Happiest Christmas style mutts! We hope you spent the day snuggled with family (or framily: friends-who-are-basically-family) and made some special memories. Be it the gifts or the gathering that made your day great, Chelsea and I sincerely wish the best to you and yours.

Well, if you're anything like my tinsel-happy husband, you may be experiencing some PTCD today: post-traumatic Christmas disorder. Am I right? 364 days of build-up can certainly leave you a little lack-luster on Dec 26 ;) But fear not my friends! There is still one more celebration just around the corner: New Year's Eve!

Who's ready to host and end-of-the-year bash? [insert eager hand-raising emoji right here]. Except I do have a teensy-weensy problem. About 800sq. ft. teensy-weensy to be exact. Other than the occasional family pop-by, Caleb and I have not hosted much of anyone in our small (but adorable) apartment. As with our last place, floor space is prime real estate when you're renting so having a dedicated space to mixology isn't always a priority.

This time last year, I introduced many of you to our small space solution pop-up bar. So this year I'm actually putting one in the shop for any of my fellow apartment-dwelling, space slim DC area peeps.

This one is made from a vintage suitcase in impeccable condition. Which I purchased at Sweet Clover Barn last spring while treasure hunting with Chelsea. It's a gorgeous camel leather with a glossy sheen and brass accents.

The suitcase even comes with a key if you ever need to lock it up your liquor from Uncle Henry or your boosy cat (hey - I'm not judging, I just don't know what kind of parties you throw...).

The bar also comes with a natural wood base and a vintage tri-fold vanity mirror. Both can be easily folded up if the bar needs to be stowed away - and the folded mirror even fits in the suitcase lid compartment.

Whatever your NYE will bring (be it throwing parties or just throwing back drinks) we hope you'll be safe while you're celebrating!

Mirrored Suitcase Bar
Now Available for Sale
Dimensions (open): 21"W x 15" D x 33"H
Dimensions (closed): 21"W x 15"D x 46"H
Price: $145

If you are interested in this piece or a custom order like it, please contact cate@stylemutthome.com.

Woot! Can you believe we have the new site ready for use so quickly? I can't! At our strategic meeting last month, we put together a temporary timeline for this beast of a website and predicted we wouldn't really have things operational until closer to the holidays. God has been so good to us in the process: working out kinks, giving us fresh ideas, keeping us excited even after HOURS of staring at the comp screen making ridiculously teedious edits. But hey, God created the world in 6 days right? Guess He decided to help us make a new website in 20. Thanks Big G ;)

So let's get the StyleMutt party started!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so happy to have such a cute little furniture rehab project to debut to you today. But I am even MORE tickled to tell you the story of how I ended up with this little table in the first place:

I was trolling Craigslist on my day off {as per usual} and typed in the search bar: mirror. I was looking for something that could work in a client's space at the time and while I was thumbing through picture after picture of wall hanging mirrors, I was surprise to stumble across one lone picture of an accent table. It popped into my search feed because the seller also has a mirror and another table for sale, but the first picture of this table was so cute I just had to jump on the chance to snag this little gem. When I reached out to seller, I was pleasantly to get an email back saying "Are you the Cate from Chelsea's Garage who did the geometric lamp copycat post?" Needless-to-say I was shocked! I have never been "recognized" for something I wrote before. Turns out the seller was a friend from Chelsea's church and an absolutely sweetie pie! Christine: if I didn't make it clear when I was picking up the table, you totally made my day ;)

I must have still had mirrors on the brain on the drive home because I was struck with inspiration! Replace the wooden shelf inserts with round mirrors? Challenge accepted. This whole thing was divinely orchestrated right?!

I measured the diameter and felt so lucky - all I needed was to track down a 14" round mirror and whatdoyaknow - my local Michael's had some beveled ones. Even better!

Now sometimes, when working on a project, you have to chose to do it the easy way or the hard way. When I brought the table home, I thought I wouldn't have to choose slash that it would be breeze to unscrew the wood and replace it with round mirrors. HA. Nothing is ever that easy.

Alrighty folks - I hit my first snag. The one thing that I did NOT account for when measuring is that the wood shelves had 4 notches cut into them to allow them to sit snug around the metal legs. In order for the mirrors to fit, they too would need notches. So I found myself asking, how in the world do you cut a mirror?!?! This was out of my area of expertise. Either I abandon the pursuit of glamour and just refinish the wood, or I quickly educate myself in what was bound to be some sort of complicated laser cutting process with elusively expensive special tools that I would have to obtain somehow...

Then I found this fabulous mirror/glass cutting tutorial from View Along the Way {a great little blog Chelsea has often mentioned to me} and learned that about $13 would buy me all I needed to complete the project! The answer is actually that toothbrush-looking thing {more technically known as a "cutter"} - turns out you just roll the cutting wheel on the tip of the cutter along the edges you want to cut.

Since I was cutting notches into the mirror, I did have to adapt the tutorial a little. I was able to break the notch off but not with very clean lines. Either this is due to the notching itself or perhaps the beveled edge made it harder to cut clean. Good news is, the brass frame on the table hides any imperfections and protects any fingers from jagged edges. I believe the cutting tool simply allowed me to break off a piece {albeit uncleanly} without damaging the whole mirror.

Now for you folks trying this at home, full disclosure - I broke TWO mirrors trying to make this table happen. I hope my lessons learned with spare you some money:

1. Score the line WELL before breaking it off. This will help you to only break what you want and not send spider cracks beyond your measured line.
2. Measure TWICE ("duh" she says as she bonks her hand on her forehead). On one of my discarded mirrors I cut the notch too deep and the edge was still visible when inlaid into the metal frame. Whoops.
3. FILE the edges. This will relieve stress on the jagged edge and prep the surface for any future encounters with fingers. I used a fine grit sandpaper and went slowly - it seemed to do the trick for me.

And the results speak for themselves: