Beautiful Things (v 3.0)

One of this week’s projects was to make a different version of my “beautiful things” sign.  My first ever made a brief appearance at a vintage market last summer, and I was always a little sad that it sold!

The next version (on beadboard) was made for a market this summer…

…but my buyer wanted something more along the lines of my Bread & Pastries sign. 

We had quite the debate over pink-and-white, pink-and-black, or black-and white…so we decided to use all three colors instead of choosing!  The lettering is off-white, but the cupboard door was painted pink underneath the black, so it shows through with heavy distressing.  Plus, there’s a pink swirl at the top just for fun!

I just love the sentiment, don’t you??

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Linking up here:

Domestically Speaking	Elizabeth & Co.
	The CSI Project
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Beyond the Picket Fence	Someday Crafts
Knick of Time Mod Vintage Life	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Common Ground	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	All Star Block Party
Cowgirl Up!	{aka} design Coastal Charm

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Replica Dry Sink @ Knick of Time

Today I am guest-posting for Angie at Knick of Time Interiors!  Hope you’ll visit me there to see the transformation of this:

to this!

Come visit at Knick of Time!

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Spring Suitcase Wall

Among other changes I have been making in our home, I decided the suitcase wall needed a little updating.  Can you see the difference?  (You can see its debut—and the “how to--here, or its Christmas look here.)

Look down….look down…look down…

Yep, the little green suitcase is a new member of the family!  I never did figure out what to do with the awkward space at the bottom…so I put a suitcase in it!

Then I moved around some of my favorite vintage goodies, and added a bird nest or two…  (And notice the canvas I had made of Bubble Boy!)

It’s probably hard to tell, but the wall color is actually different (more on that later).  It took me a long time to work up the nerve to paint the suitcase wall!  I had to take all those suitcases down…then put them all back up…  Ugh!

Since I had to go through all that trouble anyways, it seemed like a good time to cut another suitcase in half!

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This project was featured at My Repurposed Life and Elizabeth & Co..

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Linking up here:

Coastal Charm’s Nifty Thrifty Tuesday	Elizabeth & Co.
Mod Vintage Life	No Minimalist Here’s Open House Thursday
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Primitive & Proper	Thrifty Décor Chick
	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Simply Klassic Sundays	My Repurposed Life
From My Front Porch to Yours	It’s So Very Cheri
Common Ground	{aka} design

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January Buffet (with a new treasure!)

First of all, thank you to all of you who responded with thoughtful comments, encouragement, and advice on our home situation! I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me.

If you didn’t get a response back from me, that is because you don’t have an e-mail linked up to your account, and I would love for you to consider changing that situation!

We actually had an offer on our home today…for a mere $20,000 less than our asking price! We politely said, “No, thank you.” We’re motivated, but not desperate!

On to more fun things…

Do you remember my Christmas buffet?

Well, the stockings came down, and the hurricane lamps moved to other places. I pulled all of my poinsettias together, including the ones from the suitcase wall, and made a new arrangement:

It was simple and pretty, and highlighted my beautiful flowers…

…but it still seemed to be missing something.

Lucky for me, a brief stop at a new antique store revealed that perfect “something” to me!

Do you like my new sled?? I adore it!

My boys are disappointed that it is to be decorative rather than functional!

And guess what else?? Even my husband likes this one!

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Linking up to Brambleberry Cottage.

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Christmas Hurricanes

Hurricane lamps, that is. Didn’t want anyone to panic for me!

I don’t have a mantle, but I do have a lovely buffet that is the first thing you see when you come into my house…it’s my substitute mantel!

I had it all decorated, but I was feeling vaguely dissatisfied with it. It had a lovely vintage ceramic tree on it that is special to me, but I really didn’t care about/love the other pieces that I had displayed.

Then one Saturday I had to throw together a centerpiece for a family gathering, and I pulled out my three glass hurricane lamps.

The small center one I picked up at a garage sale this past summer, but the other two are very special—one came out of my paternal grandparents’ home, and the other out of my maternal grandparents’ home (where it was actually used). I put them together on a thrift-store tray I painted, and filled the bottom with some faux snow and some bits of greenery (real) and sparkly berries (not real). I loved the arrangement because I felt a real connection and sense of pride for these hurricanes…so I decided to ditch the original buffet décor and put my hurricanes up instead!

I placed an old cupboard door behind the lamps so they wouldn’t get lost against the beige wall. With a couple of my beloved poinsettias (you can see my others here) and some bead garland, I love the buffet’s new look.

Above the buffet hang my children’s stockings. I cross-stitched each one for each child’s first Christmas—tricky with two December babies, but I managed it (barely)!

I have told my children that the stockings never get to leave. They think I’m kidding. I’m really not!

I love my buffet so much more now that it includes things that are unique and special to me. I think I’m tired of decorating just for the sake of decorating!

How about you?

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Linking up here:

Coastal Charm’s Nifty Thrifty Tuesday	Topsy Turvy Tuesdays
	Someday Crafts’ Whatever Goes Wednesday
Hookin’ Up with House of Hepworths	No Minimalist Here’s Open House Thursday
Friday Remodelaholic	Common Ground
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Sisters of the Wild West
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
	I Heart Naptime
Beyond the Picket Fence’s Under $100 Party	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
	My Repurposed Life

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French Bench

I’ve been trying to organize my picture files, which I find almost as exciting as organizing my sock drawer. However, one good thing came out of it (and it wasn’t finding my matching blue-striped fuzzy socks, although I really would like to) – I came across one of my summer projects that never got to be posted!  Poor thing.

Anyway, based on my French chocolate coffee table (which spawned a few more similar projects  here, here, and here), I decided to transform this old bench…

…into a ‘vintage French’ piece!

My original idea was just to sand the top down to bare wood, and paint the base of the bench.

But do you see those wide panels that run along the front and the back? The bench told me (if you have read my blog, you’ll know that furniture often talks to me) that those spaces were perfect for more typography. So before I knew it (not really—it took forever) I had sanded the entire bench down!

I only worried about removing the old finish. All the knicks, scrapes, and dings are welcome to stick around.  That’s character.

Next thing was to choose the perfect graphic (all of my French ads have been found at The Graphics Fairy), print it out, and then take it to an office store to be copied onto an overhead transparency.

Here I am at work…

If you’ve seen my other projects, you’ll notice that I’ve gotten a little smarter. I put this piece up on a folding table so I didn’t have to contort myself on the floor so much!!

And in case you’re wondering…I am using a plain old bottle of acrylic paint. (Others have suggested using paint markers or a Sharpie, but I don’t think they distress as well. You can use whatever suits you best.)

I really dressed up for this impromptu photo shoot, can’t you tell?

This is what the bench looks like before any distressing or staining.

I actually used lines from two other ads for the front and back panels of the bench.

They may or may not make sense with what the top says!

After the paint was completely dry, I distressed the lettering with sandpaper, and then wiped on a coat of Minwax Antique Walnut stain. I finished the bench with a couple of coats of Minwax Polycrylic.

This little bench went with me to an outdoor market in July. It was one of the last projects I finished before going, so it missed out on a ‘formal’ photo shoot in my home! But here’s what it looked like outside on a beautiful July day.

You may not have noticed it, but those two side panels actually hide a lower cubby. I envision this as an entry bench with a place to hide shoes! (I painted the inside black.)

So that’s my little French Bench. If this looks like a project you would like to try, be sure and check around for a used overhead projector. Lots of times you can find them at school surplus sales, or you might even be able to borrow one from your local school.

Ahh, summer….

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Linking up to these great parties:

Coastal Charm’s Nifty Thrifty Tuesday	Topsy Turvy Tuesdays
Domestically Speaking’s Power of Paint	Someday Crafts’ Whatever Goes Wednesday
Hookin’ Up with House of Hepworths	No Minimalist Here’s Open House Thursday
Friday Remodelaholic	2805
My Simple Home Life’s Simple Creations Friday	Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday
Funky Junk’s Saturday Night Special	The DIY Show Off
Primitive & Proper	I Heart Naptime
Beyond the Picket Fence’s Under $100 Party	My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia
Perfectly Imperfect	{Primp}
Mod Vintage Life	Sisters of the Wild West
Thrifty Décor Chick	One Month to Win It
The Graphics Fairy	My Repurposed Life

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Going Vintage

This post originally appeared as a guest post at Meridian Road in September.

Once upon a time, I used to go to Rod Works or Tai-Pan Trading and drool over the pretty home-décor items there. But then I was bothered that I would see the same things repeated in houses up and down the neighborhood.  The “blog world” has opened my eyes to a new kind of decorating, and over time, I have learned that I prefer to have unique items with a history in my home, rather than cookie-cutter tsotchkes!

Today I wanted to share some of the vintage treasures I am slowly collecting for my home. They are probably old, usually imperfect, but definitely loved!

I found these two pieces of baseboard at an architectural salvage stop. There are at least three layers of paint on them! I like to imagine what kind of building they must have been in…something very grand to have 12” baseboards!

I have a very small collection of doorknobs. Yep, those three are the entire collection! I found the little wrought-iron piece at an antique store for $5. I don’t have a clue what it was originally for, but it makes my tiny collection a real conversation piece!

The three jars are vintage European canning jars. There capacity (in liters) is pressed into the bottom. Yes, these are the same jars that Pottery Barn sells for a couple hundred dollars. I found mine at a flea market for considerably less! Inside the smallest is my set of letterpress blocks. If you could see all the way around, you would see that they spell out “Harvest” on the bottom. I absolutely love typography (I don’t supposed that’s a big secret anymore)!

My rustic wooden bowl was a belated birthday present this year. My husband had tried to buy me something I wanted at a local vintage consignment shop, but it was gone by the time he got there. So he gave me a gift certificate instead! About a week later, this small dough bowl came home with me!

The bowl is filled with four hand-knit pumpkins I made a few years ago. I like the juxtaposition of textures.

My newly-created suitcase wall is a collection in and of itself!  But it’s also a fun place to display other treasures—like the folding yardstick I got from Suzanne that sits next to my grandfather’s cloth-and-metal tape measure.

If you thought three items was a small collection, how about two? To this day, my husband cannot remember what these are: wire flower frogs. And when I tell him, I think he’s still at a loss as to why they’re sitting next to his lamp.

Because I like them, that’s why!

The big wooden “pedestal” is actually a leg off an old German piano. It’s another treasure from my favorite consignment shop…it spoke to me! What’s a girl to do??

Oh, look, another collection of three! I found three glass insulators FOR FREE on my birthday! They’re probably not real collector’s items…but they were obviously meant for me.

Oh, that enamelware pitcher in the back? Well, you caught me out…it’s from IKEA!

Thanks for sharing my treasures with me. I’m curious…has the blog world affected your decorating style? I would love to know!

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Linking up at The Shabby Nest, My Repurposed Life, Simple Home Life, Coastal Charm, From My Front Porch to Yours, House of Hepworths, No Minimalist Here, 2805, A Little Knick Knack, Common Ground, and My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia.

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Steampunk

Do you know what “steampunk” means? I certainly didn’t! I had to check out wikipedia’s definition and, of course, ask my husband once I heard that word being tossed around. As it relates to furniture, I have decided it means anything that is a little bit industrial, a little bit funky, and a lot of fun!

I started out with this chest of drawers that has been sitting in my garage for months. I have mentioned often that furniture “speaks” to me, but this one was strangely silent for a long time…

…Apparently, that’s because I wasn’t speaking it’s language!

Then one fateful day, I spotted this cute dresser at Twice Lovely:

…and I knew…

My chest of drawers, however, wanted to be black and distressed. It was an old piece to begin with, so I needed to work with that.

I purchased vintage valve handles from etsy. They came with the original dirt still attached! My love for ‘vintage’ ends there, so I ran them through the dishwasher.

I used 1/4” x 1 1/2” machine screws to attach the hardware. There isn’t much of a ‘neck’ on these valve handles to hold them away from the drawers, so they were a bit awkward to use. So next I purchased 1/4” nylon spacers to place between the valve handle and the drawer, and that makes them much more comfortable.

They handles are secured by 1/4” nuts on the inside of the drawer.

That’s all there is to it! But I love the fun, funky look of the piece. I think this would be fabulous in a boy’s room!

What about you? Have you jumped on the “steampunk” bandwagon yet?

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Linking up here.

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This project was featured at Simple Home Creations, House of Hepworths, and Beyond the Picket Fence .

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