Is it an addiction?

I'm afraid.  I'm afraid I have overcommitted.  It may just be too much to handle.


I bought more new furniture last week.  I'm beginning to think I may have a problem.  And yes, I think I'm going to have to refinish this piece, too. 


I know, I know.  We haven't even finished the bookshelves that Dave started....a month ago?  It is sitting in the garage - almost finished.  I think I'll let Dave explain what's holding that project up though...


I found two matching little cherry side tables on Craigslist for free a few weeks ago and picked them up.  I think they will make cute little side tables for our guest room one day.  And I found this!

This beautiful dresser is going to be Kalyn's.  Though, it is almost toooo pretty.  We are slowly (emphasis on slow) changing her room to reflect that she will one day not want cute-sy little girl decorations.  We are also anticipating that she may want a real dresser - with a mirror - at some point. 

This will accomplish two things.  A).  She will no longer have a juvenile dresser, but something to grow into.  We will no longer have to find creative ways to fold her jeans and pajamas so they will fit in the drawars.  B).  She can practice being narcissitic in her own room.  What is it about little girls and jewelry and hairbows and a mirror?

I'm so happy about this dresser.  We had been looking at it for several months at an antique store.  It was tucked away in a little room in the back.  It had originally been marked at $450 and was recently marked down to $250.  I was so excited when last week, my sister and I were furniture shopping and I walked in and this was marked at $100!  What?  Yes, you heard right....$100 for this beautiful dresser. 


As happy as I am about this dresser, I have a problem though.  None of Kalyn's furniture matches.  Or remotely goes together.  Her bed is an antique (read, probably some of the "antiquing is a layer of dirt and it needs to be scrubbed and repainted because she is the fourth little girl that I know of to have this bed") white, her toy shelf and nightstand is white, this dresser is a beautiful oak brown, and her new chair is black with zebra print fabric. 

*Sigh*


This is where I need YOUR help!  Leave me a comment with some advice on what to do with the dresser!  Leave it as it is.  I've considered repainting her bed, nightstand, and this all an antique white.  Or maybe doing something dramatic - like paint everything black!  Please, please, please leave a suggestion!


But guess WHAT?????  That's not all....


My guest room is full of furniture - some that needs to be sold and some that may or may not need refinishing  And I mean full.  Like, some dining chairs.  Some cool, vintage, mid-century modern living room chairs.  A display cabinet.

Book Case - Almost Ready to do the Finishing touches.

Well - if you go back a little while in the blog you will notice that we asked for help in choosing a color for the bookcases we got off Craigslist. We chose yellow. I have primed most of it and have it ready to go into finishing stages.  Here are a few things to bring you up to speed about . After I had completed tthe fun things going on around here.  After the first round of priming, Erin decided to complete her first ever graffiti and she got all delinquent on the back of the bookcase. Take a look.

The picture is a little out of focus because the little one took it, but I am sure that you can make out what it says. Erin looks at me after I saw it and said, "I have always wanted to do that and I finally did it." This was pretty cute but I did have to paint over it and move on with the project. I was tempted to leave it there permanently when it was pushed up against a wall but I couldn't do this and not go all the way with it. So here is what I am calling Stage 2.

Now when I started this project I found that using the spray primer was just not going to cut it and I had to move back to OLD FAITHFUL when it comes to primers. KILZ 2. What was I thinking?  Trying to cheat my way through this project? Naah. That spraypaint is not gonna cut it so I do not recommend anything other than KILZ 2 when it comes to primers.

If you guys didn't know either (because I didn't) Martha Stewart has a new line of paints at the HOME DEPOT. Well guess what Martha? I am not paying an extra four dollars for your name to be on my can of paint. So the paint person at Home Depot let us know that Glidden makes the Martha Stewart paint and that she could shade it to exactly that color for us and it would save us money. So if you want Marthas colors but don't wanna pay her price just get some Glidden paint. If you already knew this then I applaud your shopper savvy-ness.

Well hopefully next weekend I will have this complete and will be able to show you the final pictures. Until then God bless and have a great week.

Dave out.

It's Finished! We did it!

I am so excited to be able to share these pictures with y'all!  I am so excited how my first reupholstery project turned out.  Would you like a little sneak peek?

How about another? 

This turned out so much better than I imagined it would!  Remember how it started?

It is now perfect for Kalyn's room!  Well, it is the first part of perfect for Kalyn's room.  We are going to slowly replace some things in her room over the next few months - some I will make, some things will be repurposed, some purchased - but this chair is the first.  Kalyn's room renovation started with a discussuion with my sister about updating Kalyn's room and we found a PBteen quilt that was the inspiration for this chair makeover. 

Picture from PBteen

These are two other PBteen items that inspired my choices for this chair...

I thought that the woodwork was similar (and I'm using this term reallly loosely) to the small PBteen chair,but I loved the idea of the bold zebra print. 

So, how about another peek at the finished project!?

And, well, ok...here are a few more pictures!

 

I'm so proud to put this in Kalyn's room!

Later this week I will delve a little more into some of the details about the project, but here are some of the steps we took at the beginning of the project!

I very carefully and meticulously  removed the old fabric pieces - and when I say carefully and meticulously, I mean it!  I took the pieces off one by one and numbered them as I removed them.  I also photographed each piece as I removed it so I could reference the pictures when I put the new pieces on the chair.  But that's not all!  I also wrote down everything about the piece as I took it off - information like how it was attached, if and how it was sewn , and other various details. 

Once the chair was taken apart, I gave the wood pieces a light sanding and then came my favorite part! 

Spray painting!!!!!!!!!!!  I spray painted (with Rust-Oleum Ultracover 2x) a primer coat first and then a glossy black!   I then used a spray polyurethane - Varnathane's spray Indoor Heavy Use.  I ended up brushing on some polyurethane as well.  The spray polyurethane would be great for a smaller project or just for the detail parts of the chair (such as the spindles).  I ended up brushing on some of the same polyurethane (from a can though) because it would have been costly to buy enough of the spray polyurethane to give the chair a good three or four coats. 

Next came the fabric and trim...  But I will save those details for later this week.  Here is a picture of the final product!  Again, I'm so proud of how it turned out!  It has inspired me to not be afraid to tackle some larger projects and learn from them. 

Here it is!!!!!

I'm linking this up to the CSI Pottery Barn Inspired Challege. 

Postponement

My reupholstery project is suffering from an unexpected postponement.  I think most things that are postponed are done so unexpectedly though.  Disappointment set in this afternoon when I got ready to sew and instead of winding the bobbin, my machine gave an uncharacteristic whirring noise that sounded more like a cry for help than a machine ready to sew.  I keep reminding myself it's just a bump in the road and it is going to be copacetic because I have wonderful friends who have extra sewing machines that I'm going to be able to borrow.  I was hoping to have the project finished by Thursday and maybe that can still happen - we will see! So, in the meantime, I thought I would share something exciting and fun!

Kalyn made Star Student last week at school and had to complete a poster about herself over the weekend.

I couldn't get the stinker to really smile for a picture.  So, about our Star Student (in her words)...

• 
  
  When I grow up, I want to be a olmpic (olympic) swimmer.
• 
  
  My favorite subject is Social Studies.
• 
  
  I am a star student because I participated and listened.
• 
  
  I am proud of myself because I do my work correctly.
• 
  
  What I like most about school is my teacher.
• 
  
  I am good at math. 

Way to go, Kalyn!

I'll end with a few pictures of our precious daughter that I snapped while she we were working on the furniture this past Saturday. 

Input Wanted...Yep! That Means You!

OK friends, if you are reading this then we want your input!  Your advice!  Suggestions!  Yes, we want them all!  We found some bookshelves on Craigslist this week and have started stripping and priming them for a fresh coat of paint and hardware before they come inside.  Here is a picture of one of the bookshelves we bought.

Dave reminded me to take a picture before he started and I kept putting it off.  By the time I grabbed my camera he had already taped off the edges of the glass.  There is also a smaller bookshelf.  It was two shelves instead of the four this one has. 

So here is where you come in!  How should we paint these!?!?!?!?!    What should we do to these?  Here is what we know...

• The third shelf needs new glass.  Easy fix.
• We are going to paint the inside of the shelves a light color - in between white and cream.  I can't remember the color we grabbed - but it's pretty.

And that's all we know.  We haven't been able to agree on a color for the outside of the shelves!  We could do an ivory with a glaze on them.  That could be nice.  Or something that really stands out - like a robin's egg blue with the white shelves.  Or an espresso brown .  Or RED!  That would be fun!!  There are so many choices - help us out!  What do YOU think would look good?  One more thing - these bookshelves are made of a mix of solid wood and a composite wood product so I'm NOT going to refinish them by sanding them down and restaining.

Oh!  I found some hardware today at Oh So Charming (the ladies there are great, by the way) and Dave tried it on the shelves when we got home to make sure the scale looked nice.  They added a welcome change to the nondescript hardware that was already on them. 

Here is a look at one of the pieces of hardware.  I snapped the picture before Dave removed the hardware to prime the shelves, but didn't get a picture of the others.  All the hardware we got was fairly similar, but there are only two of each piece.  We will use a mixture of the hardware once we are finished. 

Alright.  You've seen the bookshelves and some of the hardware.  How should these be painted??

Before the Weekend

This week has flown by!  I was afraid that with Kalyn back to school this week, I would be bored.  However, I have been working on a reupholstery project to occupy my time and it is going great!  Well...in the interest of full disclosure, it was going great until yesterday when I noticed some fibers from the dropcloth in the polyurethane coat on the wood pieces of the chair.  Ugh.....

I can't bring myself to go check it because I don't want to have to sand and touch up and re-apply the polyurethane.  Does anyone have any suggestions for this?  The pieces were not moved around and the garage door was closed to prevent wind from blowing stuff onto the wet polyurethane.  It is like it magnetically jumped onto the top of the pieces I worked on as they were drying.  By the way....can fibers really magnetically jump?  I ran a cloth with mineral spirits over it (as recommended) to clean the chair off before I applied the polyurethane.

So, since I haven't already, let me introduce you to my current project!

Little (boring, but pretty) Shabby Chic-Kind-of-Chair

I saw this chair at Oh So Charming's monthly antique event.  I thought it would make a good replacement chair for our bedroom.  However, when we got it home the scale was not right for our room.  It is much to small to go with the rest of our furniture, so it is in the process of becoming Kalyn's new reading chair.  She has outgrown her reading chair in her room and loves to curl up with a good book.  This will make a perfect chair for her as she grows.  I have painted the legs and arms glossy black and am in the process of cutting out fabric for the reupholstering.  We have white walls in our house so the white on white on white was not looking so good! 








I will give you one picture today and maybe a few in the coming days to see some of the changes coming for this little chair.

Alright - I think I'm motivated now to go work on my project!  Oh!  One more thing!


If you are in the Denver metro area and like antiques/repurposed items - check out Oh So Charming's August event this weekend!  They are in located Littleton and only open for one weekend each month.  Also tomorrow, August 14th, is an Old Town Market Saturday in the Littleton Historic Downtown area.