Category Archives: 31 days

One Month of Organizing: ALL WRAPPED UP

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I’m calling it donesville on 30 day blog challenge one day early because tomorrow I’ve got a Halloween post planned. Overall, I may  not have posted specifically about organization every day but I did achieve my goal of posting 5 days a week for a month so I’m pretty happy about that.

If you tuned in late, this whole thing came from Nesting Place where she challenged herself and other bloggers to choose one topic and stick to it everyday for a month. I cheated a bit by not posting on weekends, but hey- I don’t get paid for this :) .

 

So for today, a wrap up:

1: Intro to 31 days of ORANIZATION

2: The Massive Task of Planning a Wedding

3: The Built In

4: Kitchen Command Center

5: We’d like some gas, please

6: Painting

7: Christmas Shopping

8: The Guest Room Closet

9: Upcoming Projects!

10: Brief Progress Report

11: The Butterfly Effect of Orgnization (& a chair redo!)

12: DIY Sunburst Mirror

13: Making a Gallery Wall

14: The Guest Room Closet is Complete

15: High 5 for Friday

16: Pinterest!

17: Kitchen Cabinets

18: Other People’s Organization

19: Meal Planning with Paige!

20: Another High 5 for Friday!

21: Easy Eggless Pancakes!

 

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And oh yeah… no big deal…. but my very first giveaway will probably pop up a little later in the week. :) It’s nothing huge, but good things come in small packages, so come on back and check it out!

 

Day 20 of organizing: Another high 5 for Friday!

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Photobucket Oh thank goodness it’s finally Friday. Man, this has been a long week- on Monday I was already feeling the itch for the weekend. Not to mention that it is just so dark in the morning, it’s really hard to roll out of bed and get going when there’s still another hour until daylight.

Nevertheless, I’m determined to have 5 solid highlights for the week and they are:

1. My super awesome lovebug of a foster dog, Choco, has been adopted! Next weekend he will be going off to his new home, which just so happens to be my best friend’s home. I’m so glad she and her family are taking him in, both because I know he’ll have an awesome life and because now I’ll get to see him and hear about him all the time.

2. It’s been a fun week of blog hopping around here: Yesterday my favorite attempt at wall art was featured on Interiors by  Kenz, a blog you should absolutely browse around not just because she’s got such a hilarious voice but also because her projects are pretty bad-ass. And don’t forget to check out my handy dandy features section to see where else I’ve popped up around the internets. Also yesterday I also hosted my very first guest blogger, Paige! I hope to have lots more guest posts in the future, so be sure to email me if you’re interested in sharing a project or story (SandpaperAndGlue@gmail.com)

3. I hit this super tiny milestone, which I’m pretty please about. Don’t scoff at me please, it’s the little things that matter sometimes. :)

4. On my very first month of organization post I outlined lots of projects I wanted to get done, and I have really been powering through them. I didn’t blog about every single one, because frankly that’d be a little on the dull side, but I didn’t forget about them either. Here’s the list of things I wanted organized this month and where I’m at with each:

  • Hallway built in (done!)
  • Top shelf of master closet (done!)
  • Guest room closet (done!)
  • Basement shelves
  • Basement wall
  • Linen closet
  • Kitchen cabinets (done!)
  • Entryway closet (done!)
  • Shoe storage

5. Things are moving and shaking with our conversion from oil to gas heat. This week our utilities company came and installed all the pipes we need to connect our house to the gas pipe on the street and they didn’t even have to ruin our retaining wall to do so (no cost to us!). We got our chimney inspected and next weekend the necessary work will be done on it (for $1200…ouch). From what I understand after the chimney stuff is done we need to have it inspected, then get the burner conversion done, then have that inspected, then we’re good to go (all of this is free as well). I’ll write another full post on it when it’s done to outline how it all went.
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Day 19 of organizing: Meal Planning with Paige!

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Today I’ve got a real treat for you guys (pun intended): a guest post from a an in-real-life friend Paige, who also happens to run a cute journal-like lifestyle blog. Because I basically just had shelled peanuts for dinner last night, I’m in no position to tell you how to organize your meals. Paige is a much better resource for that.

 

Take it away Paige!

Hi everyone! My name is Paige and you can check out my little corner of the internet at Paigetopus. I’m here to do a guest post on something I love to organize! Because…
…It’s the month of October! And for my friend Stephanie here at Sandpaper & Glue, that means a month of posts all about organization! She recently shared a post about other people’s organizational habits that are not only super smart but also super easy. I realized that you don’t need to have stuff to organize in order to be organized.
That brings me to something I love to organize: meals! I’m a meal-planning fool. Every Sunday afternoon you can find me on my couch with my laptop open to all of my favorite food sites and my meal-planning board sitting by my side.
First, I open up Food On the Table, which is a great site for getting recipes, making grocery lists and finding deals in your local stores. It allows you to pick the store that you shop at (I use Safeway or SaveMart [unfortunately Trader Joe's is not on their list]) and it shows you deals based on recipes you add to your “cookbook” or items you add to your shopping list. In the recipes section, you can browse recipes based on your main protein (or vegetarian meals, if that’s your deal). Let’s say I’m feeling like shrimp, I can browse recipes with shrimp and they’ll include what items you’ll need as well as directions (and sometimes nutritional value!), and if you add the recipe, it automatically adds the ingredients to your shopping list! It’s super convenient because it will even include how much you need of each item.
If I’m not feeling the recipes there, I’ll browse my Pinterest food boards or just google recipes based on what sounds good, like “crock pot chicken” or the like. Sometimes the internet can be overwhelming though so I’ll go to my trusty, time-honored recipes in my recipe box. My mom put some of my favorite meals on recipe cards for me so that I always have delicious meals to make!
After finding some tasty recipes to fill my week, I jot down on my meal board what we’re having each day. My meal board is simple: a dry erase board, sectioned off with art tape into the days of the week (lunch and dinner) as well as my meals and my boyfriend’s meals. We live together but we don’t always eat the same stuff since our schedules differ, so it’s helpful to have space for both of our meals.
As I go along finding recipes, I make sure to see what I have in the fridge or pantry. That shrimp recipe calls for lemon, which I already have! I add everything else to my shopping list and then go to my grocery store’s site. If you’re on the west coast, Safeway has a program called Just For U, where you enter your most-frequently-purchased items and it gives you personalized deals as well as coupons. You browse the items and click “add to my card” so that you don’t have to deal with wasteful paper coupons. They’re the same as the inserts you get in the mail, so make sure to recycle those! When you purchase your items, you give them your member card (or phone number) and it automatically discounts the deals you’ve added. Lately I’ve been getting staple items at seriously discounted prices by using this program. I’ve gotten a whole loaf of bread for just $1! Make sure to check out your favorite grocer’s site so that you know you’re getting the best deals.
Finally, I make my way to the store with my shopping list (on my iPhone!) in hand. If you have a smart phone, the app version for FoodOnTheTable is wonderful. It gives you your grocery list broken up by sections of the store. As you pick up your items, you check it off the list! Your grocer might also have an app (like Safeway does) so that way you don’t forget what brand has that awesome 2 for $5 deal or the great BOGO price that you’ve added to your savings card.
A great bonus to having such an organized list is that I rarely deviate from the plan; I almost never buy things that aren’t on my list. That means less impulse buys and having exactly what I need throughout the week for my meals and snacks without having excess, wasted food. It also helps me to avoid junk food. If chocolate-covered, deliciously temping cookies aren’t on the list, then I don’t end up going down the snack aisle.
One final tip to keep in mind when food shopping: if you only have a few things on your list, get a basket, not a cart. When you only have enough room for the items you need, then you won’t go overboard.
So this is how I stay organized when it comes to meal planning and eating healthy. How do you make your meals easier? Do you meal plan? What are some of your favorite organizational skills for making dinner easier? Share them in the comments or visit my blog for some tasty, easy recipes!
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Thanks friend!
And if you’re in need of a push to make a change with your meals, join me my Pinterest Food Challenge each month!
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Are you interested in guest posting- maybe about organization? or an awesome project you’ve been working on? Email me at SandpaperAndGlue@gmail.com …that’s sandpaperandglue (at) wordpress (dot) com . I’d love to hear from you!

Day 18 of organizing: Other People’s Organization

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It’s safe to say I’m not expert at organization… just ask my mom. She still imagines my house looking the way my bedroom looked when I was 12 (it’s true mom, you do). So I thought I’d take a day out of this challenge to 1) introduce you to other lovely blogs/websites and 2) show other organizational tricks.

  • Hi Sugarplum! created an awesome drop spot where there used to be such wasted space:

 

  • I Heart Organizing recently shared some tips on organizing laundry when you’ve got kids:

  • This site is totally not in English, but gives an excellent picture tutorial for hanging up your flip flops, which I think is genius.

  • Eclectically Vintage used an old crib spring to create a memo board (use vertical space!)

 

So which one is your favorite? Do you have any awesomely organized spots in your house? Share them in the comments!!

 

 

 

 

Day 17 of organizing: Kitchen Cabinets

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I got two requests for this one yesterday, so here you go! And in the interest of keepin’ it real, I totally did not clean my kitchen before taking pictures. I make no apologies for that.

I absolutely love my kitchen, it’s wonderfully spacious and I have just enough room for all my things. I have a lot of kitchen things- my own, hand me downs from mom, hand me downs from nonna, and hand me downs from an aunt. Here’s some views of the “cooking” area of the kitchen (we don’t have a dining room, just a 4 person table and 2 barstools in the kitchen):

I have a crazy amount of glassware: glasses for water, martini glasses, white wine glasses, red wine glasses, margarita glasses, and martini glasses. All I bought myself were two hand painted wine glasses from Pier One, everything else was hand me down. I also have an insane amount of dishes: fancy dishes, clear glass dishes, an Ikea dish set, and plastic dishes. I bought the Ikea set and the plastic ones. Pint glasses, shot glasses, and the George Foreman were also all either hand me downs or Matt’s collection.

Here’s a few looks with the cabinets open:

So. Much. Glassware.

We have 6-7 favorite mugs we use everyday (there’s only two of us but seriously, do you think I do dishes every day?) and plastic drinking glasses that we use everyday- those are stored in here. Nicer stuff is spread out in the other cabinets.

Matt collects the Newbury Comics pint glasses, which is why we have so many. Please pardon those middle cabinets- it’s super difficult to neatly store a George Foreman and the 4 different plates that come with it. And watch out for the zombie next to the stove. He wants your brainsssss (and your splattered cooking oil)

But wait, there’s more!

I have no idea what’s shoved in the “misc. crap” cabinet, and frankly I’m afraid to open it. The miscellaneous that goes with the cutlery is twist ties, elastics, bottle openers, etc. Also, above the fridge is stored just about every jelly jar and pasta jar I’ve ever had. In my life. On top of the microwave is where I store most of my mini projects- things that need to be re-glued, hardware for projects on deck, small things that need a paint facelift.

Are there different words for flat baking pans and brownie making baking pans? I don’t know- but the flat ones are in the cabinet all the way to the right and the deep ones are in the stove drawer.

My pots and pan cabinet is a MESS. So is my plastic bag hoard.

In the spirit of keepin’ it real, here’s my cleaning supplies cabinets:

eep.

And last but not least, my happy little wheel cart on the other side of the fridge:

Let me break it down for you a bit more though….

THINGS I’M DOING RIGHT:

  • Canister set command center
  • Tension rod to double cleaning supplies space (Broke Ass Home did this too, we both did it with a little nudge from Pinterest)
  • I use a partitioned jewelry tray from Homegoods in my  cutlery draw to organize elastics, twist ties, bottle openers, wine corks, etc. (like this one only Homegoods sells them covered in pretty fabric)
  • I keep all the things I use every day in the same cabinets (Batman mug, Ikea plates, plastic cups) and spread everything else around
  • Use a pretty vase (also from Homegoods) to keep my spatulas and other everyday cooking utensils organized next to the stove, as opposed to having them take up draw space.

THINGS I’M NOT DOING THAT I TOTALLY SHOULD:

  • Attach a towel rack to the inside of my pots and pans door so I can keep my lids organized (like this)
  • Purge things I don’t need… do I really need the glass glases I’ve never used? Can I get away with just my plastic ones?
  • Find a better way to store my plastic bags (like this)

If you’re not so fortunate as to have a heck of a lot of cabinets I recommend:

  • Only keeping dishes and glasses you use everyday in the kitchen. Store the fancy stuff in a box somewhere else, because seriously- how often do you use it? Sometimes I wonder why I have a whole china set, and I joke that it’s just in case the Queen of England ever comes over for tea.
  • Store your cleaning supplies in the room you use it most (bath stuff in the bathroom, dustpan in a hall closet, windex in an office or spare bedroom).
  • Make good use of your shelves- most cabinets have shelves with adjustable heights. It took me about 6 months to realize this, and once I did I was able to seriously move things around and make more space.
  • After you’ve lived in your home for a few months, reorganize your cabinets. This will force you to put things purposely in cabinet instead of where you just shoved them when you were unpacking boxes, it’ll also force you to look at everything and evaluate whether or not you really need it.
  • Make use of vertical wall space! Use something cute, like shutters or a magnet board to organize mail/notes/grocery lists (You can get shutters at a Restore Habitat for Humanity store, or even Craigslist sometimes, then spray paint them and voila! And instead of buying an expensive magnet board you can cover an old flat baking tray with fabric and use magnets to stick notes and lists on it!)

Hope this helps!

Day 16 of organizing: Pinterest!

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Oh Pinterest, I love you. However, it can be such an  OVERWHELMING site. You can pin and pin and pin and pin and never do anything about it.

To counteract that, I’ve done a few things:

  • Project Central: a board for all the projects I’ve made. I delete the pin where ever else I had it saved, and pin my own project here.
  • Pinterest Food Challenge: once a month I actually cook or bake something I’ve pinned, so I hold myself accountable to actually take some action. I then delete the pin were ever else I had it saved and pin my own version into the Project Central board.
  • Don’t have too many boards: I have fourteen boards, which seems like a lot but it’s divided up between holidays, recipes, and life. It works for me.
  • Don’t pin anything that doesn’t have an original website: what good is it to pin a cute craft that links to a flickr page? you’ll never know how to actually complete the project!

So there you go, that’s how I keep my Pinterest board organized.

Also, I’m running out of organizational posts for my month of organization. The next two weeks are going to be rough…. any thoughts on what you’d like to see a post about? What do you do to organize and do you want to guest post about it? LET A SISTER KNOW! :)

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And to liven this post up a bit…check out this giveaway from BeddingStyle.com :
(a Rafflecopter giveaway)

And, hi again, please like Sandpaper & Glue on Facebook. I’ll send you a million internet points if  you do.

Day 14 of organizing: The Guest Room Closet is complete!

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Finally, I have the guest room closet actually organized. Let me be clear, this doesn’t mean it actually looks nice in there. HGTV would not be pleased with my version of complete. But it does mean:

  • Everything that doesn’t belong in there has been removed (mostly paint supplies)
  • I can actually tell you what is in there
  • I can access everything in there easily and readily
  • I have thrown out all I’m allowed to throw out (which somehow did not include Matt’s collection of GI Joe VHS tapes).

The main things in there now are:

  • Photo albums
  • Air mattress, air mattress pump, extra husband pillow, and a body pillow
  • Frames
  • Curtains
  • VHS tapes and burned DVD’s, VCR (Matt swears it still works)
  • Hamper
  • Basil that is hanging out until it dries out

Hooray! Not the most revolutionary of blog posts, but one that actually very directly relates to our topic of the month.

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And don’t forget, if you haven’t like the new Sandpaper & Glue Facebook page yet you totally should. All the cool kids are doing it. And if you’re a hipster… no one’s doing it so you totally should.

Day 13 of organizing: Making a Gallery Wall

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I love love love my gallery wall, I saw them in blogs all over the place before I bought a house and knew immediately that I wanted one.

Gallery walls come in a ton of different shapes and sizes, and it’s good to look at a bunch before you go ahead and organize your own because, well, you don’t know what you don’t know: Young House Love has an entire gallery hallway, Hi Sugarplum! had her whole living room wall at one point and has since toned it down, Dans Le Townhouse just posted recently about the one in her basement.

For mine, I knew I wanted all black and white frames and all black and white pictures- no exceptions. Normally in my house I go by a personal rule that art belongs on walls and pictures belong on shelves, but I threw that out for this.

swoon.

The shape of it actually happened by accident, originally I wanted the whole wall blocked with frames from ceiling to floor but as I was piecing it together a frame fell off the wall and this swoop shape sort of took form and I loved it, so I went with it.

I wanted there to be meaning/DIY/symbolism in the wall, just not a random assortment of things, and I think that’s how all gallery walls tend to go. Here’s a little break down of what it means to me:

  1. Architectural Art by my friend Dawne, spelling out Home, that symbolizes this as our first home
  2. For now, just a piece of scrap book paper
  3. A picture from my college campus, where Matt & I met, taken by one of our best friends (in a frame I repainted)
  4. For now, just a piece of scrap book paper
  5. The first letter of one of our last names
  6. The first letter of one of our last names
  7. Us!
  8. A mirror I got at a consignment shop and freshened up
  9. A lovely graphic design (Lighten Up) (in a frame I repainted)
  10. An inside joke between Matt & I (Haters Gonna Hate, Potatoes Gonna Potate)
  11. Matt and Dutch on the first morning we had the little butt-meister (in a frame I repainted)
  12. The first letter of one of our last names

13. Hard to see, but it’s a vintage postcard from the town where Matt & I fell in love (awwww) (in a frame I repainted)

14. Matt and I again! (in a frame I repainted)

15. Some lovely graphic design (Umbrellas floating through the air in Pairs)

16. Another consignment store mirror that got some freshening up

17. The first letter of one of our last names

So there you go- squares, circles, swirls, and a swoop shape. There’s still a few things to switch out, but I don’t think I’m going to add any more frames.

Do you have a gallery wall in your house? I’d love to see!!

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Also, make sure to like the new Sandpaper & Glue Facebook page! There’s even a new little button on the sidebar to make it easy for ya! :)

Day 12 of organizing: DIY Sunburst Mirror

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Ok so it’s a bit of a stretch to fit this one into my month of organizational posts, but let’s just go with the fact that it was spread over several days and I had to work that into my two job a day schedule. Yeah.

Also, I’ve linked this post up with Fall Pinterest Challenge and you totally should go check out the (soon to be, I’m sure) hundreds of other crafty projects. Though I completed this about a week early, it’s something I had pinned FOR LIKE A YEAR so in my book it counts :)

Getting back on track…

I saw this post on Ten June blog way back when and immediately knew I wanted to make one of my very own (with a twist, of course):

When we first moved into the home we had to fix the drywall in the basement, so I bought a huge bundle of wood shims and had a ton left over. Also, in our old apartment I had a bunch of little circle mirrors from Target hanging in our bedroom but then once we moved they got put in a closet until further notice. Put those babies together and you’ve got a F-R-E-E DIY project! My favorite!

I took a bunch of wood shims and used Gorilla Glue to attach them in the shape I wanted.

I made a square base of three (approximately) 6-inch long wood shims to start with, then I slowly layered on more shims throughout the day. I put about 2-3 at a time, then weighed it down with a heavy book for an hour to dry, then repeated that step over and over until it was finished. It’s about 3 piles deep, so only about 2 inches thick when all is said and done. I let it dry completely overnight for 2 days before the next step.

Terrible weather called for hand painted priming. Boo! Hiss!

I lightly sanded the whole piece just to get stray splinters off, but I was going for a sort of weathered/reclaimed look so I didn’t make it perfectly smooth. Unfortunately it rained for a week so I resorted to priming with regular paint instead of my BFF Kilz spray primer, and while I was at it I primed a few other things I had on my to-do list.

The next day it cleared up enough for me to spray on 3 thin coats of pure white Rustoleum spray paint in a satin finish.

Once the spray paint was dry I used a hot glue gun to attach the mirror to the front and Gorilla Glue to attach the hook to the back. The hook was just the original backing to the mirror that I scraped off to reuse.

Whew!

Here she blows:

Ooooh! Ahhhh!

And a little farther away:

I put it where my DIY shutters used to be (don’t worry, the shutters are going to a lovely new home) to sort of center and simplify the room.

On the wall itself it’s a bit small, but paired with the zebra chairs and gallery wall it adds the right amount of oomph for the space:

What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Don’t care? Does that wall need a stencil too?

I’d love to know. :)

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And since we’re about halfway through the month, here’s a little recap of my month of Organization, inspired by The Nester:

1: Intro to 31 days of ORANIZATION

2: The Massive Task of Planning a Wedding

3: The Built In

4: Kitchen Command Center

5: We’d like some gas, please

6: Painting

7: Christmas Shopping

8: The Guest Room Closet

9: Upcoming Projects!

10: Brief Progress Report

11: The Butterfly Effect of Orgnization (& a chair redo!)

 

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I’m linking up with the “Make It” link party!

Day 11: The Butterfly Effect of Organization (& a chair redo!)

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Here’s how things went down last week:

  • I moved the slipper chair from the sunroom into the office
  • I thrifted a new chair for the sunroom
  • I cleaned my guest room closet enough to put the laundry basket in there, which meant I count put the cat scratcher from the front entrance where the laundry basket used to be
  • I decided the newly thrifted chair would work better in the newly opened up front entrance
  • I found two free chairs on the side of the road that’ll look much better in the sunroom

Whew! Let’s get to the before and afters:

I bought this chair at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and it clearly needed a new seat cover, but was otherwise awesome. I Gorilla Glued the brace in the front because it was a little loose, wood puttied some knicks, sanded it down, then spray painted it to awesomeness.

Once it was sanded I lightly wiped it off with a damp cloth, spray two coats of Kilz spray primer, then lightly sanded and wiped again, then sprayed two coats of Rustoleum white spray paint (satin finish) and one heavy coat of Mod Podge acrylic sealer. Originally I was going to polycrylic the whole thing to protect it, but it’s not going to be in a high traffic area so the sealer should be fine.

In between coats, I redid the seat cover by cutting off the fabric  and first layer of cushion. I replaced the layer of cushion with quilt batting I had left over from my kitchen wall art, then reupholstered with my trusty staple gun. The fabric I got was super discounted- it’s outdoor fabric so it was 40% off because it is out of season, and there were only two yards left and since I bought both I got 50% off the second yard because it was the end of the roll. Both yards added up to just $9, and originally it would have been about $25.

blech.

yay!

Because this fabric has a distinct and straight pattern, before I went nuts with the staples I put one staple on each of the four sides and flipped it over to make sure it was lined up. To get the corners, I just folded it like a Christmas gift and kept it tight-tight-tight while I was stapling.

Let’s see a side by side:

I still maybe add a little something-something to the back, but for now I’m going to leave it sweet and simple.

And now for an even bigger before and after, here’s what the front entrance looked like when I toured the house for the first time and before I rearranged the entire house this weekend:

A big change… but not big enough since there was still a litter box at my front door.

Gadzooks, that looks nice! :)

So basically, we’ve got a lot of chairs at my house now. :)

But overall, I’m super pleased with how this chair looks and I am in love with the pattern on the cushion. The medallions are perfect- they’ve got the black/gray/white of the living room and the bronze to tie in with the sunroom. so it goes great on the first floor.

The two chairs I now have in the sunroom are in dire need of a makeover, so they’ll be popping up on here in a few weeks!

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Linked up to the THRIFT IT party.