creative little daisy

Wall to wall table from a hollow core door

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At the beginning of this sewing room adventure, several years ago, this was my cutting/work table. A hollow core door blank (no holes cut for knobs) resting on various closetmaid organizers. It was a good plan and made a nice table for not a lot of money.

The only problem, I like to be able to access the table from either side and couldn't do that. Also, this is a big table, so the back corner ended up being wasted realestate, as it was too far to reach.

So, I moved the table away from the wall.

This was a better working layout and I actually had no problems with this, other than the fact that it's large and left very little floor space. The computer also felt cramped in the corner and while I was using what I had for furniture, it was just too much. Too many pieces.  Those clever curtains beneath the cutting table? A mistake. Don't create a space for hiding things. If you hide them, you forget about them and then when you aren't looking they get all crazy and messy.

I didn't really need a cutting table that was that big (nearly seven feet long and 36 wide).  I don't do that much large scale sewing and usually only needed about 36" of cutting space. I started searching pinterest. I had in mind what I wanted. Something rustic and industrial looking. I wanted a wood top with galvanized pipes for legs, like this. Then I went to Lowe's and priced the hardware. It was going to cost somewhere around $150 dollars just for the metal pipes and fittings for the frame and legs, wood not included. I had to let that dream go. I started discussing options with Mitch and said what if I use the door I already have, cut down the center. It would be exactly the size I need and would be free. He likes free, he was all for that plan. He also priced the pipe for me at a plumbing suply store, instead of Lowes. It was cheaper, but still too much to make a whole frame for the base.

A little side story about my convo with the plumbing supply guy.  So, Mitch calls up the guy and tells him what I want. He says no problem, I'll pull what you need and call you back with the price. About an hour later he calls me back to tell me what he's come up with and the price of each part. He says you'll need six flanges and three nipples. Right then and there I realized living with a man with a middle schooler's sense of humor for 25 years has affected me negatively.  I nearly snickered when  the guy said nipple. Like Beavis and Butthead or something. I'm a forty-three year old grandmother, and I almost snickered at some guy saying nipple to me on the phone. Geeze.

It turns out, he was talking about the pipe.  It's galvanized plumbing pipe, why call it a nipple?

Where was I before I revealed how immature I really am? The door. Right, the door. Mitch cut it down the center.

Here is the door cut in half. Hollow inside except for some cardboard support pieces. I have seen folks make floating shelves with hollow core doors by mounting the door on a board, the hollow part just slides over a board that is mounted to the wall. My table top was going to be too wide for that to work, plus it needs to hold quite a bit of weight, so we wanted something sturdier.

Mitch put some extra support into the hollowed out places, just some scrap wood cut to fit and wedged in place.

I wasn't home when he did this, and that sweetie had the forethought to get a picture for me. He's officially a blog husband.

The above picture shows support pieces he attached for attaching the flange and nipples. I mean legs.

Next he mounted 2x2s along the length of the wall and the side walls screwing it into the studs.

Since the door was in two pieces, he created a brace to go under the seam and to attach the center leg.

You can see it looked a little rough before all the finish work was done. I filled in the screw holes and the center seam with spackle and gave it a couple coats of primer.

I used this inside corner trim to hide the gap at the wall.  It worked perfectly for this. I caulked all the seams and gave it three coats of white paint followed by three coats of  water based poly. I wanted it to be very smooth and easily to keep clean. 

I used a hole saw to make holes for all my cords to go through. I just have to come up with a method for concealing them underneath. I hate a mess of jumbled cords.

Everything but the materials for the legs (six flanges and three nipples) we already had. So this table cost less than fifty dollars. All the storage underneath was already here, just being used differently. You don't always have to use things as intended. This whole thing just sort of evolved. I didn't have a definite plan, other than the measurements for the table top and height requirements for the shelves I had to fit.  I didn't give much thought to all the computer stuff that would need a place to live. I was about to move the desk out and started taking the desk apart to see if I could reuse any of it. It was too tall to fit under the new table as is, so I took the top off and removed the feet. It was built by my friend Kelli's husband, Norman and was put together mostly with screws. That made disassembling it very easy. I wish I had pictures, but I really had no idea it would work, it just sort of happened.

Here's a photo of the desk before.

You can kind of see it there in the corner. I pretty much removed everything that was screwed on and put some of it back in different places. There was a pull out tray for the printer, I moved that to use for the keyboard.

The keyboard is too wide to fit on the tray with it pushed in, so I just sit it on top when not in use and pull it down to the tray when needed.

I put two of the closetmaid bookshelves on either side. One houses more computer stuff the other has sewing machine paraphernalia. One last one was turned on its side to hold the printer. The large IKEA boxes hide yet more computer stuff, discs, extra cables, manuals...

I know the little shelf my Silhouette is sitting on isn't much, but I made it, start to finish, alone. So, I'm proud. I finally got my Kreg jig out of the box and used it. I see a new addiction hobby  in my future.

I left a blank spot on the table top, so I could use the Silhouette without clearing a bunch of stuff out of the way. There's a basket up there now, but it's mobile. It has my nebulizer inside for breathing treatments. I like having it out of site but easily accessible.

The other end I wanted to keep a bit clearer underneath for sewing. I have a few things down there temporarily, until I can come up with a better solution. Rome wasn't built in a day, right? Overall, I'm thrilled. I know, I have said that before, and I was thrilled then too, but I believe each time I've learned more about what did and did not work. I hope this time I've gotten it right.

Here's a collage of the before and after.You can see it's the same stuff, just different.

Sewing room makeover take... three?

I've lost count to be honest. You have to live with a room a while to learn what works and what doesn't. Especially so for a working room.

While Casey was away becoming one of the few and the proud, I took over his room. I figured the Marines owned him for at least four years, he wouldn't be needing it. At the time it seemed like the perfect arrangement, but it wasn't.

About a year later, I moved things around again. It was better, but over time, it just wasn't working either and eventually became a junk hole. Not at all conducive to creativity. I just wanted to close the door and pretend it wasn't there. Except it was. It was there, and I may have had a bad dream or two about it. 

Think I'm exaggerating? Brace yourselves folks, what you are about to see isn't pretty.

Are you ready?

Now you know why I haven't posted any sewing projects. I'm not sure I could even find the sewing machine.

Yea, bad. Real bad.

Let me say one tiny thing in my defense, I had already started some of the reorganization when I took these photos. You know, things get worse before they get better.  I had pulled things from under the table and piled them on top. The other stuff, like mount lampshade over there, that was there already.

Then it got even worse. You see, to implement my plan, most of the furniture in the room had to come out. There was a lot of stuff hanging out on that furniture

Enough ugliness, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.Lets get on with the afters.

Wall to wall work table and all it cost me was the price of the legs. It's the same hollow core door I'd been using as a cutting table, only now it's fourteen feet long instead of seven

No new furniture was purchased. Almost everything was reused and repurposed. I did purchase a new plywood top for my cutting table and legs for the work table. I also purchased tissue paper for the pom poms and a small amount of molding. It was a use-what-you-have makeover for sure.

I reused the computer desk by taking the top off, turning it upside down and putting wheels on the new bottom.

All the closetmaid components that were below the cutting table were reused in various ways. The book shelves were placed under the work table.

This one was turned on its side to hold storage boxes and the printer. I made the little shelf to hold my silhouette with a scrap of plywood from the new cutting table. Did you catch that? I said I made that shelf. Yep, me and my kreg jig. It ain't much, but I did it, start to finish, all by my lonesome.

That's not all folks. I also made this thread rack. Alone. Just me.

These shelves? I hung 'em.

I recovered the chairs with fabric I bought a while back and never used. (Hancock Fabric)

I also pimped the closetmaid cabinets that serve as bases for the new cutting table.

I added beadboard backs, beadboard wall paper to the sides and baseboard around the bottom. Oh, and some corner trim on all the corners too. 

You're looking at my stool aren't you? I know you are. It was free. Yep, free. Don't hate.

I was at my cousin's, next door,  he was finishing the edge of my plywood table top with his router and I spied that stool in the corner, dusty, stuff piled on top, and I shamelessly begged him for it. Not really begged, but I let him know if he didn't love it to pieces, I'd give it a happy home. And he said OK.

I spent hours, no joke hours, trying to get the placement of those two cabinets right this morning. I measured and moved, measured and moved. I just knew the first thing Mitch would say when he walked in the room would be,  the table isn't straight. He has one of those eyes. He picks up the slightest offness and it drives him crazy, and when he points it out to me, after I've slaved over some project, it drives me crazy. Like I want to beat him to death with a level or something. I kid.

So, in an effort to keep him from pointing out my nonsquareness, I measured. A lot. I even got the laser level out. Not that I knew what to do with it, but it was there. Moral support, I guess.

One of the bases has drawers and holds my patterns.

The other one has doors to hide crafting necessities.

My books were in the closetmaid book shelves under the cutting table before. Now I can see them all.

I made the cover of this one. Well, not me, but one of my projects.

I was already storing yarn in this bushel basket. I just stained it gray and recovered the little top.

The pegboard was just moved from one wall to another.

Same plastic jars for ribbon storage.

I think I am going to paint the doors on this cabinet with chalkboard paint and I have an art piece planned for the wall above the work table, so it's not 100%, but I couldn't wait any longer to share.

I'm thrilled that I got a new room without going out and buying a bunch of new stuff. I forced myself to used what I had and I couldn't be happier.

From hutch top to play kitchen

I had a thrifted hutch top I originally purchased for $14.00 and it made the rounds of the house serving various purposes before finding it's way to the garage.

Here it is in the living room, way back.. last year.  But it seems like ages ago since the livng room was aqua. And since I had that couch.

We've been working on a playhouse for Bayleigh and you know a sweet little playhouse has to have a sweet little kitchen.

Here is a semi-before shot. Mitch had already removed the top shelf and cut the hole for the sink when I thought to take a picture, so I just sat the top shelf in place to snap a pic.

From the hutch we made a little kitchen and a padded bench and the only money spent was for the faucet. It was less than $10.00 from Walmart.

The paint, fabric, knobs and vinyl for the burners, I already had.

Not too shabby for ten bucks.

What I was doing a few days before Thanksgiving

We had about 20 people here for Thanksgiving. What do you think I was doing the Monday and Tuesday before? If you guessed cooking, you'd be wrong. Cleaning? Nope. Painting and hanging bead board wallpaper? BINGO!

On Wednesday I was making curtains and a coffee filter wreath.

Somewhere in there I also painted a thrift store light fixture, dressed it up with a pretty shade, installed it and hung some plates on the wall. 

On Thursday, I was a cooking, cleaning fool. Thank goodness we didn't eat until 6.

I still need to come up with a Christmas Centerpiece for the table.

Cause I love a good before/after, here's the before.

Don't forget to link up your Silhouette and Cricut projects here, beginning Sunday at 8pm.

I'll be linking up at some of these parties.

Is there really ever an after?

Not around here. My home decor is on a continuum- no real before and afters, just how it was yesterday and how it is today.

The biggest change with the living room was completing the sectional. I think I talked about it here before, but in case you missed that fascinating bit of info, I bought part of a sectional off craigslist. The seller wanted to keep the sofa portion, so I bought a love seat and corner section with the plan of buying the sofa as soon as I could make the trip to IKEA. One problem, the sofa was out of stock. For weeks. Last Saturday I noticed the website had stock listed at the closest store to us, three hours away in Charlotte. Sunday night I had my sofa and was able to complete the sectional. Wohoo!!

It is incredibly comfortable. I originally wanted the Ektorp sectional, until I sat on this one. I changed out the legs with some I found on Ebay.

This bad blurry picture shows the IKEA legs. The one in the foreground is the standard, the other is an upgrade that came on the Craigslist portion of the sectional. I didn't care for either.

I found the coffee table at Hope Harbor, my favorite thrift store, last week. It was one of those rare thrifting trips where you go in and find exactly what you are looking for. At $35 it was a little more than I wanted to pay, but really, it was exactly what I wanted. Of course, it wasn't white and the veneer top had bubbled up in a couple of places, but that didn't scare me. What did scare me was the five-minute torrential downpour that occurred while I was in Home Depot buying paint, the coffee table in the back of the truck. Needless to say, the veneer top had more than a few bubbles after that. I tried ironing them down after google told me that was the best way to repair veneer. It may have helped a little. Ultimately, a good sanding did the trick. Then I gave it two coats of primer, two coats of Behr paint + primer and a top coat of paste wax.  Not my typical method of painting furniture, but I may be a convert. I usually prefer spraying and spraying does give a beautiful finish and has some definite advantages, but it also has its disadvantages. Anyway, a few things came together that resulted in me painting a lot of stuff, by hand- and loving it. I'll go into more detail about the painting process in another post, for now I'll just share how things are looking for now.

This piece was white and pretty heavily distressed. I just calmed things down a bit with some soft pale gray. The back ended up being a little more blue than I wanted, but I'm letting it slide.

A closer look at those knobs (Hobby Lobby)

The paint is yummy. It's a Martha Stewart color in Behr Premium paint + primer. It is a true pale gray. Not blue or green and not like a battleship. Just a soft gray. If I were naming it, I would call it Quiet Winter Day. I don't remember what Martha calls it, but I'll find out if you're interested. And though I'm still mad at Martha about the pasteless wallpaper, I have to give her credit, she has the best paint colors in her line.

I used the same color for this dresser and what a transformation it made. I was just about to get rid of this piece, I'm so glad I painted it instead.

It also got new hardware, thanks again to the HobLob (half off, of course)

This is how the old girl looked wearing black with silver jewelry (last fall)

 

For the Goodwill buffet turned media console, I mixed some of the Martha gray with some oops paints (turquoise and dark gray). I wanted a duck egg-ish color. It needed to be a little more on the green side because of the wall color. I'm pleased with the results.

That blur is Bayleigh, by the way.

I have the rug that was in here outside getting a good cleaning. We still have to trim out the top of the beadboard (wallpaper) and I'm going to replace the ceiling fan with a chandelier. Don't tell Mitch. The look I'm going for with paint is something like this

or this

Sorry, I don't remember where I found these photos. I think the first is from Pottery Barn, the second was found on Life in the Fun Lane.

Here's how things look for now. Just imagine a rug, and a chalky iron...zinc? whatever that is chandelier and some trim above that beadboard, and that's how it will look... until it changes again. 

Send Help!! The chronicles of one woman's acute decorating meltdown. (Pt. 1)

I'm in a decorating tail-spin. Everything is out of control and I'm not sure there is an end in sight.

Has that ever happened to you. I've got too many projects going on and can't seem to get any finished and my house is a complete and total wreck. I'm serious. There is not a clean room in the house. In fact, it starts in the garage and just gets worse the further you go. 

I have round dining table and four chairs in my garage that I've been working on for a couple of weeks. It's too hot to be out there now and I'm so frustrated with how it's going I've lost motivation.

Here's how they looked when they arrived in my garage (fifty bucks off craigslist)

 

Dark and gummy. Covered in scratches, crayon, nail polish, pen marks... you name it. Someone was not treating this set with much love. I could see beyond all that. What I saw were those curvy legs. That chunky (solid wood) top. The chairs are remarkably comfortable.  Since the top is solid wood and quite thick, I decided to strip it and see how it looked under all that dark stain and varnish (and nail polish and grease).

It was amazing how easy the gunk came off. I applied some stripper and it peeled right off. I gave it a very heavy sanding, I wanted to get beyond the stain and see how the wood looked. I didn't mind the dents and scratches, in fact I loved them. I did not love the warm yellow, orange color left from the stain. Once I was able to sand beyond that was delighted at how the wood looked. Light and weathered. It made my heart sing. I was so excited. I cleaned the chairs well (or so I thought- we'll get back to that later) and sprayed them along with the table legs white. My plan was to give them a light distressing, give the top a protective clear coat and be done. Well. That hasn't quite happened yet.

The light distressing turned into this

 

as the white paint started coming off in sheets. This is way more chippy and distressed than I had envisioned. Not at all the look I'm going for. I'll have to completely strip all four chairs and start over. All four curvy, spindly chairs. Sniff, sniff... I'm not happy about this.

And the table. With the first swipe of the brush applying this, I knew it wasn't the look I wanted. All the golden yellow tones in the wood came to life. I'm not a warm golden type girl. I like cool greys, soft whites. I'm sure this would be beautiful to some, but not to me. Not today.

I'm not sure where to go from here. How to achieve the look I want. I want it to look like it did without any finish, but that is not practical for a dining table. Maybe I should sand it down good, give it a wash with a very watered down greyish white paint, then a protective top coat???

I don't know. I do know it's going to have to cool down some first.

I have plenty to do to keep me busy inside. Shall we go there? I'm not sure you want to and I'm pretty sure I don't want you to. Let me try to explain my way out of this first- try to give you some insight into my decorating insanity. Let's talk about it tomorrow, shall we? It could go long.

Tables, I've got 'em

 I used to have this coffee table

But Mitch sat on the edge and broke it, I blogged about it, you may remember.

Our solution was to fill in the hole where the glass used to be with an upholstered piece of plywood.

It was a good solution. I liked it. For a while. But I'm fickle when it comes to home decor. It's like, who wants to wear the same earrings everyday for months or years? No one, and my house doesn't want to sport the same old accessories either. I know, it told me so.  So shopping I went for a new coffee table, and by new, of course I mean new to me. My budget was less than 20 bucks. For twelve I found just what I was looking for. The only problem I also found something I wasn't looking for. Something I had not budgeted for. An antique buffet. Solid wood, in excellent condition $49.00 buffet. I tried to walk away, really I did. But it would have been wrong to walk away. I would have surely lost sleep. I know it.  So I bought it too. Where was I going to put it? Pfftt... like that mattered. I'd figure that out later. The important thing then was to pay and get it loaded before anyone else noticed how lovely it was. 

OK, to give you the abbreviated version, cause this story could get wordy. The buffet went here, where this table was, to hold the TV.

Better, don't ya think? 

Now I have another coffee table. If you were paying attention, you'd know that makes tree.  I'm not much of a planner when it comes to furniture placement. I just start dragging and pulling and tugging till I like what I see. Or until I have to lay down. (I'm not as young as I used to be)

As it turns out, I like the former TV table/coffee table as a coffee table. 

 

 

So, what's a girl to do with two extra coffee tables? If I had a big ol' storage shed I'd keep them, but since I don't and my garage already looks like something from an episode of Hoarders, I decided to try selling them on Craigslist. I'll let you know if I have any luck.

 

 

This is NOT what it looked like in the thrift store, by the way.

I also gave the ottoman/coffee table a new look.

In the interest of full disclosure and honesty, that thrifting trip, you know the one where I needed to find a coffee table and spend less than twenty dollars- well I also picked up a book shelf for fourteen. Don't even ask if I needed it or where I planned to put it. You already know the answer. Those are minor details to be worked out later.

It ended up here.

 

where this used to be~

You get what you pay for

That's how the saying goes, but I like to think sometimes you get more than what you pay for.

I picked up an artificial flower arrangement last week at goodwill for a couple dollars. It was pretty sad, but I knew I could work with it. What caught my eye was how realistic the flowers (dried hydrangeas) looked.  It was a large, ugly basket with dusty hydrangeas haphazardly sticking out from here and there. At one time I'm sure it was really pretty. Something you might see on a hearth in a home with country decor, but now it looked like it had been stored  in a dusty attic under some boxes.  Why didn't I take a before photo? Don't I know the after is more impressive when you can see how bad the before was??  One day I'll learn. Just imagine a dark toned basket with some gold painted accents holding an arrangement of dusty, nearly falling out hydrangeas with spanish moss, artificial ferns, and raffia. Got a mental image? OK good.  Let's just say no one was fighting me for it at the goodwill. Their loss.

I pulled out all the hydrangeas and the florist foam and threw  the rest of the filler stuff away.

After a good cleaning, the basket got some spray paint action, with paint from my stash. It'll go perfectly in Alyssa's living room to hold Bayleigh's books or toys.

There were enough hydrangeas to make two arrangements. One for the dining room table,

.

and one for the living room. I love how the flowers add some softness in contrast to the mercury glass. I'm not usually a fan of the fake flower, but I think these come pretty close to the real thing. I'll keep 'em around a while.

Two pretty arrangements and a big basket for holding books, not bad for $2.00.  Getting more than what I paid for, that's what I love about thrifting.

The madeover coffee table make-over.

This is what my coffee table used to look like. It was a thrift store find. For $15.00 I got the coffee table and a matching end table. They were a really ugly. I wrote about them here. Click over to see the picture, I'll wait. Ugly, huh?  A little paint fixed em up though, and we've enjoyed them for about three years now.  Until Mitch sat down on the corner one night and the glass shattered in about 374,000 pieces.  It was like an explosion. Glass everywhere. I was so glad that I don't have carpet anymore and that Bayleigh wasn't here.  Rather than trying to have a new piece of glass cut, we decided it would be safer if the top was solid anyway.

Mitch cut a piece of plywood to replace the glass and together we upholstered it.

 

Seasonal nesting

Some people make redecorating a big event. An event that is planned months, sometimes years in advance. Carefully thought out, budgeted...  Those are usually the same people who live with that redecoration for 10 years. I'm not one of those people. A typical room around this house stays the same for about 10 minutes. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously, I'm constantly changing things up. I don't usually plan it out more than the length of time it takes me to hop in the car and drive to Lowes or Goodwill. That's how the recent living room mini makeover came to fruition. I was in there with Bayleigh trying out a DVD with not much luck. Bayleigh has no interest whatsoever in TV. Not that I want her glued to the set for hours at a time, but I wouldn't mind 15 minutes of distraction so I can load the dishwasher now and then. 

This was a photo of the living room before we put in the hardwood floors, taken in July of '07 and I'm shocked to say, besides the change in flooring, and moving that chair, everything else stayed pretty much the same till recently. I'm really, really surprised by this. Maybe it's because decorating that mantel is not easy and once I came up with something I could live with I was just tired of trying?? Anyway back to Bayleigh and the TV. I noticed the only time she would even pay one second of attention to the sweet little children singing to her was if she stood on the hearth and looked right at it. Hmm...  I thought to myself. I wonder if she would enjoy it more if it were more at eye level for her. Right then I had to stop everything and go in search of a lower tv table. I wanted something with a shelf on the bottom to hold tapes (we still have a VCR) and DVDs. A couple hours later I had just what I wanted. Almost. I was stained a dark cherry color and had nail polish around the edges. I'm guessing the previous owner used the coffee table to prop her feet on to paint her toenails. Just a guess.  For $24 and the cost of some paint, you know I already had that on hand, I have a new lower TV table. Bayleigh still isn't interested in the sweet little children singing to her, but you can't have everything.

 

Of course with the new black tv table the white bookshelf seemed out of place, so I replaced it with my granny's old sewing machine cabinet that had been in the hall. Then as things go in my decorating method of madness, the items on the bookcase would need a new home, and the domino effect continues with a  mantle makeover.

The old shutters and window came from the Habitat for Humanity re-store (7 for the shutters 2 for the window) The tall dark candle holder was less than a dollar from Hope Harbor the hydrangeas where a from a sweet blogging friend Kate. The photos were taken by my mom, years ago. Bayleigh's little red rocker was originally three dollars at thrift store, but I bought a few other things and talked him in to throwing in the chair for free. I planned to paint it, but have since added a few pops of red to the room, so it's staying as-is. The table the tv was previously perched upon was actually the lower portion of a hutch, the white "bookshelf" was the upper portion, turned upside down. Confusing? Now the pieces have been reunited on the other side of the room as a hutch.

 

The wall behind the couch is naked. I moved the three bird prints from that wall to the wall adjoining this hutch wall.   I've commissioned Alyssa to make me a sign to go there. One of those hand painted antique looking signs that says something inspirational. She's crafty and artistic, so I'm sure she'll come up with something wonderful.

 

See that pop of red I was talking about? In that pillow up there? Pottery Barn has some really cool pillows made of linen and hemp, but 45 dollars is out of my pillow price range. Since I know how easy it is to sew a pillow cover, my pillow purchasing budget is really low. I had some natural linen and some red fabric paint, so I went to work and made my own. I really want to put a rug in here, maybe something sisal, but with  dogs who refuse to be completely housebroken, rugs just don't mix.  Have you seen the commercial for the potty-patch? Any rug I put down is automatically a potty-patch to those little @$#@# sweeties.  I'm home all day and take them out 75 times a day and still, they think all rugs deserve a good christening. I wish I could get the dog whisperer to pay me a visit. Anywho, that's a little TMI and has nothing to do with decorating. Nothing good anyway. 

Did you notice the little rusty wire basket on the hutch? It isn't really a rusty basket. I just painted it to look that way. I found it in the dollar bin at Target and sprayed it with three different colors of spray paint till I thought it looked old and rusty. 

 

I just grabbed what I had, I used the chalkboard paint because I wanted something flat not shiny. The rust is colored one is actually red oxide primer.

 

I just kept spraying and layering till it looked old to me, no real method.

 

That's what it looked like before. Older is better, don't you think?

Tomorrow I'll share how I covered the glass doors in my Walmart buffet with faux coffee sack to hide the plastic dog and cat food bins.