Old Window Jewelry Hanger

So my girlfriend really wanted a way to hang up all of her jewelry and we thought it would be cool to make a jewelry holder out of an old window! 

We found the old window at a place called Happy Holler in downtown Knoxville. 

We bought chicken wire from lowes and borrowed a staple gun from our neighbor and got to work! 

The window was already painted white and slightly distressed so we didn't have to paint it or clean it up so that was a plus! 

We measured the chicken wire to go just a little bit out from the panes and stapled it to the wood. 

She also bought some knobs from Hobby Lobby for more hanging room!

So here's how it turned out!

DIY Upholstered Ottoman

My parents had an old ottoman that they weren't using anymore, so Shelby and myself decided it would be a great fit for our apartment!

We bought denim fabric for the top half and burlap for the bottom half

Started with bottom and we hot glued the burlap under the cushion

Then we took the denim fabric and hot glued it on top of the burlap fabric

This was probably the easiest and cheapest project we have done so far but we definitely use this ottoman everyday at the apartment.

Burlap Fish Hanger

My girlfriend gave me this burlap fish for Valentines Day. Here's how she did it...

What she used: 1 yard of burlap, paint, mod podge, plastic bags, hot glue gun, and wire.

She first drew the outline of the fish on the burlap. She put wax paper in between the piece of burlap so the paint wouldn't go through to the other side. After she finished painting it she painted a coat of mod podge on it to make it stiff. Then she cut it out and started stuffing it with plastic bags and hot gluing it together. The last step is putting the wire through and hanging it! Super easy! 

Coffee Table into Bench

It has been a long week here in East Tennessee but Shelby and I found some time to go shopping in other people's garages this past weekend. We found a coffee table that was painted black for 5 dollars. We decided that we have also wanted a bench that fits below the bed. 

First off, we took all the legs off then sanded all the black paint. We decided to prime two coats before painting and then painted the whole table white. 

Next, we bought fabric and a two inch foam piece and then stabled the fabric underneath the table to complete the do it yourself project. 

Dresser to TV Stand

 Another great find from a garage sale was this dresser that had been painted black by the previous owners. So me and Shelby decided that we wanted to sand it and get rid of that black color and try to put our own twist on it. 

So we started the sanding process with a hand sander after removing the knobs off the drawers and as you can see above the shelves in the background that are still black. 

Now the shelves are sanded and ready to be stained and painted. So we stained it two coats with a dark stain then we painted the dresser white with two coats of paint. 

After the paint dried, we decided to add that antique look to the dresser by using the hand sander and taking  some of the paint off so it displays a worn out look. 

This is the completed project! The dresser drawers actually fit DVDs quite well and keep them out of the open along with other TV essentials like the TV remotes and gaming controllers. Plus cords are hardly seen because of the big body of the dresser. 

Pallet Wine Rack

Me and Shelby have always wanted to do a project using a pallet. So we got online and we saw many great ideas and finally found a wine rack that hold ten bottles and eight glasses. We thought it was pretty reasonable for us to accomplish this project in the garage of our apartment. 

We went to Lowe's Home Improvement and asked if they had any extra pallets and they gave us one so that was a plus on the fact that we did not have to buy one. 

First off, we made sure that the end on the pallet was good because we noticed some of them had been used and worn out. After that. we cut the pallet with a hand saw about 3/4 down on the good end. The we sanded the top where we had cut it.  

Next we inserted a piece of wood from the pallet where to bottles would sit on then we nailed in spacers as seen above.

The trickiest part was cutting out the slips for the wine glasses. We inserted another piece of wood from the pallet. This piece took the most time and headache because we had to measure out each glass and make sure they were equally spaced out. On this part, I used an electric drill with largest bit to start the hole then knocked the rest of the wood out. 

Next we decided to paint it red because it matched majority of the kitchen stuff and then we let it dry

Lastly we hung it up and this is our finished project! 

As you can see we put our pallet wine rack to use already! 

The DIY Pallet Headboard

Recently my girlfriend and I had been seeing lots of different ways that people were using pallets. So, when we came across a headboard that these people had made from using pallets we knew we wanted to try to make one ourselves. I got about 5 pallets from one of my friends that worked at Home Depot. They are pretty easy things to find, we have seen a lot just laying on the side of the road. We brought the pallets into the old house we lived in to make sure they would fit behind our bed...

The two pallets we used, put together they are 72'' which is actually the perfect length we needed for the bed. We bought a 4 inch wooden beam from lowes for about $3 to set the two pallets on just to give it a little more height.

So the project begins... We first sanded them because one was a lot worse looking than the other and we wanted them to look at similar as possible. After cleaning them really well we let them dry about 30 minutes. We bought a pretty stain color from lowes and stained it with two coats.

They ended up turning out exactly how we wanted them and they go great in the bedroom. The pallets really add a lot to the room and gives a very rustic feel (which is what we really were going for.)

This was such an easy and cheap project to do! Much, much cheaper than spending money on a headboard!

The Old Window Hunt

Old windows have become the new trend lately. I knew my girlfriend had been on the hunt for an old window to put in our new apartment. There are only a couple places in Knoxville that have old windows. She came across one at an old vintage store that had 8 panes. She got it for $40. So the project begins....

This is the old window she found, it was pretty beat up so we cleaned it up and sanded it a little bit before we began to paint. We also covered all the glass with tape so the paint wouldn't get on the panes.

We found this color at Walmart and it matched our table that is in our living room perfectly. Its called Pistachio and it was about $4. 

So we spray painted two coats of the Pistachio paint and this is how it turned out!

We used our sander to distress it a little so it wouldn't look so "finished." She had seen old windows on pinterst where people put pictures on the panes so we decided to do that. We measured the 4x6 pictures and.....

this is our finished project!

It goes great with the color scheme and was a fun and east project to do!

Lamp Makeover

So I was garage sale-ing one weekend with my girlfriend and we found these two lamps for $2.50 each and felt that they would be a great fit in the apartment but as you can tell they are a little outdated with the early 1990s bronze finish. 

 So we went to Wal-Mart and decided on a white color of Krylon primer and pain. The primer really helps the paint to last a long time without chipping or peeling. We covered the lamps hardware and cords with wax paper that can be found in your kitchen cabinets and some tape to ensure paint would not get everywhere. 

We put the Krylon primer on first and did two coats just to be safe. We waited about 2 hours in between coats.

We then spray painted two coats of white Krylon indoor/ outdoor paint

We found two burlap shades at Home Goods in Knoxville for 12.99 each so this brought the total price up to around 40 dollars for both lamps! We thought we did a pretty good job on our first DIY project!