Last night was DIY night in the Fagan household. A few years ago, I bought an old wooden cart from a garage sale and spray painted it yellow because, at that time in my life, I wanted everything in my house to be yellow.
Well, fast forward a few years and I still love my little wooden cart, but I wanted to change the color to make it slightly less intense. I’m using the cart in my home office as a stand for my printer and since the color scheme in my office is more of a gray/sea foam green with subtle pops of yellow, I wanted to change the color to a light minty green/blue color.
I learned a fast lesson last night: Bright paint colors look even brighter when they’re applied to a larger surface. After fully coating my cart in what ended up looking like a bright aqua color, I bought it into my office and just laughed. Major fail.
(The wheels look kind of funky because I covered them in duct tape to keep the spray paint away.)
After the aqua cart debacle, we headed off to Lowe’s again (with Sadie — still psyched they allow dogs!) to pick up a new can of spray paint to redo my DIY mistake. For round two, I used Valspar Color Radiance in Flat La Fonda Mirage. (What a name for a paint color, huh?)
As a side note, I highly recommend Valspar Color Radiance spray paint. A friendly woman working in the paint department at Lowe’s recommended it to me because it doesn’t require a primer or anything and I simply sprayed it right on top of the previous paint. It worked like a charm! It was less than five dollars and I only needed one can to coat the entire cart.
My home office is now nearly done!!! I cannot wait to show you guys! My main issue at the moment is figuring out what to hang above my desk. I was thinking of doing some sort of gallery wall with lots of random pictures and artwork (including my beloved pig painting!), but I worry that it will look too jumbled since I have a lot going on in my office already.
Some inspiration photos:
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We shall see! I’m hoping to wrap everything up over the weekend and share it with you guys next week.
After all of the DIY madness, I was pretty darn grateful we had a simple crock pot meal to enjoy for dinner.
Hooray for chicken soup… Although I think I would’ve enjoyed this hot soup a little more if it wasn’t 80 degrees outside. What happened to the chilly fall weather, Charlotte!?
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Looks great! I’m so not a DIY person – like at all!
I am intimidated by a lot of DIY projects, but spray paint I can handle. Ha! It’s a hard one to mess up!
Do you have the recipe for that crock pot chicken soup?
I just sort of threw things into the crock pot and let them cook on low for 8 hours and was happy it worked. I used a base of reduced sodium veggie broth and added chicken, a chopped onion, chopped carrots, garlic salt, lots of pepper and poultry seasoning. Then, about an hour before we were ready to eat, I added a pack of frozen veggies to up the veggie content! We liked it a lot and it’s an easy one to play around with to cater to your own preferences.
Bag of frozen veggies! Good call! I should incorporate those more, especially since they are cheap!
DIY fever girl! You are inpsiring me to go paint something! 🙂 Have a great Thursday!
I can’t wait to see your office! I’m loving the gallery walls too, but I’m in a rental for only a year. Its hard for me to make rentals feel like home (especially when its a new rental every 12 months). 🙁
Glad you got the color right! It can be so hard to tell on the tiny spray can.
Dogs at Lowe’s? Cool!
I love photo walls like that. I think having the frames and matting all the same in an understated color like white makes it a lot less closeted and busy. Can’t wait to see the finished project!
haha that bright aqua looks awesome but I can see how it might be a liiiiiittle bright 🙂 can’t wait to see your finished office!!
I like it! And I give you major credit for trying DIY Round 2. After 1 fail I usually throw in the towel.
Love the way the cart turned out! I’m about it makeover some nightstands I recently purchased from this awesome app called offer up! Did you have to sand the cart before you used the spray paint? I’m hoping to skip that step!
I changed our color scheme pretty dramatically when we moved so I have spray painted and painted a LOT of random things to coordinate with our new colors. Haha. It’s awesome though because then I don’t feel like I’m wasting anything, and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to buy a can of spray paint! Your cart looks great – I love it!
The cart turned out fantastic!! I love the idea of a gallery wall – I’ve always wanted to do one and I think in an office it’s perfect. I like the idea of white frames too because they are simple enough that if you ever change up the color scheme, they easily transition and let the art speak for itself instead of the frame. 🙂 I like that there is some art, inspiration quotes, misc stuff!!
Can’t wait to see completed pictures!
I love that first inspiration picture! I think your pig painting would fit in nicely. I’m the worst when it comes to crafty stuff. You’d think being in a sorority would’ve taught me, but no. Thank goodness for spray paint I guess!
I love that it was so easy to fix your first fail, haha. Spray paint is the easiest DIY makeover. I swear color changes everything. Love the aqua color, but not on a big cart such as that. I learned very quickly when painting our house that colors are way more vivid and less subtle in large areas.
I am LOVING your large fall tree print and saying. Where is it from?
I was looking for a good spray paint! How long did it take to dry?
Only 40 minutes!! I was impressed!
Love the new color you picked! I actually have a desk that’s the EXACT same shade of yellow that I’ve been wanting to paint. This might have given me the inspiration to do so!
If it requires a hot glue gun and paint…I can handle it. If it requires more, not so much!! 🙂 Cute insipiration photos. The colors seem like the perfect clean and relaxing office!!
I love how you guys do a lot of DIY stuff! Good choice on the color and soup… it’s still too hot in LA to have soup!
Have you ever looked at the DIY Playbook? Those ladies are awesome! One of them just recently did a gallery wall in their office and even have some free printables!
You can see the reveal here: http://thediyplaybook.com/2014/07/office-desk-gallery-wall-reveal.html
and the free printables here: http://thediyplaybook.com/2014/07/gallery-wall-freebies.html
This is so great!!!! Thank you for sharing!!
I love that they allow dogs in Lowes too! We’ve moved several times in the last few years and it’s always nice to be able to take her on our “home improvement” runs.
I absolutely love photo walls. We have one all the way up our staircase with all the important moments we’ve had in our lives so far. It makes me smile every time I walk up the stairs. 🙂
Love the idea of a photo wall up the staircase!
That looks so good! I try to be a DYI’er but it not always works out so pretty.
I love the final color of the cart! It looks great!
Looks so cute! Thanks for the tip on the great spray paint, one day I will so something fun like that….one day. haha. (so not a DIY person!)
I love that color! It’s very calming, in a strange way haha!
The only DIY projects I do involve baking. I’ve tried some home projects in the past, and I always fail miserably lol – I’m pretty much the poster child for the “Expectation/Reality” memes on Pinterest…
I made the EXACT same mistake…. except painted my entire bedroom that bright teal color!! Even worse on the walls… Think I could use that spray paint inside on my walls? 😉
Love it! The number one project on my mind when we finally buy a home is a cute home office! I’m sure yours is adorable! 🙂
Your inspiration photos are gorgeous! Love those spaces!
I just might have to pull out my crock pot after seeing that photo!! YUM
That soup made me hungry! Might have to try and recreate it for dinner tomorrow. Also, I would die to have an office that looked like that! So clean + inspiring!
That soup looks amazing! You can travel a little further north and find plenty of cooler weather…and beautiful leaves!
BAHAHAHA. Glad you were able to tone it down and fix it 🙂 I made a huge gallery wall above our bed, ummmm 3 months ago. Still haven’t ordered all the prints I want to use off Etsy yet! AH!
I feel like the ceockpot was one of the greatest inventions ever made! It can easily make breakfast, lunch or dinner and is hands off. That’s the best part-especially when you are busy unpacking or doing DIY projects
I’m not much of DIY gal myself, but good job! I always WANT to do that stuff, and then never get around to it, or it doesn’t turn out quite as I’d imagined haha.
p.s. Do you have a recipe for the crockpot soup? I may have missed it if you posted it recently, but it looks yummy!
Wow, good for you doing that DIY project on your own! I don’t know why I’m so intimidated by projects like that. Today I’m going to the hardware store to buy new handles for my dresser–that’s about as crazy as I get! Can’t wait to see the office!
Your cart is adorable, and your chicken soup looks so good!!
Spray paint is the only DIY I do, lol. For our wedding I spray painted tons of bird houses and frames… which if you need frames for your portrait wall I just bought a bunch of tacky ones from garage sales and spray painted them. Easy peasy! I used all of ours from the wedding for my office as well.
I love it! It looks so cute and blends in with your office. You should totally give us a picture tour of your house, I am loving the color scheme and it looks like it’s uber cute!
Seriously love one coat with a spray can! Easy peasy! Also loving that gallery wall idea, I may need to do the same 🙂
That is such a cute little cart and I cannot wait to see the finished product that your office becomes!
I was always afraid of DIY projects, but took a leap this fall and updated a dresser to serve as a TV stand in my living room. I have officially become a DIYer and love paint products ou don’t have to prime.
Side note: I have a gallery wall in my home office and I love it.