New Finished Project!

I was working on t his chair for my sister, I didn't get a before picture sadly, but I got some great after photos. We picked this chair up about a month back from a curb alert of Craigslist. I love curb alerts you never know what you are going to find! Anyway it was a chair, it looked to have been sanded, the chair had a seat sitting on it but it wasn't screwed down in any way it was just loose. The seat was covered with this ugly bright blue fabric with tiny little pink flowers embroidered on it, just ugly. Anyway with this chair there was also a chair with broken arms, I haven't started this one yet, but probably will this weekend. :)

The Chair: Free
The Paint: $1 (Dollar store in Kannapolis)
The Fabric: $4 (Garden Ridge's fabric isle)

Total cost of Reagan's new dressing chair: $5

A closeup of the fabric, it's a very cool baroque kind of look, velvety gray, I couldn't iron this fabric so for a bit until it lays flat there will be a crease. But I think it turned out well.

Last Nights Trash Finds

Our trash runs on Thursdays so on Wednesday night there is a treasure trove of goodies for you to find. My sister and I rode around the neighborhood and picked up two kitchen chairs, both sturdy, just need some TLC, an old crib that we are going to turn into a bench, a brass side table which is really interesting looking but the color has GOT to go, we also found a lamp (this was with the crib and the chairs in one location) and it needs a new cord and possibly some glue, we'll know more when we get it cleaned up.

I know I know, but you got to admit, that's a pretty good haul for free! I will definitely post more photos once I get the bench made. We are going to start on that tonight. I hope to have it done by Sunday as I may be doing a cookout if my family wants to come, if not then I will have have a nice bench for ME to sit on at least. :)

The crib/bench will probably be painted green, the table..not so sure yet. And I am going to keep the little kitchen chairs neutral, maybe white or black. Just functional for our living room/rent out room.

Today's the day...

I drink the darkest tea known to man kind. I swear this stuff looks like syrup in my little green container. I had an okay weekend, picked up an awesome oven/microwave combo from someone off of Craigslist, super sweet people and the oven is freakin' AWESOME. This will make a great addition to my kitchen, we are planning Reagan's dream kitchen. She is the cook in the family, I bake but even my baking skills can't compare to what she can do with a Chicken Breast and a pack of noodles. I envy her that talent.

I also picked up a sofa table from someone on Freecycle and got an outdoor table base out of the trash. I know you guys probably think I'm nuts for getting everything I can for free but you got to look at it this way.

1.) I am saving the item from either going into the dump (like that table and my GORGEOUS Pink chair!) or I'm just picking up something that someone else was going to give away anyway.

2.) You really can take something old and ugly, apply a little imagination and you got something that a lot of people pay money for. I recently saw a pink/damask chair online for $400. Really? $400??! I got mine for free!

3.) You feel some sense of accomplishment when you are a finished. There is nothing like the feeling you get by taking someone that is old and run down and making it beautiful again. Everything was purchased by someone because they LIKED it, maybe even LOVED it, so at one point it was considered beautiful. Even if now it has a lot of nicks and holes, scratches and dirt, and cobwebs upon cobwebs...underneath all that grime there is something beautiful that can come out of it.

So, there you have it, 3 good reasons to start pulling stuff out of the dump. As for what else I'm working on, I have a bathroom shelf that is almost complete (it is now a very bright pink with white stripes, I am using this in my craft/office room to hold ribbon and paints.) I have my ugly wobbly table and a desk that I just can't decide which way to go on. I can't sand either of them so I think either some awesome contact paper or some paint with glass covering the top..not sure yet.

I'm still trying to read Morning Light, I know it never takes me this long to finish a book but I honestly have had a lot going on.

On Saturday night I got a call from my cousin who got his car locked in a parking deck and they wouldn't let him out without a credit card to charge $5 on. It was hysterical, he called me and was upset that they wouldn't take his $3 in change and he beat his car up and threw his $3. I still giggle about it.

Anyway watch for Stephanie's story later today (Part 4, readers!) and have a great morning!

PHOTOS! Just the photos ma'am.

Here you go here are some BEFORE and AFTER photos for you!

The Chair After:

Ugly ain't it? You should have seen it BEFORE I cleaned all the spiders off.

















The Chair After:

~ Cost of Chair: Free
~ Cost of Pink Paint: Free! (We have a local paint recycling center that lets you have whatever paint you want for free!)
~ Cost of Fabric: I don't remember! I bought this fabric months ago because I liked the design!


Total Cost of Chair: FREE!










The Lamp Before:

This lamp caught my sister's eye with the little bumps on it, we picked it up at a Junk store in the basement. We got it for a whole $5! It was dirty and painted some really nasty gold green color, so paint was in order.












The Lamp After:

Cost of Lamp:$5
Cost of Paint: $1
Cost of Lamp Shade: $12

Total Cost of Lamp: $18

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.