Ireland Adventure

    Hey there.. Happy St. Patty's Day.

   Today I will be sharing the week the Callaghan's arrived in Ireland. One of our bucket list dreams was to visit Ireland. We wanted to see the lush green scenery and breathe in the fresh air, taste the scones and dance the irish jig while sipping on some whiskey. When we finally arrived in Ireland we couldn't believe just how beautiful it is. Films nor pictures can do it justice. Not only is the scenery beautiful, but the people are just as wonderful. Have you seen the movie P.S. I love you? If you haven't, you must and keep a box of tissues next to you because it is a tear jerker. Well imagine the beauty of Ireland in that movie x100 for those of you who have seen it. 

   While in Ireland we did what the Irish do. We went to the Guinness and Jameson Distillery. We walked to the edge of the Cliffs of Moher. Danced in the rain in the Corcomroe Abbey while listening to wild bulls from afar. (Which Danny and I crossed our fingers they would stay far far away because the noises were quite terrifying.)  Bar hopped at Temple Bar.  We went on a haunted tour which included Kilmainham Gaol, which is the most beautiful prison I have ever seen. I mean its the only prison we have ever seen really. One day while strolling to catch lunch, we even got to see Formula 1 racing in the streets of Dublin. Ireland is one of the best Adventures us Callaghan's have ever embarked on. It was filled with beauty, lots of walking, lots of dancing, breath-taking architecture, and the food was delicious.  It is one of the places we can see ourselves returning to.

Kilmainham Gaol 

                                                         One of the cell rooms

                             

Just a random Irish man who I thought was just the cutest. 

                                         

                                                             Corcomroe Abbey

             The Jameson Distillery, it is the industrial decor lovers dream.

                                                                Dancing with the locals.

Cliffs of Moher

Callaghan Sign

                                                   The beautiful scenery

Inside the Guinness Distillery

St Patrick's Cathedral

If Ireland is one of the places on your bucket list, we promise you won't be disappointed.  It's the dream location for an adventure lover. If you have gone to Ireland, tell us your favorite part. What are some of your Bucket List Places? 

The Callaghan's next adventure is Costa Rica summer of 2014. 

Furniture Makeover Part II

Hello there... Happy Friday. In my last post I mentioned my love for thrifting so today will be a continuation of this love. I mean really, who doesn't love finding great old pieces in great condition for great prices?  Furniture just isn't as great as it use to be. How many of your grandparents still have the same furniture from the 60s and I bet that furniture is still in prestige condition! Well when I was younger, my grandparents had this great rocking chair. I just loved that chair. My grandma would rock us to sleep or tell us stories from her childhood. I knew that when I had a place of my own, I would be getting a rocking chair. Not just any rocking chair, a vintage one. One I would have for years that I would sit with my kids and tell them stories about my childhood. Since we bought the house, I have been in search for my perfect rocking chair. Searching antique stores and thrift stores. One day, while searching craigslist, I came across an estate sale in our neighborhood and low and behold the most beautiful rocking chair was listed.

How adorable is that chair. After doing some research, I learned that this particular rocking chair is called a Sweet Heart Rocking Chair. Online they are listed for 500 buckaroos and we snagged ours for $60. What a steal. After some cleaning and polishing I decided I wanted to stain the rocking chair. We first sanded the whole chair to get the old gloss off of it to make sure the stain would soak into the wood. After the sanding I began to stain.  We went with a Red Mahogany Minwax stain. 

Here is the contrast of the stain versus the original color

After painting the whole chair I let the paint dry for two days. 

Here is our finished product. 

The stain brought the wood back to life. It was dull before,  now it has a great shine to it and complements the rest of our living room furniture. I hope you all enjoyed this DIY project.

Any of you have pieces of furniture you have stained? Any great finds to share? 

Furniture Makeover

Hello there... today I will share my secret on how to makeover furniture with some simple paint. There is nothing I love more than going to estate sales and thrift stores to find some cool furniture for decent prices. One day we decided to stroll at our local thrift store and couldn't believe how cheap the furniture was. Jaw Dropping cheap! That was when my addiction started. If our car was bigger, I would have left with all the furniture. Unfortunately, we could only fit a dresser which was $9.99 and a desk priced $12.99.

The desk

 The dresser drawers

We forgot to take a picture of the whole dresser before, but the drawers above belonged to the dresser. That floral design was all over the dresser. It's not my style at all. We went to our local home depot and started looking at some potential colors. This is what we left with. 

We first cleaned all the furniture with some clorox wipes. (We didn't sand any of the furniture before painting) After cleaning everything, we slapped on some Rust-oleum primer in a flat gray. When painting furniture a dark color, always go with a grey primer rather than white. After painting the desk, we realized we really loved the grey primer color and decided we would leave it grey rather than all black. We painted the top of the desk with the flat black chalk paint and gold dipped the bottom. 

After finishing the desk, we moved on to the dresser. We wanted a dark espresso finish for our bedroom since our other pieces of furniture are dark espresso. When using Rust-oleum in espresso, beware the color will appear purple when first opening the can. When it dries, it will become a dark espresso. We had to paint 2 coats for all the furniture. 

As you can tell some the pieces are missing knobs. In our bedroom, we changed all the knobs so that our furniture would have something in common. 

We went to ikea and got these cool glass looking knobs. 

I hope you guys enjoyed our furniture makeover. Next time you are strolling in your local thrift store, don't pass up that eye-sore furniture, just paint it and make it your own.