an end table make-over and an upholstery decision

This little fella is another one of my roadside-rescue projects. I didn't let the fact that I was out jogging and the top of the table was completely missing stop me from snatching it up and taking it home!

I've been experimenting a lot lately with what I like to call "mixed-media furniture", so weaving a top for the end table made for great practice:) Add some sea-green paint and a bit of light distressing, and I ended up with an end table that would look right at home in a beach cottage.

And now for a before/after project that is still very much in the beginning stages. The last time you saw this half of my living room, it looked like this:

Well, I sold those chairs, and in their place we have this chair:

and this chair:

Step one was to sand the original finish off of the armchair. Time had not been good to it and it was a little rough-looking in places. I'm almost done with the sanding, then I'm going to stain it to match the chair above. The question, then, is what to do about the upholstery! I'd like to re-upholster them in matching fabric, or at least color-coordinated fabric.

Right now it's just covered in this red vintage table cloth, but I've narrowed my options for a more permanent upholstery job down to these three:

 A) Wool Blanket: Something stripey like a Hudson's Bay blanket, inspired by the chair above. The smaller chair could then be upholstered in the leftover blanket material, or in a solid fabric that matches one of the blanket's colors.

B) Neutral: This is the route I usually go with furniture, because I prefer to let the accents like pillows and throws "do the talking" (i.e. be colorful and bold). I have a lot of white linen fabric that looks similar in texture to the chair pictured above.

 C) Whimsical: I love this chair from anthropologie, and I found similar, Monet-inspired fabrics that I think would look really cool.

 It might be a little much to do both chairs in this fabric, so I'd probably just do the bigger chair in the Monet, and the smaller chair in a solid, color-coordinated fabric.

So should I go for A, B, or C?

vote! vote! vote!

I'm just mad about: primary colors

Lately I just can't get enough of blue, red and yellow. At the rate I'm going, my house is going to look like a kindergarten classroom by the time fall rolls around. 

I had some trouble getting the self-timer situation under control, so these pictures aren't that great, but here's some fun primary color clothing for you.

Check out those vintage shoes! They came as a set with this handbag ... an adorable gift from my mama:)

And here's another place where some bright yellow has popped up recently. I started with this rough-around-the-edges coffee table.

It was rusty and the plywood was a bit moldy.

I Oxy-Cleaned, sanded, and stained the plywood, then put on several coats of shiny polyurethane. 

I primed the metal part of the table with Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer, then painted it a glossy, bright yellow.

Ta-daaaaah!

I think it makes a very happy, summery addition to home:)

I went to Pat's today, and I thought I'd share a few things that I got while I was there:) I got this frame with the awful duck print in it, and an instructional book on the art of collage-making, which is full of adorable illustrations!

Like this little boat, which I put in the duck-print frame. Isn't it cute?

The best part about the collage book is that on the backside of every color illustration is the black and white instructional side, so I don't have to choose which illustrations to frame, I can frame them all if I want:)

These three below are my favorite.

My husband laughed when I pulled this big, dusty, bull-fighter print out of a pile of frames, but I think he's awesome!

And he only cost 50 cents! 

laundry, lamps, linen, and line drawings

First of all, thank you from the bottom of my hardwood-floor-loving heart for all of the helpful advice I received in the comments of this post! 

Option A (our current home) won the votes in a landslide, and I think we're actually going with the votes on this one. On Tuesday we measured all of our "must keep" furniture, like our sofa and our bed, then went to the house and marked out with tape how much actual space in the rooms our furniture would take up. We were willing to part with more than half of it, but even putting less than half of our furniture in there would still make for a VERY tight squeeze. Like, turn-sideways-and-shimmy-across-the-wall-to-get-into-bed tight. And hearing so many of you say what a frustration it is having to go to the laundry mat definitely got me re-thinking giving up having a washer and dryer at home. So, long story short, we're going to pass up on this little place and pray that something else equally charming, old, and hardwood-floored comes along. Only this time an extra bedroom and laundry would be nice:) I can't say I'm not a little sad to let go of the idea of moving into that place, though. It was just SO DARN CUTE!

In other news, I recently realized that I never posted about that lamp makeover I mentioned! Well, it didn't turn out that great anyway. I started with the turquoise and floral lamp you see above, which was already a makeover of the original lamp.

I painted the base white and re-covered the shade in ikat, but I'm sorry to say that my lampshade re-covering skills are um .... improvable. I couldn't help but laugh at myself when I got it all finished and realized how horribly lopsided the fabric is. Why is it so much harder to recover a lampshade than anything else?

I'm lazy and I don't want to waste any more fabric, so it's staying as-is for now. Another little project I did recently is the art above the bookshelf.

All you need is scissors, a pencil, a marker, card stock, 8x10 matted frames, and a computer to look up Picasso line drawings to copy, and you too can have your own little Picasso art gallery:) I even forged his signature on them so they'd look extra official.

And one more thing before I go! I've been intending to blog about this forever ... check out this gorgeous mid-century chair my parents bought me when my family came out to visit for Easter! Isn't it fabulous? I can't wait to get it all fixed up.

I think I'm going to have it recovered in some sturdy white linen, to coordinate with our sofa. I just love the look of wood and white furniture, accessorized with colorful throw pillows or blankets.

The stain and finish are pretty worn, so I think I'll strip it and stain it to match my other mid-century chair.

I think that's all for today! Jemima says "hi"  :)

out with the old, in with the new-ish

I don't know what it is about spring-time that makes me want to shed all the extra layers, clean out, throw away, give away, and simplify, but I love it. This time every year I find myself full of energy and inspiration to organize, garden, eat better, and clean! Here are a few projects I've been working on lately.

Composting! I confess: I've never done this before. I read that before you go out and buy the supplies to make a large compost pile, you should start with "container composting" to see if you'll actually keep up with it. I sort of followed these directions, then piled in some not-so-fresh bread, fruits, veggies from the fridge. So, (bonus!) beginning composting also prompted a much-needed fridge clean out session. So far all I can say about composting is this: it's gross, but it's gross in a fun way ... like the green slime from the old school Nickelodeon game shows.

I've also been stripping away layer after layer of paint and rust off of this old trunk my friend Becca found out on the street, awaiting the garbage man.

I know this might sound crazy, but I actually asked her if I could re-furbish it for her. It's just so old and awesome and has so much history, I wanted to get my hands on it and fix it up as well as I could, for the trunk's sake:) It's made entirely of metal and wood, no laminate or plastic to be found. I felt a bit like an archeologist as I started working on it.

I know it's hard to tell from the picture, but underneath all that white paint, the inside was once lined with this adorable pin-wheel pattern art deco wallpaper. Under that was cheesecloth, I guess to even out the lines between the wood.

And underneath the turquoise paint on top were green and yellow stickers. I tried so hard to remove the paint without scraping off the stickers, but it was nearly impossible. All I could make out was an R, L and a P (I think) on the top row, an A, L, and L on the middle row, and F, S on the bottom.

Here's the trunk in it's current state.

Not exactly picture-perfect, but it's coming along nicely and I'm having fun doing it!

You may recall that just last week I was blogging about my love for art, well, I have two new additions to my collection! This awesome line drawing (I just adore line drawings) of Greta Garbo came courtesy of one of my favorite stores in San Diego, the Newport Avenue Antique Center.

She didn't look like much to write home about in that cheap, ill-fitting gold frame, but it's amazing how much better she looks now that I've found her a new home in a nicely matted black and white frame:)

I'm also pleased to introduce a new addition to my 20th Century Portrait collection!

Isn't he handsome?

He needs a name, and suggestions are welcome! I couldn't have been more impressed with all of your excellent suggestions for this gentlemen, who ultimately ended up being named Colonel Milton Edgar Randolph III (AKA "Milt"), which was a compilation of as many of your suggestions as I could fit into one man's name!

But back to the original point of this post, I wish I could say that my back patio always looks like this, but that would be a lie. It currently looks like this:

The first thing on my spring cleaning list is the back patio. It's been neglected over the winter, and the fence and furniture need to be scrubbed, the seat covers and pillows need to be washed, and the floor needs to be thoroughly vacuumed. Another patio problem has already been addressed: I pruned back the palm, the impatiens, and I replaced some other dead and dying potted plants.

But that's just the beginning of my spring cleaning list! What's on yours? If you're having trouble getting started, check out this list my mother emailed me recently. It's handy!