This is what I'm talkin 'bout

Gray linen. Beautiful.
*flickr find

Where is all the gray linen?

This is my new project. This settee was gifted to me, and I feel that I'm up for the challenge of making it mine. I pictured it covered in a wrinkly gray linen, yet I am still to find any. So in the spirit of our "no cost" weekend house project, I went digging in my remnant pile and found these fabrics. There is not enough of either to do the whole settee in one. So I thought that if I used the solid brown on the seat and the back rest with the tufting, then on the back and where it wraps around the side would look good in the linen damask. I'm not completely sold, so if there are any suggestions, or if anyone wants to donate about 5-6 yards of gray linen that would be greatly appreciated.

weekend house inspiration

photos via desiretoinspire

We are getting our own weekend house!

This is not it.I found this picture from inside out magazine via coco+kelley.
No we have not come into any money. Nobody has given us their weekend place. So how do you ask? Well I'm not going to say yet, but we are all very excited about it. I have been looking for some inspiration and came across this pic.
I will most likely continue to post inspiration photos up until the big reveal.

Chair shoes

The top picture is of one of a pair of chairs I found in an alley. They need to be reupholstered, but right now I am enjoying the green. When I great around to reupholstering them I see them done in a gray velvet. The arms of the chairs have been worn in perfectly. So smooth and tinted from usage. The legs on the other hand are just kind of gross and dirty.

So I have been seeing a lot of this paint treatment as seen in the second picture but this would be the exact opposite of what I would need to do. So to keep the beauty of the arms of my chairs I've been thinking of taping off the bottom 3" of the legs of my chair, and painting them charcoal gray. Any opinions?

Norskstil.blogspot.com

I love this settee. This picture looks very "spring" to me.
*I found this pic via Emma's designblog

This looks like a very livable room

*amy shutt via design*sponge

Adult furniture

I am still helping my neighbors clean out the house down the street. This piece would not be described as my taste, but I do love things that have had a previous life. I was told that the woman who kept this household loved Victorian furnishings.

I have already cleaned and waxed the wood and have put this wash stand to good use as a place for BabyJ's books and puzzles. I do feel that this is a very adult like piece of furniture, but knowing that the previous owner loved it makes me love it even more.

If anyone knows of a good way to clean marble or of a good marble cleaning product, let me know. Thanks

This belongs to me!

This little stool has a mate, I was not able to get both home today but I will bring the other home tomorrow. I hope this little stool is not too lonely tonight by itself. I will try to make it at home by putting it to work, as a perfect hair stool. It swivels!
And it was FREE

My Dad would love this

I'm surprised he doesn't have one already. I think with a little Patience this is something he could make. He probably has enough "spare" plants that It wouldn't cost him much. Patience maybe what he would be lacking. (luv u Dad)
(this is available through Vivaterra; via decor8)

Nightwood NY

I found this website;www.nightwoodny.com via apartment therapy(?) I loved the way these pieces of furniture were recycled. Anytime I reupholster anything I stress about weather it looks professional. I myself am not a professional.
So when I found this site I liked the way these pieces do not look professional, yet they look so comfy,so lived in. And I thought I could do that.
My neighbor gave me a settee. It is not what I would consider my style, yet after seeing this site I thought I would give it a go.
I will soon include pics and as suggested by my friend Heather I am going to try to take picture during the process. Here goes nothing.

New To Me

This is a small danish settee that was brought back with us from my in-laws. I found it at a little resale shop that I love to visit while we are also visiting "The Chickens". My husband was not real happy with the idea of bringing it back to the big city with us. I told him that it would be real easy to sell. The total cost of this settee was only $6, and for that reason alone it couldn't just leave it. As this blog continues you will notice that this is the on going theme.
I got the settee home, although the dogs may have been a little put out with the lack of space. The cushion covers were really beat, but the foam still in great shape. I had some linen left from a different project, and only needed to purchase another half yard. I just made slip covers for the cushions so that they would be easy to clean.
The straps underneath were half missing, so I bought about 7 yards of webbing and a little elbow grease, the straps look better than ever. Baby J picked up about 10 small tools that looked like a screwdriver with a fork on the end. When I told him to put them back, and he insisted that we get at least one, I had no idea how helpful this little tool would be. I will never again use a butter knife to try to remove upholstery tacks again!
Now the little settee is in our front room, and at this point its not going anywhere. Soon my husband will no longer believe me when I tell him something will be easy to sell. Because for me nothing is easy to sell. I quickly become attached. I will have to come up with a new excuse to bring home furniture we do not need.
Grand total for this project :
settee- $6
webbing-$5
remaining linen-$6
------------------------
$17 total
The therapy from working with my hands:
priceless

( the pillows on the settee I already had, the green wool throw $1 at an estate sale)

I also found this...

This little table belonged to the same man that had owned the metal lawn chair. This man was 98 years old and recently passed away. There are a few people helping clean his house out, and said It was such a task that they were slowly putting some things on the curb. I'm not sure that any of the things I now have meant anything to him or not. I do know that I love these things and I would like to think that he loved them too.

After I carried the lawn chair home while pushing a stroller, I began back on my path to the park. Only to find this little table. I knew that baby J would not stand another trip back to the house for a piece of furniture. I decided that I could put the 30lb. fan in the basket of the stroller, but that's all I could haul. At that moment the man helping with the house cleanup stashed the table for me to pick up on my way home.Yeah!

This is what I want my back yard to look like:

photo courtesy of domino magazine

weekend warriors

This weekend we spent a lot of time out side working. We have a huge yard, 3 dogs and bad soil. This does not make for a beautiful garden. This may be the only time even this small piece of yard will look this good. Soon the dogs will either a.) tear up my cushions b.) start digging up my rock c.) eat all of the plants d.) poop on my pavers or all of the above. So I felt I needed to document all of the hard work and this way at least I can look at this picture and remember the weekend that I had a small piece of the yard I was proud of.

These things find ME...

There she was sad and lonely. Someone had just put her out like garbage. She is truly beautiful. The wooden casing she sits on is so perfectly smooth. Her lines are dainty yet she weighs about 40 lbs.

Next up learning how to rewire a sewing machine, someone cut her cords.

Speaker camoflouge

I bet you can't even tell where the speakers are any more. Thanks to a yard of unbleached linen and my staple gun these HUGE speakers can't even been seen any more! ( there is some sarcasm there, but I am happy with how they turned out) The speakers belonged to my parents back in their rock-n-roll days, and now they belong to us for our rock-n-roll days.

beauty in the small things

Me and baby J picked all of these up at the park this morning.

Found.Love it.

Haven't even plugged it in yet

I hope he was looking down and laughing...

... as he watched from above a neighbor try to lug home his old lawn chair. Stroller in one hand and chair in the other.