My New Vintage Couch

Wow!!  What a day.  Between getting things and buying things for our upcoming move into our little bungalow and working on our projects its been quite crazy.

I'm really excited to share with you my new vintage couch that I picked up from an Estate Sale today.  All I can say is that days like this prove to me why we call ourselves Decorating Insanity.  So this couch is your typical 60's 8 footer, but in order to get it out of the apartment we bought it from, we had to take it through the patio and up over the fence.  It was kind of heavy, but we were crazy enough to do it.

Then we loaded it up in a small suv and let it all hang out.

But seriously, isn't it so cute?

As you can see we never stop working

So ideas are already going through my head as to how I'm going to decorating around it.  My place will be ready in 17 days.  The countdown is on.

xo,

mONICa

My $3.00 Chalk Paint Project

So I was reading this great article by Sherry at No Minimalist Here last week about making your own chalk paint.  I thought it would be fun to give it a try, so I looked for a victim in my garage.  This cute little writing desk has been asking me for a makeover for a while and I've been ignoring her request.  Well, last week Elaine was on vacation and I was having a little bit of a hard time moving furniture around on my own, so I had to stick with items that were light weight.  So she finally got some attention.

I guess the reason I had been ignoring it for so long was that I couldn't exactly figure out what to do with it.  I originally had planned to keep it two-tone, but instead it kind of evolved into multi-tone.

I used the Plaster of Paris Method, which was $6.00 at Michael's and $3.00 with my 50% off coupon.  I took some celery green paint (left over from Elaine's living room) and some true blue acrylic and mixed it to make a greenish/blue color.

The paint gets thicker the more plaster of paris that you use.  My first layer was a yellow mixed in a little thicker.  This way I avoided priming.  Then I used another layer mixed a little thinner with the green-blue that I made.  The third layer was dark stain.  I then went back through and highlighted some of the colors.

I love the paper on the inside of the drawers

All in all I'm pretty sold on this plaster of paris paint idea, especially on these shabby/ paris apartment chic projects.

What kinds of paint techniques do you love?

xo,

mONICa

It's All About Bright Dressers

So last week was such a boring week.  We pretty much worked on cleaning out the garage, shopping, and getting organized.  Plus in between I had a few Real Estate meetings.  For some reason I was up to a little creativity this weekend so we stayed home and worked (even with the kiddies around).  It became the Bright Dresser Weekend.  Dresser #1 we like to call The Meadows of Provence Dresser.  Decided to go with a bright yellow and a dark stain.  It so reminds me of a wheat field or something, hence the name.

Dresser #2 we call the Princess Heirloom Dresser.  It was an antique piece we got from somebody who had it in their family for years, but unfortunately it needed refinishing and they didn't know how to begin.   So they sold it to us.  I just love pink dressers, I did a custom one a while back for a little girl and it got rave reviews.  So when I saw this antique beauty I knew that  it wanted to wear pink too.

Don't forget to let us know if a bright dresser is in your future.  Or check out our For Sale Section for others available.

xo,

mONICa

Benches Are So Cute!

This morning as I was taking a walk in blog land, I noticed there were a bunch of really cute benches.  The front porch, the end of the bed, in my breakfast nook, I WANT ALL OF THEM!!!

Primative and ProperWhite Street InteriorsLovely BeastJust For Rachel

The Hollywood Starlett Tables

No we haven't fallen off the face of the planet although you may think we have.   I realized that moving out-of-state and being in a state of limbo do not go hand in hand.  Let me explain.  So I'm living with Elaine right now because our place will not be ready until mid October (Can't wait til everyone see's it).  We had a moving fiasco and our movers were a month late so I haven't had a whole lot of stuff (including a computer).  Elaine and I have been fighting over one computer for a month now.  Well the movers finally came, so I officially have a computer.  Don't worry, not a whole lot of stuff has gone on this past week anyway,  because it was over 100 degrees all last week in Southern California and surprisingly humid.  Paint and humidity do not work well together, so Elaine and I decided to shop instead.  Oh!!  and get a well deserved pedicure on Friday.  Now we've got a whole lot of pieces ready for our magic.

Here is one that we did a week before the humidity.  They are vintage side tables we picked up from a couple who we bought a dresser from, and they belonged to his grandmother.  The finish was a little rough so we decided to paint them.  Elaine had this awesome vintage Hollywood Regency fabric that needed a home, so we decoupaged it onto the drawers.  I love how the two-tone paint came out.  I think Elaine did a fab job on the decoupage.  The birds are  super cute.

Grey and cream is a wonderful combination

xo,

mONICa