Quick Fixes from NJ

Team NJ has been doing a wonderful job of accumulating free items.  However, they need to accumulate more time to work on everything!  Since that's not possible, Mom and I went down the other day to help them out a bit on some of their projects.  With this trip though, we did not come home with an empty car.  We stocked up with some of Trevor and Chrissy's items that we could work on at home. 

The first item was an old oriental style TV stand.  It has the looks of a trunk but there are doors that open in the front of it.  We thought that it would make a great coffee table but the top was all scratched up and there were no knobs to open the doors.  Dad sanded it down, added some black knobs and Mom painted the top black.  It now has a whole new look!

 Another item we came home with was this shelving unit.  

 With a little white paint, an added dowel for a towel rack and a back lined with burlap, this beat up old shelf became...

Some small items that needed just a little tweeting included a child's wooden rocking horse and a small chalkboard. 

 For the chalkboard, Dad did a few minor repairs and Mom added a little sticker.  

 For the rocking horse, Dad simply just added a tail.  

Hopefully these minor touches will help them sell!

Pinterest Inspired

Our neighbors have been curious as to what we are doing since they are always seeing us working outside and hear Dad sawing and sanding at all hours of the day.  We showed our neighbor, Monica, some of our projects that we have been doing.   She happens to be moving across the country in a week and she said she had an end table that she didn't want anymore and asked us if we would want it.  And of course we will not turn down a free table! 

The top surface needed some love so Dad sanded it down.  Mom painted the base and legs (not pictured here because we got so excited to start working on this that we forgot the before photos).  Since it was a free end table I wanted to try something funky.  I saw some ideas on Pinterest with different patterns and checker styled tables.  I combined some of the ideas and techniques to make my own creation.  I first painted the surface white.  I then cut the shape I wanted to use a bunch of times and laid them out.  

I painted the blank spaces with a medium toned grey that i mixed from some white and black paint we had. This is when I knew it was going to be distressed.  I didn't want to put too much effort into tracing all the stencils and painting inside all the lines so I took the shortcut and went with a distressed style.  

 
 I then peeled off all the stencils and mixed a darker grey.  I painted every other white space with the darker grey.  I then lightly sanded it all to add to the distressed look.  To seal it i mixed a touch of grey paint with a gel medium and spread it over the top.  This helped make the white spaces not so bright.  At first I didn't like the texture it formed so I lightly sanded it.  In the end I actually liked the texture of the table.  To finish it off, Dad painted the hardware with a fresh coat of silver. 
 

 I posted this on Craigslist this morning for $35.  I got an email this afternoon that said a couple was interested in this for their daughter's room but was wondering if we could do $25.  Since it was free, and we don't want to have to bring it down to NJ for the yard sale if we don't have to we agreed to $25 with no argument.  They said they would come during the week to look at it but they ended up calling this evening saying they were free now.  They stopped by and liked it.  Another item sold! And this one was by far our quickest sale, only 8 hours since it was posted!


 

ReStore Regulars

It has become a part of our weekly routine to make a trip out to the Habitat for Humanity Restore for either supplies like paint, large project materials, or even just inspiration for ideas.  
Sometimes we even go with no specific purpose other than to just look around and see what's new.  

This is where we decided to find a use for the bi-fold doors because they were only a dollar so how can we go wrong.  We had stocked up on a few of those and also found some white cabinet doors with a glass center.  We thought that these would make a good set of end tables.  The staff there was excited to hear what we are doing and gave us great deals on things.  nothing was ever much more than a dollar and they said because it was for a great cause.  

Here are some of the things we got at the ReStore:

This table was a full circle before we cut it, but forgot to take a before picture. 

 

The staff has be extremely helpful with ideas and suggestions.  The said that they were excited to hear about out story and to bring in brochures or pamphlets that they can leave there for people to take.  They also said that we can post pictures on their facebook page so once we finish some of the projects that we had gotten from there we will post them.  They also gave us the names of some other similar stores that we could check out for supplies and materials.  

Thank you Habitat for Humanity ReStore!

SOLD! for $44

Today we sold yet another item, the wood crate ottoman.  This $4 crate, free curbside seat cushion, some old fabric we had on hand and some 4x4 wood for feet made for this great $44 sale!  We had originally agreed on $45 but they had either $44 or needed change.   We said $44 was fine even though we had the change they needed.  This couple was also very interested in our Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and our fundraising. They took a brochure and was interested in spreading the word for us! 

A Day in New Jersey

Team New Jersey has been doing such an amazing job acquiring great curbside items, but now they have more stuff than time to do anything with it all.  

 So team New York and team New Jersey combined forces to get some work done.  Mom and I took a trip down to New Jersey, Chrissy had the day off from work and Trevor took a day off to help.  Mom and I brought down a carload of yard sale stuff to save us a trip later on. Trevor showed us all the projects he had lined up.  

We got to work right away.  Trevor was making a plant stand from work and a tile.  Mom got to work painting the back panels of a couple of 6 foot tall billy bookcases and I was spray painting a end table/ coffee table set.  Chrissy sanded and painted the top surface of a large wood desk. Chrissy then cleaned of the beveled glass tops for the end tables and coffee table and they were ready to be posted on criagslist!

 

Chrissy and Mom then began to work on fixing up an old curbside find, a little play crib for dolls.  Since the little doors that came on it were slightly damaged, they decided to remove the doors and line the inside with wall paper to make it a decorative cubbie instead.  A genius and simple solution to a problem that the previous owner thought was enough to toss it.  

Meanwhile, Trevor worked on assembling a storage trunk/bench made from a single door! Chrissy strategically measured and planned out how to cut the door to utilize every piece of the door in the best way.  She even did all the cutting (with only a few minor mistakes that Trevor had to fix)!  They then added the doorknobs to the sides as handles and a kickstand to the front as the latch to open it.  This turned out wonderful!

Then Trevor and I began to paint a hutch white.  This was a huge wooden hutch they got for a dollar!  (it can be found tied to the top of the car in the first picture of this post)  We only got one coat of paint on the top half of the hutch before Mom and I needed to pack up and head home for my soccer practice.  Final picture coming soon!

On our way home, we loaded up the car with some items that Mom and I could work on in NY since Trevor and Chrissy had their hands full with all their projects (in addition to their full time jobs and their growing puppy, Murphy).  

DOORS

Our new thing is re-purposing doors.  Trevor and Chrissy found an old door curbside and I believe they are making it into a bench.  They followed a board on Pinterest that had a lot of good ideas.  While shopping at the Habitat Restore for supplies we had noticed that they were selling bifold doors for just $1.  We started pinteresting it and finding ideas and figured it was definitely worth a buck to pick some up.  

 Our first project with the skinnier bi-fold door was going to be a horizontal shelf with hooks.  The others we were thinking about making corner shelves.  After cutting into the doors and finding that there was no way to really cover up the hollow sides from cutting it in half Dad did a little improvising and made little corner shelves.  Mom said they were nice but didn't have much of a purpose until Dad grabbed a vase from our house and placed it on the shelf.  Then Mom saw that they had potential.  Good work by Dad on this one.  Pretty sure we'll make a profit on this one.  

 The tall corner shelves are coming soon.  We also have a full size door we found curbside that we will be adding a shelf and maybe a mirror and some hooks.  Can't go wrong with free. 

New Items Ready to Sell

As we were roaming around a yard sale early Saturday morning we came across a nice quality round beveled mirror marked $2.  We thought that it would make a great tabletop, even though we didn't have a base in mind yet.  We picked it up and continued to browse when we took a second look at a table that we had previously walked past.  The table was a round and made of particle board.  It was in good shape and looked like it was the same size as the mirror.   We placed the mirror down on top of it and the table was a hair bigger but we thought it could work.  The table was marked $2 also.  We managed to bargain a little bit with the guy.  Dad bought a saw that was marked $20 but we ended up getting everything for just $20.  

 We decided to take a little bit of a risk with this one and get creative.  We painted the table black and printed out some black and white photos of NYC.  We have different landmarks, libraries, taxis, buildings, bridges, and anything else that came up on Google that shouted "NYC."  Mom and I decoupaged these pictures very non-strategically on the legs/base of the table.  With lined the rough edges with black studded ribbon which really cleaned it up.  With a little construction glue, we attached the mirror to the top and that was it.  

 To keep with this same inspiration, Mom had some wood wine boxes that we picked up at a garage sale for just a buck or two and needed something to do to the outside of them.  She painted them black and decoupaged smaller versions of the same NYC pictures on the outside of them.  They turned out great, maybe not a potentially successful Craigslist sale but a definite garage sale goodie.  

There was a third box that didn't have the same hardware as the other two so we tried something different with that one.  Still painted it black but instead decoupaged a foil type of wrapping paper to the top that was gold with an Egyptian design.  It is also an item that will be better at our garage sale than on Craigslist but we listed it just in case.  

We also got another shoe shine box. Very random item and we now have two of them!  This one is totally different than the other one though.  The foot piece is on top and this one is smaller.  Mom thought about painting it red and I suggested that we paint the foot piece and the feet of the box black to make it pop more.  We took a trip out to Lowe's for some red paint.  With our free paint sample coupon we picked up our paint for $0 and headed home.  Red is a tough color to paint and Mom said ti would need a few coats.  After the first coat I said that I actually liked it with the scuffs and imperfections showing through the thin coat.  She looked at it again and agreed to it stayed as is.  This one even comes with a brush!

And for only $0.50 Mom and Dad found these two little kids chairs that fit perfectly under the kids table we already had.  With a fresh coat of baby blue spray paint and a seat covered in a new sheet of contact paper our table became a set.  We listed it on Craigslist with the storage bench we had but listed separate prices.  Hopefully they all get sold together.