Shabby Chic Bookcase Design

After my vacation, I am now feeling ready to tackle the job of making over an office for myself.  The room originally was a small play room with lime green walls.  I started to make it into a kids/mom office but now I want to give it a shabby chic style, just for me, and so it is going to take a lot of changes.

My husband is going to make me a bookcase - I just have to tell him that yet!  Actually he offered to a while ago and I'm thinking it is a good idea.

First, I went shopping on-line for a bookcase that I liked in a shabby chic design.  I found one that is already sold:

This looks easy to make and I really like the rose appliques and glass knobs.  Since I don't really need the drawers, I'm thinking my husband can easily make this with fake drawers.  Once the bookcase is painted a white linen or cream, I plan on distressing it a bit to give it an older look.

This will be a much better look than what I had in there previously:

The tall bookcase is already gone and in my craft room for storage shelves.  All of the videos and games are now in my son's gaming room.  The room right now is total chaos with books piled everywhere and some new shabby chic accessories lying about giving me inspiration.

It's time to clear everything out and paint.  One small step at a time ---- I keep having to tell myself!

My $15 Chair - Made Over

When I first bought this chair, a few years ago, it was not too pretty.  The color was kind of a flourescent green with a seat cover fabric that had to be from the seventies.  It was plenty bright and gardeny but much too loud.  I wish I had a picture of it but I had painted over it so fast, back then, that there wouldn't have been time to even think about getting a camera out.

Originally, I had just sanded the green paint off and painted over the chair with a solid black paint.  The look was fine but I was never totally happy with it.  It was too solid of a color for the age of the chair.  Plus, I hadn't done a very good job of sanding so it wasn't real smooth.  There had been a coat of white paint underneath the green and I think I had just gotten tired of sanding.

Now, I decided it was time to fix the chair and give it some distressing to highlight the imperfections. 

This first picture was taken after sanding.  I sanded deeper in some spots than in others so I could get a little of the white in areas and all the way down to the dark wood stain in others.  At first I thought I might be finished but after sleeping on it for a night I knew I needed to add one more step.   I didn't want the white, that showed through to be quite so bright so I painted over the sanded chair with a very light coat of black again. 

Here is the finished chair after painting:

This is a little more subtle which I like a lot better!

My New Shabby Chic Trunk Table

I went shopping this past weekend to find furniture pieces in need of some repurposing.  I found two end tables at a thrift store and a great chair at a resale shop.  I can't wait to apply paint to the tables and enhance all of the flaws!  The chair just needs a little repair to the seat and a cushion that I already have the fabric picked out for.  I'll be showing these finished projects at a later date.

I was keeping my eye open for a coffee table or at least something to make into a coffee table for my living room.  I've been wanting something different for..oh..about seven years now.  My plan was to repurpose something myself.

While we were shopping, we popped into a fun home decor store in Traverse City, MI called The Red Dresser.  The window display caught my eye and the sign, An Eclectic Boutique.  It looked like my style and I wasn't wrong.  I wanted to buy out the store!  One of the first things I found was a shabby chic trunk table that I just knew would go perfectly in my living room.

Even though I was hoping to have a project of my own, I couldn't pass this finished project up.  Here is the trunk in it's new home in front of our sofa:

I love the claw foot legs on it!  Now I feel inspired to begin my own re-purposing projects.