A Table with Potential

Laminate coffee table

I found this coffee table at the thrift store this week and loved the lines of it, but wasn't impressed with the laminate top. The thrift store was have a 50% off cash and carry furniture sale, so I decided to spend the $15 and try to work some magic.

I had a coupon for 50% off at Joanns fabric, and even though they don't carry the highest grade foam, I was able to get 56'' of 24'' wide, 2'' foam for $25. I also purchased a nice think batting that was already on sale, so about $5 went into that.

Little helper

Also on the materials list was this nice gray wool army blanket that was thrifted from savers, for $5. This is the only picture I snapped of the blanket before it was put into use. This also explains why I have a hard time getting any projects done lately. There is always someone wanting to "help", and believe it or not, it always makes the project harder.
When using vintage material for a project it is always important to thoroughly examine the fabric. Wool army blanket are great for re purposing, but make sure there are no moth holes. The blanket I found was in amazing shape, no holes, no stains.

It was pretty easy after that. I just detached the laminate top, cut the foam to size using an electric knife, wrapped the foam with my batting and used a staple gun to attach. I then cut the wool blanket to size and then placed it on the foam and batting upside down, pinned the corners and the used my sewing machine to sew the corners that I had pinned.

Once the sewing was done, I flipped it right side out, stretched it back over the foam and stapled it in place.

There you go. A table with potential. In all this project cost about $55 to complete, and that is including the cost of the table. It was a easy project, that anyone could complete. It gave new life to this piece of furniture that had an undesirable laminate top, but beautiful Pearsall-esque walnut legs.

Committed

Well, I've committed to selling off my cookware collection. I have a set of Descoware cookware in the "flame" colorway listed in my Etsy shop. I will begin listing my Le Creuset piece by piece. My hope is to switch out the decor in my kitchen and begin collecting pieces in primarily white, with some black thrown in.

This is most of my collection and every piece has been well used and loved. If anyone out there has any white pieces they are interested in trading for "flame" let me know!

These things find me...

What can I say, these things find me.
Yesterday I was on my way to pick up one of my son's friends from a camp in Webster, a area in town that I don't spend a whole lot of time in. Mapquest had giving me really poor directions, and I was a little afraid with the detour I had to take I was going to be late. As we cruised down the street out of the corner of my eye I thought i spotted what could be a cool lamp in a trash heap. I had no time to investigate and we were on a busy street that had no shoulder. After we made it to pick up our friend, I decided to go and take a closer look. I had to actually pull into the driveway to get off the street and I jumped out, picked up the pieces and just threw them into the back of the car, all while trying not to embarrass my son. He is used to me grabbing things out of the trash, but I didn't want him to have to explain to his friend it's a regular occurrence.
When we got home I was very excited to pull all of the pieces out of the car and see that not only had I just found one amazing lamp, there were TWO lamps that needed to be reassembled. I wiped them down with Goo Gone and Magic Erase, There were a couple of bulbs broken in the sockets, so I carefully removed those and replaced with 4 small nightlight bulbs for each lamp. Both lamps still work without having to get into doing any repairs, one lamp as a crack in the shade, which I used Mighty Putty to fill the crack so it won't get any larger. I think they will go on either side of my sofa, but I will need to do a little rearranging first.
So there we go, these things find me. I sold 15 lamps over the weekend to lighten the load at the house, and quickly these lovely lighting beauties knew even though they weren't perfect, they could find a loving home with me.

Finally feeling loved

Bertoia in good company

I was out of town all last week, so I didn't have any time to work on projects, but right before we left town I decided to do a little rearranging of the kitchen.  I decided I would move our stainless steel table out of the kitchen and in its place put our old pedestal table back in, and group my new Bertoia with the pair of Eames wire chairs I had bought a couple of years ago at an estate sale. I love the Eames chairs, especially only having paid $3 a piece, even though at the current time they don't match.
When I found the Eames pair they had been used as patio chairs, and one had breaks in the welds so bad it was no longer attached to the base. I took that chair to have it welded, and when I picked it up the man doing the work took it upon himself to also paint it. I'm sure he did this to cover up what mess the welding had made, but I wasn't sure I was going to paint them. Now, I like the contrast between the two but maybe someday I will paint the other one.
I do think the new Bertoia chair is enjoying the company he is keeping, and I hope he is finally feeling loved.

Free style pick'n

Before

appliance epoxy

plasti dip

after

Free style picking is a term I borrowed from the "American Pickers" , and they use this term for when they drive around and when they see something they could be interested in buying they ask the owner if they would sell it to them.
We were on a walk and I noticed in a backyard there was a lonely Bertoia accompanied by a folding lawn chair and two beat up wooden kitchen chairs. The Bertoia looked lonely and scared, not knowing how its life took such a turn that it would end up in a place this.
I asked the man out front if it was his chair in the backyard, and he said no its my neighbors, and he's not home. So, as I walked home I decided It was my job to rescue this poor lost soul, clean him up, and let him know he was loved.
I decided to drive by again a couple of days later, and I was lucky enough that the owner was in the back yard. I asked If I could purchase the chair, and ready for my rejection, he kindly said yes. He first told me he would feel bad charging me, since he had found the chair himself. But, after thinking it over for a moment, his reply was $15. I couldn't get to my wallet fast enough and handed him the money. He smiled and said he thought I was going to try to talk him down, and that he would have taken $10. he loaded the chair into the car, and we were both as happy as could be.
The chair needed some love, and as I had promised, I took him home, and began to bring him a new lease on life. I scraped him down to get any loose finish off, I took the seat off the base, and used white appliance epoxy on the seat and the used black plasti dip on the base. I did a few coats of each, letting them dry in between. And that is how this Bertoia got a new home. ( I also had to promise no more nights spent out side, this city can be rough)

Christmas comes early...

Over the weekend I was asked about a Christmas list, and I have to say It's usually pretty easy for me to come up with ideas of what someone can buy me on a moments notice. One of the things I've been looking for secondhand and coming up empty handed is a photo light.

I've been kind of working in the basement to have a small space to photograph items for craigslist or ebay, and of coarse the lighting in the basement is awful. So the first thing on my wish list was a tripod, but the second thing was a light. I've tried clamp lights galore and a three bulb overhead, but still I was lacking in the lighting department.

So, when discussing my wish list, my father-in-law jumps up goes outside and comes back in moments later with a cute little metal carrying case with a vintage photo light. I think my mother-in-law was maybe trying to signal him to wait and possibly wrap it and gift it for Christmas, Thankfully he was oblivious to her signals, and he plugged in a burn your retains, metal bar with 4 of the brights lights I've ever seen.

I just started messing around with the light today, and here are a few shots I took in a totally dark room with just the light bar and no flash or tripod.

I am so happy that Christmas came early, I have such a hard time waiting for things.

Self-welt

This is the first time I've actually used welting on an upholstery project. I sew on a very average Brother sewing machine, and I first of all didn't feel it was capable of sewing that many layers together nicely, I also feel that welting eats up a lot of extra fabric cutting it on the bias.

Well, I decided that I needed to better my upholstery skills, and teach myself something new. It wasn't as hard as I thought, but it also wasn't as easy as it it could have been. I thought using some left over black fabric would be a great way to use up leftovers.

I started on the bottom cushion, and had a very hard time getting the welting as tight as I wanted it, and usually if I force my machine to do something it doesn't want to, it results in breaking something. For the next cushion, I decided to just go ahead and ride the welt with my sewing foot, and that did the trick. Since I have picked up a specialty foot for my machine, and I think at this point it is going to take some practice.

I need your opinions...

So here it is, the top picture is from right after I found this pair of chairs in the alley. I decided instead of reupholstering them, I wanted to take a different route, and use exposed webbing. I have never done this before, but I love the look.

The wood on both of these chairs was in decent shape. I had said something to my husband about painting them black, and he felt that that wasn't the way to go. I half-heartedly agreed and began working on the rocker with dark walnut danish oil. Next, I went to the fabric store and chose some bright white webbing, and started on a tight basket weave. After almost finishing the back, I decided the weave was too tight, I wanted to see some light coming through, and that the webbing wasn't substantial enough.

Knowing that I was going to take all the webbing off and start over, I began daydreaming about black chairs and black webbing. I went ahead and painted the other chair that isn't a rocker, a flat black and went to get heavier black webbing.

The fabric store of course only had 7 yards of the webbing I wanted, so I ended up coming home with just 7 yards of nice thick cotton webbing. I got to work, using steel tacks and am really happy with the back of the black chair.

So, my question is this: Do I go ahead and paint the rocker black and use black webbing, so that this pair looks like a pair, or do I leave the rocker walnut color, get the exact same webbing but in white? They also have unbleached webbing, with a more natural color, that I could use on the rocker, but I kind of like the contrast of the bright white against the wood.

Any advice would be great, your opinion may open my eyes to even something I haven't thought of.

(*I picture these chairs sitting next to each other or at least in the same room)
(** I forgot to mention I had my husband cut the backs so the lines were a little cleaner)

Lotus bowl

This is the new enamel bowl I found this afternoon at my secret thrift store. At .69 cents I scoured the shelves for it's mates and came up empty handed. I am very excited though, it looks like its always been on the shelf in my kitchen.

I believe this vintage bowl is Scandinavian and designed by Catherineholm, there isn't any kind of marking on it, so if anyone knows whether this kind of bowl has a stamp or not, please let me know.

My chair

I found this picture via apartmenttherapy.com, scavenger. The chair and ottoman are for sale for $625. They say there is no makers mark on there chair, but I believe it is the same chair I just recently upholstered. My chair had been reupholstered in the 70's, and maybe the headrest was tossed at that time, I might have to make one for mine. The base is also darker on theirs, So now seeing this I will definitely be using some walnut danish oil on mine.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

I found this great chair in an alley, on our way to Baby J's surprise birthday party. He was blindfolded and wondering why I had stopped and what I was thrusting into the back of the car. Sadly a scraper had already had his way with it and had taken the rocking mechanism with him.

The upholstery was in perfect shape and the arms were beautiful, so I cut wood to fit the bottom and then worked quite a few stressful hours to splay the legs, make then sit evenly and be sturdy. I had the legs already, so the only investment was stain and glides for the legs.

It turned out pretty great, and now it is SOLD! On to the next project.

DIY Upholstery Project

It's not done, and it won't ever be perfect, but I am happy with the results. I found this chair on Craigslist and felt like it had good bones. I am self taught at reupholstering, and at some point I would love to take some classes. Until then, this is what you get. I still have some work on the cushion, and then wood base and legs came unfinished, I sanded them with fine grit, and then used some wax-n-feed, I have decided to go back in and use med. grit then fine, and then some danish oil in dark walnut- I think, maybe med. walnut, we'll see. The base is still not attached to the chair so it is easy to work on. I then chose an army green canvas for the upholstery. I loved the color and the durability of canvas, but I had never worked with canvas to upholster, and I have to say I don't think it is the easiest to work with, not much give.

I had to go back to the fabric store and decided on some burlap to finish the back. I thought It would give it more of a rustic look and since I could already tell the project would not end perfectly, I decided that I could get creative with it. Instead of using tack strips to finish the side and back I chose more rustic upholstery tacks. I am very happy with the project, it's a very comfortable chair, and even with the frustration of the curves, I loved the time I was able to spend using my hands and being creative.

I will post more finished photos when that time comes.

New Couch

I have been spending my free time recently on a few projects. The first, is trying to get our family room back together.

We purchased a new couch, since the other one was way too light in color for our active family. I had been keeping an eye out for something smaller and easier to clean. Not much had surfaced, so I continued to clean our cream color couch, and talk about how my life would be much easier if he had a leather couch.

So, cut to the chase and I had a morning to myself and decided to make a quick stop at the local Salvation Army, and there it was just being wheeled off the truck. I said " I'll take it!". I was then told that there was no manager in for the day, and it couldn't be priced, therefore I couldn't purchase it. I asked when a manager would be in to price it, and was told the morning. I was just sick to my stomach. There was the couch of my dreams in perfect condition and I had to leave empty handed. The people working there were very sweet, despite me being crazy about some old couch, and they told me to return in the morning first thing and It would be mine.

I got home and told my husband and spent the rest of the day worrying about who else would see my couch and who was also going to show up in the morning for a chance at this great sofa.

I got to the Salvation Army at 8:30 am, the store opened at 9. Me and Baby J camped out with our Starbucks and portable DVD, and believe it or not we were the first ones in the door that morning. I put Baby J on the sofa as to mark our territory, and I went in search of the manager. I told her we would like to purchase the couch, and she told me we would have to wait till she got around to pricing it.

At this point I knew, and my husband also pointed out that my eagerness was going to get me gouged. We patiently waited until that little paper tag was placed on the arm of the couch, and I took a deep breath(I had already decided what my limit was) $29.99.

We took the couch and ran.

Kicking myself....

A couple of weekends ago I had a moment to stop at an estate sale, I didn't have much time, and I also at this point really don't need anything.
I spotted this little bar cart/ wine rack and thought it was great, priced at $20. I didn't grab it since I was in a hurry, and as I stated before, I no longer have any room in my house for furniture.
Well, today when I was looking on the Surfing Cowboys site, I spotted this picture of the exact same bar cart, my heart dropped into my stomach(and is still there) $750, is what this Paul McCobb bar cart is going for. KICKING MYSELF.