I hope you all enjoyed the holiday weekend! We went out of town to visit friends, and had a nice time unplugging from how busy life has felt lately. I think it’s the spring cleaning and yard work mixed with baseball and normal work, but I’ve felt like we’ve been non stop for a while.
For this week’s makeover, we had an old oak hutch that our client wanted to update. So we altered the base to remove the curvature, installed all new shaker doors, and new hardware.
Here’s the hutch before:
After making all the alterations, we painted the box with BM Black.
This hutch isn’t available to purchase on our shop page because it was done as a custom order. Be sure to visit our SHOP page to check out what other pieces we have available for purchase or custom order.
Or contact us to get a quote to let us redo your furniture for you!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
If you’re having trouble reading this in your email, please click here.
Four years ago we bought an old farmhouse house built in 1802, and have been redoing it room by room. At the end of last year we finished all the inside projects, and you can check those out here. One thing you may not know though is that the house is set on a lot that is set back from the road and has over 3 acres. I love how serene and beautiful it is here. That’s actually one of my favorite parts about this house. Our last house was probably even cuter than our current house, but it was on a busy road so it wasn’t as quiet or peaceful. In this house, we’ve been wanted to work on the gardens and outdoor space, but had to keep our focus inside to get the projects done on time. This spring we finally had the time to complete our final large project. The outdoor patio! We had stamped concrete installed, built a Gazebo kit, and decorated it all. I’ve so enjoyed working outside and having drinks with friends in this beautiful setting.
Oh, and can you spot our adorable June just for extra cuteness! I’m so happy with how this turned out, and I hope it inspires you to get outside and enjoy the outdoor space at your home!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s reading this blog! I hope you felt loved! We enjoyed church together, went plant shopping, and then had my family over for dinner! Such a sweet day with family!
For this week’s before and after, I wanted to share a custom project that we recently finish for a client who wanted us to repurpose a dresser for their babies room.
Here’s the dresser before:
They had a crib they were trying to match that was raw wood and black so we sanded and stained the drawers and top with Valspar’s Sunbleached, then painted the box with Benjamin Moore’s Black.
This dresser isn’t available to purchase on our shop page because it was done as a custom order. Be sure to visit our SHOP page to check out what other pieces we have available for purchase or custom order.
Or contact us to get a quote to let us redo your furniture for you!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
Why would we redo a newer piece of furniture? Well, even if furniture isn’t old, if it doesn’t work stylistically anymore, I’d rather have a client redo it instead of just buying new piece whenever possible. This is a perfect example of that!
Here’s the credenza before:
Pretty, but not quite the look our clients wanted so we sprayed the whole piece!
This dresser isn’t available to purchase on our shop page because it was done as a custom order. Be sure to visit our SHOP page to check out what other pieces we have available for purchase or custom order.
Or contact us to get a quote to let us redo your furniture for you!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
I hope you had a nice weekend and are trying to find fun things to distract you from the many days of rain ahead. Actually, I hope this post brings some sunshine to your rainy day!
Last week, I went to High Point Market which is like Disney for designers. I learned so much, viewed all the new trends, and met amazing designers along the way who showed me the ropes. I can’t wait to share more about that experience soon! Here’s a couple teaser photos so you can see what I mean!
We had a client who asked to us to paint her kitchen cabinets. Kristen has worked with us before and we were delighted to have another project to work on in her beautiful home. She has a farmhouse set on a hill with a large double porch on the front. It’s dreamy!
Here’s the kitchen before we painted the cabinets:
If you’d like to see how we paint Kitchen Cabinets, click here to check out our video on YouTube.
Cabinet Color: Benjamin Moore Simply White with black glazing Island Color: Sherman Williams Black Fox
Ready for the after photos?
Could your kitchen use an update? We’d love to help!! We can help pick out colors, finishes, product and do the cabinet painting, tiling, add new hardware. You can use our Contact Us form to request our design services or a quote for painting your kitchen. Please check out other kitchen projects on our For Sale page. We’ll need to see a picture of your kitchen, a list of how many doors and drawers there are, and where you are located to email you an estimate. This change ups the value of your home and gives you a whole new look at a fraction of the cost of new kitchen cabinets!
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
You may have noticed that a big trend lately is to have thin wood strips on the fronts of dressers, bars, or reception desks. If you haven’t noticed, that’s ok. My days are filled with looking at designs and furniture so don’t feel bad. I’ll keep you in the know. :)
I’ve been wanting to try doing this to a dresser set, but it’s an expensive project to try. The wood strips are pricey (there may be a cheaper way to do it that I haven’t found yet). If I do find a cheaper wood product, I’ll update this post. If you know of a way, please comment and let me know below. I love the look of having the wood strips on the front of dresser drawer so I waited until I found just the right set to do the transformation.
This is the next in the series of furniture that has bee inspired by doors that we saw on our anniversary trip to Paris. I selected all the colors based on this photo.
Here are the dressers before:
I did a time lapse video to show the steps of how we removed the trim on the drawers and added the fluted wood. You can check it out on Instagram here.
We removed the drawers, and removed all of the trim work on the drawer to give us room to add the fluted wood strips. Then we repaired, prepped, primed, and painted the boxes.
Box Color: Benjamin Moore Mythic CSP-510
If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post. We also added furniture feet onto the dressers. We did have to spray them a different gold so they matched the hardware.
Then we bought pole wraps with fluted wood from Home Depot and stained them with Valspar’s Sunbleached stain. It took 3 of those pole wraps for these two dressers.
After the stain was dry, we glued them onto the drawer fronts and secured it with pin nails. You may have to plane down the tops of the drawers to be sure none of them hit each other. Then we added all the hardware and we were all set! This project did take a couple of days to finish. It’s not a fast process.
Ready for the after photos?
This dresser set is available to purchase on our shop page. Be sure to visit our SHOP page to see if it’s still available, and check out what other pieces we have available for purchase or custom order.
Or contact us to get a quote to let us redo your furniture for you!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
If you live in upstate with younger kids, last week was spring break. We usually travel to Florida on spring break, but decided to stay home this year, and do a couple of day trips instead. I thought I was going to be sad without a big trip, but we all really enjoyed the day trips and the extra rest between work. It didn’t hurt that the weather was so beautiful this week! We’ve been redoing kitchens and furniture each week, but we also spent time working on the trolley house. We have a lot to do there and are trying to seize the warm days.
For one of my #40by40 challenge, I wanted to do a day trip where it was completely spontaneous. I love being spontaneous, but I often get a full schedule and don’t have time for things if I don’t plan ahead. So I just blocked off a day and John said, leave this one to me. We took a drive to Newport and Providence RI. We walked the cliffs by mansions in Newport, and then went to Providence to tour the college John went to for culinary arts, Johnson and Whales. After, we walked to the local shops ,and had delicious Korean BBQ for dinner at Mom Ban. So much fun!
I’m excited to share this kitchen makeover with you because it’s for a friend who’s house was built in 1775! I love everything about this house. When Tricia hired me to come help with the design, I loved it so much in fact that I forgot to take before pictures! This is the only before picture I have:
I took a picture of this section because she wanted it changed into a drink area with counters for extra space when they have get togethers at their home.
When working on a project in an older home, we’ve learned over the years that you never know what you’re going to find when you start removing anything. In this case, were we thought we could put cabinets, there was a duct vent in front of the wall. The duct couldn’t fit inside the wall because there’s a fireplace on the other side… so we had to find a work around. I recommended wrapping the duct with brick to make it look like there was a chimney instead of a jutting out section of the wall. We also had to customize the cabinets a bit and have the counters wrap around it. Check out how it all came together:
I just don’t think could be any cuter!
Here’s the rest of the kitchen for you!
If you’d like to see how we paint Kitchen Cabinets, click here to check out our video on YouTube.
Cabinet Color: Benjamin Moore Simply White Island Color: Valspar Lincoln Cottage Black
Could your kitchen use an update? We’d love to help!! We can help pick out colors, finishes, product and do the cabinet painting, tiling, add new hardware. You can use our Contact Us form to request our design services or a quote for painting your kitchen. Please check out other kitchen projects on our For Sale page. We’ll need to see a picture of your kitchen, a list of how many doors and drawers there are, and where you are located to email you an estimate. This change ups the value of your home and gives you a whole new look at a fraction of the cost of new kitchen cabinets!
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
If you missed our prior post or are new to the FunCycled blog, we started specialty finishes on furniture inspired by old doors. This dresser was inspired by another door from our Paris trip and will be part of our specialty finishes posts.
Here’s the door I loved in Paris:
We did a mix of teal on the drawer fronts and Revere Pewter on the box with glazing. We also added all new hardware and sprayed the piece with a protective clear coat.
Ready for the after photos?
Sooooo the only problem is…. this one already sold, but we can redo your furniture piece in the same specialty finish if you’d like us to! Contact Us today!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
I hope you had a nice weekend! I just got back from a few days in Iceland with my friend, Tara! We went to check things off my 40 by 40 bucket list and what a beautiful trip it was!
Why Go to Iceland?
1. It’s a great price! For us to go for 3 nights, 4 days (including the airfare, hotel with breakfast each day, an excursion to the Blue Lagoon, and to see the northern lights on an evening boat ride), cost only $1,050 each.
2. It’s an easy flight from upstate NY! We left from Boston so it was little over a 4 hour flight to get there. Easy peasy. No connecting flights at all!
3. There was so much to do! I thought we may run out of things to do, but we really could have stayed twice as long. Great excursions, farms, and amazing local food and shopping.
4. You don’t need a car! It’s a really walkable city and you can get the package we bought which included all the bus transportation we needed to and from from the airport and excursions.
5. Reykjavik is definitely a place to go if you’re a foodie. They have so many amazing restaurants and food you probably have never tried before.
I get no credit for planning the trip. Tara did all the leg work, and I’m SO thankful for that! My friend, Aubrey, had already been to Iceland so she gave me some great tips, too!
We stayed at the Alda Hotel in Reykjavik and we LOVED it! The rooms were adorable, super clean, and the breakfast was DELICIOUS. We also really loved the location of this hotel. It’s close to so many things, but in the quieter section of the city. We could walk to a coffee shop, dinner spot, shopping, bus stops, and ocean in minutes. I’d stay here again for sure!
Restaurants
We started the trip with a walking food tour!
I always love starting any trip with a food walking tour because the guide usually has good tips for other things to do while we are there, and we learn about the restaurants we may want to go back to during our stay.
We loved every minute!!! You can book the same tour here. These are some of the stops we made on that tour:
My favorite food experience was going to the Dill which is a Michelin Star restaurant. We had an 8 course meal with drink pairings, and it was not just a meal; it was an almost 3 hour dinner experience.
The menu changes out seasonally, and you have to get reservations well in advanced. We tried, but it was completely booked so we went on the waiting list. The first night we were there, we stopped even though we didn’t get called, and they had someone no show for their reservation so we were able to get a table. We were so excited and shocked! We were also completely underdressed and wet from walking all day in the rain. Thankful, they didn’t mind one bit. :)
If you stay at the Alda hotel, be sure to make time to stop by Braud & Co for fresh cinnamon rolls and stop by the coffee shop just past it on the same side of the road for the best cappuccino and hot chocolate we tried in Reykjavik!
I tried so many different foods for the first time on this trip, from puffin to whale and almost everything in between. Reykjavik is definitely a place to go if you’re a foodie.
Shopping
The whole street by the Alda Hotel was full of cute shops, but you should also go to Rainbow Street in downtown (actually named Skolavordustigur street), it had some of our favorite shops.
They were having a celebration for the 3rd birthday of opening their storefront the day we stopped by. They let us in even though they were closed, and we were able to meet Inga, the artist who owns the business and makes all the pottery, and her son. Such a cool memory! I bought one of these cups.
This was a hidden gem, and my favorite spot. It’s in the 3rd oldest building in Reykjavik and you can make your own perfume, buy tea or candles, and incense, etc. It’s a family run business and the guy who talked to us was so kind.
There’s a shop in Harpa with locally sourced items and we really enjoyed walking through it as we waiting for our Food Walking Tour to start. The architecture of this building is also phenomenal. Walk around and check it out while you’re there.
We booked this bus trip to the golden circle! It was a 9 hour day, but we loved that we didn’t have to rent a car, could take cat naps between stops, and see so much all in one day. We saw geysers, waterfalls, farms, and the beautiful countryside.
Thingvellir National Park & Oxararfoss
Geysir
Fridheimar This tomato farm is greenhouses full of hydroponically grown tomatoes. They make over 2,000 pounds of tomatoes a day which is 40% of the tomatoes sold in Iceland daily. The also have a restaurant with chairs and tables in the greenhouses where the tomatoes are growing. The experience and process was fascinating to me!
Our favorite part of the trip was the excursion to the Blue Lagoon! I’ve never experiences anything like it. I felt like I was on another planet. The water is bright blue and you can’t see your hand once you put it in the water. The blue, hot water meets up with lava rock all around you. Some of the lava rock has moss growing on it, too. The bright blue water against the dark lava with pops of green was stunning. The temperature of the water is always between 94-105 degrees so even when the outside is freezing cold, it’s warm as can be! We floated around, put on a face mask, enjoyed a drink, and completely relaxed. So good for the soul!
We also checked out the Hallgrímskirkja church which is stunning as well.
Random Tips
The local shops are open short hours (most are between 11-6) so if you have day trips to go on that are only a couple of hours, try to plan those before or after the time the shops are open on a couple of days.
It’s pricey to buy anything, and a little complicated to figure out the conversion rate so use this website to calculate it.
It doesn’t seem like cars yield to walking pedestrians so wait for the traffic to stop before crossing.
On the street, we felt like we kept bumping into people. It seems like no one is really sensitive moving to the side on the narrow streets which took getting use to.
Don’t wear your glasses in the Blue Lagoon; it can damage the lenses. Also, remember to pack a brush and makeup to the spa if you’re going out from there for the rest of the day. I didn’t think about that and went makeup and hair brush free the rest of the day.
Fine dining is a better price than normal restaurants. The price for a normal dinner can be $40-$60 (just for the entree) and a soft drink ($7) or beer ($17) which is much higher than here in NY, but the high end multiple course meals run around $100 which around here would be between $200-400. So we ended up getting breakfast at the hotel (free) and then enjoying 1 full, high end mail at night. It gave us the full experience of trying all the unique food and it was more than enough. I didn’t feel hungry at all!
Tara and I had such a fun time together! We felt like we had a good mix of amazing food, local shopping, beautiful natural wonders, and time to rest. Reykjavik runs on a slower pace.
If you end up visiting Iceland and find other spots you like, drop the in the comments for other readers to see and enjoy!
There is a box at the top right of this page to enter your email address to receive notifications by email when I post something new on this blog. Please sign up today!
Happy FunCycling Friends, Sarah ;)
If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest travel tips, interior design trends, and kitchen and furniture repurposing projects.
Send us a note with if you’re interested in our design services or custom furniture using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our furniture for sale page.
I hope you’re having a great start to your week! We had a nice weekend, and the highlight of the weekend was going to HVCC’s garden show. I picked up these beautiful plants in pots for my porch.
For this week’s makeover, I wanted to share a dresser that went from just ok to a total show stopper. Here’s the dresser before:
The key to getting the look I’m about to show you is by knowing what stains to use to create an ombre stained finished. It’s a little easier to show by photos than by writing it out. So here you go!
The box on this piece is painted with Valpar’s Lincoln Cottage Black.
This dresser is up for sale; be sure to visit our SHOP page to see if it’s still available for purchase. Or contact us to get a quote to let us redo your furniture for you!
Thank you all for following along! If you’d like to get this blog in your email once a week, please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please like FunCycled on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest if you don’t already. Keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We share fun tutorials, great before and after, and new design inspirations.
We offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and repurposed furniture. Thank you, again, for working with us and for taking the time to spread the word about what we do.
