Dollar Bills Yall

Not that it matters, but we really had a feeling Olivia would be early.  The nature of what Ben does for a living doesn't allow much flex for taking time off on a whim, so he went ahead and took off two full weeks and a weekend.  The two weeks will wrap up this Friday.

Needless to say, he has had QUITE a bit of free time.  We very rarely have weekends together, so this weekend we knocked out a bunch of little projects that wouldn't break the bank---to the tune of using paint and materials we already had, minus three $1 cans of spray paint.

A dear friend gave us several lamps awhile back, and we hadn't put all of them to use quite yet.  While transitioning the guest room/gear wasteland to the nursery, we knew that we could use them somewhere.  This black and red lamp fit the bill perfectly, and a coat of slick white paint would wrap it nicely with the rest of the nursery decor.

My sister helped me with this project!  We had about a half of a can of primer, so we used that without sanding, hoping it would stick.  It did the trick, and then we painted the remainder with a cheapo can of glossy white spray paint.  I love the way it turned out!  Crisp and clean.  Just what we needed!

PS-This photo is cryptic for a reason--nursery reveal coming TOMORROW!!

These gems were given to me by my sister Rachel, who picked them up years ago at a flea market near my Grandma's house.  She and her husband just moved to Florida, and I'm pretty sure I ended up with them because he wouldn't let them on the moving truck.  Ben was NOT too keen on letting these in the house, but I told him that he had to give them a chance!

Halfway through, I wasn't sure I was on board.  I decided to finish them up and see what we ended up with, if not it was just one can of spray paint wasted between the pair.

I think they jive really well with the hazy purple walls that we are doing in our bedroom (pardon our progress...).  We are still piecing all of it together (Ben is currently making nightstands to replace the road cases), so we will see how they look when we get things more unified.

I saw this idea in a magazine, and tried to modify it a little bit.  TRIED.

This is the vase I use to store my spoons and spatulas, next to the stove.

We had a bunch of paint left over from painting the kitchen walls (the gallon of light grey on the right), and a few other miscellaneous colors that coordinate well with our yellow and grey kitchen.

I basically just slopped the different colors on the inside of the vase, and let it dry upside down between colors.

If I could do it over, I would have just used one solid color and coated the entire inside.  Oh well!  The vase was cracked to begin with, so I will just use it until I come across something else to use.

We found both of these chairs six months apart at the Daniel Island yardsale, and paid five bucks for each one.  They have sat untouched forever, so I was pretty excited to get this very easy project finished.

Ben did about three coats total, while I sat on the front porch swing.  My favorite project yet!

It really pops off the front porch!  Let's hope nobody steals it!

We have so much fun looking around the house for little jobs that we can knock out that don't take much from the budget.

Come back tomorrow for the long-awaited nursery post.  For as much as I have hyped it up, I sure hope you guys love it as much as we do!