{ New Basement Steps }

Mark replaced the stair treads to the basement a few weeks ago. So.Much.Better!

He made the last five steps longer too and I love it. I forgot to snap a pic right before he changed out the stair treads but here are a few pics that I had in my files and will give you a good reminder of what the stairs looked like before. 

Here is one from right when we moved in...

and this one from a month ago...

You can see that the stairs were narrow but what you cant see is how random the sizes were, some were wider and some were shorter. Some were wobbly and they were really squeaky. 

and now...

all the right size, no more squeak!

And you can see the bottom yellow walls got painted the same color as the hall entryway. Finally and thank goodness because it looks a thousand times better with that yellow g.o.n.e!  

Mark is going to add a handrail and wall to the left side and then we will carpet these stairs. I wasn't planning on carpeting them but Mark insists that with kids in the house and going up and down daily he wants the stairs carpeted for safety reasons which is fine with me. We wont do carpet in the basement because of the potential of water but the stairs will be so much nicer having carpet on them. We haven't settled on a carpet yet and I am still weighing the option of staining the treads and then doing a runner down the center. I dripped some paint on the steps while painting the walls so if we go that route I'll have to do some sanding. For now we are fully enjoying these new stairs, it seems SO much safer now walking down the steps! 

{ Chunky Shelves }

We finally did something little in the nursery. 

We literally put furniture into this room, put a rug down, and that was it when we moved in. I have been struggling with doing anything in here because the plan is to move our daughter to this room next year sometime and have both the boys upstairs. So with that in the plan I didn't want to buy things or do anything too permanent. 

I was really wanting to get a few shelves in here so once I told Mark what I was wanting he got to work and gave me exactly what I was thinking.

I know I can use these shelves no matter who is in this room and I love the look of the chunky shelves! 

They were pretty simple to make, if you google this kind of shelf, you'll find a million tutorials, so I will spare you of that here but if you are wondering how we did ours I'll give the quick run down. 

He basically built a box, put a piece on the wall with anchors and then nailed the shelf to the wall piece. 

I purchased a  letter C to put up in this room forever ago as well as that deer painting that I had custom made with the navy background and both have finally found a home up on the top shelf! The little navy and white striped whale was a sweet gift from a co-worker and I love how perfect it fits with my choice of navy and white color scheme and she had no idea!

I still need to paint them but I wanted to get your thoughts on that before I did. I cant decided if I want to go with white (like the trim color, or the cream wall color), navy, or maybe I should just stain them...What's your vote? What would you do?

I absolutely LOVE these shelves! I wanted a space to display some of my favorite little books and a few cute things and these are perfect for that.

There's still some things I want to do in this room, like adding curtains, and some more items on the walls but I think I will wait till we make the switcheroo with the kids. 

Sources

The letter "C" on the shelf was purchased from The Little Blue House Etsy Shop SO CHEAP (price not quality!)

Deer Painting was purchased from Sweet Bananas Art Etsy Shop 

{ Chair Made New in ONE Day }

This chair was given to my friend by her sweet mother in law. We forgot to get a picture of it with the original cushion. I'm bummed too. It was a doozy! I'm sure in it's day it was special and all sorts of sentimental cute-ness but just picture Raggedy Ann's face all over that thing. Yup, Raggedy Ann. This baby needed some love and a much needed fabric update.

Painting furniture is one of my new fav things to do. I've been kind of painting everything I can get my hands on. I just decided to FINALLY do the TV stand in our living room. I am so excited to have this piece done and painted! Stay tuned for a few living room updates soon. I am hoping by the time I get done with the painting, the mantel will be ready to show off too. Crossing fingers on that one. We've both been so crazy busy lately that it's been hard to accomplish anything on the to-do list hence my silence over the last two weeks.

Today though, I wanted to just quick share the after results of this chair because it really turned out so cute, and how many of you have old chairs with really bad fabric cushions that you could do a little work and have an updated chair in only a day. And if you don't have a chair like this, take a trip down to your local Habitat store or Goodwill or Antique shop and you'll find at least 3 to choose from! So.Much.Potential in those places. #keepmeoutormymoneydissapears

The first coat looks a little scary. You will be painting and thinking...oh no, what did I do...I'm totally messing this up. Nope, keep going! Get a good first coat on. 

Like I said in my last post, I've been using a mixture of CeCe Caldwells chalk paint + acrylic paint in the color that I like for the piece that I'm painting. Comes out perfect every time. I'm not a professional painter, obviously, just want to state that. I'm just sharing what works for me. 

Then do a second coat and you relax. It all looks so much better after the second coat. I promise. I've been doing three coats on everything and it turns out perfect. As you can see I just propped up the chair onto some paint cans to get it off the ground. That just makes it easier for me. 

Cool chair, right?! I love the curves on the back and the detail on the arm rests. 

It looks SO good in my friends living room as a done piece.

My friend bought some cute mustard yellow patterned fabric, put it right on top of that old Raggedy Ann fabric. This was all done in one day. SO easy! 

What are you guys painting lately? Any furniture painters out there? I would love to see your pics if you have any before and afters and share them with readers. I know lots of people love to do this kind of stuff and lots of us like to see how everyone else is being creative! Send your pics to me at kasey(dot)rawson @ gmail (dot) com. Looking forward to seeing what you've been up to at your house!

Happy Saturday!