Outdoor Furniture Before and Afters

Let's turn back time a bit- I wanted to post some pictures of all the projects my mom did for me while we were in Hawaii last year.  She did so many fun projects- it was so fun to dome home to a house with fun little things done here and there.  One of the projects she did for me was to paint my back porch furniture.  I knew exactly what I wanted and lefter her with the paint and fabric and she did all the hard work.  It turned out so cute.  I wanted some heavy duty furniture for our back porch.  I found this dining room set at Goodwill.  It was very "dining room" looking- and I was hesitant to buy it- but for $70 for 4 chairs I just knew I could make it work.  The chairs are solid wood and so well made I couldn't pass it up.  This is what it looked like before...

And here they are after! Aren't they fun! My mom had each one of the kids pick a paint and paint one of the chairs.  She worked them hard.  

See the brown wicker patio set?  I bought that at an estate sale- the cushions were outdated, ugly, and dirty.  My mom sewed all those red cushions for me and the cute red pillows.   They look fantastic!
And are those yellow barn doors to DIE for or what??!! I saw them at a yard sell and instantly fell in love.  I couldn't think of anywhere to put them and knew Darren would not be happy if I bought them.  But I could not stop thinking about them.  I wracked my brain all week where I could put them and thought of the perfect spot.  The next week I went back to the house that had the yard sale praying they had not sold.  They were still there! I was so happy to get them. The guy even delivered them for me- happy day!

Entertainment Center Before and After

I have so many Before and After projects.  Someday I want a blog dedicated to all my house renovations.  But for now I hardly find enough time to think.  If I have a spare minute I'd rather spend it doing a project as opposed to blogging about it.  But I do have a couple special projects I want to post about.  First- our entertainment center. This is it before.  Darren said it was, "Fine".  I'm not going to tell you about all the stages- the pictures speak for themselves.  It was a big project.  I love it now.  It's my favorite thing about the house. The second picture was my vision.  I had this drawn out for about a year before we got around to it, we had so many other projects to do.  We both love it now!

All right, lets get this party started! First we moved the carpet back so the cabinets would be on the ground. 

Then we had to have the carpet guys come stretch back out the carpet.  Then, onto the cabinet top.  Which we made ourselves and was probably the most work.  It's beautiful though.

We built it from 2 x 6 redwood decking.  We screwed and glued all the boards together like a butcher block counter top.  Then we did wood filler, sanded and stained, and polyurethane.  Which all took a lot longer than it sounds.

Hahaha! I love this picture! That's me 8 months pregnant putting up ship-lap.  I heart ship-lap:)

I painted the ship-lap with a very watered down white paint.  It took forever.   Below are the boards for the bookcase.  We put them in the garage and primed and painted them before we put them up.   It made it soo much easier when they were already painted when we put them up.

We started at one side and built inward.  And then the other side and met in the middle. 

Crown molding- oh we are getting so close!  I couldn't resist putting some decorations up. 

And it's done!! We love it!  It makes the room feel so much bigger.

Let's take one more look at that Before picture.