Locker Makeover..Office Part 2

With my office I wanted a vintage, distressed look and knew lockers would be a perfect statement piece. Well, once I finally decided to start working, finding lockers was not an easy feat. My brother-in-law found a set at the local surplus store for a pretty good price. They were not what I had envisioned in my mind, but I was willing to go with it.

This is the locker....after it had been cleaned up a bit. It was actually in pretty good shape. I was not crazy about the cut out diamonds and it was missing the traditional locker tags. But, I wasn't going to be too picky.

I knew it was too big for my office. Something that tall in a small space would not look quite right, so we decided to cut it in half and use just half of it. So, after removing some doors, we cut it in half (meaning--Steve cut it in half). We really wanted to have two separate pieces, so we tried to be really precise in the cutting.

We opted to leave the legs on the bottom so it was raised. We had to add another leg because one was missing. Because we cut it in half, the top was now missing. To tie in with the rest of the office, we decided to put a stained wood block on the top. So the picture below shows the rough wood on top. I actually quite loved the original color of the locker before it was sanded down.

 Once it was sanded down, it was time to paint, but first we had to tape it off because we left the inside unpainted to provide a contrast as well as to maintain its authenticity.

After several coats of pain and the top stained, distressed, and attached...this is the final product.

I absolutely love how it turned out. And those diamonds I didn't love to start with give it a lot of character. It has a lot of storage...I'm still on the quest to find the perfect baskets to put inside each cubby. 

Office Projects... Part 1

Transitioning out of the classroom and into a office has been difficult this school year. I knew I wanted my office to be decorated just as cute as my classroom, but bright colors were not really appropriate for this setting. I also had a major problem....a very large burgundy/red wall. Now, a little background on me...i HaTe red!! Like, really hate red. I was told it would not be possible to have the red wall painted because the school district painter was already booked for the summer. I was not happy...and I dreaded my office because of it. I did not want to buy anything that would match red. So I put it off. And believe me, I let everyone know of my extreme dislike of this red wall :) Finally, I couldn't put it off any longer, and hauled all my stuff over. When I walked in, the secretary was grinning from ear to ear...."Let's go see your office!" The painter was able to squeeze my office into the schedule and I now have all cream walls. I was ecstatic...and was now ready to begin decorating.

Here are before pictures of the office---very BLAH---but beautiful neutral walls!

I wanted a large chalkboard, so that was my first project. First, we made a frame out of some wood that was laying around. The frame was made to fit a piece of wood that I had already made into a chalkboard.

 I was looking for a distressed, industrial look, so I need to "beat up" the frame. I grabbed some tools for distressing...screwdriver, hammer, screws. I roughed it up with the hammer and a screwdriver. Then I put a bunch of screws in a Ziplock bag and smacked the frame with the entire bag. I won't lie---I had a blast doing this. It made the perfect gouges and marks to make it look old.

 Then I stained it with a dark walnut color, which made all those marks show up even more.

I was in love with the finished project. So easy to complete, but it looks authentic.