Chair question

Okay, so the other day I did these chairs. I just painted them white. Nothing big. Two of them belonged to Tom's grandma and we used them and then didn't need them and so they've been sitting in the basement.

The other two (with the flowers on the back) I got at a flea market for 10 bucks each. A tad more than I would usually pay, but she was a sweet lady that gave me a bunch of foam for free (well, I guess I paid for it, but whatev, right?)

Here they are. I'm kind of afraid to show you, because, honestly I don't know how I feel about them yet. It's a struggle. I had all this red ticking fabric left over and I put it on the cushions and now, I just don't know?!

I kind of feel like they belong in an ice cream shop? Yes? No? I mean, I like them and I think they look great, but would you buy them?

Okay, enough of my insecurities...

Here's a close up of one of them:

Lay it on me....what do you think? I can take it. I think.

My Garage Door

We all know how the inside door to the garage looks....blah. So yucky. And boring. And yucky. And boring.

So, I did something about it. I grabbed a Martha Stewart sample. I've been dying to use it. And when my neighbor said, you need to use this Martha Stewart color on a piece of furniture, I went to my car and pulled out the exact color! It was crazy. Then for some reason I started brushing it on the door....

I don't have a before. But, who doesn't have an ugly garage door (unless of course you live in an apartment, or have a carport, or whatev, but you know what I'm saying...not trying to leave those with cool doors or no doors out!)

Here's the door as it looks today.

Bay Leaf by Martha Stewart purchased a sample at Home Depot. Go and get it. You won't be disappointed. Boy do I love that color. It's going to be a staple in my furniture. It matches the chairs!

Holy crap. I love it. Tom said, "It amazes me that I can go to work in the morning and come home and have a green door. A green door." I'm not sure if he was giving me a compliment, but whatev. I love it. It makes me happy to drive into the garage. Oh wait, I can't drive into the garage. There's too much furniture in it.

So fun. And green. Bay Leaf Green...go. Hurry. Go get it.

Oooh....I haven't done any chairs in awhile...

I found these two chairs. Good shape. But kind of on the ugly 1970's realm. But, who doesn't love a pair of french provincial chairs?

So, lets see them....

So cute. Oh, since you're dying to know...they were $6.99 a piece. I heart my local Goodwill.

Oh, and I found out they are building one in MY town! Yippee for me!

I primed them with Kilz. Let them sit overnight, sanded a little and wiped them down. Then sprayed them Rustoleum white in semi-gloss. I still got a little of that very frustrating crackling. It drives me batty. BUT, it worked for the effect I was going for here.

I then waited another day to sand them. With my hand sander. Beauty.

Oh, and I used some leftover material I had from this project. Oh, that chair. I loved that chair.

I did that chair way back when....you can see the step by step of how I reupholstered it right here.

So, I had just a little left. Well, actually, I did these chairs with it too. These are Leah's all time favorite chairs, aren't they, Leah?!

There were two. They are glorious. And so comfy. And so glorious. And gorgeous. And I just love them. I used Rustoleum sunflower yellow, or safflower yellow? I can't remember the name.

So, I had just a tiny bit left. Seriously, only enough to finish these two chairs.

I seriously need a new place to photograph my stuff. Maybe a back drop? A sheet? The garage door? Anything but that dirty garage floor!

Aren't they just great?!

It amazes me how a few coats of paint and some left over fabric can completely change a piece of furniture!

Vacay

Hey all. We're going on vaca. Vacation, that is. Nothing fancy, just up north to Tom's family cabin. The entire family will be there... 8 adults, 9 children, 2 dogs, a lake, some camping and a ton of eating. I CAN'T WAIT. It's going to be long and hard, and fun and fun!

So, I've got a few posts scheduled, some fun things to look at and a couple questions for you all. You get to help with a project....I'm sure you're going to hold your breath until then.

So, stick around. Don't forget about me. I'll be unreachable by email or phone and we send smoke signals if we need help.

I'm ready for a break. I'm ready for a creative break. I think my creativity is getting a little fried. But, I will be back. Don't go anywhere.

I can't wait to read your comments when I get back. Mainly because I know that some of you are actually funnier than I am and that when I am down and grumpy you make me smile.

Have a good week. Enjoy yourselves. Breathe and take time to watch the sunset. Or the sunrise. Or the moonrise, whatev. Just enjoy the company of someone or the peace of being alone for five minutes.

And I'll leave you with this....

A 70's classic.

I wasn't sure about this. Still not sure. But, some people like them, so I thought I'd take a chance.

Take one really ugly not real wood credenza. Remove handles and paint them black.

Paint credenza with Kilz.

Then spray with Rustoleum Semi-gloss white.

Reattach only the front parts of the pulls. Not the back part.

Take sandpaper and rough up just a little.

Sit back and try and decide if you like it.

Decide you do.....

Sittin' in the basement

There's a tornado outside. Okay, well, the sirens are going off. The boys and I are sitting in the basement waiting for the tornado warning to pass.

It reminds me of sitting in the basement storage closet at the house with the pool as a kid with my Mom and sisters waiting for storms to pass. We would play with my Dad's old trucks and a gold car that had a driver that popped out of the seat. It reminded me of James Bond. (Hey Dad - is that a run-on sentence or what?!)

(Side note, our entire lives revolved around which house we lived in....not what year it was....for example...I had my first boy/girl birthday party at the house with the pool. I graduated from high school at the house that had cows in the back yard...)

Okay, now there's a tornado. One confirmed several miles from us.

These are not pictures of a tornado. But instead very funny pictures of what happens when you drive several miles to go to Cabella's to look at tents.

Please don't send me disapproving mail about how I'm not teaching my children properly. I'm teaching them how to properly smile while holding a huge fake green gun that matches your green crocs. Ha. Crocs. He's wearing a Davy Crocket coonskin hat with crocs on. Now that's good humor. You can laugh at me. I know you want to. Go ahead. Do it. I'm laughing hysterically at myself. Either that or I'm about to cry out of sheer terror from the tornado outside my house that is shaking the glass cabinets in the kitchen.

That was once a real bear. No, it wasn't.

Happy Tornado day!

Farmer's Desk

I met a woman. Her name was MaryLouise. She has a farm. Her husband died last year and now it's time for her to sell all 160 acres that they farmed when they moved here from Poland many years ago.

She has this cute little farmhouse and a gigantic barn. And in this barn was this....

This is what an upside down 80 year old desk looks like. She said, "make me an offer." I said, "Ten bucks." She said, "You will take it home for five." (In a very thick Polish accent.)

So, in the van it went. For five dollars.

Here is what it looked like when I used a Martha Stewart Aegean Blue sample and painted it on with the tiny little brush supplied with the sample....

Oh, and I sanded the top with 100 grit sandpaper on my belt sander. Took 3 minutes. I timed it. Then I stained it with ebony stain. You all know how I heart ebony stain.

Here it is with new pulls, completely painted and a coat of lacquer on the top.

I tried it with that crystal knob from another project, and I just didn't like it there. (Although I love the knob!)

So then I put this one on, and it looks so much better.

So gorgeous. Love it.

It has a crack on the top. Writing in the middle drawer and some postage stamps from 1937 stuck to one of the drawers. What years this desk has seen....

MaryLouise, I hope you are happy to know that your husband's desk has been repaired and is now in fantastic shape.

The dresser that disappeared.

Remember this dresser?

Yesterday morning I  got up and decided to quick paint it because someone was coming to look at some other stuff and I wanted to have this as a possibility....

So I sprayed it white and distressed it a bunch.

Then I realized that I didn't have 10 matching pulls, so I sent hubby on a run for matching pulls and he got pink ones. I wasn't sure, as I try and keep things relatively neutral as far as furniture, but guess what? I loved it!

And the dresser went home with the buyer for the other stuff too! Didn't even get this one posted on CL and it was gone.

Love the pink with the white!

AND! Maryann featured my stairs from her Power of Paint Party on Wednesday. Thanks Maryann!

Meadow Green Happiness.

When I posted on my FB page wondering what people thought of a piece of furniture our old Junior High colors, I had some funny comments about the good ole' days and some skepticism about the color choice.

The Junior High color....green. Not your gorgeous green, kind of a cross between kelly green and grass green. The color is called Meadow green. Plain old Rustoleum Meadow Green. They really should be paying me for all their advertisement on my blog....don't you think?

Okay....Meadow Green. I've been dying to mix it up since I saw my old college friend's (she was even my big sis in our sorority) apartment on the COVER of House Beautiful...yep. Seriously. Almost peed my pants when I heard, and then my magazine didn't come for several days after I heard. And then my sister that lives in NY and hangs out with her went to this party celebrating the cover....oh, the excitement and name dropping I am doing! LOVE IT!

Here's the cover in case you haven't seen it.

So I thought I should try again for some color.

I showed you this dresser that I got at ReStore for $23.

Besides being a little grody on the outside and those knobs are not working, the inside was gorgeous and the top wasn't bad. I had intended on sanding the top and restaining, but after I painted it, I decided I liked it.

Now. Fair warning. This isn't for everyone. It isn't. But, I can totally picture this as a changing table in a little boys room, or as an entryway storage area to add a huge pop of color, or a hallway piece, or in an Anthro store with oodles of things flowing out of it, or in the middle of the road in the Sundance catalog...or a buffet....oh, criminy...

Okay, folks, this photo is antiqued, for effect, cause it looked cool.

There are those pulls....bestill my heart....

This is the true color. I still love it. LOVE IT.

It makes me giddy just looking at it. I love it. And I'm terrified of color. Oh, it just makes me happy! As I type I'm grinning.

Thanks Monique and David for inspiring me to paint something in color...

Because I need to share the goods....

I'm sure people know this already, but for those of you that don't, read on about these goodies....

Everyone loves a good Anthro knob. I know, they're gorgeous. But for 8 bucks a piece, YIKES!

Enter Marshalls. Or TJ Maxx. You choose. These are the SAME knobs at Anthro. THE SAME ONES!

And these were $9.99 to $12.99 for 6 of them. Okay, so lets do the math. 6 at 8 dollars is $48. I got 6 for $9.99. That's only about $1.60 a piece!

Get thee to a Marshall's. Or do what I did and call your Dad and your Husband and have them search the Marshall's where they are and buy as many as they can and bring them to you!

Thanks Hubs and Pops!

It's going to be hard to part with them....

How cute are these little guys!

Just wait until you see what I did with the black ones....ohhh....it's good!

Frogs...

We have a firepit....therefore we have frogs. I guess. Our firepit doesn't want to drain. Too much clay in the ground. So, every time it storms we get a huge mosquito breeding ground that the frogs love. Frogs good. Mosquitoes bad.

So far the boys (when I say "the boys", I mean me, I, yours truly) have caught 17 frogs in the firepit.

It's dis-gust-ing.

Usually we catch the frogs and pet them, then put them in the sometimes swampy field behind our yard...but this time I let them catch the frog and play with it for a little while.

They named him Ernie.

Ernie had a very active afternoon. First he made a sandcastle.

Then he went for a little swim.

Then, after he got used to the water, he went for a big swim.

After swimming on his own for a little while, he was ready for some company. But they weren't allowed to get too close....

After a few minutes, he was okay with them playing with him and he posed for pictures. He is very photogenic.

Fun stuff.

By the way, suits are from Old Navy on sale for 4.99. Go get them. I got enough until they are 10.

Another by the way, Porter has an eye infection and now he says his ear hurts, Jack has croup and a double ear infection laced with a good ole' eye infection and Gus has an eye infection laced with a double ear infection. Oh! And Tom had a ganglion cyst removed, not the old Bible way though, by a doctor. (Read up on it. They used to thump the cyst with a Bible to make it go away. Grody.) And, I'm just going to start drinking....

But, you'd never be able to tell...look how happy they are!

Happy weekend!