Sometimes I am so envious of your DIY skills!  I want to call you up and say, if you have some free time – get over here and teach me! Or do it for me.  That works too!  So, when I see an awesome DIY idea, great money saving project and amazing talent – I get excited!  Creative Decor by Brooke has something to show off today.  Brooke and her husband designed and built it from scratch!  See this pretty armoire?  Great place to hide a tv, right?

No! It is a Murphy bed!  Yes – look at it!  Who’d know?  There is no tutorial.  Sometimes that’s hard to do when you’re DIY’ing on the fly.  (Like that term?)  Sometimes there are unnecessary steps, mistakes and redos and just way too much complicated instructions to share.  I completely understand Brooke!  She does share that when purchasing the mechanism for the Murphy bed, it came with instructions on making it and the materials needed and she shares some helpful pictures.

When the bed is up in the cabinet, the front is supposed to look like an armoire. You can have cabinet doors made but that is expensive so she decided to make fake doors and drawers with just some trim and fake drawer fronts. She gave it two coats of black paint, added some knobs and pulls…

The mattress is on order but with that kind of hard work, it deserves a feature now!  They saved $1000 by building this themselves!  Woo hoo!  Isn’t it a great idea for a home office that also serves as a guest bedroom?  I.love.it!  

Great job Brooke and hubster!  I am in awe of your DIY skills and the final result.  You two rock!  Now…about the guest reservations…

I have dressers on the brain.  Ididn’t paint my youngest daughter’s French Provencial furniture but Sarah from Room to Think has me re-thinking my decision.  For real.  Paint something pretty and it’ll be gorgeous!  And she was kind enough to thank me for the inspiring project featured on my blog.  Thank you Sarah for inspiring me to look at paint colors.  🙂

Love the color!  It’s called “Pooh’s Favorite Things” by Behr.  It’s one of my favorite things too.  I love a light aqua blue (Tiffany’s!) paired with pink for a little girl nursery.

This DIY’er is brilliant! OKAY, so I’m a little biased.  My love of DIY is genetic.  My daughter, Bri, inherited my passion for DIY and seeing the potential in old things. She picked up these dressers and nightstands at an estate sale.  Cheap!  She’s addicted to Craig’s List and loves thrifty treasures more than brand new and trendy.  She loves fun mid century modern style with a colorful twist.  Here is the furniture before:

After a lot of  sanding (I should mention here that her boyfriend Steve had a huge part in the muscles behind the project), some primer and paint, she used a Mitchell’s Abrasive Sanding Cord from Rockler to sand the grooves after painting (great for hard to reach places).  It’s like floss for wood. 

Before sanding:

After using the sanding cord:

She kept the original hardware because it was cool…

Don’t they look great?! (cue applause)  Isn’t it miraculous that the same furniture can go from “yikes!” to “wow!” with just paint?  Bri has always been creative and although her style is different from mine, she makes everything look amazing.  Wonder where she gets that talent?  wink wink Thanks honey for sharing your beautiful transformation.  I love the new color.  It’s looking beautiful with the shades of gray and other things you have planned for the room!  I look forward to seeing more!  So get busy Brianna Evangeline!  (She’ll listen since I used her full name using my strict mom tone asked nicely.) 

Please welcome Bri to DIY.  I know she reads my blog (and yours when I see something I know she’d love, amazing DIY talent or a story I have to share) and she’s inspired by your creativity.  Hopefully we’ll be seeing more from her in the near future because I know she scours Craig’s List every day.  I know she has more creative design ideas up her sleeve and truthfully, I just want to see her more.