Happy Halloween

Long time, no blog.....

Hi there, life has been crazy busy lately, school and kids and homework and fall softball season.  I didn't forget about my little blog here, hopefully I will get back to posting a little more regularly again soon.

Here is a couple of yard sale purchases / finds I have come up with in the last couple of weeks.

Number 1 - I got this FREE Pottery Barn corner chair.  One night I told Chris I was going to Starbucks but really I went to pick up this chair.  I guess it is really meant to be part of a sectional sofa but it works fine on it's own and is very comfy.
Kate (9) said "I wonder why someone would give it away for free, maybe they put all their dandruff on it!"  Oh well it seems very clean to me and the lady giving it away said she was just clearing out space for her grandmother moving in, and she was giving it for free because it was missing one of the side pillows.  I have plenty of pillows so no problem there.

The little ladder you can slightly see in the side of the picture I got at a garage sale for $2 and painted light blue.  The pillows on the corner chair I've had a long time from IKEA.

The lemon pillows on the couch are from Pottery barn (the covers on sale, the down inserts from IKEA), and the other long lumber pillows are from Marshalls.  I got some birthday money and a Marshalls gift card and I spent it all on pillows!  Anyway this is where I sit at the end of the day when I come home from work and the kids do their homework at the coffee table most of the time, so we have lots of comfort and pillows :)

The other project just completed today was a full size bed I bought for Kate's room.  I got the head board and footboard for $30 at a yard sale.  It looked like this to begin with:

And now it looks like this:

She wants new bedding which will come eventually, but for now what we had looks fine.  

The bed I primed and then painted light gray, so it is a little contrast to the white walls in her room.

I love how this bed turned out.  To buy something new like this would be very expensive so I love turning something vintage into something fresh and new.

Here is one for comparison price:

Jenny lind white twin bed:

$499 from The Land of Nod

Ok, I think I have a few more things to blog about soon, so there is a little update for now.

Sharing the bed makeover at Met Monday

And Domestically Speaking's power of paint party

New painted furniture

This new piece was picked up for free! Chris came home on Friday after visiting a friend and said he saw a piece of furniture in his garage that he thought I would like, and he would help me fix it up and did I want to go get it? I am not one to pass up FREE and old furniture, so off we go yesterday and this is what we came home with.......

This came from a set of two built in cabinets.  One was fine with me because our house is newer and there are not many corners anyway that this would work in.  Just like the chest of drawers I painted a few weeks ago, this was very rustic and dirty, but I thought it would look fine cleaned up and painted.  Chris went off to Lowes and bought a piece of panelling to cut and add some boards where some were missing on the back, and I finished cleaning it up and getting it ready to paint.

For the under coat I used the Zinsser paint and primer I've used on many projects now, and for the top coat I used Stonington gray that I've used on painting a couple of our bedrooms.  I'm very happy with how it turned out!  Right now I have Chris' grandmother's fransiscan china in the cabinet.

the knobs (they are a galvanized metal) came off that old chest of drawers.

The doors are missing their glass panels, which we might replace one day, but I like the way it looks open just fine too.

The new cabinet, led to more furniture switching, I brought this table in here from the kitchen and paired it up with my white painted chairs.

I'm thinking this table and the ladder type shelf behind would also look nice painted the gray color.....

So for now we have a "formal dining room". Which we may eat in here some, but it will also make a good homework place in a room with no TV for distraction, or a good monopoly game zone too

And the smaller white circle table ended up back in the kitchen with the black painted chairs.

I do have a little surplus of "stuff" from all my bargain hunting, collecting of late so I'm going to have a garage sale next weekend when my neighborhood has it (we can only do it twice a year).

posting at Southern Hospitality

And Thrifty Decor Chick's Before and After Party

New finds

I like this simple little lamp, got a new shade for it though (from Target)

I had one of these blue mason jars, now I have 4.  These are more pretty in reality, they are all slightly different tones of blue and will be nice to store things or just on their own.

These bowls were marked "fiesta bowls from oatmeal boxes".  But after doing a little google research I found this.  They are "Carnival" dishes, and were made in the 1940s and 50s.  They were only $1.50 each.

In the last couple of months I started collecting a few of the fiestaware pieces.  I like the turquoise and the old ivory colors, so the bowls above do match perfectly even though they don't have the "fiesta" mark.

Back to school week

Ready for the bus the first day.

We had a good back to school week.  Kate started 4th grade and Thomas 2nd.  I had a great week with my class too.  I am a teacher in a Montessori school and have a class of 18 3-6 year olds.  It is my 3rd year with this class, so most of my oldest students have been in my class since they were 3.

After a busy week with school, yesterday we had a big day with Chris running a local 10K run, then Kate had softball tryouts for fall softball, then we did some antique shopping too.  I'll share some of my "finds" in another post.

Here are some pictures watching Chris run.

The PEZ collection

Thomas has quite the pez collection going on.  Most collectors probably keep them in their package to keep their value, but he really plays with them.  Thanks to Uncle Greg sending him a couple of new ones that he got at Movie World on a trip to Australia so now his collection is up to 100.

I had some shelves that I wasn't using in my office anymore so I put them up in Thomas' room.  I need more shelves to really display them so they can all be seen, and what couldn't fit on the new shelves we put on the book shelf.  It was his idea to sort them by color.

The hulk doesn't look to happy to be in the back row behind Woody and Dorothy.

One day maybe we can go here. 

Garage sale chest of drawers

Each time I paint a piece of furniture it becomes my new favorite thing.  Here is my current new favorite:

The new knobs (from Hobby Lobby) cost more than the dresser did.  I did get them for less than $2 each though (50% off).

Here is why it was so cheap, it was old, rustic, and had probably been in someone's barn judging by how dirty and how many cobwebs I had to clean off it.  And it was painted a barn red too.

I'd already taken the old knobs off and started cleaning it by this point.

After a coat of my favorite paint / primer in one (that I also used on my kitchen cabinets).

This new piece of furniture goes in place of this old shelf which had all my craft and scrapbooking supplies, and while it was kind of organized, it was cluttered and didn't look so great.

and NOW.  I still have the blue filing cabinet, but I managed to hide it in the picture by putting my desk chair in front of it.  It is painted "china white" (Benjamin moore paint)

and I moved the futon in here too, so now we have a comfortable place to read

how it looks from the front living room.  Love this light fixture since I painted it.

my shelf even got organized with some of my owl collection and other favorite things

my other white chairs and table are now here:

I go back to work on August 16th so my summer adventures of painting furniture, garage sale and antique shopping are almost over.

But at least my house is pretty organized for now.

Linking again to Thrifty Treasures at Southern Hospitality.

And the Power of Paint party at Domestically Speaking.