This is my sons bedroom makeover.  He was so patient.  I have lost the before pics as my computer did the old crasharoo.   Anyway, he picked 2 bright blues for paint and I had to work around it.  He likes big cats, goth stuff, japenese things, and blue.  So this is what it turned out like.











I have to add a shot with my girl dog. 

Prinscess Sophie
Questions comments?

Hi everyone!
This has probably been done before me.  I had an old dresser.  It has been used in every bedroom and eventually it was relegated to the garage as tastes changed and bedrooms were redecorated.  The dresser is very sturdy, solid wood, heavy and huge.  I very rarely throw furniture out, I like to wait and see if I can be inspired to re-do it in some way. And I am cheap.   
I hated our old entertainment center.  It was very tall, style-less, manufacturey looking.  The pits!  My living room is old world like with Fleur-de-lis details, crosses and religious themed accents.
So, in looking at the console styles out there for entertainment systems, I thought about my old dresser friend.  The dresser has 3 huge drawers and behind 2 sliding doors 6 smaller drawers.  The best thing was each of those drawers live in their own individual compartments (sorry, don't know furniture lingo).  I thought it would be perfect as a entertainment console. 
It started out very plain.

here it is after sanding and primer.
this is the original wood color.


in action.

the drawers in use.  perfect for DVDs, games, Cd's, and I am old enough to still own a boatload of videos. 
After sanding and primer, I painted it black ( just like the Stones song!) 
I had 4 diamond shaped plastic pictures with relief details that I spray painted black.  I attached them to the ovalish designs on the sliding doors with construction adhesive.  After that dried I used caulk to seal the edges.  More paint went on the caulk.  After my husband used a big fat drill bit to put holes in the back for cord access I used gold paint to paint to highlight the relief details, drawer handle, legs, and whatever else took my fancy.  I used stencils to add Fleur-de-lis details to drawer fronts and TA DA; entertainment console!  The compartments are great for DVD player, game consoles, Cable box, etc..the best thing is the doors slide to hide all that techy looking stuff. .  I just wish I could hide the TV.  I will eventually get a smaller flat screen,  so that it blends in a bit better.  I am thinking of designing a screen to hide that.  It is down the road though, this works for now. 

this is a little bit closer pic of the details.  I am beginning to see that black does not work translate details very well in photos.  Sorry!
Thanks so much for looking!
Questions or comments?

This is my very first post with an attempt at adding pics.  I know the Tuscan look has been done to death, but I still love it.  I am really nervous but here goes. I apologize for the yucky pics, I am no photographer so...

Background: hubby and I bought our home outright about 12 years ago.  It was/is a labor of love/hate.  Never have I believed I could have so many emotions about an inanimate object.  Previous owners were a bit backwards or woods.  So this house was near derelict.  But that is what allowed us to buy it and not pay a bank note every month. We have made improvements, and it always seems that time and money never coincides. I think we should be further along after 12 years, but somehow living, working and raising a family gets in the way too.  I have to forgive myself for that.   

Our biggest undertaking was the kitchen (so far).  It was a craptastic to begin with.  No before pics, I never want to revisit that again.  When we moved in we were so very poor we barely had money for paint.  That is the first thing I did in order to tolerate the room.   I painted everything a white and blue to live with until we got money.  It was disgusting. Picture Sea foam green everywhere, a mix of cabinets from days of yore and 80's cheapness and a really bad peel and stick tile.   It took us 3 years to get it totally done.  What I am showing now is an old back bedroom that was in back of the kitchen.  We ripped down a wall and lengthened the kitchen.  One of the drawbacks to this house is that the rooms are rather longer than wider.  This breakfast nook was how we attempted to make that work for us.  A full on kitchen table does not fit in the kitchen.










The door was a window that my hubby and dear old ex-father in law busted out cement blocks to make.  It is half of discarded old French doors (free, we had to put in our own door knob hole and everything).  This was a hellish job start to finish.  We ripped the walls down, a ghastly paneling from the 70's and put up brand new drywall.  The dry wall job we did was crappy.  Mix high humidity with broken pieces of dry wall and it adds to a pretty crumby look.  We were determined to save money and we used up everything we had on hand.  So to hide the dry wall I found an idea in a book I was looking through at the book store to put in “stones” and distressed plaster.  I used paper bags, wall paper paste and dry wall spackle.  We put up a chair rail to cover up the imperfections (half pieces of drywall, only went half way up).  Another idea I found in a book while browsing, plastic grapes cut in half.  The grapes are nestled in spackle in all the corners and give the look of relief plaster.  This covered up the terrible taping job we did in the corners.   I mixed up various left over paints to damp sponge on the walls.  The ceiling is an embossed wall paper painted grey and washed with a silver glaze.  Looks like tin (I forgot to take pics of that).  We put in a ceiling fan.  We ripped up the floor to find (to my joy), wooden floor.  We have yet to rent the sander to re-finish it, but I am happy to say that the distressed look of it doesn't really detract from the look of the room. 



I collect platters, sterling and silver plated serving pieces and liquor decanters.  That and all the wrought iron and wine inspired pictures contribute to the clutter.  I have to say that I am attracted to shiny things and I like having things to look at.  I know it is too busy for a lot of people.  Most visitors to our home are really intrigued by it all.  It is certainly hell to dust.  I like my stuff and can't stand the thought of getting rid of any of it though.  So thank heaven for the static dusters.   

We were going for the Italian/Classical look and I have to say I am happy with it even after about 2 years since completion.  This is a wonderful place for me to sit and drink coffee, read and commune with my dogs in the quiet mornings before the 3 men (hubby and 2 teenage sons) start getting up and around.  It is truly my link to sanity.  It is also like a nice cafe when friends visit.