Disagreements

We have this futon in our house that hubs has had for almost 10 years.  I'll give it credit.  It's nice for a futon.  However, I've been trying to sell it on craigslist and even had some interest but when I asked him if he'd take what I posted it for, he got all weird and I knew I had possibly offended his decor abilities.  Oops.  Last night we had a conversation that went something like this...

him - "I was thinking we could keep the futon and use it in our next house in case we need a bed for a guest room."
me - "I have some pretty mad skills, you know."
him - "So what you're saying is that you'll never look at a room and say, 'I wish I still had that futon?'"
me - "Yep.  Uh-huh.  Yes.  That's exactly what I'm saying."

Another thing we disagreed on is this bench.  When I brought it home from a garage sale and told him I paid $10, he told me that I got ripped off.

But after a little love, some scrubbing, sanding, and paint... I'm not so sure.  

Cost sum:
Bench - $10
Pillows - $4
Paint - Already had = free
Total - $14

Love This Seat

Wow!  The Turquoise Piano has had over 800 visitors since it went live one week ago!  Thank you! Muuaaahhh!  (Pretty please become a follower by clicking on "join this site" under "followers" on the right column).

Do you want to know what the best thing a husband can do for his wife and mother of his children is?  Take everyone away for a few days and leave said mother at home all ALONE at least once a year.  That, my friends, is why I have the best husband in the universe.  Last Wednesday he took our little girl to visit family in Utah until Saturday and I got to stay home and do whatever I wanted, which included a lot of finished projects and a lot of Medium episodes (plus one girls night out to the water park, karaoke, and Just Dance).

The biggest project I finished was this amazing love seat that I picked up at a garage sale for $20.  My friend, Sarah, and I were garage sale-ing at the beginning of the season (like when it was still cold) and she spotted this for me.  It was one of those moments where the stars align and you know you have the best luck and the best friends in the world. 

I'll be honest.  I was overwhelmed.  I had never reupholstered anything and this looked like quite a big project so it sat in my garage for months (with hubby asking if I'm ever going to do anything with it).  I got a few other chairs under my belt and decided to go for it.   

I stripped the old upholstery off. 

Labeled each piece so I would have a pattern for the new material.

Next I spray painted the wood Heirloom White by Rustoleum.  

Then I used antiquing glaze to bring out the wood work, cut out the new fabric (I wanted neutral and stripes), stapled it into place, sewed what I needed to (unfortunately I have zero pictures of these steps).  I made a new cover for the big cushion but I am not there yet with my sewing skills and the cover looks like poo so I took it off and used the extra material to just wrap the cushion like a Christmas present using hot glue instead of tape.  It works for me until I'm ready to try again on the cushion.  Then I made some pillows and stragegically placed them.

 

Cost Summary:

Chair - $20

Upholstery - $35

Paint - $4

Glaze - already had = free

Pillows - around $10 for material

Total - $69

What do you think?  

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Sunburst Mirror Tutorial

First of all, I can't take credit for this. I got the idea from Hi Sugarplum and she got it somewhere else. But I loved the one I made for my mom so much that I decided to make one for myself too.

You will need two packages of the longer shims (16 inches, I think), a round mirror (got mine at Walmart for $2 in the candle section) a piece of cardboard, and lots of hot glue.

Step 1: Draw a circle. I used one of our large plates (12-14 inches across).
Step 2: Cut out the circle.Step 3: Draw another circle so there is about 1.5 inches between the edge and the small circle. I used a bowl that was smaller than the plate. Step 4: Glue the shims in a circle around the smaller circle. It is hard to see in the picture because I used the extra cardboard as a turn table and to protect the floor from hot glue. Step 5: Glue shims in between the other shims. I lowered mine about 1 inch for depth.Step 6: I glued another shim between each shim, making sure to stagger them at different lengths.Step 7: When the hot glue was dry, I flipped the project over and glued 4 extra shims around the cardboard for stability. Then I took a piece of scrap material and glued it so the mirror could hang.Step 8: Glue the mirror to the front center of the sunburst. I put mine in our sitting area. This picture is to show the size (don't look at the wall color! I'm so beyond ready for a change). Now I'm off to go garage sale-ing. Have a great Friday!

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College Bound

High school graduation 2011 was months ago and I have been racking my brain to find something meaningful to give to my little friend, who happened to be the only senior to send us an announcement.

A few days ago she asked if I knew where she could find a small shelf to go next to her bed in her new dorm and I introduced her to Deseret Industries. We found this nightstand with a shelf big enough to hold her textbooks and other college student stuff. I decided this would be my gift to her so I sanded, added another coat of paint, new hardware, and glazed in the crevices. I think it will serve it's purpose rather well.

Before:After:Cost: $12 total
nightstand - $5
paint - $4 (man I need to find cheaper paint)
hardware - $3
place to put Homer, Plato, Webster, the thesaurus, Stalin, and... Twilight - PRICELESS!

Frame Wall Layout

There was just so much to do and so little time while I was at my mom's house last week. We meant to decorate more upstairs as well as down but our time was taken with the incredibly large basement project.

Instead of leaving after lunch on Sunday like I planned, I decided to stay to hang a frame wall.

I got these round frames at my neighbor's garage sale for $2 for all four. SCORE!

The mirror was a craigslist find and I paid too much for it ($15) but it's pretty so I'm over it.

My mom had a ton of picture frames in a box in the basement so I stole some of them and spray painted them white (we ran out of spray paint so I couldn't get the small mirror and last picture frame -- another homework assignment for mom). She also has to find the other small mirror and replace the white napkin (the thing I used to remind her what goes there) and find something to replace the shim that I nailed to the wall (another reminder). Her last assignment for this project is to find cool pictures to replace the scrapbook paper that we put in the frames.

What do you think of the layout? Please imagine everything is white.

From Scary "Man Cave" to Therapeutic "Relaxation Spot"

It might sound crazy, but right now my dream house is the kind of house that most people wouldn't exactly find, well, clean and inviting. I want to buy the cat lady's house. Do I want to live in cat lady's house as is? Ew, no! Of course I would fix it up. There are lots of reasons for this desire. The first is that the house would probably be for sale at 70% of market value (including renovations) and ultimately it would be a good return on investment when beautified and sold. The second is that I want to add my own touch to every room by doing it myself. There are more reasons but I'll move on now.

Since at the moment I don't have my own fixer-upper, I begged suggested to my mom that I make the 7 hour drive with my 2 year old to redo her basement and she jumped all over it.

Here are the before and after pictures. Below them I show the process but if you're the type that thinks I've already written too much, you can stop here and I love you anyway.

Before

After

Okay, for those of you who are still reading, here are some more before pictures. Notice the deer head, antlers, and duck. As Ace Ventura would say, this is the "Room of Death" and my dad and brother loved it just as it was. Fortunately for me, my mom was ready for a change.
Day 1: clean up

We started by throwing away/donating the cassette tapes, most VHS tapes, and lots of unused books. We took down the animals (my dad almost cried. He honestly came in the garage -- their new location -- after work and saw them and said, "poor animals," like they were more saddened to be taken off the walls than to be shot... by him.) Brother #2 came to help that day too and both bro's painted the ceiling ultra pure white in Behr while I painted the dark wood paneling the same color. Day 2: carpet removal

This was the most disgusting (and slightly frightening day). The 20+ year old carpet had to go so my mom and I pulled it up and took it out in sections, mold and all -- I really thought I was going to get Hantavirous or some kind of other inhalation disease.  Thank goodness I'm still disease free!

After the carpet was gone I patched the holes in the cement so we could have a smooth surface to paint (yes, paint!).Day 3: fireplace

Don't let the simplicity of "painting the fireplace" fool you. This task took hours. We had to prime first, then paint. I worked on it until 3:30am and got up at 8:30 to work some more. Day 4: paint walls and finish floor/decorate

This was my favorite day even though at the end of it I ended up bawling my bloody eyes out because of frustration (brother complaining because we ruined his "man cave" --what?!, toddler wanting only mommy all day, etc.) mixed with lack of sleep. We painted the walls blue (don't remember the exact color) and the floors we primed and painted Wicker. We recycled or made all the decor. These were things that my mom had or we bought 2nd hand. The vase above the fire place was $.75 and the rest were things my mom had.I bought this table at a garage sale for $5 and painted it.
I made this sunburst mirror out of shims, cardboard and hot glue. I found the tutorial on Hi Sugarplum but then decide to make my own tutorial because I changed a few things.  Go here if you want to see how it's done.
My mom cut some golden weeds from the side of the road (I have to give her credit because she is great at finding that kind of thing). We found the candlestick holder on the ground for $2 at a garage sale in Delta (which was actually one of the best garage sales ever! -- go Rabbits!... that's the high school mascott, if you didn't know).

One thing that will make my dad and brother happy is the new flat screen TV that Santa will probably bring this Christmas and mount on the wall -- not that "TV 1990" is bad. I'm just sayin'. The curtains are on loan from little sister's room. They will be replaced with non sheer white curtains to make the window appear bigger. There will also be a big rug in front of the couch and a beige love seat perpendicular to it.So, my mom has some homework to finish but we are 98% there. She had to go to girls camp this week and I took baby girl home to see her daddy, otherwise it would be done today.

To sum things up, I think the total cost of the project was $200-ish for paint/primer, $15 for sunburst mirror, $5 for end table, $2 for candlestick holder, $.75 for vase, and free for everything else because we already had it. Not bad for $222.75, right?

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I Want!

We live in a world where online shopping is so prevalent and accepted. It's just plain easy to do. And I appreciate that (Cyber Tuesday vs. Black Friday mornings anyone?).

As ridiculous as it is, craigslist is one of my favorite websites. I love thrift shopping from my bed almost as much as I love carrying around my bottle of hand sanitizer through The Youth Ranch. The cool thing is that I've found some great things while doing it.

This is a post that I came across a little over a week ago and I'm in love. I. Want. This. Set. Who wouldn't feel like royalty sitting in these chairs? The problem is that they are borderline above the price I'm willing to pay (to be honest, I think it is a lot easier to get forgiveness from Hubs when I come home with a $10 table instead of a $300 set, even though he still rolls his eyes). I would reupholster them in a beige material with French words (the one that happens to be $50 a yard -- GAH!) and probably paint the chairs off white even though I am fond of the color in the pictures. The table top color would change too.
Are you feeling the French love yet?