Spring Cleaning

Spring is in the air, and although the warmer air makes me giddy, the dark, heavy colors and textiles in my house do not! As part of my spring cleaning, I like to re-decorate the house and incorporate lighter neutral colors to my pallet.

One area of my house that needed some serious sprucing and brightening up, is the back part of my living room. During the winter, with all of the incoming traffic from the backdoor (and with the lack of closet space in our 1940's house), it was necessary for us to make this area more like a mud room. As you can see below, we hung coat racks for heavy winter jackets and allotted much space for our winter boots and snow suits.

More coat racks on the wall running perpendicular:

My goal was this: to create a light, airy space that is welcoming and still practical. With this in mind, I got right to work; looking around my house for pieces of furniture that I could use in this space and searching through the latest Pottery Barn catalogs and various decorating blogs for ideas.

During the hunt, I found this old, damaged but sturdy butcher block table in my garage doing nothing but collecting dust.

Here's a closer look:

I wanted to stain this table at first, but after a talk with my husband, I realized that staining a butcher block table was not a very smart idea. Staining it would hinder me from being able to use it for its' main purpose someday. Instead, we decided to sand it, coffee stain it (a more natural process) and grease it up.

 Here are the step-by-step pics:

Table after being sanded:

A closer look:

After wiping the table clean, here it is being stained by black coffee:

 An application of Butcher Block Oil was the last step:

A close shot of the finished product:

With the table all done, it was time to do the fun part. Shopping and decorating!

Once again, here is the before shot:

After:

Perpendicular wall:

Picture frames- Christmas Tree Shop $3.99 each (they look just like the ones from The Organic Bloom)

 Lamp- Homegoods $29.99

 I love to collect white sea glass and stones, now I have a to display it:

 These baskets hide shoes, jackets, and other winter attire- Christmas Tree Shop $14.99-$25

I love how this space is now practical but still pretty. I was always ashamed of this area and now it's one of my favorite places of the house...all thanks to good ol' Spring cleaning!



Ashley