Thrifty Finds Friday #8

Hey Y'all! I'm back with another Thrifty Finds Friday. Like I said for the last one, a month ago, I am trying for every month (after a long hiatus due to moving!). Anyways, here are my finds....

Storage Tower with drawers and baskets. This was from Craigslist and was $35. I thought it was a very fair price for all that storage. I am going to paint it white (it is currently cream) and put it in the baby's room. It will probably get additional paint once we have the baby and know if we are adding pink or blue to the nursery!

Chairs for kitchen table. This was another Craigslist find. I have been searching for months for SIX chairs for our kitchen table. We want to use the cane back chairs in the dining room with my grandparents mahogany table. We had wooden chairs in the past with our kitchen table (which was in our dining room) before we refinished it - and I loved the smaller size and the wooden seats. However, finding SIX affordable chairs is not easy. The add was for 6 chairs and a table for $130. That is a great price, but I was not interested in a table. I asked if they would sell the chairs only. Initially the seller did not want to break up the set, but then asked how much I would pay for the chairs. Now, they looked in decent shape, only needing to be cleaned (and re-painted and stained, of course), so I offered $100 if they were all sturdy. That sounds like a lot - but that is $16.66 per chair people. Do you know how expensive chairs are? And not all of them are well made. These wooden seats are contoured and I love that. Also, one seat has "Scotts" written on it. That is one of the seller's sons name. Isn't that awesome?! I hate to cover it up........ Here they are before.

If it ever gets under 80% humidity here, maybe, just maybe, I will feel like painting these items! Seriously, it has been an awful summer and it is slowing me from DIYing! I will share when I make these beautiful again.

Handmade Pencil Pouch

Welcome to my blog, thank you for visiting today!

Is anyone else over the whole school supply list thing? I have 2 children in school and halfway through my list I realized that what I had printed out was last years list.....even though it said 2014-2015 online, when I hit PRINT, it printed out the wrong list. Can I tell you how mad this made me!?!?!? I was like a crazy person for a day! Maybe longer......

Anyways, after all the running around the get everything on both boys' lists my son came home after the first day with a new list. WHAT?!?!?!? There were a few items that his teacher wanted them to have that WERE NOT ON THE GENERIC list. Isn't that insane?!

Okay, to get to the point of this post. One of those items was a pencil pouch (apparently a pencil box will not fit in their desk). So, since I was DONE with school shopping, and since I love to sew and have not had many sewing projects lately, I went to Hobby Lobby in search of fabric. I found the cutest lizard fabric in the scrap section and bought it for a whole whopping $1.40. There was not much, but there was just enough for two small little pencil pouches (I thought I would make one for my younger son too, even though I have not been told he needs one.....yet). I also bought 2 zippers and found some matching fabric for the inside of the pouch from one of my large bins of scrap fabric at home.

Want to make your own? Keep Reading, it is easy and fast!

Supplies for making a pencil pouch:

1. Fabric for the outside. I cut mine 12" X 6". Cut TWO.

2. Fabric for the inside, cut the same. Cut TWO.

3. One zipper per pouch. I bought two 14" ones, but realized they were too long and cut it to 12".

4. Thread either coordinating or complimentary.

5. Sewing machine, scissors or rotary cutter, self healing mat is also helpful for cutting.

I always follow Dana's instructions from her blog, Dana Made It, because they are so awesome. Here is a link to the page for the pouch instructions. Obviously, I altered the size to fit my project, keeping in mind that the zipper length needed to match the length of my pouch (12").

Here is what the pouch looks like completed. Isn't it cute? You could add a monogram, or a pull for the zipper, or anything really. They are totally customizable and washable! The one for my older son has baseball fabric on the inside and I top stiched in red at the zipper. I actually forgot to do this step on the one pictured here...... I don't think a 5 year old will notice!!!

Plenty of room for all kinds of goodies....

The backpack pictured here is the smaller backpack, suitable for a 4 year old. My 8 year old's backpack is much bigger and the pouch fits nicely in the front pocket.

Please come back for my next project, or subscribe on the bar on right to never miss a post! Thank you for reading.

Spray painted Chandy

My last Thrifty Finds Friday, I shared with you a chandelier I bought at the Habitat for Humanity Restore for $39.99. Here is a photo, and here is the post if you are interested in my other finds.

So, that had to change.......

I bought Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint and it took me a week to spray because it is so humid here and we had thunderstorms rolling in every day, sometimes more than once a day. Make sure when you spray paint that you do it slowly and sparingly, otherwise you WILL get drips in your paint.

This is in progress.

You can hardly see in that picture, but I took off the candle part that covers the wires for the receptacle that holds the bulb. I covered it in painters tape to keep it clean and sprayed the covers Heirloom White.

I think that I may need to adjust it to hang lower, which means that I will need to rewire it...... I also need some shades. The photos show it with my Fall/ Halloween shades that are on for now. The shades I want are below and from Ballard Designs:

They are $18 each and I need 6 (and $108 is too much for me to spend on shades), so I will wait for a sale!!!

Here is the finished product. Remember my dining room is not at all finished.... I need to either wallpaper, or stencil, add wainscot and find something for the one bare wall remaining. Oh, and maybe add some crown molding too.

Here is a before, of our ugly builders grade chandelier. We chose not to upgrade the lighting because I wanted to get my own, so we have been slowly changing out fixtures.

Isn't the after much better (even without those cool drum shades on it?) Not bad for less than $45.

What do you think? Does it need to be lower? The ceilings are 9 feet for reference.

Thanks for reading!!



Linking up at these fab blogs:
Savvy Southern Style, DIY By Design, Ducks 'n a Row, Craftie Allie, Beyond the Picket Fence, Cherished Bliss, LeMoine Family Kitchen, The Girl Creative,

An easy fix for hanging hats

Hello, are you madly getting ready for back to school? Or are you the type that does everything way in advance and is totally ready for it? I am somewhere in the middle; I did most my school shopping weeks ago, but of course there are a few lingering items on my list and I am waiting for our LL Bean backback to arrive. I ordered it a little late, and it may not be here on their first day of school.....

But that is not what I am talking about today. Today, I am talking about some organization. My boys share a room, and have for over 2 years. That means it is always a mess. I cant seem to get them to put things away, put items in the hamper daily etc... In an effort to get things organized so that it seems neater, I had to find something to do with all the ball caps that had accumulated everywhere. In their last room, I made really nice peg holders for hats. Here is a photo of two of them.

I may eventually make some more of these for our new house, but for now I needed a solution that was quick. We are working on finishing their room (we have one wall left to paint that I did not get to before we moved in and building a closet organizer).

The back of their door was the perfect spot for hanging the hats. I decided to go for a semi-permanent solution and bought some command hooks. I found ones that were for utensils, but I likes the small size and the little metal hook.

The boys loved helping me put the sticky part on them and then put them on the door. I am hoping since they helped me they will remember to put their hats on them when not in use (versus on the floor!!!).

Here is the door with 9 hooks for 9 hats.

There are 3 hooks on the bottom half of the door. My youngest can easily reach these (which means that he should be able to return hats there......).

The top half of the door has 3 rows and my oldest can reach the top row (my youngest can not). So those are for him - he likes that!

Here is a close up of the hooks I used.

And the whole door. If you look closely, you can see that I have not finished painting in here, all I did was cutting in abound the baseboard. That is a project I hope to finish this weekend. Then onto the closet organization so that my kids can actually reach and hang up their own clothes. I will share that too, when I am done.

I have rarely used these hooks, but I know that some people use them a lot for everything. I love that I can remove them and they will leave no marks on the door - once I find a prettier and more permanent solution I will switch to that - but for now these hooks are my best friend. I'm thinking I will have to try command hooks again during the holidays. What about you? Are you a command hook user? What do yo use them for?

Thank you for stopping at Thrifty Southern Pilgrim today!

Billy Built In Unit - The Details

Thank you for all the traffic and kind words about the built in's, on this blog and on my facebook page! I love hearing from everyone.

As promised.......this post is about the details of the built ins. If you did not see my reveal post, you can see it here.

For my built in's I used 7 parts of IKEA's Billy unit, plus 6 doors. Here are all the parts that I purchased:
Billy Bookcase, white (I used TWO)
Billy Bookcase, white (I used one in the center under TV)
Billy Height Extension Unit (I used TWO)
Billy Bookcase, white (I used TWO of these, on either side of the one under the TV)
Billy Doors - that is not what they are called, I just can't find the link. They are all the same size and I used SIX.

(The above are not affiliate links, I just thought it would make it easier to know what I used since the Billy system has so many options)

The first thing I did, was measure from the center of the wall (also the center of TV) and cut the baseboard away from the wall on either end where the built in would end. The Billy units have a notch in back for baseboard, but our baseboard is taller and would not fit in that space. I wanted them to sit flush on the wall so had to remove the baseboard. I used my dremel to do this.

I had wanted to wrap the baseboard around the front of the entire unit, but the way the doors cover the bottom, I could not figure out how to do that. If I left the doors off it would have been easy.... But I need the hidden storage for LEGOS! I kid you not..... Anyways, I was mad about this at first, but have since gotten over it.

This unit was being installed around a flat screen TV that is mounted on the wall, with the cords that go down the wall in a tube, to the outlets near the floor. My hubby was very concerned about blocking access to the pile of complete OCD stress inducing panic cords and wires........ I was concerned about having enough space for the cords, since they do stick out from the wall........

To give the cords space, I decided to have the middle 3 units (the shorter ones) stick out from the wall a little. This gives space for the cords, and also gives the entire unit some dimension and personality by having the center stick out about 1 3/4" from the two flanking bookcases.

To accomplish this I mounted TWO 2X4's to the wall, drilling into studs. One was down low, and one at the level of the bookcase top.

I then installed all three units up to these boards. All three are secured to the wall using L brackets. I did not put any trim on the fronts because I did not want them to be connected together. The middle one just needs the L bracket unscrewed, and then it can slide right out, allowing access to the cords.

It is a good thing I did this too, because there was a problem with the sound bar and it had to be returned and exchanged, and hubby was happy to be able to just slide out the center unit to gain access to the cords! Win - Win!

I had to notch out the 2X4 to allow the power cord for the sound bar to drop to the outlet. ** Pay no attention that the photo says it is the TV cord. It is not..... I am easily confused with electronics. It is the power to the sound bar.

Here is a picture before the extenders were added.

Don't ask me why there is a pirate ship on the top???? All I know is, I did not put it there!

Here is after one extender was up. What a difference!

Both the bookcase, and the extenders are secured to the wall and are not going anywhere.

I decided to paint the backs after this was all put together. I would have been a LOT easier to do this before I installed them, but it still worked. Some day I may add beadboard or wallpaper to the backs, but for now I like it painted.

I added some scrap wood to the top of the units, allowing a small (1/4") lip for my crown molding to sit on. I did not do this until I bought crown molding, so I could make sure I installed the scraps in the right spots. The purpose of them is to have something to nail the crown into.

I used my nail gun to install the crown, but you could use finishing nails too. Most my corners were a good fit, but when they are not (like in photo below) caulking fixes EVERYTHING!

There was a small gap in the front after I installed the crown, that needed to be covered.

I decided to use rope molding, as it was the perfect size, and I have used it before on our old kitchen island and love the look. I just cut to size, used wood glue, and nailed it in.

I had to do some research to find out about matching paint colors so that the crown molding would look the same shade at the unit. I had no intention of painting the entire thing! I found this photo from Decor Chick that had the formula that worked for her. I just took my phone to the paint store with me and they mixed it up in a semi gloss.

I have to say, it is not an exact match. It is a little whiter than the rest of the unit. I may try to tweak it some and repaint. But maybe not...... it is pretty darn close that it does not bother me enough to delay another project. Maybe someday when my list is done, I will do it!

The final thing I did was to add a board across the top of the three center units. I wanted to do this to add a more furniture like look. I also wanted to have some contrast with the dark wood and the white bookcases. AND, it was practical. Remember how I mounted it on 2X4's? Well you could see it and it needed to be covered.

I bought this board from Lowes and cut it at home. Then I stained it using the same stain as my French Winemaker Lazy Susan and waxed it and just placed it on top. I did not secure it because we still may need to slide the center unit out to get access to the cords.

It is hard to tell from this angle, but if you look at the end of the stained board, you can see that is sticks out in front of the bookcase on the end. That is because the entire center portion sticks out about 1 & 3/4" due to the 2X4's I mounted/spaced it on. I love having that little bump out!

And that is it!

Here is one last picture of the entire unit. See the reveal post for more finished pictures.

Please let me know if you have any questions or I would love if you shared your Billy projects!

Billy Built In Unit

When we moved in, we had the builder put a wall mount set up for a TV on the end wall in the family room. My plan was to build a built in around it. I love Sandra from Sawdust Girl (formerly Sawdust and Paperscraps) and have followed her projects for years. Well, she was doing Sawdust diaries, and you hired her to help you build, plan, and make your project a reality. I have a lot of confidence in my skills, but had never done anything like this before and wanted a coach. (have you seen her past projects?.......she builds incredibly beautiful things!!) Anyways, I emailed her and unfortunately she was not taking clients at the time due to her own house projects. Boo for me. But she will have a killer kitchen when she is done!

So I started planning again and literally that very week, Rhoda from Southern Hospitality wrote this post about the Billy bookcase and all the ways other bloggers have customized it. PERFECT! I made up my mind that is what I could do. Not nearly as nice as custom built built-in's, but much easier and much less time consuming.

The only problem was that IKEA is a 2 hour drive from us. And I hate to drive..... Luckily my husband had to travel to the same location for work, so we decided to join him for a little getaway. With the side benefit of us having 2 cars there and being a few minutes from IKEA..........I got to pick up some boxes. Whoo Hoo!! ****** then I had to get extenders, then 2 doors that I had forgotten/miscalculated on......****** Here is my helper in IKEA.

My plan was to use a tall bookcase on either end and add an extender to the top of it to make the entire unit the same height at the kitchen cabinets, 8 feet. I wanted to put a short book case flanked by two bookcases with doors under the TV.

Once the extenders were up I decided not to put a shelf across the top, bridging the 2 bookcases (which is originally what I planned). I also decided to paint the back of the bookcases an accent color. I used the color I used on the top of my 1/2 bath, since it coordinates with my new Pottery Barn curtains.

I trimmed out the top with crown and rope molding. I will give all the details and pictures of the install in a later post, I just want to show pictures of the finished project for now, especially since it was such a long project from start to finish. No more talking, just pictures. If you have questions, leave them in the comment section and I can address in my details post!

I still need to paint the walls, and that will give these more of a pop and delineation from the current wall color. I will also paint the cords you see from the TV to the speaker and from the speaker going behind the center part - but I have to decide on a wall color first, then I will paint them to match so they blend in better.

Thank you so much for stopping and reading. I will update this post with links when I do a post on the details.

*** Update: Here is the post with all the details about the build ****

Have a great weekend!!!

Linking up with:
Miss Mustard Seed
DIY Vintage Chic
The Girl Creative
Redoux Interiors
Keeping it Simple
Thrifty Decor Chick
Confessions of a Serail DIYer