Redecorating on the Cheap!

Since I share custody of my little with her dad, most times I have every other weekend to myself to do whatever pops into my head.  I’d been to a couple yard sales a month or so ago, and picked up two round MDF tables, and an older audio cabinet from a nice old couple about to move out of state to live with their children.  I got a smoking deal – the three pieces listed above, as well as two lamps and a cute white bathroom cabinet for $35!   (The lamps were wrought-iron monstrosities which I dismantled and turned into the lamps shown here.The MDF tables were unfinished – boring old grey-brown pressed board.  Since they had glass tops on the tables, she had put large round table cloths over them, then placed the glass on top.  There were also lace doilies involved.  Since my decorating style runs way into Zen and light years from Turkey Hill, I knew they needed an update to fit in with my decor.  The audio cabinet was in great shape, but was a dark brown faux-wood grain, and had outdated vertical gold lines etched down the front of the glass doors.  Definitely not my style!

Unfortunately, it didn’t dawn on me to photograph the items prior to the revamping, so I don’t have any shocking “before” photos.  I did think to start snapping after one of the round tables was done (other is still in progress), and in the midst of the audio cabinet redecoration.

Orange is my accent color throughout the house, and goes especially well with Asian decor.    I freehand painted the flowers – my take on cherry blossoms – and the wording.  The characters are Chinese, and roughly translate to abundance in relationships, the heart, and the home.  The underneath, which you can barely see, consists of two shelves for storage.  I painted the interior of the shelves orange, and the whole outside of the table black.  The black paint is a spray can I picked up at Home Depot for $.97, and was able to completely paint both tables prior to it running out.  The orange, blue, and the red you’ll see on the audio cabinet were “”oops” paints that I found, in quart size, for $2.00 per can. I have LOTS left to work with of all the colors, so this was overall a super inexpensive project!

After finding that the hideous gold lines on the glass were actually etched into it, versus something I could scrape off, I was at a loss for a moment. I knew I hated the cheesy gold lines, but couldn’t think what to do about them.  Then, inspiration struck, and I decided to use them as a guideline to freehand some bamboo and leaves.  I painted the inside of the audio shelving orange, and used the same brown to paint the cabinet and the bamboo.   The lines on the bamboo and the leaf “veins” were drawn on with a black paint pen I had in my craft supplies.  I put the white paper behind the cabinet door for this photo, to show the detail.

Here’s a shot of the whole cabinet while it was still in progress.

Forgive the blurriness!  When the cabinet was complete, I hung a Chinese lantern from the dollar store inside.  I turned the flash off to show the light, and found that it is nearly impossible to hold still enough when my shutter speed is accommodating the lack of light!  A few days after this photo was taken, it dawned on me that this cabinet is a perfect place to store my fine China, which had been taking up space in a cardboard box for the past couple years.  It’s now full of gorgeous white China, and really spruced up that wall in my condo!