Renewed, Upcycled, Recycled , Cube Footstool

I can't even begin to tell you how long I've wanted to do this sort of project.

Let us hear the story of how it came to be...

 

So Derek and the two older boys went on a men & boys camping trip this last weekend.

Fun for them, fun for me.

Now those of you who have been around for a while will remember I have a third son.

My in laws (who are awesome btw) called and asked if they could keep him for the day.

I may have interrupted them before they finished asking with a hearty yes!

 

I love my kids.

I do.

But in the back of my mind I've been wishing for a trip to HomeGoods.

I wanted it to be the kind of trip that memories are made of.

But not the kind where memories must be paid for because they were accidentally broken.

 

I browsed through HomeGoods at my leisure.

I. looked. At. Everything.

Twice.

At the end of my browsing then I set one measly item on the counter and asked if they could mark it down even more for me since the lid was missing.

They did.

Nice people those HomeGooders.

I rushed home with my burn-your-eyeballs-pink-cube.

I yanked out my burlap coffee bag that I had been hoarding for just such a moment.

(Not sure who I was hoarding it from? Perhaps myself?)

I realized as I lovingly draped my coffee friend over the pink cube that the pink cube was still showing through.

I ran outside with my pink cube and quickly sprayed it down with some black spray paint.

Then I went to stapling....

 

 

 

The lid was next.

Not very exciting.

I cut.

I screwed my planks to another piece of wood.

I stained.

I stuffed.

I stapled.

I banged tacks around it. 

 

And I was happy.

Let's Lay A Cow There

I've been without Internet for a few days.

Sad that it felt so strange to be without.

 

Anyway, I've always wanted a cowhide rug.

Didn't like the price tags attached to them though.

 

 

 

During one of my every-few-day perusals of Craigslist, then I happened to come across this one.

I love it when you find something and it's about 2 miles from your house.

Good for my pocket-book that it doesn't happen to often.

 

 

 

Our boys don't normally give a hoot owl about what decor decisions I make.

This is one they were very pleased about.

If you ask Lee where the cow is then he heads into the family room.

 

 

How has adding a cow to our family changed us, you ask?

He eats very little .(just crumbs really)

He's deadly quiet. (is that too much?)

He doesn't take up too much room. (actually he covers half of it)

Really he's brought much joy and comfort to our lives.

We call him Earl.

 

Not really.

Hutch Redo - Before & After

 

Okay so you know those kind of projects that are going to be super simple and you'll have them done and posted to your blog in about 2 days.

 

Start to finish...

 

Or perhaps almost a year or so will go by.

 

I'm an awful procrastinator.

 

I actually bought this hutch in a package deal off of Craigslist.

I redid the desk here and then just stalled for a while.

 

This thing is oooollld!

And HEAVY!

It was also dog mess brown.

Excuse my language but it was that ugly.

 



So the first order of business was to remove all the doors.

The bottom two doors were really falling apart and wouldn't close without some serious pushing and pulling.

I decided to just "remake" them instead of trying to fix them.

I took them apart and and removed the middles from them.

I decided to just chicken wire the whole toot'n thing.

 

I finally reassembled it and painted it.

The colors are all custom mixed with various paints I had sitting around.

The inside is a grayish blue.

The outside is just a normal white

I use it to store all my sewing stuff in.

As I look at this photo then I consider the fact that I should have straightened it up a bit.

Anyway, it's old.

It's big.

It's staying.

For now... 

 

 

Gli Speciali di Casa Chic Feature

A few months back I was very honored and excited to be contacted from the Italian Magazine

 Gli Speciali di Casa Chic.

I got to work with a lovely lady there by the name of Annarita who did an amazing job of making our house look magazine worthy.

 

I did copy and paste everything into Google so that I could translate to english and see what was said.

It was all good stuff:-)

Annarita tried to send me a few copies through the mail so that I could have them as souvenir's.

Alas...

I received an empty envelope instead since fedex couldn't see to it that they arrived safely.

If any of you over in Europe ever see a copy then email me and I would LOVE to reimburse you any expense to have it shipped over!

Anyway it was a fun experience and I thank Annarita for her patience and her immense talent!

Thank you!

P.S. I also saw this little shout out over on Apartment Therapy that I thought was cool! 

Mayhem

Anyone seen any Allstate commercials or signs?

When Mayhem strikes they are they for you!

Please excuse the cell phone pic. Oh, right. Flooded room. Who cares.

We don't have Allstate.

Or foundation insurance.

Stinks for us.

When we bought this house 2 years ago then there was no disclosure about flooding.

Our family room flooded 3 times within 3 months of moving in.

It has to be a lot of rain, which we got last night.

So now we need french drains put in around our house.

I love Mayhem (yuck).

To bad it has to hit us right in the pocketbook.

Trying to look on the bright side...

My family room floor gets a complete cleaning!

Probably won't matter after we tear up all the baseboards though:-(

Perhaps the walls will need some planking.

Just a thought.

Liking the New Lights! And Other Stuff Too!

It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things.
I saw these lamps on The Foundary and I had all these awesome credits to their store, soooo.

I bought them for just pennies.

I've kinda been heading a little more industrial in my decorating, so these were really the perfect touch.

I have found many cool things from The Foundary.
Just wait till you see my new "rug".

Actually don't wait.

 See it right now.

On the floor.

Look on the floor.

Theeerrre ya go! Likey? Me too.

I had have great plans to paint it like Miss Mustard Seeds.
Not today though.
Or tomorrow...

I also bought this Willow Cloche on The Foundary.
I like it too.

The message here is... whatever you get out of it.
But I like my new lights, rug and cloche.
Ahhh, there's the message!

My Biggest, Newest Sign On My Biggest Wall

I know you all remember my family room reveal a few months back. I liked it, I really did, but I'm not sure if I ever mentioned just how large the main wall is/was. Big, Large & Huge.


Ugly Picture of VERY LARGE wall.

The window that I had hanging there, just wasn't covering the expanse of the wall at all. I waited patiently for divine intervention....


I have had a piece of wood that I got out of the dumpster (One of my sisters actually got it out for me. Bless her.) sitting in my garage just waiting for some inspiration.

Inspiration took a long time to reach me. Not sure where it even came from, but I finally decided what I wanted to paint on it...

I had some gift cards left over from my last birthday, a loving husband with some cash to throw at me and a half off sale at Hobby Lobby. That all equalled this lovely new mirror.

The large bareness of the wall is covered now. I feel like I finally dressed it properly.

It's a good feeling.

I'll stick with this feeling for now.... you never know when another feeling will come along and blow this one off the wall;-)

My Newest (semi-done) Piece Of Furniture

I picked this work of seventies/eighties art up at the Goodwill a few months back for a few pesos. It was exactly what I had been looking for to store games and photo albums in, but not exactly my current style.

The finish even has the black speckles that some wise designer thought would complete the piece. Really? Stain it then splatter it with black dots? Genius.

First I painted the whole thing with my favorite color (Milk Paint from Lowes). I didn't like it so I started putting Citristrip all over the top and sides. I still didn't like it and the worst part was that when I started sanding the top again then it took of the top layer of "wood" to reveal fibery, ugly particle board.

So I had to get creative.... I didn't actually take all the paint off the top cause I really wanted it to look old. I then took some stain with poly that had kinda gotten globy, a paint brush that was on the stiff side and I used that to recreate a wood grain on the top.

I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back when I was done. Except for one thing, I didn't really like how much I had ended up distressing the bottom of it.

But I went ahead and moved it into the house anyway and let it grow on me like a fungus.

It worked! The fungus spread all over me (loving the mental image) till I have now fallen in like with the piece of wonderful storage!

One more itsy-bitsy problem though... I decided not to fill the former holes from the hardware and just find some the same size (the jute ones on there are temporary). Dumb. The size of the top ones are 4 1/4 from hole to hole. That's a very large handle and very hard to come by. I'm still on the hunt and still not sure what I will do. Your suggestions are welcome.


Now you've heard the whole story.

I will be back to hosting We Can Do It Cheaper (it will be up later tonight) so be sure to stop back in and link up all the things you've done while I've been absent!

My New Yummy Stuff {no you can't eat it}

I did manage to pick up a few cool things for myself at Antique Alley. You know when you see an item and you feel something inside of you pulling you to it and you know you'll regret it so terribly if you don't go purchase that item right away? Ok, so sometime I feel that way and no matter what I feel, the price tag just doesn't feel the same way about me.
BUT, not so with my wonderful chippy table.

It was love at first sight.

I think you'll agree.

Inhale...Exhale. Ahhhhhhh.

That green light shade sitting on the table was a bargain for just 50 cents. Not sure where it will hang, but I love the color and the price!



I also found this very pretty old crate for a measly $5. It was almost a crime not to buy it.
Ahhh, this candy cane stool has lovely metal legs with touches of paint here and there. Though the material was cute, it just wasn't me. It is now covered in a scrap of drop cloth.

I also bought an old metal basket. I wish I had about 10 more of them.

Tomorrow I'm going to Canton, TX to one of the oldest recorded flea markets. Canton Trade Days is something that everyone should experience at some point. I can't wait to share my finds with you!

Don't forget to come back later and link up with We Can Do It Cheaper!