my weekend...

More kitchen posts...















Still to do: fill in nail holes and some knots in the tonque and groove. Paint and do some sort of edging.


New potrack from Ikea.


Sewed some new pillows.


Sewed some curtains but still need to find some trim.


New $7.00 lamp and shade from Goodwill. It was brass but I sprayed it black. Still need to do trim to match other lamp.


New trim on other lamp. It matches the pillow I made.

Whew!

Linking:

slipcover...

Remember this chair? We needed a chair that swiveled for tv watching and we found this one at a yard sale for $10. It's from the 1980's but in really good condition (although dirty).


Mustard gold wasn't really in keeping with my decor so I picked up some really soft ticking fabric, washed it and put it aside for 3 months. I HATE making slipcovers. Finally I felt motivated after Christmas and while watching the girls play the new Wii Lego Star Wars game, got it done.

It actually ended up fitting pretty well and I was left with one scrap at the end. Phew! Now all of my living room furniture has slipcovers and my furniture stays clean for a couple of days. Quite an accomplishment with 6 kids and two dogs.





The pleat in the middle wasn't planned but I was running out of fabric and came up with that solution. I kind of like it now. The slipcover looks loose because I pulled it off and put it on 1.2 million times to get a good fit. Once I wash it, it will shrink back up (I hope).

I still have a chair in my bedroom I need to slipcover but I'm in no rush. It will probably be done in a couple of years.

christmas....

I finally worked on some Christmas decorating projects yesterday. Not like waiting until the last minute. In my defense, we had the stomach flu for a week and before that we were finishing up school in preparation for our break.


I decked out the chandelier with beads, ribbon and hanging ornaments.


I pulled out the enormous wooden sconces from the attic and put mini Christmas trees on them.


The window got hanging ornaments, two Christmas cards and the little girl holding candles that I picked up at the Goodwill outlet for $.50. These pictures were all from the dining room.

Brian is home all this week and he's working on the little projects that we've put to the backburner. Projects like trimming out doors and sanding down floors.

I went to Goodwill recently and hit the jackpot. Or at least to me.


I have been wanting a starburst clock forever but never could find one under $50.00. This one I spotted at Goodwill for $7.99. It's a Syroco and in perfect shape. I'm not fond of the gold clock face but I'm not touching it as it's worth around $50-$100 as is. I could see the looks of jealousy disguised as disgust on the other shoppers faces as I was carrying it around. :)


I also found a perfect condition wool afghan. I love the look of coziness it brings to the house. It was $3.99 and is worth between $25-$50! And no I haven't yet made the slipcover for that chair. It is my next project.

I've also been collecting gold mirrors to hang in the hallway on the built in bookcases.


And lastly, I made some new fall/winter curtains for my living room.


I'm preparing to paint some stripes on the wall behind the tv and couch today now that Brian is home to help me tape them off. And tomorrow I'm taking the older girls and two of their friends to the latest Harry Potter movie for part of their Christmas present. Brian and I have already seen it and it was really good so I'm looking forward to seeing how much they will like it.

I might now post until after Christmas so I will wish you all a Merry Christmas right now. May you all have a blessed time with family and friends!

another chandelier makeover in progress...

I bought this at the reStore awhile ago but haven't been inspired to make it over. Until now...



I painted it with RustOleum's Paprika. The color is wonderful! I didn't take the center glass part and paint the rod in there yet. I'll do that when we rewire.

I plan on adding a drum shade to it so it looks more like this sort of and hanging it in my living room.

Source

So I hope it will look nice once it's done. Not like my last chandelier project which I ended up hating in the space. I'll be posting pictures of our upstairs bathroom project as Brian is installing the tongue and groove beadboard and I prepare to fill in a million nail holes, prime and paint. That will not be a fun chore.

the girly chandelier

Remember I bought this at the reStore?


Well it looks like this now:




I sprayed it with a custom mixed green and hand painted the flowers yellow. I also designed and printed the white geometric paper on my color laser printer. Brian rewired it to plug in.

You would think I would be happy with it but you would be wrong. It is nice but not in my living room. It is much too girly and cutesy. I fighting the urge to spray paint it all red so I put it up for sale on Craigslist. I've had two offers but no one has shown up with the money.

I wish I could put it in the girls room but their ceilings are too low. I'm not sure what I'll do with it if it doesn't sell. I hate feeling like I wasted money and time. Sigh...

On another note...you can see I finally picked a gray color for the walls. It is Behr Silver Drop reduced -50%. But it wasn't quite right. So I got desperate and threw together a bunch of gray samples, added in some Polar Bear white from Behr and painted at 10:00 pm. I didn't care what it looked like in the morning I just wanted it done. Miraculously I loved the color and it was the look I was going for. It's a beige, warm gray with no purple or blue undertones. Now I need to repaint my dining room and stencil it.

Linking:

two things...

Finished up this cute table. For some reason I can not find a before picture but it was just all the wood color showing beneath the stencil. Boring!


I painted it a white/gray color (one of my samples I didn't like on the walls) and put a vinyl sticker on the top which I painted over. When it was mostly dry, I peeled off the sticker to reveal this. I admit I totally copied the idea from another blog but I can't remember which one. So if you know, let me know so I can give credit.

I coated it in poly and am waiting for it to dry. I bought the table to resell but I really like it so I might keep it.

We also finished putting in the floor in the new bathroom. I'm coating it with poly as well and it will be ready for the toilet Saturday. Yipee! We got the toilet free on Craigslist after buying a $220 one at Lowe's. Needless to say, we took the Lowe's toilet back.





Kind of a weird angle since I took this picture while the floor was drying and had to just point the camera and hope for the best. The floor looks darker because I had to use the flash. We used some cheap pine flooring from Lumber Liquidators ($1.20 sq/ft) and I stained it before we installed it. My goal was to make it look like it was old and worn down.

Here is what it looked like a few weeks ago.




Linked to:

a date...

Ever since I found out that a Habitat for Humanity ReStore was in Forest Grove, I've been dreaming of going. We need a few things to finish off the mudroom and we're pretty much out of money.

So Brian and I left the kids at home on Saturday morning and headed out to garage sale our way to the ReStore. It was so much fun. We took the seats out of our 12 passenger van just in case we found something big we wanted. I was looking for dressers or tables.

I haven't taken pictures of everything we bought but here are a few:

Ugly chandelier for $10 at the ReStore. I'm going to paint it and put it in the living room.


Super cute vintage chandelier I will paint and put in the mudroom. $10.


Mid Century chandelier from ReStore to resell: $10


Hand embroidered art with frame (Goodwill) $7.99. Hanging in school room.



Vintage wallpaper rolls $2.50 each at ReStore:



We also found a vintage swivel rocking chair for the living room as well as two handmade 1960's chairs that I will recover. Oh and a small table I will redo and sell on Craigslist.

And we bought all the quarter round to finish the mudroom for $2.00 at the Restore! We would have paid close to $30 at Lowe's.

There is much more that we got that I need to take pictures of. Mostly before and afters. I'm thinking we only spent about $100 for everything and the things I bought to sell will make that much. I'm anxious to go out shopping again. It was a lot of fun!