how to antique ikea crap.

i've had a few people ask how i redid our dressers the past couple weeks, so i figured i would do a post on it, so that it can be here for all posterity to see.

i'm so glad i did it. hauling all of them downstairs to the garage was annoying, and having our clothes all over our room was also annoying, but the end result. ahhhhh. they go so much better with my vibe. 

we have the ikea malm bedroom set, because we were poor college students when we bought them, oh wait, we still are, yet we had no real taste. i tried to get new ones out of my husband.... buuuut he refused quite quickly and told me to deal with it. please, as if i deal with things. i make them better. for under $100 i was able to re-vamp our two night stands, and two dressers, which may seem like a lot to you, but our dresser at ikea is now on sale for $150, so it really did save us a lot of money. plus, they aren't hideous now, so i will be satisfied with them for longer. hehe

getting on with it. it's suuupppper easy to antique ikea stuff. because it's laminate furniture, paint doesn't stick very well to it, so when you want it to look chipped, ta-dah! easy peasy! 

** i apologize for crappy iphone pics. i couldn't find my sd card for my camera. dang children**

before: so incredibly cool looking. 

after reading several how-to's, i found that you needed a shellac based primer to paint laminate. here's the thing though: when you sand it down at the end, the primer does its job well, and you will be sanding through an additional color before you get to the laminate, which can look kind of weird. my solution:

step one: do a somewhat crappy coat of primer-- 

enough to coat the furniture, but not make the whole thing entirely white. 

**this is very very smelly. do it someplace ventilated, or where you don't have to breathe in the toxins!!**

 sidenote: if you just want to repaint and not antique them, do full coats of primer. the object of this is to be able to get the paint off, which is why you use less. 

you're supposed to let that dry for 24 hours before you paint it, so do that.

step two: paint. 

spray paint and i are bff's. don't judge. it's the same quality of paint as paint out of a can, it just leaves no brush strokes and is a lot less messy. use it. you won't be disappointed.

i typically use valspar or rustoleum. buy a higher end paint, if you don't, you'll end up needing to use more to cover. these run about $3-4 a can. and i think i used about 1 can per nightstand and about 2 per dresser.

first coat:

 second coat:

 third coat:

tips: spray the top first, let it dry, then lay it down on it's sides to prevent dripping. obviously, that's more challenging for a dresser, but it works well for a night stand.

spray about 12 inches away from the dresser. that will also help not dripping. you want a fine mist going on, not giant lines of paint.

after your paint has dried sufficiently, i would give it at least 6 hours or so, it's time to do my favorite part. sand!

step three: sand. 

i used sheets from my sander to do i. mine were medium grit, but you can use fine as well, it depends on how you want the "antiquing" to look.

when i start, i rub horizontally and vertically along the entire drawer. that scuffs it up a bit, then i do circles, so it doesn't look like i purposely put all these lines on it.

after you do that, you can gently sand specific areas down to get the distressed look. there is no right or wrong way to do it, except that you don't want to take off a whole chunk of paint, so the lighter the touch, the better.

after you are done sanding to your liking, the final step:

step four: seal. 

you must use this sealer-- the valspar one does not cover as smooth. spray two coats of this on to your dresser to seal your hard work and give it a glossy sheen. make sure you get all the dust off before you paint again!

step five: knob it. 

i wanted knobs on mine to make it look a little less like "ikea crap painted over". so if you do, you want your husband to drill holes in yours for you to put them in. for the dressers, we put two in each, for the nightstands, just one.

i bought mine from anthropologie on sale. because i am too cheap to pay $12 a piece for knobs, i go to their sale items and pick from my options. $2.95 a piece FTW!

{this was the most expensive part of the process, if you want to do it cheap, just paint it and call it good}

 and then: voila! 

the final product! i'm so happy with them! obviously, they aren't true vintage-y style nightstands due to their shape, so i did the best i could with what i had.

when i showed my spouse he said "ew. it looks like the paint is falling off of those. i don't like it". win for me, because that's exactly the look i was going for. haha! not too shabby for ikea eh?? 

after i finished those ones, i couldn't wait to do my dressers. they were supposed to be grey, i think the paint turned into being a little more blue than i would have liked, but oh well. 

now to finish organizing our room, now that i am done terrorizing it. i hope you decide to upgrade your college student furniture too! 

crafting snafting.

for some reason, the last several weeks, i have been inspired to craft/redecorate. could be because all my stuff was sitting on the ground in the dining room and zak kept playing with it, or because all my christmas decorations gone make our house seem so boring. 

what's better to decorate for than the next holiday of lovey-dovey-ness? 

this last week, i crafted with some girls from dental school and made these cute things. So fun eh? Super easy with wood letters, mod podge and scrap book paper. We antiqued the edges with a chalk stamp. It's my favorite. 

I saw a ton of felt garlands on pinterest, and decided i should make one because i already have tons of felt from my headband making extravaganzas. you're technically supposed to sew it together, but i'm super lazy and just hot glued it. or maybe it's because i couldn't figure out how to thread the bobbin in the sewing machine. you'll never know. i originally only made one but then i saw it hanging on the frames all by itself and decided it needed another layer. much better. 

i want to make some more valentine-y things but i haven't decided what else is speaking to me yet. i need to stalk pinterest more.

on a different note, we may or may not have bought a french fry cutter to make veggies small enough for greysen to snack on. it's pretty awesome. so far we've baked sweet potato fries and regular fries and they're both delicious. and healthy{er} too. 

a long time ago, ok, like three months ago, i had a craft night at our house and made these chevron canvases. ok. that's not true. i tried to make them, but couldn't mathematically figure out how to make the stripes, so levi taped it. and i painted it. i have a cool husband like that. but, like the other things sitting on the floor in my dining room, i jut got around to finishing them now. i'm loving the addition to my dining room now. as a side note, aren't these printables like the cutest? totally googled "kitchen printables" and they showed up. i don't remember what website though, sorry! 

 this project was probably my favorite one. i'm especially proud of it. levi had a bunch of 2x4's left over from his garage cleaning up project, so i decided i would antique them and make them jewelry holders since i've been buying more from groopdealz. it's like an addiction. i love cheap jewelry. anyways, i stained them with apple cider vinegar and steel wool and then spray painted them cream and then sanded them down. i bought some knobs from anthropologie and then my crafty/genius husband figured out how to attach them to the wood. and here they have sat in our room. and every time i look at them, i burst with pride. ;) i also wear my stuff much more frequently now that it's not in a giant pile on my dresser.

i also made these burlap covered canvases at my craft night, and left them in the dining room because i couldn't find anything to do with them. then i realized that i could poke my earrings through it to hang them. GENIUS. sometimes i just amaze myself. 

that is a brief summary of my achievements this past week. i forgot how much i love to craft/decorate because i haven't done it in such a long time. funny how being awake during nap time can be so productive. 

holiday cheer.

so. i finally added our child to the blog. some people, who shall remain nameless, kept mentioning how i needed to update our pictures/name to include greysen so after much arguing with my computer and blogger {ummm, has anyone else had to pay google to post stuff on their blog now because they suddenly have too many pictures? super lame.} i have finally given it a new look. i know, you love it, don't lie. 

speaking of which, i'm a little bit obsessed with our family pictures. they're so cute eh? i know, i'm biased. but considering levi's shirt was an extra small instead of a large, it was pouring rain, and zak got motion sick and barfed all over in the car on the way there {apparently reading train magazines is too much of a distraction for him}, they turned out pretty good. if you live here and want some great family pics, this fabulous woman took ours, and is very reasonably priced. 

anyways, i meant to post about our christmas decorating quite some time ago but alas, i did not. i love christmas. if it wasn't for my husband refusing to decorate and/or help with anything, we would have stuff up before thanksgiving. {good thing in canada thanksgiving is in october eh? mwhahaha}

this was the first year we actually have room to put a christmas tree some place. usually, we end up cramming it in between couches, or right in the middle of the room, but besides the fact that i can't see what zak is doing behind the tree, when sitting on the couch, it worked out great here. i love our house.  

i have no idea why zak is shirtless. he's actually probably totally naked but i can't remember. but yes, we take self timer family pictures quite well.

i googled how to take pictures of christmas trees. this was the best i could do. it's kinda cool, but i don't know how you would get anyone's faces in it because it's so dark. oh well.

i don't really decorate for any other holiday, so christmas is my ultimate favorite. plus, my grandma hooked me up with several new home decor pieces such as the tree below, so i had an even better time finding some place to stick them 

i'm a little bit obsessed with my sequin tree skirt. anything sparkly that i can put in my house is an instant win. plus, my wrapping paper is totally cute.

every day, zak wakes up from his nap and we drink hot chocolate with tons of marshmallows and watch a christmas movie. so far, it's been the grinch everyday for the last week, but who doesn't love the grinch?

i also have plans for us to make clay ornaments because pinterest rules, as well as try our hand at making delicious sugar cookies to give to friends. 

it is also my goal to watch every single abc family original christmas movie made within the last several years. older than that, and they just get plain ridiculous. so far, netflix has helped me out quite nicely {side note: i do watch these when i'm on the treadmill, so you don't think i sit at home and watch tv all day, i swear we do stuff}. i highly recommend desperately seeking santa aka sexy santa as my friend delainey and i call it. its been voted the best out of the several christmas movies we've watched {i will not tell you how many we've really watched, it's a little embarrassing}. besides, when it's nicknamed sexy santa, you know you really want to watch it. do it. right now. 

hurrah for christmas! 9 days until levi's done with finals, and 13 days until he's done with his boards so that he can finally enjoy what we do all day! ;) 

catch up. in iphone pics.

this blog has been neglected the last several months due to being tired, pregnant, not pregnant, more tired etc etc. so be prepared for a long/sporadic post. 

after we had the bebe, i was dying driving around the subaru with the kiddies and the stroller. which basically took up the whole trunk. so, i spent some time googling, and found a little gem. meet our third baby:

our toyota highlander. it was several years older than our legacy, but seats 7, has 4WD and can fit more than just a stroller in the trunk. it's amazing. i absolutely love it. and the best part was that we were able to trade them straight across, so we didn't pay a penny for it. =)

the next week, we celebrated our 4th anniversary while levi's parents were in town, so we had willing  babysitters. {thanks a bunch mike and kelly!} =) we went out to a tempanyaki place, down in redwood city. it was great and so nice to be out by ourselves. then we went to batman. oh the simple date night, but we loved it. i'm so glad that four years ago i married this handsome man. he is the most amazing husband, and dad, and we've only gotten better in four years. muah. 

a week or so later, we celebrated my birthday, a whopping 23 years old. dun dun dun. i know, you didn't actually think i was that old. but, it was great. all i wanted was some peace and quiet. sad how that becomes what you want when you have two kids. but levi graciously listened to me, made me breakfast in bed and gave me some gift cards to let me go party by myself in between my four hours. it was fantastic. i got myself these lovely boots. 

we then went to macaroni grill and had some delicious pastas and bread, and went to target to buy the hunger games. which we didn't end up watching because sleep became more important to us. oh the joys of parenthood. but it was a great birthday and my husband did a great job appealing to exactly what i wanted. plus, i got to spend it with my favorite boys. 

for the first time in quite some time, i did a craft. i must be getting less tired or something {finally}. pinterest always works wonders for me. but i made these canvas' with our new family pictures. they aren't really canvas, but more pictures mod-podges on canvas. which cost me about $100 less than getting them printed for real. i definitely like them better legit, but the price tag doesn't work for me so these will suffice until we've got more moolah. plus, aren't our pictures so cute? i love them. 

as an update on my favorite baby, he is still amazing. he will be seven weeks tomorrow and is just the easiest baby ever. so happy, and has just started cracking us up. he's learned how to smile and can use it to pretty much get whatever he wants from us, it's just so cute. i don't know how you can look at these pictures of him and not laugh. 

we have learned that he doesn't like mexican food just like his brother did, but juicing a little ginger in our carrot/apple/celery/beet/whatever we have in the fridge juice, has made a big difference in calming his stomach. he also has begun to sleep {almost} through the night. holla! he's been going from about 9:30 or 10:00 until 4:00 or so. and it is amazing. even though my crazy mom senses still wake me up to make sure he's still breathing if he sleeps any longer than he's supposed to. we really have been so lucky to have blessed with such great, easy going kids. he's also caught up to his brother in terms of his height and weight, which cracks me up considering zak was a whole pound heavier than him when he was born. must be feeding this one extra good. =) 

his big brother is doing fantastic. he is getting so smart, he knows all of his letters and numbers about to about 15, and can sing you almost any nursery rhyme/primary song. he's quite the performer. sometime i'll have to get it on video so that we can put it in his wedding video someday. he is still a great big brother. minus a few incidents and getting overly excited to help swing him, he is so nice and loving to greysen. he's recently developed a passion for going "mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, momma, momma, mom, mom" for no reason in an escalating, obnoxious voice, and yelling/demanding we serve him, so we are working on toning it down. but other than that and trying to run away, {which we've also been working on, he's gotten 100 times better now that we talk about it before we get out of the car every single time} he's a great kid. 

some of his funny quotes of the week are: 

"what that big brother doing?"- which we usually ask to greysen, which zak thinks is hilarious and frequently asks us so we can ask him what he's doing. 

"these are my most favorite _______ {insert nachos, cereal, shoes, underwear, pretty much anything}."

"come on, underwear, you know how to do this". when referring to pulling it up after going potty. which we say to him {minus the underwear part} because he gets sidetracked after relieving himself and we have to remind him what he needs to do.  

"when greysen get big big, i'm gonna share a room with him and get bunk beds". he is so stoked you have no idea. 

{showing his muscles}

and as a final update, we went to reno this past weekend for the rib cook off and to see my padre. it was great. the weather was nice, it almost made me miss summer, the food was delish and we saw friends we haven't seen in quite some time. 

we went swimming, but mom didn't pack our swim suit, so he was left with swim diapers from his good friend rahlee. they were hilarious. good thing he could care less. he also swam in the pool all by himself with floaties on for the first time. he's usually in with us, swimming with nothing, or in a shallow part, so that was interesting. he did great! rahlee's mom is a swim teacher so he got to watch an expert friend in the water too. =) 

 the rib cook off was fantastic. unlimited ribs, gloriana in concert, funnel cake, crafters, and a cool reno evening. it doesn't get much better. minus all of the super classy people there, it was great. 

our weekend was great, but the traffic going home left much to be desired. burning man finished yesterday which added 50,000 people going over the pass with us. we spent six hours doing a 2 hour drive through the mountains, most of which involved us parked or going about 20 mph. it was terrible. our kids did amazing though, no screaming/crying fits, minus zak getting carsick from watching the train app go by too many times on the ipad. {that was lovely btw} 

we also stopped to see our bff's in sacramento, because they just had the most precious baby boy but alas, we didn't get any pictures of all the boys together. it was great, and i can't wait for all our boys to grow up and be bff's too. 

last but not least, i dyed my hair! well one of my bff's did, and i love it. i was hoping that doing it would make me not have it in a ponytail as often, which it worked for most of the day today, until i got hot. so hopefully it'll still work it's magic in a couple of weeks from now. i've decided the ombre hair style is for us lazy people who don't want to go get their roots done every six weeks, so we just dye the ends to make it look different and call it good. but, i don't really care, i still love it. and my hair curls so good in reno {not that i ever wear it as curly as my fantastic hair dresser did it}. dang humidity here. 

phew! if you made it to the end of the randomness, congrats!! although, i don't think that anyone reads this anymore anyways because we never update it, or post anything besides our kids on it. oh well. 

alone.

i have spent this past week in isolation, and it has been UH-MAZING. levi and zak are back down in fresno to finish swimming lessons and i opted to stay home due to 1. me being fierce in the heat and 2. wanting some alone time before the baby comes. i'll be honest and say that i really haven't been too sad so far {i know, terrible wife and mom}, except for when we're face timing. it's only really at night time, that i would like to talk to someone other than the tv when i'm watching 15 episodes of the big bang theory, but i have gotten so much done during the day, that i would never get to do with zak around. i do miss his cute little face entertaining me all the time though. but in any case, this is what my week has consisted of: 

i have pretty much organized every single area of our house {nesting what?}. and it's been awesome. our somewhat pantry drives me nuts when i walk into it, so the $12 i spent in the dollar store has made a HUGE difference to it. 

i also decided to label zak's toys so that when people decide to be awesome and help put things away they go in the right bucket without me being anile, dumping them all out and putting them in the right buckets when they leave. 

when we made greysen's room, we moved all of our office stuff into our room and it has been a disaster. for some reason our room is the least worked on one in the house because no one ever sees it, so i fixed it, since i will be spending quite a bit of time lying in bed in a few weeks. 

and along with organizing it, i spent a few bucks at ross {i have a love hate relationship with that store. home decor, sometimes love-- clothes, hate}, and made it a little more homey. bought new sheets, {650 thread count, LOVE} and a vase, to spice up our boring room since it had nothing in it before.

i also added to greysen's collage since it was bothering me with only the four frames in it. i like this a million times better. 

and as i was walking through target, these train decals caught my eye. for the boy OBSESSED with trains, he is totally going to think it is the best thing ever that they are on his wall. {mom will be so much more awesome when he gets home}

i also spent one morning at the spa with a groupon. it was a lovely way to relax with a good friend, and now my feet look so much better. 

i also hosted my book club on wednesday and cooked for the first time all week. fantastic book by the way. highly recommend. 

i got two non stress tests- we do them twice a week now because we have two weeks left! hollllaaa!

i washed, folded and put away all baby clothes. and realized that because we lived someplace hot, most of zak's little baby clothes are summer clothes, which are totally not working for this place. sooo that means i'm off to find at least a sweat shirt for him to wear. darn. 

  

i also bought a fabulous hospital bag {levi's duffle bags just weren't doing it for me} and packed it. this is a significant improvement from last time seeing as i didn't even have a bag, i just made levi go home and get things 900 times. i'm so prepared now. 

between all this and general cleaning, i feel like i am now ready for people to stay at our house over the next month, and somewhat ready for a little person to occupy the room i've been slaving over for months. let's do this dude.