Dumpster Dive-In

I wrote a couple weeks ago about 2 chairs I found by the dumpster at my apartment complex.  They sat on my front porch for almost a month before I finally found inspiration to do anything with them.

Before

After

I had to sand the metal to remove the rust from it.  I spray painted them a metallic bronze-y brown color.  I sanded the woodpiece on the back and stained and varnished it.  The seat was recovered in a matching paisley pattern.

I'm in love with how they turned out!  I'm selling them at a consignment shop so hopefully someone will want to take them home :)

Bathing Beauty

About a year and a half ago, I decided to redo my bathroom (at my parent's house at the time).  We had painted it when I was maybe in junior high or early high school, but it was time for a "grown-up" change.

Forgive the sideways shot...

This is the old room, looking in from the door.  The big square on the wall used to be a window and was shottily "patched" up.  The rest of the walls were in terrible condition - the product of tearing down drywall and not patching the walls up before painting (we were impatient back then)...

This is standing in the bathtub looking back at the door.

Again, sideways, but these are the cabinets behind the door across from the sink.

As you can see, the flower power wasn't really doin' it anymore...

This is the new shot from the doorway.  I made the "bath room" pics with scrapbook paper and the corner shelf wasn't being used so I gave it a home with some accessories to go on it.

The tub never gets used, so the curtain is just for looks.

I hung a chair rail on the wall and used joint compund to create a stucco texture on the bottom half to hide the imperfections of the wall.  I painted the bottom white and did a faux finish glaze on the top half to hide imperfections up there. 

I added a glass shelf above the sink and the picture is from an old 1952 Seventeen magazine (Maybelline advertisement!)

These are the cabinets behind the door. The mirror on the door is so I can see the back of my hair!

I found these old-school hot and cold handles in my dad's garage (he used to be a plumber).  I thought they would look cool as handles on the cabinets!

So here we are, 1.5 years later.  I no longer use this bathroom on a daily basis....but it's still one of my favorites :)

Chair-ity Work Part Deux

I finished one of the 8 chairs I had stashed away waiting for some lovin'.  This is the one I found at a second-hand store...

BEFORE

AFTER

I decided right away that I was keeping the paint it came with.  I liked the orange color, and this fabric I picked up for $3 a yard matched it great!  It sits right inside my door where I put my purse and keys and mail.

Collective Collections

Since most of my current projects are "in progress", I decided to post some pics of some of my favorite corners of my apartment....

I have a small suitcase obsession and I have a hard time passing them up when I see one.  These are stacked up at the bottom of my staircase.  The bottom one was .50 cents at a charity sale, the middle one was $2 at a community sale, and the top one was $1 at a yard sale.

  

The brick I "found" among a pile outside the shed at my apartment complex :)

This is my "blue" collection sitting on top of my TV (yes the TV is from the 90's so it has a wide top!).  The fan was $2 at a garage sale and it still works.  The teacup is from an antique store and it holds my cute little pink cactus.  The vase was a gift from my mom and I stuck dried flower starbursts and johnny walking sticks inside.

I keep trying to find different ways to display my small collections.....the big ones just take everything over!

Oopsy Daisy :)

A small introduction to the tiniest of blunders:



One day, as I was painstakingly making curtains for Dan's kitchen, I had a little accident.  I was sitting at the kitchen table, ironing the seams on my material to make for better stitching.  I had placed a towel on the table underneath the fabric, but apparantly that wasn't enough.

When I went to clean everything up and clear off the table, I moved the towel.  And this is what I found....

Now, Dan was at the store at this time so, completely panicked, I tried scrubbing the white spot with anything I could find.  Nothing happened.

He came home, I gave him my best "remember-I'm-pretty-and-you-love-me" smile and showed him my mistake.  My leading line was "If anyone can fix this, I can fix this."  He was unbothered and I immediately set to work to right my wrong. (I was actually kind of excited!)

 

Before

After

I used a power sander and removed all of the original stain and what I thought was ALL of the varnish.  I applied a dark walnut stain to the tabletop and was surprised when I realized it didn't take everywhere (a result of not removing the varnish completely).  But it turned out that made it look really cool!  Two coats of stain and about 100 coats of varnish over that and we now have the shiniest table on the block!

The white legs looked weird with the now dark top so i spot-sanded and stained them to give them a rustic/weathered look. 

When it was all said and done, we both ended up liking the new version much better than the old version.  It fit better with the newly painted dining room/kitchen and it made it look less like a hand-me-down from his aunt.

What can I say, I lucked out on that one ;)

FAB-U-LESS

I recently got the opportunity to meet a wondeful and talented woman who, along with her husband, is opening a store in Akron for local artists and artisans.  She has her own design business and her husband has his own framing business (I think they might be my biological parents! haha) and they will be running both of those out of this building.  More of that later when it's more clear what will pan out.

I met with her this week and she took me to a fabric warehouse for a company located in this area.  When I say warehouse, I mean a fully stocked warehouse-sized building FULL of fabric.  We shopped the heck outta the clearance center where, wait for it....the fabric was $3 a yard!!! I bought 10 :)

Here it is all piled up in the corner ready for action!

Excellent!!

Chair-ity Work

Boy, do I have my hands full! This is just half of the 8 chairs I have sitting around, waiting for some lovin'.  The other 4 are captains chairs I found at a garage sale for 5 bucks a piece.  I wheeled them home in a little wagon :) 

This one I found on the side of the road (my favorite kind of find!).  I drove past at first, and then made a U-ey and went back.  If the people in the house were watching me, they probably wondered how the heck I was gonna get that in my bug!

Ugly, I know...have faith!

These next set of cuties I rescued from the dumpster in my apartment complex.  I was leaving for a meeting and saw them sitting there.  I didn't have time to stop, so I told myself if they were there when I got back, then it was meant to be.  And, well.....

The metal is a little rusty/pitted in spots, but I think I can clear that up.  The seats will obviously get recovered and the wooden backpiece, well I'm not quite sure what's going to happen with that.  But what drew me to these beauties that someone else had abandoned was the metalwork running up the back.  Pretty cool, huh?

This last one I actually purchased for $18, but I justify it by saying that the others were all free :)  I picked it up at a secondhand store called Abbey Ann's.  This place was something to behold.  It was so packed full that I  had to turn sideways and step over things most of the time (felt like I was on an episode of Hoarders!).  I had another chair in my hands when I saw this one buried and unearthed it.

I liked the extra-wide size of it and the fact that it had arms.  I plan to reupholster the seat and probably add some extra padding since it's kind of flat.  I was going to repaint it, but I actually have fabric I like that will match perfectly and it's already in good condition.  One day I'll have a workroom where I can put all of my tools and sewing machine, etc.  I see this as the workchair maybe with casters on the legs so it can move around easily.

So these are my current works-in-progress (only half of them!)....think I'm overdoing it a little?? haha