The Project to End All Projects?

This might be the project to end all projects. 

Okay, not really. But for now, I am DONE with furniture projects. This was a lot of work, and by the end I just wanted to throw it away. 

I had to keep telling myself it would be worth it and to keep chugging along. 

I found this chest thing at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago for $50. This thing is SOLID. When I say solid, I mean it! The doors alone weigh about 30lbs each, if not more. I actually hated the doors and had decided not to use them in the finished product. But after sharing that idea with a few friends they convinced me that these doors would be amazing. 

They were right, the doors really make the finished piece! I especially love the original hardware. 

Okay, so here's what I started with:

 

When I saw the inside shelves, I knew it would be a perfect place to hold our arts and craft supplies in the dining room. I am now using it for homeschooling supplies, as well. 

Initially, I was going to paint the thing white and antique it.

 After two coats of primer, I decided I wanted something that would POP! I thought about yellow, but eventually decided on a red. I found this "Candy Apple Red" at Walmart in the "oops" section! It was half off, so I got it for $8! Woohoo! I added 3 coats of the red to try to make it look even. After awhile I figured that was enough because the stain would make it look uneven, anyway. I also, only did two red coats on the inside, because no one would be looking in there. 

Lazy? 

Maybe, but I was so over painting at this point and I hadn't even touched the doors!

 

The doors...

OH THE DOORS! I hate them. But I love them. 

They were a PITA to work on, trying to get that red paint into every small detail. Also, I didn't prime them first.

 Oops, another lazy moment? 

So the doors look darker than the body. 

Do I care? 

No, I think it adds to the character! 

After the doors had three coats of red I moved on to the fun part... 

 staining! 

When all my hard work started to actually look like the picture in my head! 

(I really should have had better ventilation in the room, it gave me a headache)

Besides the headache, staining was the best part. Here are the final pictures. I added the stain to the wood and let it sit a minute or two and then wiped it off, making sure to leave some in the details to make them look more worn. I love the finished result!

Love the hardware! This is the original hardware and I didn't paint it. I had thought about spray painting them black, but decided it look great, already.

I also didn't stain the inside, because it didn't matter. 

 

It kind of looks like it's from China, now! 

Like I said earlier, I may not do another furniture project for awhile. At least not a BIG one! 

I.am.beat!

Totally worth it, though!

Perfect addition to our homeschool room!

Red Bench for our Entryway!

I bought this bench back in Nebraska... probably last summer, with plans to some day paint it for our future home. We knew we were moving and I didn't want to waste my time painting something just for it to be ruined, ya know?

Finished this project last week and couldn't wait to share it! Here it is before hand:

 

And here it is after two coats of paint! I used the same paint as I did in Landon's room, because I had it on hand and I wanted it red, anyway! =) Did I mention this bench only cost me $5? What a steal!

 Here is the view from my living room!

I think it fits nicely!

Paint, Paint, Paint!!

 

Well, we're finally in our house and starting to get settled down. We closed on our house last Friday and the movers came Monday. We spent the entire weekend painting. Boy, I had no idea how hard that was really going to be.... with two kids in tow. I was SO sore afterwards. It was totally worth it though. My favorite rooms in the house are the four we've painted thus far. 

Here's some pictures from our living room:

When you don't have any chairs or ladders, you improvise!

After two coats of paint it was much warmer and it was beginning to feel like home!

Once our living room is completely set up, I'll share some more pictures, but here's a little sneak peek of our living room on Monday after the movers came!

We also painted our three bedrooms this weekend.

Here's a little preview of those rooms. 

After the living room I moved on to Landon's bedroom.  He wanted red walls, but we compromised with an accent wall and he choose grey for the other three walls.

Third we did Emmelyn's room: I had initially wanted to do stripes throughout the room, but after taping one wall I decided I was too tired from the other rooms to do anymore stripes! One wall works great though and now, I think all four walls would have been TOO much.

Lastly, we painted our room a nice blue! Honestly, this room needs another coat of paint... but I was way too tired and the movers were coming in like 10 hours, so we decided to do another later. We all know, that'll probably never happen. I am not about to move my furniture out.. It looks fine and no one will see it anyway. (Who knows, I might get to it after I forget how much painting sucks.)

Stay tuned!

Stuffed Shells

I've been making stuffed shells for my family for a while now. It's not a real recipe... as in I don't have exact measurements, I just throw it together every time. But, I'll share it with you all the best that I can. My family just LOVES this meal! 

Here's what you'll need:

Ground beef or turkey (I used about 1 1/2 lbs)

Box of jumbo shells (I didn't use all of the box)

4 oz cream cheese

Seasonings; Garlic, Onion, Oregano, anything else you'd like (eyeball it... I don't measure)

2 cups of fresh spinach

Half an onion 

Can of tomato sauce or your favorite spaghetti sauce, in which case you don't need to season your sauce, just your meat.

Cheese

Boil your shells until they are almost done, then let cool. Meanwhile, brown your hamburger and add your desired seasonings. Add your spinach and let it cook down. Then add your cream cheese, melt it in with the meat and spinach. Add about half a ladle or more of your tomato sauce into your meat mixture. Retain the rest.

 

Your meat mixture should look like this.

 Add a little sauce to the bottom of your baking dish and start stuffing those shells!

 

Line them all up pretty, like so...

 

Add the rest of your sauce over your shells, and your cheese!

 Now pop that bad boy in the oven! Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or so. I cover it with tin foil at first, so it'll heat all the way through without burning the cheese. Then uncover for the last 5-10 minutes. Again, I just wing it, so play around with it and find what you like best!

Delicious!

 

Emmelyn LOVES it! 

Christmas Books!

I saw an idea on Pinterest about wrapping seasonal books that you already own and having the children unwrap them one a night. I thought that was a fantastic idea and set out to do it, too! We, luckily, had 24 (actually more than that) books on hand, winter/Christmas/Religious, you name it! 

 

Isn't she cute?!

 

Landon is totally loving this, by the way! We read a book every night, but this adds a little mystery to it! We missed the first night, because only have the books were wrapped and I wanted to take the above pictures before I had them start unwrapping. So on night one (Dec 2) we did two books, to catch up!

 This was her first time unwrapping a present!

I just love them!

 I really love this idea, but let me tell you, I fastly wrapped all of these books, wrapping books=not so fun!