Camper Remodel Update 3

Ah yes, the UPDATE. The one place where I dump everything I'm doing on you, my readers. I have a few things to report some good, some not so good. So onward we move.

My Camper. Ahhhh, my Camper. I still haven't decided on a name for her, so if you have suggestions comment below. Right now she's a money pit. I started taking all the drawers and doors down to get them ready to paint and I noticed with a heavy heart that there is a massive ton of dry rot. I didn't even see it for all the weird and odd pieces of wood they had screwed everywhere but once I started removing things, the damage became apparent. I'm going to have to completely rebuild the front of the camper. All of the wood around the door and the windows are water damaged. The actual counter top? Destroyed on the back end. Underneath the cabinet is atrocious.

You can almost see through the floor under there. It's bad. REALLY bad. The only way to replace the floor under there is to take out the counter completely. Which isn't honestly a bad idea after I saw how bad it was. The back of the camper isn't like that. It's dirty sure, and needs paint and the floor needs to be fixed but it does not have all the dry rot the front of it does. So it's going to cost me more money. Thankfully though a lovely friend of mine said he's done this before and can assure me that he will come and help me once I have the wood he recommended. He says I should not use OSB as it is cheap and will need to be replaced. Instead he said I should get some very nice thing plywood so I won't have to replace it so often. I see what he means, this is such a big overhaul that I can completely see WHY I wouldn't want to do this again in a few years.

I'm pretty bummed about this as I need more money before I can do what needs to be done and money is something I just don't have right now. I'll just do the best I can with what I got.

I did get most of the drawers and doors taken out. Now I'm not so sure if I want to even consider putting them back in as they are completely horrible. Maybe I can pick up some doors somewhere cheap and just take a piece of OSB and cut the doors back the way they were for a new face. Ideas? Suggestions?

Message in a Bottle

I was reading this awesome article on Yahoo News (story here) today about this guy dropping a letter in a bottle in the ocean off the coast of Florida. The bottle took a year to make its way to Ireland of all places and that got me thinking, what happens if we all take a moment to write a letter and drop it off the coast who's lives are we going to touch? Will our letter have the power to change someone, to bring some piece of joy or awe to someones life? So here is my challenge: Write a letter; a letter of love and encourage in today's times. Drop it in the ocean in a bottle, tie it to a balloon and let it go. leave it in a public place. The object of this is to let someone know they are not alone, that even if you have no clue who the other person is that you CARE. Will I have a lot of people willing to do this? Probably not, but it would be awesome to see who we touch. If you want leave my blog address or your email address, something where someone has an opportunity to contact you or someone so that we can see if our experiment worked. I hope this inspires you!

Projects COMPLETE!

I finished a few projects yesterday after work and I'm super excited about the ones I have on my plate today!

Remember my old chair I was painting pink? Well I finally got a chance to finish it. It was a nasty little thing when we brought it home covered in spider webs, spider carcasses and dirt. After a good bath, sanding some cotton candy pink paint, she looked much better! I ripped off TWO layers of nasty fabric to get to the little cushion and recovered it in white and black damask. It looks pretty awesome if I do say so myself. :)

Remember that UGLY green lamp you saw in the background of my ugly chair post? Well, it also got a good cleaning and a coat of new paint, this time in Raspberry. We popped a beautiful shade on it we picked up at Target on clearance and we got a fantastic looking lamp for my sister's room!

Today I have a desk (freecycle), a rough looking table (trash) and the ugly wooden accessories from the bathroom. There are four. A towel rack, a toilet paper holder, a toothbrush/cup holder, and last but surely not least a wall unit that goes behind the toilet, it doesn't reach the floor looks similar to a bookshelf or something with drawers and stuff.

I'm going to do something interesting with that table and desk, I think I'm going to do them in yellow and gray to put in the living room downstairs.

As for the bathroom items (the toilet paper holder, towel rack and toothbrush thing) I'm spray painting raspberry as well. They are the ugly wooden kind trimmed out in brass. I can't afford to change those out right now so a good coat of paint will do them wonders until I purchase something new.

As for the shelf thing? I'm painting it pink and redoing it and putting it in my office/craft room so that I can use it to store craft items. I'm thinking of spray painting various medicine bottles with different colored spray paints and putting little labels on them for my Diaper Cake Business. Something similar to ~Clothes Pins - Blue~. I think that would be cute AND easy for me to locate if I was needed that particular item.

I will have pictures in a few hours!

A Project and Listia (My New Obsession!)

Okay so a few days back I wrote about my neighbors getting their stuffed thrown out of the house, after they got what they wanted out of it they left a few things that most people would consider junk. An extremely ugly chair that had cobwebs all over it and a table with wobbly legs.

Of course I had to have them! I got the chair upstairs and I'm working on it now for a dressing/vanity chair for my bedroom. I sanded it down and have begun to paint it a very bright pink. I plan on covering the seat in white pleather. I know I'm a girly girl in that I love pink and my bedroom is Pink and Black and White. Go figure right? Who'd have thunk it?

Here is the before picture of the chair:

As you can see in the background I'm still unpacking, and that ugly lamp? It's going to get a shade of Grey too. I picked up that lamp at the goodwill for like 2 bucks a few months back and I liked the shape of it. Anyway the chair is in sad shape. It's missing a little peice from the bottom of one of the legs so it wobbles its scrached up and nicked up (you really cant see that in the photo) and it had at least 5 years worth of cobwebs and spides on it. I sprayed it to death. Me and the cleaner went a little over board, but hey, what do you expect?

Here is the BRIGHT pink paint I had on hand to paint it with, I'm still working on it, (I sanded it by hand and my hands need a break!) As soon as I have a complete work I will definitely show it to you!

Now the table needs a lot of help, I haven't started on it yet. I'm going to tighten the legs (screws and wood glue) paint the legs and base a nice gun metal gray, do some type of fun decoration on the top and place a piece of glass across the top so that it's protected. I'm still planning that one so nothing to show yet. :) (I will also show you the ugly lamp once I get that done) Just remember that before you throw a piece of furniture out it can always be re-purposed for someone else, a little elbow grease and paint, some recovering and you got a pretty nifty piece!

Now on to Listia! I found it by reading someone's Gather post, and joined out of curiosity. It's like free eBay! I have listed a lot of items from DVD's to Books (some I have even reviewed on here!) to lotions and things I just never even bothered to use. This way someone gets them, that will enjoy them and hopefully I'll find something I want just as much. Just join through my link and I get 50 points (only join if this is something you find interesting!) and you also get 50 points from me for joining, pretty nifty! Hope everyone is having a great night.