Happy Feet ! New Rug

I've wanted a rug for the living room since I moved in - but I wanted to make sure I loved it first. I recently stumbled across the Mini Manor Blog and I've fallen in love. Ashli and her husband live in British Columbia, so it's great that most of the things she posts about are available in Canada! When I saw her library/office area, I fell in love with the carpet! When I was showing it to Stacey, I googled "Mini Manor Blog Rug" and found a post explaining where she got it! It's a Debbie Travis rug from Canadian Tire. I went to go check it out at the store, and was slightly disappointed that it seemed like a cream/green pattern. I crossed my fingers that it would look different in the condo lighting, and it did!

I didn't realize that I missed the feeling of a cushy carpet on my feet! I'm love how the rug makes the room seem much more homey/finished.

I purposely didn't capture the left side of the room in these photos - I've just completed a projected that I'll be posting about soon :)

Spray Painted Coffee Table

So up until now, the living room has been looking pretty empty. There's a couch (that was leant/gifted to me by a wonderful family), a dresser (that I bought on kijiji and plan to turn into a tv stand à la twotwentyone) and a smaller dresser that I've had since I was born (which has been primed, but not painted because I can't pick a colour I like). It's looked pretty bare for the last six months, but the bright side is that it's a great place to work out - lots of open floor space. Thank God I've started filling it up, because now I have a legitimate excuse for not having worked out in months.

Step one in filling this room up is a coffee table. I've been looking for FOREVER a while because I
a) Don't want to spend a lot of money
b) Don't want it to take up too much visual space
c) Don't want to spend a lot of money

After searching kijiji for a while, I found this table for $40. And the woman happened to live two minutes away, which made it extra awesome.
The table is a metal/glass combination, and originally it was silver/chromish, which didn't really go with what I had done so far. I decided to channel my inner Goldmember spray it gold so that it would tie in with the mirror in the dining room.

The whole process was super easy and took about 15 minutes! My kind of project :)

Here's the table before (with the glass pieces removed)

Step One: Lightly/quickly sand the table and wipe it down.

I spray painted it in the underground parking area because it wouldn't fit on my balcony. But I was super careful and took all of the necessary precautions. 

Step two: lay newspapers to avoid painting your parking spot. Or the floor.

Step three: paint the table and let it dry for 15ish minutes

Step four: replace glass pieces, position, and enjoy!

I love the way it turned out :) I also love having a spot to put my feet up when watching tv!

Here's a quick peek at the before:

And after! This photo is from the Mother's Day Brunch I hosted for the Moms! It was the drink station :)

The $10 Mirror

I think this mirror may be my new favourite piece in the condo :) And it cost $10, which makes me love it even more. It's hard for others to understand just how much I love a good deal...

I love pretending what it would be like to actually have people read this blog. When doing a new project, I'll say to my boyfriend "Wait! Let me take a photo of this step!" And he'll look at me with an almost pleading look of "But it would go so much faster if you didn't have to do that..." to which I reply "But my readers won't understand how to do it if I don't capture this step!". Then he gives me a look that is a combination of "Aww.. it's cute that you think that" and "Maybe one day..." but he says "Okay, let's take the photo" and I win :)

This project took about 30 minutes and I did it on my own, so I didn't have to make anyone stop to pose. Maybe next time.

A few weeks ago I was driving to visit my Grandma. I stopped at a Goodwill on the way because it's not one I normally go to, so I was hoping for a good find. And I got one! This mirror was $20, but it just so happened to be a 50% off furniture day! I couldn't believe that nobody else had snatched it up - the lines were perfect!

Here's what it looked like before:

My wonderful future sister-in-law let me spray paint it in her garage.

You can tell from the holes in the side that it used to be a part of a tri-fold mirror that probably sat on top of a dresser. They only had the middle part, but that's all I needed! gave the whole piece a quick sand using 80 grit sand paper, and then filled the holes with wood filler.

After I had sanded the wood filled areas and wiped the mirror down, I taped the inside of the mirror so that I wouldn't get any spray paint on it.

And then I covered the mirror with newspaper. One layer is enough, it won't leak through to the mirror. If when you're done you realize there was a spot you didn't cover, don't worry, you can use a razor blade to scrape it off.

I lay the mirror down on newspaper so I wouldn't ruin their floors (although there were a few spots that I didn't cover perfectly - sorry Stacey!)

*TIP! Make sure you raise whatever you're painting slightly off the ground. I put two little cardboard pieces underneath so that I could get good coverage on the sides and I wouldn't have to worry about the mirror sticking to the newspaper underneath.

I used this spray paint:

I already had it from a previous project, it's just $8 at Home Depot, not bad!

I did two coats and let it dry in between, but it dries super quickly. I wouldn't leave the newspaper on for too long, because you don't want the paint to adhere to it, and then pull off parts of the paint with the newspaper.

(Please pardon the poor quality iPad photos).

Here's the before:

And after: 

I like that the wood grain almost gives it a gold-leaf-ish finish.

I couldn't be happier! The gold ties in perfectly with the coffee table I just painted for the living room, which I'll show soon :).

I'm linking up with:
Remodelaholic
My Turn for Us
Creations by Kara

Grateful for...

Magnolia trees.
This one was so beautiful I had to take a photo - and it smelled delicious! Too bad they're only in bloom like this for a week.