Meet Foxy Boxy ||2016 Flip List Item No.7||

Good Friday to you and have a Happy Easter!  We are absorbing as much of this spring weather as our pores can handle over here.  Anyone else as desperate as me to get out of winter?!?!  Prayers have been answered people!  That is until Virginia weather changes it's mind again...

Ok, so when I scored the "Big Teak Whale" back in November, I also brought home his DUFF (designated ugly fat friend).  I've nicknamed her Boxy.

While sussing out some white and silver possibilities for a client, I rendered a couple mock-ups of flips:

So when the client decided they needed something bigger for their space, I took the opportunity to cross the first item off my 2016 Furniture Flip List: unconventional hardware!

Secretly, when I set my flippin' goals for 2016, I was already tinkering with the idea of house numbers as drawer pulls.  The trick was figuring out how to float mount them onto a drawer instead of the face of a house.  Luckily, the modern numbers I picked up from Home Depot had handy templates to use for easy drilling and could be retro fitted with a cabinet screw and a nut.

I would've started on this piece a lot earlier in the year but I just couldn't bring myself to pick a paint color!  You all know I usually lean towards the bright and bold, but my client requested renderings in a crisp modern white.  The more I worked on the concepts, the more I realized I loved this "tamer" look.  Plus I already had a can of our favorite durable/ glossy Glidden Door & Trim paint on hand, so I thought in the spirit of using what you have - go for it!

Something about letters or numbers makes me think nursery so I styled foxy Boxy a little sweeter with some salvaged blooms, sparse accessories, and an abstract watercolor piece in a simple white frame.

It's fun little water color & wax resist take on Monet's water lilies (who says you have to be in Kindergarten to play with crayons).

Also can any of you plant-friendly readers out there help me identify the blooms I used in my shoot?  The buds look like little pink droplets!

We are thinking of you all fondly this Easter and hope you find time amidst all that candy and plastic egg shells to reflect on the depth of God's sacrifice and be with your family.  

(But anyone else hoping a reese's egg will make it's way into their Easter basket?  No shame *licks lips*)

Mod Numbered Dresser (now goes by Foxy Boxy)
50"W x 18"D x 32"H
$425 SOLD

If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, please email me at cate@stylemutthome.com.

Alternative Bedside Ideas

Hi All! Last week our sweet friend, Iris, (Around the Watts House), alerted Cate and me of a fun opportunity to submit some refinished work to HGTV and we couldn't wait to spread the word to you! (Thanks for lookin' out, Iris!!!) The call is for all madeover bedside tables and nightstands - they're asking peeps on Twitter and Instagram to tag their new and improved bedside pieces with #HGTVmakeover for a chance to be shared in one of HGTV's upcoming blog posts! How fun! You have until this Friday, 2/20 to tag your work if you've got something to share!

I think our girl, Cate, has a pretty good chance with these beauties, yes?!

Interesting fact: My home has not a single bedside table! I actually never thought about it until Iris shared this HGTV contest for bedside tables with us! Here's why we've skipped traditional nighstands: The boys need about as little furniture as possible in their room. We've got their beds, a bookshelf and that's it. The rest of the space is spared for wrestling. And by keeping their decor simple, I'm pretty confident we've spared ourselves some emergency room visits. :)

Our girl Shire's bed is snug inside a little nook in her room. It's a cozy spot that fits her twin bed, but with only a few inches on either side there's simply no room for a table. So we placed a shelf above her bed! This acts as both surface space for her water bottle at night, a spot for her beloved knick-knacks, (she's a true bowerbird), and topped with a piece of art, it's also her 'headboard'.

And then there's our master bedroom. A couple weeks ago I shared our bedroom after stenciling the accent wall behind the bed, but I didn't talk about any other details in our room. If you caught that stenciled wall post, you might recall me saying the bed is an antique family heirloom which has been passed through my family over several generations. With my bohemian driven style, I just couldn't see anything holding it's own right next to that headboard. So, I decided to do something minimalistic and just float a pair of shelves! 

We used basic white laminate board shelves from Lowes, but topped them with a piece of stained particle board cut to the exact same size for a customized two-tone look, (which we echoed on our floating wall shelves as well).

These shelves meet our surface needs and we never feel like we need more storage. I love how using something simple at either side lets the bed shine!

I'm not sure if our bedside solutions meets the criteria for the #HGTVmakeover contest, but I thought them worthy of sharing for anyone else who might be stumped on bedside surface space! 

Thank you all for stopping by!

Don't forget to tag your refinished bedside tables and nightstands with #HGTVmakeover on Twitter and Instagram! We'd love to hear if any of our friends get featured, so keep us posted!

Pallet Platform Bed {Tutorial}

Hi guys! Stopping in today to share an oldie but a goodie. It's a tutorial I shared on Chelsea's Garage a couple of years ago but now that we've fully transitioned into StyleMutt, there are a few tutorials I want to clean up a bit and share again - starting with this Pallet Platform bed!

Matt and I built this for Shire when we moved the boys in together and gave her her own room. It was for no particular reason - just pure fun. :) It's hard to pass up any opportunity to build something for your kids, (that doesn't come with impossible IKEA instructions)!

So here we go: This is what we started with: A scrap pallet from Home Depot that they gave us through the kindness of their hearts, (just ask, and remember to smile), 2 2x4s, 2 1x3s, and 4 medium sized caster wheels with locks, (not pictured). 

Then we built this:

The 'X' frame with the 1x3s was first. Matt used the shaved off ends of the 1x3s as needed as support 'blocks' so the pieces would all lay flush, (see below):

Top view:

Then it was time to sand and stain. I used 120 and 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out all the blistery edges and round them out. After cleaning the sawdust off, I stained using Sherwin Williams Golden Oak.

Love the rich, warm tone of this stain. It's a favorite, for sure!

Then we secured casters to the bottom four corners.

And that's that!

If you've got any pallet projects you've tackled please share by posting them to our Facebook wall, or tagging #stylemuttprojects on Instagram! We love seeing all your ideas and handiwork!

Thank you all for stopping by!