The Furniture!

I've been AWOL over a week, but spent most of that time battling a piece-of-crap carpet shampooer that was falling apart and spouting leaks every which way, and a cold that had me semi-laid-up for most of the latter half of last week (including Thanksgiving Day, natch).  These carpets are going to be the death of me,  I tell you.  I must've put waaaay too much soap in the mix and I'm having to rinse them over and over to get the soap out.  Add to that that I'm just OLD now and I can't clean carpets from morning till midnight the way I used to, not when my carpet cleaner has declared himself my nemesis to the death. He's dripping copiously from the wand/hose connection (hence the gender) so by the time I've sucked up the water in one spot, he's dribbled a pint's worth in another (I'm not at all sympathetic simply because he's geriatric, too, btw.)  And pieces keep falling off of him.  (Not a gender issue - no Bobbit in my blood).  He just...hates me.  And he's winning.   I've set aside the battle with 1/2 of one bedroom yet to clean and a few more rinsings of the library and living room and Mr. Shampoo-Rinse-Repeat-Indefinitely lies there mocking me each time I pass.   Sigh.

However!  I did manage to get a few pieces of furniture painted.  First, the "before" pics...

The drum table, which I've already shared here.  What I haven't shared yet is how I blew my $12.50 bargain by absent-mindedly using it as a base to set a gallon can of paint down and push the lid into place.  This is what resulted...

So much for my bargain!  It'll probably cost me twenty or thirty bucks to replace the glass, but at least it's do-able.   Moving on though, here's what it looks like now...

Please ignore that little dark spot where the paint rubbed off at the lower left of the door.  I was impatient.  (Soooo unlike me!  ;)  The filigree bit behind the handles are part of the handle, but I painted them white because I just wanted a touch of silver.

I found this baby on CraigsList last night....

It was advertised at $20.00, and I gave them a twenty when I walked in the door, but just before I drove away, the seller caught me in the driveway, handed me a $10 bill, and said she thought it had been listed at $10 rather than $20.  I didn't argue with her a lot, and it was the highlight of my day.   It's got that same 70s Mediterranean vibe to it as both the drum table and the dresser that's still sitting in Studio A awaiting my attentions.  (Pray I don't hit the gas inadvertently before I get it out of there or the thing's history.)   Oh, and btw, I'd like a big ol' pat on the back for resisting the call of Mad Greens on my drive home with my treasure, what with that found ten bucks burning a hole in my pocket.  Mad Greens is my latest obsession for a quick, (relatively) cheap bite.  If you live in Colorado, you've got to try them.  If you don't live in Colorado, I'm going to have a killer guest room you can stay in when you come here to check them out.    Soon.  Ish.  :)

On with the pictures!   Here's how the night-stand looks now...

I may re-do the knobs on this one in white.  The metal primer I used on them was white and they looked really cool that way, but I had intended to use silver hardware on everything so I went ahead with the silver "just to see" and now I think I preferred them white.  They're okay as is, but I think I'll try antiquing them first, as the chain I'll be using for the lamps that will hang over each nightstand is silver flecked with black, and then if I'm still not in love they're going back to white.

If my sister is reading this, she's probably going to be underwhelmed by the plain old coat of white paint,  particularly after saying I do "interesting things" with furniture.  But I was inspired by this set of before-and-after photos from Enchantresses 3 that I found via Addicted2Decorating...

 Before 

After  

(more photos can be seen on either Addicted2Decorating or  Enchantresses 3)

I was absolutely dumbfounded when I saw how that truly-ugly "before" cabinet turned into a really striking and commanding piece with just a simple coat of white paint.  As I said when I first posted a photo of the drum table, I never would have even seen it had I not first seen these before and after photos.  It's chunky, 70s-style, goo-gaw Mediterranean (I think that was actually the industry term for it); waaaay too reminiscent of my very first living room furniture "suite" from 1974.  When I hunt for used furniture pieces with a eye to re-finishing them, I generally look for pretty simple, classic lines and then use paint colors or techniques to add personality if it needs it.   If I hadn't run across and become of fan of Kristi's blog, I never would have thought of this.  She's really opened my eyes to a few things that I had long ago passed of as passe, or knew about but just never seriously considered.  And while my smaller pieces aren't as striking as this massive cabinet and hutch, a simple coat of white paint  turned them into something completely new and fresh and perfect (for my current budget and tastes).

I have a chest-of-drawers and another nightstand that will be getting the same treatment, but haven't tackled them yet.   Lawdy, you should have seen me at the end of the night after spray-painting these pieces in Studio B.  Ha, for that matter, you should have seen the spider webs in the basem... er Studio B's windows.  It looked like Christmas down there!  Speaking of, this is the first time I can recall ever using spray paint to refinish a piece of indoor furniture (as distinguished from painting furniture indoors).  I'll go more into my reasons for that tomorrow, since I expect it to be a relatively slow news day. ;)  Did I mention my husband is off till after Christmas?  :)  See how smiley I am?  :) :) :)   I made muffins tonight!     Holiday-timey muffins...and I'm off to have another one...:)  

Manana!   

Decorative wall treatment begun

My husband had the day off for Veteran's Day yesterday so I didn't get much accomplished.  I did at least settle on which option I'm using, and it's going to be the trees.  I was leaning that way simply because I've had this stencil for soooo long and wanted to finally use it somewhere in my own home, but also because the one vote I had when I was ready to get started was for the trees.  Here's my very minimal progress so far....

Just the trunks so far!  Dimensional stenciling has to be done in baby steps compared to regular, painted stenciling because each step has to dry somewhat thoroughly before going on to the next or you're going to mess up the plaster.  Which I actually did in a couple of spots that we won't dwell on.  This group of trees is next to the window at the end of the room opposite the bed.  I planted another group...

across from them and wrapping around two walls.  There will be a chest of drawers to the right of the outlet you see there, but it will sit back far enough not to interfere with the trees.   (Psst - see my luggage rack?  I'm inordinately excited about that thing.)

I came to another decision last night while I was working on the tree-trunks.  Well, a most-likely decision, and that is to nix the hidden rope lighting around the upper perimeter of the room.  There are a slew of reasons for nixing it:  1) it was going to be really wonky-looking in the corner where a window butts right up against a wall; 2) it was going to break up the flow of the trees; 3) it was going to make the room seem even more squat than it is (the walls in this room are only 7-/12' high); 4) it was going to be a nightmare to install; and most importantly 5) I had another Eureka! moment while working in the room as regards the wall behind the bed that would further interfere with lighting around the ceiling.  As you may recall, I was bemoaning the fact that I can't center the bed because of the window on that wall...

Then it occurred to me "Well, of course you can, bozo - all you have to do is pull the bed away from the wall a bit and hang curtains on either side.  It's going to push the bed further into the doorway than I like, but also further into the room so that it's not going to feel (too much) like you're tripping over the bed to enter the room...

This shot is taken from a couple of feet out in the hallway.  Now that the bed is shoved further into the room, the fact that it juts into the doorway is minimized a bit.  

Since a couple of my used-furniture store pieces are showing in that photo, I may as well give you a little preview of them now, too....

If I had seen this piece in a used furniture store a month ago...  No, scratch that.  I wouldn't have even seen it.  There's simply no way it would have caught my interest.  Then I happened upon another blog that made me see clunky, dated, 70s Mediterranean furniture in a whole new light.  I can't wait to get started on this baby!  Hopefully I'll be starting on this piece and the dresser sometime next week, and I'll share the blog that inspired me at that time so don't forget to keep checking in.

In the same shop, I picked up this footstool....

I love the mid-century modern lines and it'll be a piece-of-cake to reupholster.  

Of course, the best part about each of these pieces was the minimal expense:  The drum table was $12.50 and the footstool $20.  Woot!  I also picked up two bedside tables and a chest-of-drawers and altogether spent just over $100 for all five pieces.  For you local readers, I purchased all but the chest-of-drawers at Kathy's Used Furniture, which is where I've been buying most of my used furniture for the past thirty years; the chest was from Goodwill.  

That's it for today!  Thanks for stopping in - please let me know you did by saying "Hi!"  or "Are you outta your mind; there's no way to make that drum table look good!" or something.  ;)