Furniture Seeking Behavior

Snow, snow go away. The weekly snow storms are putting a damper on my furniture finds. Everyone seems to be snowed in and the pickings at Savers, Goodwill and the Salvation Army have been slim. This week I was gifted a caned chair by one of my co workers. Truth be told she mentioned that she had a ton of stuff to get sell that belonged to her husband parents, who had died in the last year, and a few items from her own basement clean out. I offered to take anything she want to throw out. She brought me this chair that had been sitting in her basement for 30 years. It was pretty solid but the fabric ripped at the touch.

After days of research and pinning inspiration. I decided that I wanted to cover it in a linen like fabric. I purchased a drop cloth to use on my next project but decided against it because the weaver was a little bit wider than I wanted.  I purchase 4 yards of fabric and 6 yards of flat trim at Osgoods.
I love that place. They now have an online store. Fabric nirvana.  About half way home I realized I forgot to buy batting. I have a tendency to buy more supplies then I need.just encase there is some un- seen problems looming underneath. With another snow storm on the horizon I thought getting out would be a struggle but I wanted to beat the snow and get home.  I hoped that I could find something in my craft closet to use.

I spent the better part of the morning deconstructing it. The foam was in get shape so I just plugged the holes and put a layer of batting over the top.

 I decided that staining it was the way to go because the basement is too cold these days so spend any amount of time down there. I gave it one coat of Miniwax with poly stain.  This is my first upholstery project so I took a bunch of pictures so I could figure out how it all went back together in the end.

All in all I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. My hands are pretty cut up from removing all the old staples and a have a few blister from the staple gun. I will definitely purchase a power gun before I attempt another upholstery project. I cost me about $30.00 since I only had to purchase the fabric and trim. I really don't have any place to put it yet.

One Person's 80's Eyesore Is Another's Treasure

One of my neighbor's posted this bedroom set on Facebook. I of course, can not pass up a free dresser.  Our middle son had recently moved out, taking with him every stick of furniture in the room. After debating what do to with the empty room, a guest room seemed to make the most sense.  I've want to try a black finish for awhile.  I sanded the top and re-stained it a darker finish. I sealed it with several coats of satin finish polyurethane. I applied 3 coats of homemade chalk paint before waxing with paste wax. Here are the before and after shots.

Do We Really Need a 50 Inch Television.

After years of telling my husband he could not have bigger television because our armoire  was too expensive to scrap. I also felt the the 37 inches was more than large enough for our 14 X 17 living room. Last week I finally gave in because he has been such a trooper. He chaperoned my students' winter formal, help we volunteer at our annual food drive and the topper, bought me tickets to see Garth Brooks. During our weekly mall trip/ date night we walked through Best Buy. Again he expressed his desire. He said wouldn't it be great to see the Patriots win this year on a 50 inch. I told him to go for it but he could not use it until we found the paper stand for it.

I made the rounds to Homegoods and Pottery Barn and suffered massive sticker shock. The price ranged from $400- $3000. Even if I could afford one of those pierce they are too fussy for me.

Fast forward to last Friday when I found this lovely at the Salvation Army. It was market $79.95 which was more than  I wanted to spend since must of my furniture has come from the side of the road. After taking some measurements, and deciding it would fit in my car I convinced a nice gentleman to help me get in my car.I was delighted when I went to pay for the piece and it was on sale for $20.00. Major happy dance occurred. I crammed the dresser in my car and made the 30 mile trek home with bungee cords holding down the hatch.

I decided that chalk paint would be the best finish for this piece. I knew that I would have to paint this one in the kitchen so spray paint was not an option. I use a mixture of  1 cup of Valpar flat paint, 1/3 cup of water and 1/3 cup of Plaster of Paris. I used chalk paint earlier this summer and discovered that it worked best if I used warm water and mix it with the Plaster of Paris first and then added it to the paint.

 

I took off all the hardware and replaced the interior drawers with new shelves for the components. I  gave the piece a light sanding and patched the deep scratch and the old handle holes with wood filler. 

I gave it two coats of painting, sanding lightly between each of the coats. 

After the piece had dried and use sandpaper to distress the corner of the top, and drawer fronts.  I applied paste wax with a large paint brush and buffed it to a high shine. I work in small sections applying and buffing.  The piece came out better than I could have hoped. My husband has his new television and I have a piece of furniture that I am proud to say I transformed.

Blanket Chest

          My favor place to shop these days is definitely Savers. I can easily get to two locations in my area. There are  three additional stores on my way to Boston. I have a system I use to scout the store. The first place I go is the housewares in search of  "always looking for" items. I am always on the hunt for off- white serving pieces. I then go to the furniture department, followed by the shoes, bags and final the dresses. 

A few weeks back after weekend long meeting I dropped into the Framingham location and found this piece. It was  love at first sight but we have a new rule in my house since the broken foot fall.I am not allowed near furniture without my husband's help. I decide to chance it, it was only $14.00. I managed to drag it to the register. While waiting in line I struck up a friendship with a lovely  union sanitation worker from Boston. Its interesting how a good deal can lead to a friendly conversation. He helped me get it into the car and off I went.  

On the way home I decided that I would paint it white because the green had that early 90's look to it and it was chipped pretty badly. I did notice it had a citron green poking through in a few spots, that, I liked. The doors were sealed shut and one of the knobs was missing. When I got home I had to con my husband into bring it into the house and down the dreaded stairs to the basement. He's standard reply " what are you going to do with that". I convinced him it would be awesome and went to work.  

                                                  The more I looked at the green I started to think it might work. I took the sander to it to smooth out the chips and reveal a little more of the paint below. I took off and adjusted the doors. I gave it a coat of Johnson's Paste Wax and put on some new knobs. The knobs and the wax cost more than the blanket chest.  Husband had to admitted it is one of his favorite pieces.

Faux Button Tucked Headboard

When couples decided to move in together they bring a lot of the stuff from their past into the relationship. This baggage from the past can cause many problems. There is a lot give and take and some merging to do  marry someone who has been living alone, moving from city to city for the past 12 years. I was ready to deal with his collections, his golf stuff and his music, but I was not prepared for the mattress. Dave had just purchase the mattress the year before, and mine was pushing 15 years old. His was a queen, mine was only a full, so we settled on his. 

To make it our bed we went out and bought a beautiful four poster bed. Almost immediately there were problems. It was lumpy, it made a great deal of noise, and every-time one of us moved the other felt everything. To top it all off, the bed pretty high profile. Dave is not a tall man and had to almost do a running leap to get into it. Right from the start I knew this mattress was bad but we struggle through with it for 10 years. 

The bed with the old mattress

We decide to purchase a new mattress! Before it arrived I decided I wanted new bedding to go with it. I've been salivating over all white bedding, painted furniture and quilted headboards on Pinterest for months. I love my the wood finish on the bed, so I was am not willing to commit to painting it or stapling fabric to it. I decided to fake ahead board. I have rediscovered a great place to by fabric, Osgood Textiles in West Springfield, MA. I spent hours trying to find color and patterns to go with my existing paint and curtains.

 The first thing I did was create a paper pattern. I taped newspaper on the wall behind the bed and traced it. 

 Next I made a pattern out of muslin, and traced it onto the fabric. After cutting it out I pinned it and draped it 

over the bed.

When I was happy with the seem allowances I cut out 2 pieces of fabric using my muslin pattern. I next used the pattern to cut out 1 piece of batting.

 I sandwiched the muslin, fabric and batting together and sewed them.  The sandwiched fabric was fabric, batting, muslin, fabric. I left the bottom open. I cut all the curved edges for turning and pressed the seem back. 

I laid the finish piece flat and used buttons from my collection to button tuck the fabric. Make sure you only go throw the first 3 sandwich layers. I tied ribbon to the corners to secure it to the bed.

Now remember when I said the bed had a high profile, well I should have taken that into consideration before I made the cover. The new mattress is a good 6 inches higher than the old one. When we put on the new mattress all the new pillow and bedding it totally hid everything I did. Oh well, I know its there.

Fluffy new mattress

Blogging and then not Blogging

I am ready to give this another try. I have a whole list of excuses why I have not attempted a single post in 8 months. Here's my list:
1. Broken foot- caused by falling down the starts while removing replacement dresser from first blog post.
2. New school year, with broken foot. Always playing catch up
3. Freak October ice storm. So much damage, so little time
4. Holiday season. Shopping between physical therapy appointments and doctor visits
5. Newly elected to MTA Board of Directors- Where are we meeting this month?
5. Eldest son announces he's getting married, with two weeks notice.
6. Cotillion, midterms
7. Barcelona followed by a deathly case of "Spanish Flu"
8. How much did I gain? We have to start working out again,
9. Prom, finals, more meetings,

10. Out of excuses-  Let the crafting and fashion begin

Before & After

I've been looking for a large dresser for my bedroom. I came across this one last week at the Salvation Army for only $25.00. I managed to get it home and of course husband meet me in the driveway with the eye roll.

I decided I want to keep the top stain wood and paint the rest a creamy white. I removed the hardware. Several of the knobs were beyond repair, so I tossed them. I filled all the scratches with Elmer's Wood Filler.
I sanded the whole piece using this crazy old sander that use to be my late father in laws. I have had the thing for 11 years and I have to admit I was afraid of it. It is now my new old favorite tool. After sanding I restained the top using Minwax in Red Mahogany. I gave it three coats of poly and sanded between coats.

After much research I decided to give spray paint a try. I used Rustoleum American Accents in Heirloom White- satin finish. I gave it four or five coats. The hard part for me was letting in dry between coats. Patients is not one of my virtues. I gave a day to dry before I used the sander on the edges to distress it. With the help of my hubby, we put on all the hardware which I sprayed flat black. I had to purchase a couple of handles to replace the broken ones.
Hubby had to admit that he loved the dresser when it was done. I think it came together nicely with my $3.00 tag sale pot and a mirror I found at the flea market.