Bloggers Heart Habitat: The "Extra" Room

Hey y'all! I'm SO excited to be able to write this post!

Last Fall, my good friend Charlotte of Ciburbanity asked me to participate in this amazing project idea that she had...so I, along with a group of very talented Home Decor/DIY bloggers, with the help of some amazing brands, got to fully furnish and decorate (some even helped to build it) a Habitat for Humanity Home from the ground UP!

 

Image Source: Ciburbanity

If you are not familiar with Habitat for Humanity, I urge you to get involved with your local chapter. Not only do they build homes internationally, but they also do it RIGHT here in our own backyard! They do amazing work and if you call yourself a thrifter, you NEED to visit one of their ReStores. :)

Honestly, it has just been such an incredible project to be a part of. I am overwhelmed with joy and so happy to say that last weekend was the "install" and "reveal" date for the project! We all took our tools, the amazing furniture and decor made possible by our awesome brand sponsors like Wayfair, Minted, Rugs USA, Connecticut Lighting Centers, some of our own pieces that we did, as well as the extras that were made possible through the monetary support of our friends at Hometalk, and drove to Connecticut to gussy up the amazing home that Habitat for Humanity and their group of incredible volunteers built for one very deserving and wonderful family!

Photo Credit: Ciburbanity

I live roughly about 3 and 1/2 hours from the location of the house...that said, I had a rough time getting there. You see my face in the above picture?! My body was not cooperating me with the rest of me that day. Many of you know I deal with chronic illness...so shout out to everyone that helped me that day because I couldn't have done it without your help! Also, since I was all out of sorts that day, I left my camera at home...so ALL photos (unless otherwise noted) were taken by the amazingly talented Charlotte of Ciburbanity. THANK YOU CHAR!

My main bloggin' partner in crime and I were paired up for the project. If you haven't met Lynn of Fern Avenue Blog yet, you need to go check out her blog. She's AMAZING and one of my favorite people in the world!

We were given the task of doing the "extra" room, or rather the Guest room. When I say this room is small...well, it's tiny. Though I had ideas and plans to do a lot of things in the room, in the end we decided to just go as minimalist as possible due to the small size and lack of space in the room. I think we still managed to give the family a pretty, yet functional, guest bedroom.

Lynn wasn't able to attend the install date due to a family commitment, but she DID set me up with this amazing table done in CeCe Caldwell's Smoky Mountain Gray. Make sure you visit her blog to see the details on this sweet piece! CeCe was another awesome brand that offered up free product to anyone involved in this project. D. Lawless Hardware, Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co. and General Finishes also extended the same offer to all of us! You guys ROCK and I am always so honored to represent you when I am given the honor!

She also purchased some awesome corbels at Hobby Lobby so I could make these rustic shelves for the room. I'll share more about the shelves tomorrow, here on the blog, so stay tuned!

 Since space was an issue, I knew that any detail would have to be executed OFF the ground and on the wall. I also knew that I wanted to add storage capability in the room since it was lacking in that department.

I went with some shelving in the small half closet as well as the aforementioned rustic shelves.

Closet shelving in progress (taken on my cell)

 I let the bed be the statement. It's actually a trundle bed, so if they need an extra bed at any given point, they have one under the existing bed! Full disclosure, as can happen in any home construction, some of the timelines were a little behind so the house actually had some rooms that still needed flooring to be completed. For our 'reveal' purposes, we simply staged the house, even if the floor was not down in our designated space. Ah, yes, smoke and mirrors...this blogging life is JUST smoke and mirrors, let me tell ya!

Tuft and Needle was so very kind to provide the mattresses for the bed! Here's a very amusing, (READ: embarrassing), video of me attempting, and eventually succeeding to unbox one of the mattresses over on Facebook Live. It took quite a few of us, and I promise you, it was completely user error. In other words, I had a moment and due to my crappy hands and silly nature could just not for the LIFE of me open the bag the mattress comes in. Sigh. So yeah, enjoy and PLEASE laugh. :) Also, thank you Nick for filming said debacle. It's always fun, that's for sure!

The mattresses were actually RIDICULOUSLY comfortable and SO plump! I was so exhausted that I could have totally taken a nap on them, but don't worry, I did not. 

I chose teal blue accents, with some hints of gold. It made for a calm, soothing space with just enough pops of color to make you smile upon entering it.

I wanted a modern, yet warm feel. Check out that cool cement lamp! It was such a cool (and low cost) find! (Shout-Out to my local HomeGoods in Flemington, NJ for giving me a discount upon finding out that I was shopping for a Habitat project!)

The awesome folks at Minted also contributed some prints and artwork that hadn't arrived but the pieces were awesome! They will go on the wall furthest to the right of the bed. Minted is awesome, we've worked with them before for the FFFC. Go check Minted out!

I honestly love this little nook the best! Lynn's piece fit PERFECTLY in it!

I hope you enjoyed my tiny guest room reveal! I had a BLAST doing it! Thank you again to Charlotte for letting Lynn and I participate! It was amazing!

Make sure you check out the other amazing rooms and the rest of the house from all of the below linked bloggers! They all killed it! LOVED all the rooms, but definitely my favorite was the one that Kristen of A Thrifter in Disguise did!

Her attention to detail was incredible and the little boy's sweet reaction to his new room was something I won't easily forget!

Here's some sneak peek videos I took at all of the rooms while everyone was working:
Kristen's room
Charlotte and Jillian
Stephanie and Michelle
Upstairs and Living Room Walk Through: Please note, I was really not feeling well so the brain fog was real, y'all. Again, my apologies to Kristen of a Thrifter in Disguise for completely butchering her name AND blog. sigh.

Here is a list of the bloggers, which rooms they did, and where you can find their posts!

LIVING ROOM:

Jaime from That’s My Letter

Laura from Finding Home Farms

DINING ROOM/ DECK:

Kris from Driven By Decor

Annie from Most Lovely Things

MASTER BEDROOM:

Jillian from I Am a Homemaker

Charlotte from Ciburbanity

Bee from Windgate Lane

KIDS ROOM:

Kristin from A Thrifter in Disguise

FOYER/ MUDROOM/ BATHROOMS:

Sarah and Nick from Nestrs

TEEN ROOM:

Michelle from Weekend Craft

Stephanie from Sandpaper and Glue

Thanks again to all the awesome brands that helped to make this happen, and thank you SO much, Char, for letting me be a part of this wonderful project. It was truly an honor!

"Farmhouse Fun" Nightstand-July FFFC™ sponsored by OFMP

**Though I was compensated for this post in product and/or monetarily, all opinions, ideas and comments are 100% my own. Please note: this post may also contain affiliate links.**

Hey, y'all!

If you are new to these parts, welcome! A new month can only mean one thing around here...new Fab Furniture Flippin' Contest™ (FFFC)!

What's the FFFC™ you ask? Well, I'll tell you! It's a monthly sponsored contest for furniture flippin' bloggers where said bloggers compete to win a fab prize by that month's fab sponsor!

This month's sponsor is none other than The Old Fashioned Milk Paint (OFMP)!

OFMP was the original true milk paint on the market in its modern-day powder form. True milk paint has been around for centuries, though! For more on the history and for more info on what it can do, check out this post.

If you are on my little corner of the internet often, then you know it's my favorite paint ever! Since this month's theme is "Farmhouse Fun", I just KNEW I wanted to use the color Pitch Black and that I wanted to let the milk paint do what it does best: chip.

I found this piece years ago at a garage sale for a song. I knew it was just perfect for what I had in mind.

Since it had been sitting in the corner of my garage for so long, I began by giving it a REALLY good cleaning! I used my go-to product Simple Green. I decided that it was a good time for a social media PSA. :)


Seriously, the thing was disgusting. After wiping it down, I sanded where I wanted the paint to STICK. The easiest way to control how much milk paint chips is to sand away any shiny finish that may have previously been on a piece where you don't want any chipping. Milk paint was created for porous surfaces, so it will stick like no tomorrow to unfinished surfaces. When applied to a previously painted or finished surface, it will lift and chip away as it dries. Basically, the previous finish will act as a resist. If you don't want any chipping at all, you can either sand the entire piece down, or you can add some Extra-Bond to your mixed milk paint. I talk all about milk paint over on my YouTube page here. Make sure you check the video out if you want to see more tips and tricks on how to work with true milk paint.

After mixing my milk paint powder with equal parts water, I gave it a few coats of paint, waiting in between coats as they dried. I used Pitch Black, which a true black and just glorious! As expected, it chipped right where I wanted it to, along the edges and bottom where I didn't sand down while prepping my piece. I gave it some more distressing with a sanding sponge and helped the chipping along.

Once I thought it had enough distressing and happy chipping, I finished it up with some Daddy Vans All Natural Beeswax Lavender Furniture Polish which you can buy through OFMP.

The result was the perfect "Farmhouse Fun" look! To add a bit more to my piece I decided to change out the hardware to a cute ceramic bird and to decoupage some matching paper into the drawer.

I staged it with a rooster and some vintage books to enhance that farmhouse feel. I'm just smitten with this cute table!

If you're curious about that wall behind it, stay tuned. More on that later!

Check back throughout the month as our entries come in for more "Farmhouse Fun" inspiration! Good luck to all of the entrants!

An InLinkz Link-up