Play Me a Song Piano Girl

Last year for my 31st birthday I went out and bought myself a gift that's a little random to some people, for me, not so much. This is a 1930 Hobart M. Cable Upright piano that had been stored or moved to be stored since it was purchased. It had a few dings and chips and scratches but nothing that didn't make it lovable. 

Fast forward to yesterday August 25, 2013, I decided that I was inspired by all the painted pianos on Pinterest and wanted some collah up in my life. So I trekked on over to the Home Depot and got hung up on two teal colors. I couldn't decide on the two until I read their names. One was Surfer and the other Mermaid Treasure. Mermaids for the win. Makes me think of sweet Callie Clifford and all her cuteness. 

 

 So to make a long story short, I painted an 83 year old piano and I have to say that I'm completely obsessed with the outcome. It's a whole new bright spot on my day. 

 It needs to dry completely before I decorate it but it's doing the job making me happy just like that. 

Bath Time for Everyone

People bring me random stuff all the time. Here Leah, here's this gnarly thing from my house, have it. Well to those people I say, Thank you! My most recent afternoon project started out life as a lamp from Bailenes house. It ended yesterday afternoon as a bird bath in my jasmine garden. Pretty cute. Now to catch the birds using it.

DIY Walk In Cloffice

I love my cloffice. That's code word for closet office and she is beautiful. 

Fred and I live in a three bedroom house. One bedroom for us, a guest room and a room we throw our crap in. One day Fred said to me, why don't you make that junk room a walk in closet for yourself. 

At first I was like no, I'll have myself a giant craft room, yeah a craft room! That lasted all of two seconds and I was back to cloffice.

Yay, craft room? NO

The other thing is, given my history of changing and moving and rearranging everything all the time, I didn't want to do built ins in the cloffice but I still wanted it to look nice. Now I don't know if I just suck at googling or not but really the info for that was so limited on what people had done and HOW they did it. There are a ton of search results that say add crown molding! put in a dresser! Im like okay but really what to use for the shelving and hanging without breaking my piggy bank on something I may change anyway?

So here's what I came up with-I bought two of these cabinets at Big Lots. Frickin perfecto for shoes. Cabinets Big Lots -

http://www.biglots.com/p/c/bookcases-and-office-storage/dark-russet-5-shelf-bookcase

Then I knew I wanted -around the room- shelving to keep things up high and away from the animals so I went to the Home Depot and got enough shelving to go along the long wall and its perpendicular wall on the left side.  http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rubbermaid-12-in-x-48-in-Black-Shelf-FG4B8100BLA/100118601#.Ucx9IOt4XdQ
Then on to Target where they have a plethora of racks and storage items for all kind of DIY closet making and organizing. (it can be overwhelming so take your time so copy and paste at your own risk)

http://www.target.com/ssearchTerm=closet&category=0%7CAll%7Cmatchallpartial%7Call+categories&lnk=snav_sbox_closet

Once, I got the layout down, I started arranging clothing, shoes, purses, etc. Really, it's a personal space so you gotta do what works for you. Of course adding a table in the middle for aiding in packing for trips, folding laundry to be put away and, in my case, for crafting, is absolutely necessary.

For the actual office workspace, I started by taking off the closet doors. Who needs those guys anyway? Then, I went to work adding this rad wrapping paper I found at World Market. You have to do math here to make sure you get enough. Then, when you buy enough, buy four more rolls. Just saying. I attached the "wallpaper" by using french furniture nails I got off of ebay. 3000 of those suckers for $9.99. What a deal. I painted the trim in a gold leaf color to match the wallpaper.

After all of that was said and done, I pretty much used what I had laying around the house. The white dresser was left over from the move and just needed some touch ups. The white desk tops/shelving came from the five second stint the cloffice was just a craft room and the rest is just organizing and pleasing yourself.