Old Furniture Memories and a Bar Cart DIY

We recently had two pieces of antique furniture recovered for our den.  This furniture has been in my house for over 5 years now, since my sweet, sweet grandmother, Mammy, passed away and left us these gems.

bad lighting, but the fabric is a gorgeous gray velvet from Forest Lake Fabrics

I love this couch because I have memories from when I was 10, and later a teenager, sleeping on it in my grandmother's condo on the river in Beaufort.  It was in her den, just steps away from the tiny kitchen where she and my grandfather always left the radio on, 24 hours a day.  It was not loud enough to be distracting, very low, but it was always on, and always on the classical station.  To this day classical music makes me think of that condo and my grandparents.

awesome blue & emerald green textured fabric that I found on ebay

I don't have any before photos of the couch and chair, but I am in love with the afters...Mr. Shannon of Shannon Upholstery in Eastover, SC is amazing.  He not only did an impeccable job refurbishing (the couch needed lots of repairs) and recovering this furniture, but he truly gets why pieces like this mean so much to people.  They don't have a website or a showroom, but he's the best of the best, take my word for it!

With the addition of these beauties into our already mid-century-modern-eclectic den, I had been feeling the need for a bar cart.  After searching Pinterest for bar carts that suited my taste, I was mostly coming up with options that were way out of our price range.  Until I found this list of DIY bar cart hacks.

We bought the IKEA BYGEL utility cart for $25:

image via here

Then, spray painted the metal pieces with this $8 can of spray paint:

And voila:

this is all the liquor that is only seldom drunk, as all the popular stuff is "out of stock" in our house...

A very affordable bar cart for our very eclectic den.

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Yellow Door & Closet Love

Our new master closet is almost finished...here's a preview:

 

And, my favorite part:

A sliding yellow barn door (handmade and painted by my talented husband). 

Inspiration for the door via Apartment Therapy:

image via here

 

We're gonna paint the bedroom a dark grey when all is said and done.  

On the hunt for a new platform bed too--maybe this one from IKEA:

MALM Bed image via here

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Homes for the Holidays and a Mini-Vacay!

I am loving all the images of beautiful homes decorated for the holidays on all the lovely blogs that I read daily, so I thought I would share some of my recent favorites with you:

Vintage pom-pom tree decorated with tiny vintage doll dresses via A Beautiful Mess here.

Candace's pretty hand-made doily garland featured via Smile and Wave here.

I am in L-U-V with this!  Hand-made glass ornament garland via Desire to Inspire here.

Tobi Fairley's home via Layers of Meaning here.

I am headed to Charlotte tomorrow morning with my family, and I could not be more excited for 3 nights in a hotel, meals out at nice restaurants, and holiday shopping at IKEA and South Park Mall!  I'll also get to see a college friend and her husband--she's expecting a baby boy in March, so we'll have tons to talk about.

  Look for the "Eating Our Way Through Charlotte- Part II" blog post to come next week.  

Click here to see Part I from last December.

Have a wonderful weekend, my dears!

XO, Becca

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IKEA Finds and the Nursery

Being that I really hate the gender/sex stereotypes of "pink is for girls" and "blue is for boys," James and I decided to go ahead and decorate the baby's room before we find out what we are having. 

With some help from my IKEA purchases from 2 weekends ago, we spent this past Sunday painting, putting things together, hanging, decorating, and generally sweating-- all in the name of a cute, gender-neutral nursery.  Here are some pictures of the  (almost) finished product:

*The wall paint is a very pale blue--it matches the bedding that we got from Target on-line.
*The rocker is from IKEA.
*The green/white dresser is from Roundabouts Consignment store in Columbia, SC.  (Originally Pottery Barn).  All drawers were originally white and James spray-painted 3 of them green.
*Crib is from Babies R Us.
*Tree and birds wall decal from Target.  
*White bookshelf was ours already-originally blue, but sanded down and re-painted by my very handy husband.  
*Striped rug is from IKEA.
*Shelf on the wall is from IKEA.
*Beautiful and soft animal-print fleece blanket hanging on the end of the crib was made by my very talented mother.

*I used printed papers from a local Columbia stationery store, Jot, to paper the back of the bookshelf--hard to see from this shot, but really pretty--and so cheap to do!
*The alligator blocks and the 2 boxes with animals on them are also from IKEA.
*Vintage Fisher-Price airplane is from Etsy.  Love it--looking to purchase some vintage F-P little people to go in the plane now.

Sweet Abby and Fat Albert (cat) helping us paint the bedroom :)

There are some things left to hang on the walls and a couple more small purchases to be made--like a CD player for the nursery, so the baby can listen to the cool CD's I recently bought for him or her: Lullabye Renditions of Bob Marley, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones:

image via here

We are so ready to find out the baby's sex--ultrasound in 2 weeks!

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Labor Day Weekend- Woo Hoo!

What are your plans for the long weekend?  I am thrilled to have Monday off of work and to actually feel like doing something productive too!

My sister and I are headed to IKEA in Charlotte tomorrow--I could spend days in IKEA.  She just moved into a new house, so she's looking for new light fixtures, drawer and cabinet pulls, etc...I'm looking for cool (and inexpensive) baby stuff.  Can't wait to see what I'll find--post next week for sure!

My Happy Place via here

Other than that, I'm probably gonna help my cousin move into his new apartment here in Columbia, and soak up some late-summer rays by my parents' pool. 

Would love to hear what everyoe else is doing!
XO

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Charlotte, NC and IKEA

Ok, so this post is going to be short on words and longer on pictures...I had an amazing time in Charlotte this weekend. South Park Mall was bustling; there are so many stores there that we don't have in Columbia- Sur La Table, Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters- I am glad we don't though, 'cause I would be broke...

Some pics of my favs from Banana Republic:

And then we went to IKEA... I was an IKEA store virgin before this past weekend, and just let me say it was a very enjoyable first experience.

Driving into the IKEA store parking lot, it was like entering an amusement park. There were multiple flags at the entrance, (similar to 6 Flags), there were amusements for the kiddos, (a whole little play area just inside the door), there is a Cafe serving all kinds of theme-park food, and there were maps of the store available resembling something I remember trying to read in Disney World.




More pictures from Charlotte to come...mostly of the food I ate while there.

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