Life as a LEO Wife

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Welcome friends! I’m glad you’re here today. Last week when I shared my Hobby Lobby haul I told you that I would be making some changes to the items, and here we are! Today I’ll be sharing my coastal farmhouse decor upcycle and the ways that I used a few of the pieces, a coastal farmhouse living room refresh!

It’s time for our monthly Sustainable Craft Challenge hosted by Julie of Sum of Their Stories. Each month I join other talented bloggers to bring you a new project that has a sustainable element like reusing items, using up our craft stashes, recycling, or upcycling old decor. This month our theme is “fresh.” How does my project fit in with this theme? I’m not only refreshing clearance decor pieces, but giving my living room a coastal farmhouse re”fresh!”

Coastal Farmhouse Decor Upcycle Supplies:

• decor pieces like my coastal farmhouse shadowboxes, boat tiered tray, & faux book set
• paint
• paintbrush
• screwdriver
• hot glue gun

First take the shadowboxes apart.

Remove any staples or screws. The coastal farmhouse shadowboxes that I was upcycling had a few staples that they had attached the packaging it came with to it, tiny nails, and screws holding in the hardware and the back on. I pried out the staples and then removed the screws. The nails I left alone.

Use a flat object like a screwdriver or butterknife to pry the back off of it, then remove it.

Next, paint the desired pieces.

I chose to leave the frame of these coastal farmhouse shadowboxes un-upcycled, lol. You could easily repaint or re-stain yours. The starfish and coral inside the frames were cerulean blue, which was pretty, but it didn’t match my decor. I decided to paint them coral to match my rug.

The coral was very easy to remove without ripping the linen in the shadowbox. However, the starfish was not. It began to rip the linen, so I shoved plastic under the starfish to keep the paint off of it.

Chalk paint is best if you’re going for a coastal farmhouse upcycle. I used Waverly’s coral (a peachy-salmon) on the coral and starfish.

I also upcycled a coastal farmhouse faux book set that had lots of scratches on the surface and a tiered tray shaped like a boat.

To give those a refresh, I painted the pole holding the top boat on and the top and sides of the book set.

Embellish your coastal farmhouse decor.

There are other ways to upcycle coastal farmhouse decor like adding ribbon, bows, wood beads, and vinyl.

To finish my pieces, I painted a coral anchor on the faux book set. I had completely painted over the blue one, so I kind of had to freehand it! Lucky me, it turned out ok.

I glued the twine back on the upcycled coastal farmhouse books and added blue and coral beads to the twine bow. Then I hot glued it to the center of the twine wrapped faux books.

Reassemble your frames & decor.

Finally, put everything back together! I glued my coral back where it was with hot glue.

For my frames I simply screwed the hardware back on which pretty much snapped the nails back in place as well.

I put the tiered boat tray together with the painted center pole (you’ll see that in the reveal photos since I forgot to take a picture of it alone).

That’s it! It was such an easy coastal farmhouse decor upcycle process!

I got all of those items for less than $15 and easily made them match my other coastal farmhouse decor in just a few minutes.

Now on to my coastal farmhouse decor living room refresh! I hung the two upcycled shadowboxes over my farmhouse style ladder shelf. There’s a little sliver of wall above it that needed something, so I staggered them and hung with Command strips.

I also added some coastal farmhouse decor to the shelf. Before I had my floral wood letters and some vases. They were replaced with glass vases, faux greenery in a wood planter, a monkey fist ball, starfish, and a nautical sign.

I placed the upcycled book set on my coffee table along with the boat tray and a few other coastal farmhouse decor pieces. There are some other things that I’d like to add and change, but my hubby was off, and God-love him, he deserves to relax and watch TV without me being indecisive in front of it for three hours lol!

Here’s a shot of the right half of our living space. Remember, this is a blog hop so keep reading to see the other projects on the hop!

I’ve ordered some new curtains since my little seizure ridden morkie, Bella, decided to chew up the bottom of these. The blinds are also a little bit up because she likes those too. She’s terrified of our dishwasher all of a sudden and that’s her go-to. It’s the only time she chews anything! AGH! I can’t. But anyway, here you can see a shot of the table decor and the upcycled coastal farmhouse shadowboxes.

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Sustainable Pinterest Challenge Hop

Julie – Sum of their Stories | How To Give a Denim Jacket a Fresh New Look

Mel – Decor Craft Design | DIY Lemon Raised Tray

Gail – Purple Hues and Me | DIY Lavender Bags A Fresh Alternative

T’onna – Sew Crafty Crochet | Antique Desk Makeover

Maria – Simple Nature Decor | Outdoor Porch Refresh/Table makeover

Don’t go yet! There’s more to see!

There’s plenty more to see here on the blog! If you’re looking for something specific, use the search box in the sidebar to look it up. If not, you might enjoy these ideas. Don’t have time to read them all now? That’s ok, just click over to the posts using the pictures and pin them for later. You can also add Life as a LEO Wife to your favorites and check back for new ideas and free printables and SVGs every Wednesday and Saturday, as well as link parties with tons of shared ideas on Sundays and Thursdays!