

Where I sprayed over the letters it started to basically MELT..

DOH!!!!!

Well, instead of scrapping them right away...I thought

I will wait this out...

I am glad I did.

I let it dry and where I had laid my vinyl there was a perfect impression

of my letters. a nice little raised edge.

So when it was all dry; I pulled off the vinyl and used 

a permanent paint pen to color the spots that were not covered in poly.

 I actually like how they turned out BETTER.

I don't have to worry about the letters peeling up.

and it fits in perfect with my Fall Mantle.

 So like I try to remember...

Be patient...sometimes just like Bob Ross says..

They are happy little accidents.

I hope you enjoyed this little fun Autumn craft.

Until next time.

Go make someones day BEAUTIFUL. 

A Creative Life Magazine

Hello again my BEAUTIES.

I am so beyond thrilled to 

share with you 

some more exciting news here at 

the Art Is Beauty Home.

If you remember back a few months ago 

I made over my kids old playroom and turned it into my ART STUDIO.

Well a few months after that 

I was asked by KERRYANNE 

if I would like to be included 

in her Magazine

 Simply Shabbilicious Magazine – A Creative Life

I calmly SCREAMED yes!

So without further ado..

I would be honored if you would

head on over and 

check out what a fabulous job

Kerryanne did 

writing up such a BEAUTIFUL

article about my

Art Studio.

You can read the article HERE

I am beyond Grateful and Thankful!

Thanks for making my day BEAUTIFUL!

 

I have been blessed beyond Measure!

Fabulous French Graphic and Colorful Coral dresser MAKEOVER

We are camping so I am hitting replay on a favorite of mine!

Good Morning my BEAUTIES!!

I finally have a new furniture makeover to share with you.

Its not that I haven't been painting furniture,

its that I have been too busy to edit and post.

But after your long wait I give you my

Fabulous French Graphic and Colorful Coral Dresser Makeover.

The day after we got home from our trip to Durango I started working on this baby.

(this was BEFORE the fire) You can read about that HERE

I had picked up this dresser from a thrift shop.

Now it looks like its in good shape but see all that white stuff...??

Its a white mildew.

The thing had obviously been stored somewhere that didn't breathe well.

It also wasn't stained wood. It was painted to look like wood...?? Kind of an oxymoron 

I know??? Wood painted to look like wood. :)

I grabbed my trusty Belt sander and thought I would bring this baby back to a nice

wood finished top............UHHHHHHHH NO..

Even after belt sanding the some how crazy scientific paint lab grade paint job

you could see that it wasn't going anywhere...Once I got through the brown paint layers,

you coud see that there was another layer of cream paint....

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.... Change of plans...

Since the dresser was behaving like a DIVA, I decided she was going to look like a Diva!

I grabbed my CeCe Caldwells Coral paint and got to work.

I painted on 2 thin layers of the coral paint and let it dry.

Then I waxed it and buffed it.

Once she was prepped and ready I decided she still needed a little more 

BLING!

I grabbed my reusable Mylar stencil that 

a nice person on Etsy. had made me.

Brown Bag Stencil Co. 

Lauren does amazing work and she made this specifically for a project I was working on.

I had her use a free graphic from Karen the Graphics Fairy

and she cut it into three seperate sections.

I used this stencil and some Navy craft paint to stencil on my

Fabulous French Graphic.

Once the Navy paint was dry I waxed it and buffed it again to give it 

that age old finish.

I added some Mercury Glass knobs from Hobby Lobby and she was ready for her Close up!

I love how the Navy Pops against the Coral.

Classic, but fun and fabulous! 

I hope you enjoyed this latest Makeover and hope you will come back

tonight when the Twirl and Take a Bow Link Party 

goes up.

We would all love to see all the latest fun stuff you have been up to.

Until Next time,

Go Make someones day BEAUTIFUL!!