My Masters Outdoor Room Makeover

Sponsored By Nuffnang and Masters Home Improvement

Righto, I've been living in this 'made-over' outdoor space of mine for a week or so now, thanks to Masters Home Improvement, so I think it's time for me to share with you my new favourite living space in my home!

Here's a rather woeful 'before shot', featuring 'woeful niece'.....

... and stinky soccer boots...

 Here's the after!

Finlay and Smith 'Romeo' Chairs

Oh how I stalked that Masters website, waiting for their 'new season' outdoor furniture stock to come in, hoping that the most coveted 'Romeo' outdoors chairs weren't the last on the delivery truck for the new season! 

Late last week they finally arrived and I pounced! I ordered them online immediately, so as not to miss out, just in case hundreds of people were stalking along with me, but I arranged to pick them up from the store to save on delivery costs. I wanted to spend every last cent of my Masters vouchers on pretties.

Behold their magnificence! (Ref: FF, 2010) 

They are wrought iron, solid as and, at $135 each, a fantastic quality buy.

In deciding what I would purchase for my outdoor room makeover, I kept in mind that it all needed to be portable as we move lots! My furniture choices also had to fit into any design aesthetic I may be embracing in future digs.... Hamptons, French Provincial. Once I spied the classic lines of the Romeo chairs and saw that the included cushions were piped!, I decided that a leafy French Provincial courtyard dining area was the go...... somewhere nice I could blog from in the mornings too!

I decided on a 4 seater table setting, mainly due to the small size of the area.... but also keeping in mind that anywhere I live in future I would always be able to use a classical 4 seater setting.... in another courtyard or down amongst the fairies in a pretty garden.

I went to town with the pots. 

I needed to draw the attention away from the underwhelming fence, not highlight it with anything.

Pompeii Pot Maya Medium

I snapped up a few of these beauties, in which I potted the instant hedge plants and the lavender and herbs, all from Masters. They are fabulous pots in real life... textured and rustic.

Sicily Ancient Brown Pot

.... and I couldn't resist these either!

Del Terra Dutton Table

I picked up the table for $69! I didn't put a cloth on it in the photos so you could see it's detail. I chose it for it's price and curves and the fact that it is simple in style and doesn't take any focus off the chairs. It's solid too!.... won't blow away in our summer storms!

See the white filigree, round, clay thingy? That's a solar powered table light. It has a solar panel on the top that you leave in the sun and as soon as the sun sets, it turns itself on! You can choose to set it to either white or rainbow colours. The rainbow colours are a hit with the offspring.

Solar Filigree Table Light

I found the elegant 'half mat', near the door, at Masters too.... $10! Perfect size for a little courtyard. It hasn't made it to the website yet. More and more products are being loaded up every day as they arrive in store. 

The patterned dinner plates were $3 each from 'Earthborn' (current sale stock) and the glass dessert bowls, dinner plates and place mats are my own. They were originally from Wheel and Barrow. The napkins are from 'Thea and Sami', Thea's Marine range, hand printed here in Brisbane. The navy floral cushions are from 'Fabric Traders', who also have an online store HERE. The beige linen and paisley cushions are from Cape Cod Designs (that would be me). So is the iron side table, hurricane lantern and the floor cushions (Cape Cod Designs, moi). Flowers were from 'Stem - Flowers and Beautiful Things' in Graceville.

So there you have it, my new 'Outdoor Room'. Thank you so much Masters for giving me the opportunity and the vouchers! to make over my dull courtyard. I have an inspiring place in which to blog and a cool spot for our summer dinners!

And in breaking news, the winner of the $500 Masters Gift Voucher was chosen by Masters, from my short list of three. It is Karyn, who wrote:

Karyn is going to use her Masters voucher to finish her powder room and outdoor patio area.

Karyn finally chose the Del Terra Steel Cushioned Dining Chair Set to finish off her outdoor area. 6 for $280! HERE.

And for her bathroom, she is going to wallpaper with Vintage Art Wallpaper.... $49.97/roll....

.... gorgeous!

.... hang this beautiful mirror.... $149, HERE....

... and finish with some stylish fixtures, HERE.

Hooray for Masters. I'm totally hooked. So many quality products. They have everything you need to improve your home. Here's their website if you need to start shopping now. It's such an site easy to use.

Herbs are happy in their new sunny spot.....

.... and so am I!

Cheers! 

Makeover Monday: Black Cabinet

Happy Monday! And you know what that means, I have another makeover to share with you!

A great thing about this 31 day challenge is that it's forcing me to mark things off my list that have been on there forever. This project I'm sharing today has been waiting for it's makeover for quite sometime!

I bought this cabinet at an auction 2 years ago. I know gasp! It's been sitting in my basement for that long! I went back and forth on the color and maybe intimidated by the size. But I don't know why I was dragging my feet because it was actually quite easy to transform this weekend!

This cabinet is old. I always wanted one because my mom has one similar that she bought at an auction when I was little. I remember her removing the paint layer by layer in our garage...I think there were 7 layers if I remember right. She restored it to look like "new" old again.

So when I found this at an auction, I was lucky enough to get a good price for it. The son of the woman that owned it stopped me after I won the bid and told me how special that piece was to his family. They didn't have kitchen cupboards in the "old days" so they used this cabinet as their pantry and dishware storage. The son was in his 70's and he remembers it quite well when he was little. So it was great to get a little bit of history with the piece, it made it that more special!

So I thought maybe the cupboard would be around 75 years old. Then when I was redoing it over the weekend, I found this print under one of the drawers.

1850 T

J. Roberts

Sterling, Nebraska

Could this cabinet be from the 1850's??? I have no idea. I love finding things like this on old pieces. If my cabinet could talk, huh?!

Before I redid my cabinet, I wanted to make sure it was clean after all those years of storage and possible loose paint. So I washed all the surfaces in and out with Basic H2. It was quite dirty.

After much thought, I decided to paint my cabinet black. I love black furniture! It goes with everything and just classic. I sanded down the edges and then added MinWax Dark Walnut Stain to richin' up the piece.

I also gave the inside a fresh coat of white paint.

The cabinet has just wonderful details!

The handles before were painted brown, so I repainted with with a metal spray paint primer and then oil rubbed bronze-Both from Rustoleum.

The cabinet is in our family room in our basement. My intention is to store me and my hubby's childhood memories inside. We have several things in boxes that are just a shame to be put away. So this will be a nice space to display them. And there's lots of storage in the bottom as well!

Linking Up HERE

Thanks so much for stopping by!

ScotchBlue Painting Party and Giveaway

Welcome to the ScotchBlue™ Painting Party! A group of DIY bloggers, including myself, all completed projects with the help of ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape with Edge-Lock™ Paint Line Protector. Now we’re giving you the chance to see all of our fun projects and get some inspiration!! Check out my project tutorial below, and then jump to the next blog in the party to see even more inspirational DIY tutorials!

I'm excited to share my project with you today!

This is my husband's outdated dresser. He's had it for several years and has traveled with him from his childhood home, through the bachelor years and still 9 years into our marriage. It's a nice sturdy dresser, just ugly. :)

It's been one of those projects to tackle on my long to-do list...So when I was asked to be a part of this fun painting party I knew exactly what I was going to do. Mark this project off my list once and for all!

The one thing I wanted it add to this boring dresser is DETAIL! I could spend money and add trim to the drawers but I didn't want to invest much into this old dresser. So I thought why not add the look of trim with the use of the ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape?!!

I gave the wood a light sanding, then I painted the drawers and dresser with the base color. I wanted a 2 tone affect. So I painted the drawers an off white and the dresser, a creamy/yellow color (I mixed up white and mustard paint to get my desired color). The paint I used was from my leftover paint stash. I wanted this project to be as thrifty as possible.

After the paint was dry, it was time to figure out how I wanted my "trim" to look like. The goal was to create a rectangle on each drawer with the painters tape. I decided to work with the width of the tape because I don't like to measure. :) The tape I had was 1.5 inches wide and this would work perfect to start my "trim". I placed a piece of tape along all 4 sides of the drawer, right up the against the edge-so I didn't have to measure.

I wanted my "trim" to be 1/2 inch thick. So I did actually get my ruler out for this one and measured 1/2 inch from the edge on the painter's tape. I just used random light pencil marks, so I didn't have to worry about erasing pencil marks later. Just one less step to worry about.

I layed a piece of painter's tape on the top and the bottom of the drawer. You can see in the picture below, the 1/2 inch gap I created.

I painted the "trim" the creamy/yellow color so it could pop against the white.

I painted the "trim" 2 coats and then I pealed the 2 pieces of tape off. 

I had nice clean lines!

I allowed that paint to dry before moving on to the next step. I placed 2 pieces of tape on side ends of the drawer. This is also 1/2 inch wide.

Here you can see what I did with the tape. I painted in between the lines, 2 coats of the creamy yellow color. Then it was time to peel away all of the tape from the drawer. Here I created "trim" painting a simple rectangle on each drawer.

I also decided to create the trim look on the sides of the dresser doing the same thing I did on the drawers.

I made 2 rectangle patterns with my tape.

I painted this "trim" the off white color so it would pop against the creamy yellow base color.

After the paint was dry, I sanded down the edges and added a dark walnut stain on top to give it the aged look I love.

I also added handles. I found these fun handles at my local home improvement store for 99 cents each. But I didn't care for the silver.

So I used a metal primer and metallic durable spray paint to give them that oil rubbed bronze look I love!

Okay, are you ready for the after? If you are confused on my directions on what kind of "trim" look I was going for with the painter's tape, then hopefully the after will give you a better idea. :)

So here is our outdated dresser TODAY!

Here you can see the rectangle trim I created using the ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape. So simple to create. The hardest part was waiting for the paint to dry. :)

Here are the sides, where I created the 2 rectangles. It's amazing what paint can do to add such detail to a boring piece of furniture.

Here's a close up of those clean lines the ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape with Edge-Lock™ Paint Line Protector created.

I love the subtle contrast between the off white and creamy yellow. 

And the freshly painted oil rubbed bronze handles really pop against the soft colors.

Let me remind you what this dresser looked like before! Wow what a difference paint makes! I wanted to pitch this dresser out to the curb a long time ago but now I think it's going to be staying with us a few more years. :)

Thanks for visiting today! I hope I inspired you to create something from nothing on a budget!

Here's a list of all the blogs participating in today's party...you'll want to visit all of them to get some great inspiration!

Gail @ My Repurposed Life

Lakeitha @ Home to Three Duncan Boys

Kindra @ At Home With K *You are here!*

Courtney @ A Thoughtful Place *Continue to this blog next!*

Stephanie Lynn @ Under the Table and Dreaming

If you'd like a chance to win some ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape with Edge-Lock™ Paint Line Protector to use on your next project here's what you can do...


1. Simply leave a comment on this post telling me how you would use ScotchBlue Painter's Tape.

2. For an additional chance to win you can Tweet “@scotchbluebrand I want #supersharppaintlines for my next project!” then come back and leave a second comment.

Finally, if you'd like to find out about more of these great Painting Parties in the future you can "like" ScotchBlue on Facebook.

*****Disclosure******

ScotchBlue Brand reached out to me to participate in the ScotchBlue Painting Party to celebrate the launch of their new ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape with Edge-Lock Paint Line Protector. My post represents my honest experience with ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape. I am not being paid for my answers, but I did receive ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape to assist in completion.