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!

somewhere over the book rainbow

I don't know why this is, but it seems that every time I put up a blog post saying "This is what I'm going to do!", almost immediately something changes my mind. This is exactly what happened on Sunday, when less than an hour after posting this post about looking for a giant, dark wood, antique bookshelf, I happened upon this photo:

Which of course changed my mind completely. I started scheming about how I could get a mid-century bookshelf without paying hundreds of dollars (which is how much they run around these parts). That's when I remembered this little guy, which had recently been kicked out of the guest bedroom and was sitting abandoned in an empty corner downstairs, piled with dirty laundry.

The outside may look adorable, but the inside has fallen victim to many an unfortunate "remodel" by it's previous owners.

Over the course of it's life, the poor little thing has been sawed, chopped, nailed, added on to, taken apart, and put back together. The sides were filled with what I guess were once anchors for shelves, but they were all made out of scrap wood and mostly dry rotted. It only took about 10 minutes to rip all of it out.

My husband removed the doors, but for you preservationists out there, don't worry ... we saved them, hinges and all, and will keep them around so they can be put back on at any time.

We recycled some of the scrap wood we'd pulled out of the inside, made a new shelf out of it, and viola!

A mid-century bookshelf of my very own. And for free, no less:)

Check back soon for another fun little guest bedroom-related project, which isn't quite done yet!

french gray and butter yellow

Thanks to some feverish painting by me ...

... and some expert carpentry by my husband ...

We actually finished the dresser last night!

The outside was painted in several coats of Martha Stewart's "Zinc" in a semi-gloss, then it was lovingly distressed by me,

The insides of the drawers were painted in a fun surprise color of yellow...

and each drawer was filed down and fixed up with brand new runners. The person that installed the last ones did a horrible job. Most of them were bent, broken, and screwed in so that they weren't even level. Most of the drawers wouldn't shut at all, and if they did, there was almost no getting them open again. Thanks to the Mr., though, they all work perfectly now:)

Here's one more look at the before & after:

homes in need of a hug

I've blogged so much about the Barton Heights neighborhood of Richmond, Va, you'd think the city was paying me. But seriously, how can these pictures not break your heart? Think of all the stories those old houses could tell. I don't want them to all die a sad, lonely death of deterioration:( Someone go buy these guys and fix 'em up!

Love that huge, square porch.

This one doesn't even need that much work!

Such unusual detailing up there, but so cool!

This one is my favorite. I love the wrap-around porch and all the angles in the roof.

coffee table confusion

Before I debut this new piece of furniture, I should admit that I'm not 100% sold on it yet. Something just feels off. I don't know what it is. I'm really not a big fan of artificially distressed furniture (though I love it when furniture chips and fades on it's own), so maybe that's it. I distressed this one because it was so massive that I felt like all that white needed to be broken up. We don't need two coffee tables, so obviously either we'll sell this one or the old one. Fortunately we haven't sold either yet, so I still have time to decide.

Without further blabbing, here's the before:

and the after:

I know one thing for sure, I love the hardware:

it's so cute!

Anyone want to make a suggestion on where I might have gone wrong? Should I sell this one and keep the old wooden one from Target? Should I paint it a different color? Or do you like it?

I have lots of questions today;)

PS that huge white mirror you see on the wall there is this mirror, painted white.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

This poor little mirror has been through a lot, and unfortunately for it, it's journey may not be over yet. It's got beautiful "bones" (as they say on the refurbishing blogs I stalk), but that tacky gold finish had to go.

Here it is after it had been painted a flat black. Excuse my dog's booty in the way.

And here it is on the wall of our bedroom.

I didn't think I liked the black mirror/black bed combo, so I recently painted it white. It's sort of hard to get a good comparison of the two, because not only is our bed missing the duvet and pillow shams, it's also not made up ... and the mirror looks blindingly white in this picture. It's not nearly that white in person.

This is a better picture of the real color:

But I'm still not sure if I like it. I don't know if I should paint it black again, strip it down past even the gold finish and see what's under there, and try and go from there, or paint it some other color.

Ideas are welcome!

ta-daaaah!

I made it home and to the bedroom just in time to catch some really great photos of our new dresser in the sunlight this morning. Yayyy! You may remember from this post that our old dresser is long gone, and we spent Sunday afternoon fixing up a new one and giving it the ole whitewash!

This dresser was purchased for only $20 from a lady in Tustin. She has a relative that is a 99 year old woman who just went to a nursing home, and sadly they are selling all of her furniture. It made me sort of sad pulling out all the sweet old floral lining paper in the drawers. You know how must people get all goo-goo and gushy over babies and "want to take them home"? That's how I am about old people. I couldn't help but think about that old lady and her husband bringing home this dresser, back in their younger days, and her picking out the lining paper with the little pink roses on it, and carefully cutting them out to fit the drawers:( Oh well, at least I am giving it a good home:)

As you can see, it has a most unfortunate faux-wood glaze on top of it, and it really hides the beautiful detail of the drawers. The reason I wanted this specific dresser out of all of the dressers on Craigslist was because of that hardware, though. It looks like something I would purchase to put on a dresser!

And here it is in all it's sunshiney glory. Unfortunately, my husband forgot to take a "Before" picture of the giant mirror it came with. I'm not a big fan of mirrors stuck to the back of dressers unless it's a vanity that was sort of built around the mirror, so I didn't want to attach it back to the dresser. I had my husband pry off the wood that was meant to attach it, and I painted the mirror a dark gray color and just propped it up on the dresser instead. I think it looks much better that way.

This is a detail shot of the great old hardware, and the details on the drawers. I know a lot of people think it's a crime to paint over wood, but white paint brings out the details so much. Besides, your home should make you happy and white paint makes me happy:)

Here's one more look at the before:

and the after!

more fixer upperness

Goodness, today's posts definitely lack variety! While Googling east coast houses again (I look around for old houses across the country wayyy more than I care to admit), I found this breathtakingly adorable house.

I couldn't believe how cheap it was, so I looked it up some information on the neighborhood, and found that it's in a historic neighborhood called Barton Heights that has gotten run-down in the last 30 years or so. Apparently, the city of Richmond is trying to get people in to buy up and fix up those old houses. I hear you calling me, Richmond! Click here to read about the project.