The Fifty Dollar Project

I keep meaning to tell you about the Fifty Dollar Project ($50P), and there never seems to be a good time. So. I’m going to tell you about it now.

(And the award for Worst Intro Paragraph Ever goes to…)

The Horse Whisperer and I have a really enormous flat. Like, we could have four kids and probably still live comfortably in our current place. It has taken me a while to ‘fess up this fact, because there is a big part of me that feels insanely guilty for scoring such an awesome living space. (Actually, this is probably why I have not written about the $50P before now.) What we don’t have, however, is a lot of furniture from our previous living spaces, nor do we have the discretionary income necessary to walk into a furniture store and procure items en masse.

Enter Craigslist. Craigslist was founded in San Francisco, and you can find anything by searching through its pages. We’re also finding items at yard sales, on street corners (seriously), and at thrift stores. The catch is this: no item can cost more than $50. If the item needs to be refurbished, the costs of the project can exceed the $50 limit, depending upon the value of the completed item. For example, the chair I recently finished was initially a $15 expense. I spent $36 on cushions, $5 on fabric, and $10 on other supplies. Had we gotten an arm chair at IKEA, we still would have spent around $150, so the value of the project was worth it to us.

So far, we have found/purchased/made a coffee table ($50), a beautiful 8×10 wool rug ($40), a side table ($40), the chair, a day bed (free, but needing major work), a bench ($60… we broke our own rule on this one, because I needed help carrying it to the car), and a sewing table ($40).

There are also going to be a lot of Before/After shots of my projects, so forgive me in advance if this doesn’t interest you in any way. The Horse Whisperer has taken to calling our house “Project: Abigail,” a monniker that will hopefully be retired within the next year.

The most recent project started out looking like this:

Our former roommate found this broken mirror on the street, and we inherited it when he moved out. After some intense deliberation, I decided that I’d like to turn this into a chalk board. I spent $25 on chalk board paint from Hudson Paints, $4 on a piece of MDF, and $1 on a foam brush. I carefully removed the mirror and backing, painted four coats of chalkboard paint onto the MDF, and then stapled it onto the frame. And voila:

I can’t say enough good things about the Hudson Paint chalk board paint. Are there cheaper chalk board paints out there? Yes. But this was really low-fume, and the colors are lovely. It went on like a dream, and I think it looks really beautiful in the finished product.