Weekend Project: repainted porch furniture

Last weekend I was given a set of porch furniture. It used to be Steven’s aunt’s at her bed and breakfast in Natchitoches ten years ago, then my mother in law had it a while, then it was passed to me. At first I thought it was wicker, but upon closer inspection (and trying to pick it up!), I saw that it is some sort of nylon that looks like wicker.

I looked some sets up online and they range in price from $600-$1,000 new. Wow….

10 cans of high gloss primer and spray paint and…voila!

I bought the bird seat cushions and pillows from Pier1 and the Khaki sofa seat cushion. I bleached the burgundy/green pattern from the original seat back cushions so they would match better.

I made the blue pillows from fabric I had. The stripes are dress front pin tuck things. Not sure what their proper name is. I bought a box full at a flea market for $2 with the intent to make pillows.

The polka dot pillow is old, old. I had it in a container in the attic. It matched (somewhat), so it got tossed on the porch.

I spent $150 on pillows (they were on sale and I asked for a discount on a couple that were a little dirty. They gave them to me for 45% off) and new seat cushions. I reused the original seat back cushions and made pillows. Cost: $0. The spray paint/primer cost $38. Total: $188. Not too bad for saving $600-1,000 for a new set.

Piecing together porch planters

My brother took the idea I had and he and Steven put together one of the front porch planters today. He cut the side slats first so I could stain and paint them. I bought 15×15 plastic plant pots to set into the planter. Here are a few pictures of us putting one together today. I still have to stain the top and feet. When I put the other three together I will take pictures and a tutorial on how we did it. Everything but the plastic liners was leftover stuff from other projects. I paid $24 for the liners at Home Depot. The side slats came from when we had to cut porch boards down to match the existing porch board size. The other pieces are left from misc. projects. The paints, stains and wood screws were leftover too.

***Update: sorry the pics are posted in reverse order. I am still trying to figure out the iPhone WordPress app. Anyway, here is our one finished planter installed on the front porch. It looked huge on the back porch, but it looks tiny on the front!

Pretty in Pink

My daughter and I have been enjoying our Easter holiday off.  We have accomplished many things this week.  One thing, of particular interest to her, we painted her nightstand and hat rack pink to match her room.  Today, hopefully, we will put up her new curtains and she will have a cute little girl room.

Paint it up babe!

Before...

Grand Finale

I thought I was finished working on projects for the weekend, thus my last post, touting all of my accomplishments for the weekend, was a little premature.  After coming home from church this afternoon, I decided that I was bored and wanted to work on another project.  You see, I had this little quart of red paint staring at me, sending me little messages saying he wanted to be used on my ugly swing out front.  Who can resist subliminal messages from a red paint can?  I can’t!  I love little shots of red throughout the house and, in this case, the porch.

So, without further persuasion, I managed to get my husband and daughter into the act and we sanded, cleaned, painted and painted and painted (its red remember, you have to put about 3-4 coats of red paint in order to get the correct color desired) and painted.  Then my husband rehung the swing in a different spot on the porch.  We have been saying for 2 1/2 years that we would like it in another spot — out of the sun in the later afternoon and evening. 

Before...

...After

In its new spot (ignore the peeling porch paint 🙂

While we were at it, we took down the porch lights, cleaned the 40 plus years of bugs and grime out and off of them and rehung them.  We also changed out the lightbulbs (I know this is exciting news, huh?  I am sure watching paint dry on my swing would be more exciting) with CFLs.  I do have to say, coming home tonight from church, our porch was lit up like Christmas! 

Sometime around Wednesday, I am going to try out my new belt sander on the porch rails, along with my new dremel bits on the spindles.  I am hoping to be able to prep them so I can prime and paint them next week.  I have a carpenter coming this week also to give me an estimate on repairing two column  bases and making some correct sized tongue and groove porch flooring.  If his estimate is not too high, we will have him rock on with fixing the porch.  Then, later this Spring, or early Summer, I will sand and paint the porch!!!!!!!!!  YAY!!!!!!!!!  That will be a Snoopy happy dance day!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Andrea

Buying a piece of history: My new table has arrived!

About three months or so ago, Steven and I took a drive down to the Old School House Antique Mall in Washington, La.  Washington is a charming town full of history and well preserved old buildings.  Their Main Street is largely intact.  When you walk down the sidewalk you are transported to back in time.

When we were at the School House we came across a booth containing handcrafted furniture by a local artist, Mr. Walter (last name excluded for privacy).  Mr. Walter rescued wood from a pre-civil war warehouse that was being taken down.  Mr. Walter used the wood salvaged to make tables, armoires and other significant furniture pieces.  We were very interested in his work and commissioned him to make a ten foot long dinner table.  Wednesday night, Mr. Walter called us and told us our table was ready.  Since he does not cut his boards down (as he explains it, you can’t really do anything with a two inch by ten foot old board) our table came out to be ten foot and one inch, by forty-six inches wide.  Mr. Walter delivered our table tonight and it is beautiful! 

When we first bought our house, two years ago, we went to Haverty’s to look at dining room sets, but nothing was large enough for our dining room and the prices were outrageous for pressed board, laminate junk.  I was definitely not impressed by any of our area furniture stores.  I looked at a couple antique places here, but I still could not find anything large enough to fit in our dining room.  I wanted a table that would entertain many!  I liked this table at Pottery Barn:

The cost: $1,600.00 (plus shipping) and since I cannot see it in person, I am not sure if it is the real deal or some piece of laminate junk.  It is six feet by 42 inches wide.  It comes with two leaves which would extend the table to nine feet.

This is my table:  (For more pictures, click here)

Again, it is ten feet long and I don’t have to deal with the leaves…taking them in and out.  I also did not have to pay for delivery.  Mr. Walter brought me the article in the paper and some history on the building that was taken down.  He signed my table and gave us a can of Briwax to keep it in tip top shape.  How much did I pay for my table? $1,700.  That is a steal!

Article in the newspaper regarding the warehouse being taken down

I am extremely excited!  I am having a Valentine’s Day get together, and I can’t wait to put my new/old table to good use!

I need to refinish the wainscoting.  We have decided to not strip the paint.  I like the light color in there.  I think wood would be too dark and, because I am stripping paint in the rest of the house, we are just going to leave it for now.  Now, if I can only get rid of the rug (that won’t happen until I refinish the floors) and the very ugly faux brass chandelier. I would like a chandelier similar to this:

***Update: I left a couple important details out regarding the table.  Thanks to those who commented! You are keeping me on my toes!  The table was made the old fashioned way.  Everything is fitted together without nails.  The only things that required a couple of screws were the straps under the table.  As you can imagine, a 10 foot piece of lumber, times 3, can get wobbly in the middle when moved.  Mr. Walter screwed to straps to the underside of the table for stability.  I hope that answers your questions!

Happy Friday everyone!

Andrea

Projects – 2008 in Review

I was sitting around trying to think about what we did all year.  It seems like 2008 was a slow year for us as far as the DIY scene was concerned.  In the early part of the year, around March, we spent a lot of time getting construction bids and filling out mountains of paperwork for our construction loan, only for the subprime mortgage crisis to hit and, in the end, we ended up scratching the whole deal.  I had to go back through my pictures to see what exactly we DID accomplish this year.  I was glad to find proof that our year was not wasted.  Here is a pictorial review of our year:

January:

Finished the rent house (Hallelujah!) and took our three year old employee to Chuck-E-Cheese.  Hey, we had to pay her somehow for all that painting she did!

February:

We celebrated our five year anniversary

March:

My birthday!  Ahem….anyway.  In 8 hours, I cleaned, primed and put two coats of paint on the living room walls.  It wouldn’t have taken me 8 hours normally except that I: 1) painted alone; 2) pushed a very heavy 10 foot ladder around the room 8 times while I painted the middle and top of the room …twice! I have 13 feet ceilings.  [is it 13 foot, or 13 feet?]

April:

In April, I redid an ugly 80’s dresser for Vivian’s room and, for storage, we revamped an old shelf my brother made many years ago by adding crown moulding to it and painting it.

May:

We took down the ugly drop ceiling in the attic.   We also painted the Master Bedroom.

June:

I sanded, repainted and recovered an old chair I bought for $5.00 at a junk store.  I also managed to tick off the entire Ratcliff family and get called a potstirrer.   Hahaha….that’s definitely a new one for me!

July:

I started this blog. Yay!  I pulled a metal tray on wheels out of the garbage and remade it into a plant stand for my porch.  Click here for the details and pictures.  Even my husband could not believe I wanted something this ugly.  But it turned out well.

My new plant stand

August:

We went to the Philippines.  What a life changing experience!  Click here to see more photos of the trip.  In case you cannot figure out who I am, I am the very white girl in the middle!

handumanan

September:

Vivian’s Birthday.   Hurricane Gustav hit Cenla.  That was very interesting.  It took us about a month to recover and get all of the debris cleared and everything back to normal.  I can’t complain though, we did not endure anything like New Orleans did.  Click the link above to see pictures of that fun.

October:

Was definitely not a project month.  I was caught up watching the media and reading the news regarding  local and national politics.  I did get a call from the Louisiana Historic Preservation Office in Baton Rouge telling me that they want to put my street on the National Register.  Which reminds me…..I need to give her a call.  That nomination is supposed to be sent to Washington in April.  I am definitely going to help make sure that happens!

Precious!

November:

I repainted and reappointed the guest room and stripped a fireplace mantel.

December:

We worked on the attic/loft area so we can add another bathroom upstairs.  Steven put up two porch lights in the back.  Steven stripped a door and a transom down to the bare wood.  We also stripped some paint in the hall that was caked on to the wainscoting.  Click here for December’s project pictures.

I guess all in all it was not a bad year.  We did not get as much as we wanted accomplished.  We didn’t nearly come close to the amount of work we did in 2007.  Oh well, put it on the list!  It will get done eventually!

Andrea

More Ideas for the Craft Room

I found some more spaces and ideas that I like.  Here are a few more pictures to add.  I am using this post as my inspiration board.  Tell me what you think:

I love these colors!  I am looking for the right shade of lime green for the paint color.  I think the use of red here is very daring!

I like the use vintage objects in this one.  However, this one makes me feel cluttered.  I would like to have clean lines and simple storage.

 I love this open shelving unit.  You can find many options at IKEA.  I would love to make the trip to the IKEA in Texas (that’s where the closest store is to me) with a long list of items needed for the house.  IKEA is awesome!

Here are some more seating options I am contemplating.  My husband is not really sold on this style.  He is envisioning late night XBOX parties and movie nights, so he wants a nice big comfortable couch.  We are going to have to marry comfort and style.

I would like to have 3-4 of these to pull up to a work table.  I envision hosting scrapbooking parties!

Ideas for a Craft Room

After making our annual trip to area stores to take advantage of after Christmas sales, Steven and I decided to finish cleaning the “attic” upstairs to get it ready for insulation.  I am not sure if this space was used as an attic, or if it is just unfinished.  There are so many bad PO jobs done to the poor space, that I can’t really tell.  We are planning on turning the space into: 1) spare bedroom, 2) bathroom, 3) home theater/man room, 4) craft area.  It is a huge space.  It feels more like a loft than an attic.  More about the loft thing later.  Anyway, we basically moved things from here:

(This is going to be the spare bedroom and bathroom) To here:

To the left will be the home theater projector and to the right will be my craft room area.  We had to clean up the area that we will put the bedroom so that we can pull up the half inch (yes, I said half inch) plywood that is on the floor, check to make sure the electrical has been ran properly, blow in some insulation and put down a sturdier plywood subfloor.  Right now, when you walk across the room, the boards bow and squeak.  One of the last PO’s decided to frame this space up for the master bedroom.  The hysterical frame up and drywall job pictures are here. 

Anyway, since this is a large open space, I wanted to decorate it loft style.  Here are a few of my ideas:

Most of the pictures pertain to my side of the room…the super craft area.  But, you get the idea.  When you first walk up the stairs, to the left will be a wall of built in shelving to house all of my books.  I was thinking about painting the wall behind the shelves with chalkboard paint and using white shelves.  Should make a nice black and white contrast.  The shelves will be tall so I can write on the chalkboard above the books.  For wall paint, I was thinking about a nice lime green with accents of turquoise and brown.  Maybe a splash of red accessories here and there.  You know me, gotta have red somewhere.

Unfortunately, the decorating part is WAAAAAAAY far down the line.  The first order of business is insulation.  The second order of business is installing a bathroom so we can demo the HORRIFIC one downstairs.  We only have one, yes, yes, yes, only ONE bathroom downstairs.  It is hard to imagine that we have 3200 sq feet and only one bathroom.  There is no other place to squeeze in another bathroom except upstairs.  So, unfortunately, we are working on the upstairs so we can work on the downstairs.  (Doesn’t make sense, does it?) We cannot remodel the bathroom downstairs until we have another one somewhere else.  We cannot remodel the kitchen (the kitchen is ALMOST as bad as the bathroom) without having somewhere to wash the dishes, etc. (a bathroom).  So, we had to sit down and figure out what needed to come first.  It completely galls me that we have to spend time and money on an upstairs space before we can work on OUR living space downstairs.  Oh well….  I guess it all comes down to: What comes first, the chicken or the egg? 

Steven and I both have one more week off, so we are trying to make the best use of our time.  We are going to try to blow in the insulation next week and, while we are at it, retrofit some insulation in the walls downstairs.  I sure am glad I caught that episode of This Old House two weeks ago showing exactly how it is supposed to be done! 🙂

Maybe, if all goes well, I will be able to post pictures of our framed up new bathroom next week.  It will still be a while before we get the flooring laid and have it replumbed, but I can hope for the best and dream about it anyway….right?

Andrea

PS I am enjoying our high of 75 degree weather!  You won’t catch this Southern Girl anywhere close to snow! 😀

***Update:  This never happened due to a lot of bad electrical wiring we found.  So, we held off on putting in the insulation until we could get the electrical updated.  Don’t want to start any fires!  Ya know?!

Yay! New Furniture!

Yay!  My mother-in-law and father-in-law (Kathy and Danny) brought down the bedroom set that Steven’s aunt sold us.  She sold her bed and breakfast and needed to get rid of some extra furniture since she was downsizing to a two bedroom apartment.  Steven was going to go up to Natchitoches (an hour away) to meet them and help take it apart and pack it onto a trailer.  Kathy and Danny, who are retired, said they could handle taking it down and bringing it to us.  No prob for me!  On the way out of the house, Kathy fell down the steps and thought she broke her ankle.  She is OK!  Thank goodness!  I felt terrible and knew that we should have went up there to help them.

We received a call early this morning, they were on their way to deliver the bedroom set and Kathy only had a sprained ankle…not broken!  Thank God.  They arrived and the bedroom set was more beautiful than I remembered.  I am glad we decided to keep it in our room and put our stuff in the spare bedroom.  The bedroom set is heavily carved.  It is not exactly Eastlake, it is more Victorian.  It has some Eastlake tendencies though.  Here are a few pics.  I could not take a good picture of the bed because: 1) It was not made up; 2) Steven was already in bed.  I am very excited!  It looks great in our room!  Once I get everything pieced together and make the bed up, I will post a better picture.

Everything in our bedroom is done except: 1) crown molding; 2) ripping up the ugly blue carpet and sanding and refinishing the wood floors.  The wood floors are in great preserved condition because of the carpet.  One day when we are done scraping and painting the exterior of the house and updating the plumbing, I am going to sand and refinish the floor.

If I do not post anything between now and then, Have A Happy Thanksgiving!!!