Furniture

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So Vain 

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I have a new Vanity!!!

Ok, like most things I own it isn’t “new”, just new to me. I received this desk as a hand me down gift from Mr. Smith’s aunt. 


The sewing machine from it still works by the way. 

 

I got it sanded this spring but work stopped as soon as the heat hit and we were off running around the country. 



I finally got around to working on it in earnest these past couple of weeks. 


The verticals supports and panels weren’t sanding out as well as I liked so I opted to paint them. 


The top and the drawer fronts however  were a glorious grain so I decided to stain them as close as possible to my bedroom furniture. 


We (my mother and I) lined the drawers with contact paper to protect them from the cosmetics that will go inside.

Beemer helped too


The hardware that was in the desk to begin with matched our furniture pretty well so I just cleaned it up and reattached it. 


Before I set up my inordinate amount of makeup on the desk I placed a plastic sheet (it’s actually from a poster frame) on the desk to prevent makeup getting embedded in the wood grain. 

I finally got to take all of my makeup out of bins and put it in real drawers in a proper vanity.


And yes that is a mechanics stool. 

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Screw this

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In case you missed last weeks blog I had a project that was put on hold thanks to one stubborn screw that was giving me trouble. Thanks to some vice grips and wd40 that was sorted out and what follows is the project in its entirety. 

We got this tiny rocking chair from my grandmother after it sat in her basement for goodness knows how long. 


The upholstery was terrifying, there were dead spiders, but at least they were dead. 


The wood base was still in excellent shape so there was no need to cut a new one. I used foam from an old mattress pad doubled over along with remnant fabric I had laying around to reupholster it. 


I used the same method I did on our dining chairs which you can see here.


The chair itself was in pretty rough shape too, pegs were loose and screws were rusted. Hence the trouble we had getting the one screw out. The head rusted off leaving only the threaded portion. 


We ended up drilling out around it, spraying wd40 in the hole and pulling it out with vice grips


I later filled the hole with wood filler so the new screw would have something to grip 


After disassembling the chair it probably looked like a pile of fire wood to anyone else but the wood was still in excellent shape after a good sanding. 


However even after sanding the pieces didn’t match. Some were a very light wood, some had a red hue to them. If I were staining it a dark color it wouldn’t have mattered but I wanted to keep the piece light so I opted to do a wash of paint. 


I decided to try out target’s paint brand. I believe it’s made by valspar which is generally not my favorite but it worked well for the wash due to being a rather flat base. 


Some new screws and wood glue to secure loose pegs and the chair is back to being a wonderful sturdy piece again. It’s an excellent edition to our library tucked over by the children’s books. 

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Hiccups

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Or is it Hiccoughs I never know. Last week I posted about the struggles I was having with my anxiety and depression which I thought were compounded by the medications they had me on for my cystic acne. 
 We had a birthday party to go to this week, there was a bouncy house that I indulged in. 


Run for your lives little children

There was also silly string. My husband decided when we got home to attack me with it. We have sword fights and nerf wars and silly string battles on a regular basis but that night after spending a day with people I didn’t know well and being very on edge It threw me into a full blown (hyperventilating, sobbing, convulsing, deer in the headlights) panic attack. It’s hilarious in retrospect, it was confusing and frustrating at the time and all I could think of were those stupid “triggered” memes.
Surprizingly after that night I was feeling upbeat enough to work on a project over Memorial Day but… it didn’t cooperate. It’s the tiny rocking chair I got while in Michigan. One of the screw heads broke off while disassembling it. It was rusted through and needed to be replaced anyway unfortunately, now we get to dig a broken screw out of the leg. It isn’t a huge deal but it put the breaks on that. 


It’s going to take some more finagling.

But it’s not all bad 

First look at this face!!! My skin has never looked better. It feels really raw and dry but it looks amazing. 


Ummm #nofilter? And no makeup and if I’m going to toot my own horn the library is looking pretty good too. 

 Secondly  my dermatologist confirmed that either the accutane OR (given that aunt flo decided to visit in the middle of my cycle despite the little pills telling her there’s no room at the inn) the birth control  are compounding my mental health issues and that it’s definitely time to stop. 

And the angels sang

Last I’ve decided to take a huge leap of faith in myself. I’ll have more about that mystery in later posts but I’m already incredibly excited about what is to come. 
Oh… Okay… maybe just a little hint 

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Where we left off

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So we left off having visited the dunes, by the way these fulgurites are pretty cool. I found a tiny one once. They are very fragile and the inside looks like  murcury glass.


It was then onto one of my favorite places in the world. My grandmothers house. The above obviously isn’t her house. It’s the chicken coop. Though that’s an understatement since it’s now a completely finished building. Carpeted and all. 


Even the chipmunks love my grandmothers back porch. 

Our last day in Michigan we celebrated Mr. Smiths (along with two other’s) Birthday with friends and family 

Then it was home through the dreaded state of Ohio. This is what it threw at us this time. 


The best part of Ohio? The bridge to Kentucky. 

As you can see, once we finally got home (after going through many more states, none as bad as Ohio, lol) our living room kind of exploded. We got lots of goodies while we were there including but not limited to a stop sign as you can see above. I promise it was legally purchased. 

And look at these crochet cacti! 

As promised I have lots of projects coming up. One of my side projects is going to be restoring a lot of old photographs. I don’t know as though I’ll blog about that, but it’s a fun hobby. I used to do a bit of photo restoration and it will be nice to have some family photos in our new house. 

I’ve also started working on painting and decorating our guest bathroom. A family member made us beautiful monogrammed towels to go in it and it was just the push I needed to get it started. My office is currently full of all of the bits and bobs that will be going in there. 

My grandmother also gave me this tiny rocker. It needs a lot of repair work and a new seat but I thought it was too cute to pass up when she offered it. As soon as my garage gets cooled down I’ll add it to the list of things to do in there. 


That’s all from us for now. 

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Kid Stuff

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Just a couple small projects this week. First up my childhood friend the rocking horse. I never gave it a name. Or a gender for that matter. Comment what it’s name should be, I think it’s about time it got one. 

This poor, 26ish year old horse has spent the last 14 or so years in a garage loft and it shows.

My grandfather built it for me before my legs would even reach the pegs. And my grandmother painted the beautiful designs. 

As you can see the varnish has yellowed over the years. In fact you can see where my little hands wore off the varnish so the blue paint shows its true color around the hand holds.

I wanted to get rid of as much of the yellowing as I could while still keeping the lovely paint that my grandmother did, so I just did a wet sanding with a 150 and 220 grit sanding pad 

Now it just looks a little more antiqued than before, but still beautiful. I will eventually need to replace the tail, but for now it’s found a home in our dining room for our friends children to play on. 

Next up a project from Mr. Smith’s childhood. 

It’s not quite as pretty but it’s a bit more practical. It was his childhood toy box and before it was his it was someone else’s… I’m not sure whose, but obviously it’s pretty old and it’s pretty sturdy. It’s made out of scrap, solid wood, tongue and groove. 

And as you can see here a 6 year old Mr. Smith painted it. 

We freshened up the paint a bit using the same red and chalkboard as I did on the bar. As you can see it’s also going to need a new bottom. 

It also desperately needed new casters as the bearings in these had seized up. 

New casters, new bottom reinforced with a center strut thanks to some scrap paneling and wood…
I think Mr. Smith is excited about his newly remodeled toy box…. Or at least the toys

And it has found a cozy home in the breakfast nook. 

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We’re all Mod here

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Words and things…. Ok fine, I don’t feel like writing so this is mostly going to be a story in pictures.

Sad old table…

Lots of sanding…

Oh look two different types of wood…

Ugly black legs

Let’s paint them blue and orange to match the entertainment center…

My best friend tung oil…

See why it’s my best friend 

Pretty table with pretty entertainment center

The End…


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Jumping the gun

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I was going to do a post on our coffee table but it’s in the process of drying in the garage so In anticipation of 100 followers on WordPress and in celebration of having hit 100+  likes on my Facebook this week, not to mention swiftly approaching 100 posts and two years with what started out as a little experiment, I thought I would round up some of my favorite posts. PS if you haven’t liked my Facebook page you totally should, I sneak in extra posts and updates there, so you should definitely click here. The hyperlinks are included in the text and pictures if you feel like checking out each post.

At the tippy top of the list will probably always be my series about my antique desk. I actually have another desk that will get a refinish this summer. I’m  beyond excited for that. 


If you want to see the whole series start here but here are the individual links 

Part 1… Part 2… Part 3 … Part 4
 

And bittersweetly to accompany my desk is the post about my mother in laws chair


Thanks to being in a new house I’ve had lots of great projects recently, my particular favorites being the hallway full of frames. 

And of course our new/old entertainment center soon to be joined by a mid century table which you may have seen a sneak peak of in one of my recent posts. 

Let’s not forget about remodeling that bathroom, that was pretty awesome. 


I’ve also got to give love to my Halloween makeup posts 

Of which this past fall’s look went a wee bit viral on Pinterest… Oh right did I mention I’m on Pinterest…. I’m on it a lot  my username is ItsybitsyBows… Cause TinyBows was taken 

And last but not least an early favorite is my clock turned lantern.

 

If you guys have any projects  you want to see drop me a line in the comments. 

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Mid Century Modification

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Here is a project I’ve been working on for a while. It’s been stuck in the planning stages since we moved in. This old dresser came from my great aunt who got it from her mother (my great grandmother) it’s in pretty rough shape.

 So I took a couple of the worse for wear drawers out so I could use the space for shelves.
  

And tah dah new entertainment center.


 

Luckily we got some bed side tables that had this strange MDF packing material that was the perfect size to serve as a base for the shelves. We just glued and nailed some plywood on the top and a strip of oak on the front to help it match the esthetic of the rest of the piece. 

   
   

 
Next it was time to shore up the legs. The original lumber was pretty dry rotted so after salvaging the nut out of the old piece we seated it into a scrap of deck lumber. I don’t think we’ll have any stability problems there.

 
 

We also put a new back on it after the old one fell right off. Then cut some holes in the new back to run wiring for components. 

  
Finally it was time for paint, I originally used Valspar Chalky finish paint… Big mistake, it was so toothy even attempting to put on the finishing wax was impossible. So inevitably I just went over it with my usual satin finish latex.

 
  

 
I added a couple of orange accents as well, to the base of the legs and the backer board.

  
 
 

With everything back in place it looks pretty good. I may still refinish the drawer fronts so they match the rest of the furniture but for now I think it looks great.

 

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Progress update: 1 month 

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It’s been exactly 1 month since we moved in and most everything is unpacked and furnished. I spent today hanging some pictures and getting a few things cleaned up So I figured I would give you a bit of a progress report while things were clean lol. 

   Our massive bookshelves are finally stocked with all of our books… Ok not all, there are a couple smaller shelves in other parts of the house.
   
  And the dining room is looking rather smashing as well. It’s just missing a mirror on that far wall, unfortunately I ran out of picture wire. 

Now that the china cabinet is in it (which I foolishly didn’t get a picture of) I’m debating whether the dining room “needs” a rug. Personally I think it might just make it busy, plus food stuffs in rugs; it is not fun. What do you guys think? 

We’ve also managed to get the daybeds in each office sorted out 

   
 
Now it’s just a matter of artwork, I think I’ll go with old botanical prints for my office (the green) and we will carry over the map theme we had in the other house for Mr. Smith. Some of the frames are already the right color. 

  
Hmmmmm I sense a honeymoon destination. 

  
The teal is going to have to have a quick repaint. 

Not too bad for a month’s work  when we started with a pretty darn empty house. 

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New Beginings

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We started on a couple of new projects today. They are going to be in the works for a long time, mostly because we are still working on getting settled into our new house. 

One of them is this old mid-century modern dresser that was passed down to me from my great grand mother.

  
 We actually have the set but the dresser is going to be our new entertainment center, believe it or not.

I just removed a couple of the drawers that are a little worse for ware. 

  
See it’s better already,

Used a hole saw to cut a few holes for components in the backer board. Or let Mr. Smith do so, since hole saws terrify me after my father almost lost a finger to one. 

  
And voila 

  
I plan on painting the top, sides,  and bottom boards, as well as the vertical support in the middle. Then I’ll  refinish the drawer fronts and feet and stain them a darker wood color to match the other furniture in the house. Im still not sure what color I’ll paint the exterior. I might go with the same TARDIS blue the side table is. What do you think? 

I’ll save the other project we started on for a later post. It’s going to be quite a doosie in the long run.