Coffee Table Re-do

The finished table, sitting on a recent craigslist find.

Like the cabinet, I lightly sanded the edges of the legs. It'll get kicked and scuffed up, so why not give it a head start?

I like the contrast of the painted base and the stained top. I've seen others do it, and I like the look.

What my $15 craigslist started out looking like:

What it looks like now:

I like the results!

Inside the cabinet

On the outside, it looks nice and neat.

But when you open it up, you can see all the stuff it's hiding:

What exactly is all of this stuff?

The unfortunate thing is that there's no room for fabric, so after I finish sorting it all (not quite done yet), I'll put baskets-full of fabric on top of the cabinet.

Want to see my quick and easy way to keep the door panels in place?

Those two red dots are red plastic push pins.

I put two in the top and two in the bottom,  and the panels aren't going anywhere.

It will be very easy to switch them out.

The cut edges of the fabric do show, but only when the doors are open  :)

My new craft cabinet is finally finished

We got back from our road trip a week and a half ago. After the usual unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping (our frig was completely empty), and trying to get back onto a schedule, I managed to finally finish my cabinet. 

After putting the top back on the base, I put all the doors and knobs back on. Then I lightly sanded all the edges and corners. Nothing super-noticeable, just enough to cover up any future dings. Because let's face it, I'm a klutz, and I will be banging things into the edges. The top coat of paint is a really light blue/gray- it looks almost white, but you can see the difference where the white primer peeks out. I like the two-tone (three-tone if you count the dark wood under the primer) look.

I then cut thin plywood (leftover from replacing the backing on the cabinet) to replace the glass that was originally in the doors. Since the cabinet is full of sewing and craft supplies I wanted the cabinet completely closed in- I'm not a fan of open cupboards. I prefer to close the doors and hide the mess. Not that there's a mess right now, it's all still organized, but things don't always stay that way.

Then I covered each panel with fabric I bought on sale at JoAnns. I just hot glued the fabric on the back, and it will be easy to switch it out. LMS actually wanted a different fabric and was disappointed that I went with this one- I like it though. 

 I liked the one on the left, but it's a little dark for the room, which really doesn't get very good light.

LMS liked the one on the right, but it's a little too bright for now. Come spring, though, I think it'll be a nice change.

A couple of the panels ended up a little crooked, but I'm ignoring it. (squash that OCD, squash that OCD)

I left the medallions in place on the base cabinet doors, and used the original knobs on all the doors. I didn't replace the original magnetic closures. The doors stay closed without them, and I was too lazy :)

I spray painted the knobs, but that was all I did to them before putting them back on. They were kind of brassy black before, now they're all black/brown.

Love the detail!

What my $50 craigslist find used to look like:

What it looks like now:

I'm happy!

Road Tripping across the US

Road trips aren't super conducive to saving money- there's expenses like gas, food, motel/hotel, etc.

However, I think we did pretty good.

Driving on the highway really helps our gas mileage, so we fill up a lot less often than when we're driving around town.

We only ate one meal a day in a restaurant while on the road. This was primarily due to our current dietary restrictions, but it also meant we didn't spend much on food. I did have to do a lot of planning: I made gluten free granola before we left and we brought little boxes of rice milk (cooled in a bucket of ice the nights we didn't have an in-room frig) to eat it with. I was able to search online ahead of time and find restaurants we could eat at for a late lunch/early dinner every day, and we ate snacks the rest of the time: fruit, veggies, rice crackers, peanut butter packets, nuts, etc.

I'm a bit cheap when it comes to staying in motels while traveling. They're not the destination, they're the stopover on the way to the destination. We're only there long enough to sleep, so I don't need a super-fancy (and expensive) hotel. Motel 6, reserved ahead of time, works for me.

We had a great time, and we spent less than we could have. Always a good thing!

Coffee Table Sneak Peak

The other project I had to finish up was my $15 (!) craigslist coffee table. This didn't take long at all, especially compared to how long the cabinet took. I'll let the paint and stain cure while we're gone and when we get back I'll distress the edges a bit, since they'll get distressed anyway.

Here's what it used to look like:

And here's what it looks like right now:

Cabinet Sneak Peak

There's nothing like a firm deadline to give me the extra push I need to finish up my projects. We're heading out on a roadtrip to visit family on Monday, so I had to get all my painting finished and the pieces brought inside. The paint will cure while we're gone, and I'll put it all back together when we ge back.

In the meantime, here's a reminder of what the cabinet used to look like:

And a sneak peak of what it looks like now:

How I find great deals on ebay and craigslist

I've found some great deals on ebay and craigslist and ebay, but it takes some patience and some know-how.

On ebay, I search for whatever it is I'm looking for, say a twin size chamois sheet from PBK. I don't want to be too broad, but I also don't want to be too narrow in my search. My search parameter in this case would be: (PBK, Pottery Barn) chamois sheet twin. When the results are returned, you have the option to "Save this search and alert me later". If you click on that and follow the instructions ebay will email you every day with any new items that match this search.

Every day I check my email to see if something has been listed that I'm looking for. Usually not, but every so often there will be one I want to keep an eye on, so I save it to my watch list. From there it's just a matter of keeping an eye on the auction (ie, not forgetting when it will end!) and deciding how much I want to spend and not spending more than that. I tend to place my bid in the last 30-45 seconds, which prevents me from upping my bid if my bid isn't high enough and usually prevents others from outbidding me.

On craigslist, I've been searching for various furniture items, so I have much broader search parameters: I search in 'furniture', leaving the search for box blank so everything will come through (people call things by so many different names, it's best to err on the side of too many results rather than too few), and  putting a price limit on it- minimum 0, maximum $60. Once the results come through, I copy the url and add it to my google reader feeds. Several times a day anything that's been posted that matches that criteria shows up in my reader, which is much easier than visiting craigslist multiple times a day. Once the posts pop up, it's just a matter of deciding if I want to call on anything that came up.

Have you found any great deals on ebay or craigslist?

edited to add:
If I won't be home, or am too busy too watch an ebay auction end, I use auctionstealer. It's a sniping program that allows 3 free snipes per week (the week starts on Sunday) and places your bid (up to the maximum you stated) in the last 10-12 seconds. If you pay a small monthly fee, you can use it more frequently and it will place your bid in the last 3-4 seconds. I don't use it that often, so I've never bothered with the expense. The program is easy to use, and I've never had any problems with it, and have won a number of auctions using it.