How to camouflage a poorly-placed outlet cover or light switch

I mentioned last week that I did some furniture rearranging in my front room (in my pjs, at 7:15 am--hey, when inspiration strikes, you have to jump on it!). Unfortunately, I was not able to move the blue dresser  so that it would cover up that darn ugly outlet.

Because I couldn't completely hide it, I did the next best thing to make it disappear: Camouflage!

I used the same technique that I employed on an ill-placed light switch plate in my living room last year.

For my red wall, I used a piece of cute scrapbook paper from Jenni Bowlin that is printed with old soda water labels and was the perfect shade of deep red.

This truly is a five-minute project. It takes longer for the Mod Podge to dry than it does to put the whole thing together, and that includes finding a tiny screwdriver to remove & reinstall the outlet cover, and digging the Mod Podge and a brush out of your craft closet.

The outlet cover is still visible, but now it's not quite so obvious, and I love the tiny bit of extra detail that the vintage-style paper provides. It's nice to add a bit of flair to something as utilitarian and ubiquitous as an outlet cover!

If you give a DIY-er a cookie...

I've been on a decorating tear for the past week and half and I love it! It all started simply enough--I was sitting on the couch one morning with Porter and couldn't help looking at my cute vintage chalkboard:

and thinking how it has never really *worked* for me where it was hanging. Can't put my finger on why exactly, but it has never been quite right. From there on out, it has been the decorating and home improvement version of this:

One thing has led to another: moving the chalkboard meant taking down the antique window:

which meant filling holes in the wall and touching up the paint. And while I was at it, why not fill the holes in all of the other walls and touch up the paint on those too?

--There were two trips to World Market to buy curtains; curtains that I've been meaning to buy for a year or more. I also found a website to buy replacement clips for the moulding on my faux-wood blinds, a fix I've needed to make for years.

--I brought in a 'new' lamp--actually a lamp I bought at TJ Maxx last year meaning to put it in my master bedroom (which I still haven't redecorated). It looks perfect in my front room with the $4 Target clearance shade I found a while ago.

--I rearranged my front room furniture one snowy morning at 7:15 am while still clad in my pajamas and I can't believe how much more I love the room now! I'll take a photo of that one to share soon.

--I hung the silhouette of Maren that I had made at Disneyland nearly THREE years ago. (In my defense, I was waiting to have a silhouette made of Porter so I could hang them together. That finally happened last April so really I'm only 10 months behind, right?)

Would you just look at those sweet curls? I die.

--I hung portraits of Maren and Porter that I had taken last May. (are you getting the idea that I'm not the most motivated picture-hanger out there?)

--Heck, the productivity buzz has even spilled over into other areas: I fixed the bag-holder in Porter's closet, something that has been on my list for months. I repotted the sad-looking little succulents I bought last summer that were just barely clinging to life. I FINALLY finished putting together my wedding photo album, which is timely because my 10-year anniversary is tomorrow. Now that's some procrastination, folks!

I have a few more projects on my list that I'm hoping to complete before I lose steam and go back to my procrastinating ways. Hopefully I can ride the wave of my productivity and get them tackled this weekend!

Yard sale dresser makeover

Back in May, I purchased this dresser for $25 at a neighborhood yard sale:

I liked it for the legs, the size, and the cute little scalloped bit on the back. I'd been looking for a taller piece to replace this old dresser

which I still like, but it was just much too small for the vaulted ceilings in my front room.

I painted the new (old) dresser with some Behr paint I had leftover from another project; I believe the color name is River's Edge.

Isn't that the most lovely aqua? I did this project right on the heels of the Epic Chair FAIL, and thankfully the paint job went much smoother this time! I still think painting furniture with a brush and a roller is a pain and I still ended up with some roller and brush marks, but on the whole I was happy with the results.

I had hoped to find some fun knobs at Hobby Lobby when they had them 50% off but couldn't find anything I liked. I happened to have the perfect number of antique glass knobs in my stash--I picked them up a few months ago at an antique store because they were a steal and I figured I'd find a use for them sooner or later. If I ever find knobs I like better they'll be easy to switch.

To add some interest to the pretty but plain dresser front, I ordered some custom vinyl numbers in matte black from my friend Amy at Words and Wisdom Vinyl. I love how they look! The font was just what I had in mind. Now I'm wondering if I need something on that top drawer--I didn't order a number for it because it's only half the size of the other drawers, and I wanted big bold numbers. I'm thinking perhaps a faux keyhole might be a fun little touch--I need to see if I can get just a tiny scrap of vinyl from Amy and I bet I can cut a little teeny keyhole shape freehand.

I'm very pleased with how the whole dresser turned out and how it looks in the room! It adds a fun pop of color against the red walls. The only thing left to do is to hang that mirror on the wall--right now it's just leaning on top of the dresser, and it's hiding that cute scalloped detail that I loved so much. The mirror is an antique and it's HEAVY so I've put it off because I can't do it myself and always seem to forget when The Mister is home.

Right now I have a beachy, seashell theme for the decor in my front room. On one side of the dresser I have a jar filled with shells, a piece of coral, a gorgeous vintage rhinestone starfish brooch, and an antique postcard of a beach scene.

The silver trophies aren't exactly beachy, but I love them anyway! I added a starfish on one and my very favorite card of antique buttons that says "Mermaid Pearls" is tucked in the mirror frame.

On the ottoman I have a thrift store silver tray topped with an old book, a thrifted conch shell, a live succulent in a Target-clearance mercury glass votive holder, and an estate sale aqua bowl filled with tiny shells. Hundreds of tiny shells that Porter positively delights in dumping on my floor at least once a week. Oh well, at least they look pretty while I'm cleaning them up!

Family Room re-do: decoupaged light switch cover

Things seem to have taken a turn for the worse in the painting department. Oy. After I wrote yesterday's post, I went out to have a look at how the paint had dried on my chair--not good. Brush marks and drips all over the place! In what was probably a rash decision, I decided to strip it and start all over using spray paint, but all that did was make a bigger mess. The flat surfaces aren't so bad but the grooved legs and round stretcher bars are giving me fits and now the chair is covered in sticky paint goo. I think I could remedy most of that with a good power washing, and as luck would have it we just purchased a brand-new power washer on Monday night. Problem is, it's still in the (big, heavy) box in our neighbor's garage two houses away, so before I can use it we have to get it over here, assembled and gassed up. I still love my little chair and I still believe it will be cute when this is all done, but I'm seriously ready for this DIY nightmare to be over!

So, after that ongoing DIY FAIL, let's have a little pick-me-up DIY success story. You remember the decoupaged letters I showed the other day?

On that same wall, there is a three-bay light switch cover that annoys me. I'm not even sure why there are three switches--I don't even know what one of them controls. One of them goes to the overhead light that we almost never use, and the other controls an outlet that is behind the couch and thereby wholly unsuited for a lamp. I've tried to hide the switch by propping a mirror on the table, but I want to do something different atop the table so the light switch is there, sticking out like a sore thumb on my aqua wall.

Once I saw Kimba's solution for a poorly-placed light switch, I knew what to do! I used some of the pale aqua houndstooth paper from the letter decoupage project and simply decoupaged it onto the light switch cover.

Now it blends right into the aqua wall! I can still see it, but it bugs me a whole lot less than if it were bright white. I do love that cute houndstooth paper--wish I remembered where I bought it so I could go pick up more!

If I knew this was a switch that was going to get a lot of daily use, I might have protected it further with a coat or two of spray sealant, but I don't have to worry about this one. And if I decide later I hate it, it's a quick trip to the hardware store and a few pennies to pick up a new, plain one.

Today while I wait for the power washer situation to improve, I think I'm ready to get started on painting the dresser. Wish me luck!

Painted furniture progress

Hello, friends! I hope you had a lovely weekend. The weather was finally dry here so we spent much of it outdoors. Yesterday afternoon we enjoyed the company of some good friends at a BBQ, and when I got home I took a quick trip to my favorite thrift store for their 50% off sale. As I pulled into the parking lot, I spotted a new cupcake truck, which is exciting enough--but then when I got to the door of the thrift, a girl from the truck was there giving out FREE cupcakes! I'm not kidding you, I thought I might actually be dreaming. I think I've just found out what Heaven will be like for me. :)

On Saturday, I spent quite literally FIVE hours sanding a chair. A chair, not a set of chairs--one small, wooden desk chair. Oh, and I used an electric sander. It was way past ridiculous and well into ludicrous territory. I'm still not totally sure why it took such a darn long time, but I know that was about five times longer than it should have taken. I wanted to paint my little chair on Saturday, but the old paint was chipped so I thought maybe I'd just give it a quick sand to smooth things out. I soon found that there were five, possibly six coats of paint on that little chair, and they were apparently some kind of iron-impregnated paint that is impossible to get off of wood.

Now, around about Hour 3, a smart person would have gone all Cee-Lo Green and said "Forget YOU!" and headed to Home Depot for a quart of paint stripper. My friends, I am not a smart person.

Anyway, after I wasted all Saturday on that silly project, I decided to start painting yesterday morning. In a total impulse buy, I purchased a quart of regular latex paint for this project instead of my normal spray paint. I primed the chair with some red-tinted primer leftover from when we painted our front room red several years ago, and then yesterday afternoon I got the first coat of red paint on and was reminded how much I detest painting furniture with a brush and regular paint. I'm having terrible trouble with drips, try as I might to be careful. It's difficult to get good coverage on the chair's s round stretcher bars so they look terrible. And now I have to let the paint cure for days so that it won't nick and scratch every time I sit in it. I really wish I'd gone with spray paint for this project.

Yesterday while I was waiting for red primer & paint to dry, I quickly sanded and spray-primed my yard sale dresser.

That sanding was much quicker, because the finish was in good shape and all I needed to do was rough it up a bit so the primer would stick. I had intended to use some latex paint in Behr River's Edge

that I have leftover from a cabinet I painted, but now I'm seriously thinking about going the spray paint route for that as well, although I did purchase small foam rollers to make all those wide flat surfaces easier to paint.

If I go with Krylon spray paint, my color options are pretty limited. I can go with Satin Catalina Mist

which I'm not sure I can find easily, or Blue Ocean Breeze

which I've used before and really is a much brighter turquoise than I'm looking for.

Any advice from those of you who have painted furniture before? I'd really like to take advantage of this good weather and my painting mojo and get started on the dresser ASAP so I can reclaim some space in my garage and get the project done. And those pillows I was hoping to sew this weekend? Yeah, that didn't happen.

Hello from the Turkish bazaar and future projects

In the past five days, I've purchased no fewer than FIVE 5'x7' rugs (whew, that's a lot of fives!). My front room is starting to look like a Turkish bazaar. Yesterday alone I purchased three of the rugs, two from my new favorite store--Lowe's! I bought a clearanced jute boucle rug for $10--seriously! Regular price was $60. Actually, I got it for $9 because of the 10% discount they generously give to military folks. It has actually crossed my mind that maybe I should go back and get the other two $9 rugs and throw them up on Craigslist and see if I can't make a little profit.

The other rug from Lowe's is for the newly-painted aqua room, and was on clearance for $78 (I also bought a clearance floor lamp for $23--see why Lowe's is my new fave?).

I'm going to return the HomeGoods rug I asked you about in the last post. Design- and color-wise, it's actually my favorite, but even with a rug pad I'm just worried that it won't ever lay nice and flat and will drive me crazy forever. So it's headed back to HomeGoods, along with the other jute rug I purchased for the front room, as is the $50 outdoor rug I bought at Target yesterday morning, also purchased for the front room. Whew!

I finally finished the painting yesterday, exactly one week after I started. That'll teach me to be impatient! I am still proud that I did it myself and love how it turned out, and have several more painting projects in mind for the summer. One of them is this cute dresser,

which I bought at a yard sale on Saturday morning. I like the scalloped piece on the back and the turned front legs (which I think would be made even cuter by the addition of some vintage-style casters). It's not the finest piece of furniture, but I think it will work once it's been repainted and had fun new knobs added. I have it in mind to replace this dresser

which I still love, but have finally come to grips with the fact that it is simply too small for the space. I'm not going to get rid of Short Stack here--it needs a trip to rehab and then it will find another place in my house. I need to scrape off the existing (lead, I'm sure) paint, fix the drawers, and rip off the too-large and warped top and replace it with something nice and solid. I think I'll paint the dresser a creamy white and stain the top dark, a la Miss Mustard Seed.

I also purchased a can of bright red paint to paint my little wooden desk chair, another yard sale find that I don't seem to have a picture of. I bought it from a guy who said he meant to refinish it but never got around to it. For several years I've been fine with the shabby white paint that has hints of blue peeking through, but on one of my many trips to Home Depot last week, was seized with the desire to paint it a pretty red to match the remade vintage curtains from my office re-do:

I'm anxious to get started on all of these projects! Now all I need is for the stupid weather to cooperate so I can get going before I lose my painting mojo.