Little desk and message center.

I can't wait to show you the  message center in the corner of my kitchen .. It didn't start out as a planned project,  but for some reason it just ended up as the perfect pairing.  Does that happen to you too?  Things just seem to go together naturally.

First I fell in love with this little yard sale desk set.  It's very petite by todays standards, but it's the regular height of a modern desk and chair. It was made in the early 1900's long before we needed extra space for all of our electronics. Back then people still wrote letters .





It had some little scratches  on the desk top and the chair was broken at the top cross bar.  A little Gorilla glue fixed up the chair and the hole was filled with some wood filler and sanded.

 
 
 
Just look at this seat,  its hideous.  It is definitely going to need an update.

I painted this set in my favorite (right now) colour, and after a little distressing and wax I thought  it was looking quite beautiful. 

 

 

And the damage on the chair? Can't even tell where it was.

 

 

Isn't this a pretty colour? It's no wonder I'm hooked on it right now.  :)  It's such an improvement over the dark brown finish and those horrible harvest gold flowers. 

 

 

Take a look at this stash of stuff again. Do you see those rectangle shaped trays piled on the desk. There are four of them and they are truly ugly, and cheaply made. 

 

 

 

A coat of blackboard paint and some paint on the boarder to match the desk set and look at them now. It's cool how you can turn almost anything into a blackboard now.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
There were four of them so I labeled them according to what I needed most.  I actually missed  a shower invite on the weekend which inspired one of the labels. I won't forget another invite again.

 

And here they are in their new space, doing a wonderful job of keeping me organized ...... If that's possible. Just enough room inside for my daycare schedule and a phone book.

 

Of course all my pieces are for sale, but I won't be too sad if this one doesn't go for a long time.

 

 

Bye for now.... and have a great day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Giving an end table new life.

Last weeks treasures post had a picture of this really great mid century, barrel shaped end table. It was one of the reasons I was so thrilled about my finds. Every thing I picked up that day was really good but this was a perfect jewel. Except for the finish.

 

 

It had such beautiful details on the bottom edge and on the legs, as well as such pretty little feet.

 

 

 

The door has this great chicken wire detail along with just the perfect hardware.  I absolutely fell in love.  It went straight to my work room from the truck. All it needed was the perfect colour.

 

 

I started by removing the hardware and giving the whole piece inside and out a good wash with some vinegar and water.

I mixed one part blue paint with three parts of white and made up my chalk paint mixture.

Then I painted the inside with the lightened blue. Have I said how much I love this colour of blue.  Once the inside was dry I gave the outside, including the chicken wire, a coat of this lightened blue mixture.  It's easy to paint the wire but you must use very little paint on the brush to keep it from clumping up.

Once it was completely dry, about an hour, I gave it a second coat of paint.  The main part was the light blue mix, and the door and top were painted with the original blue. The finishing touch was a coat of natural paste wax. And of course the hardware.

 

 What do you think?  Isn't she beautiful? 

 

Using 3 parts white with one part of the original colour makes it easy to do any piece in a two tone like this.  There is never any worry of the two colours not going together.

 Because the chalk paint mixture is porous it takes the paste wax really well and buffs up to a nice soft shine.

 













Bye for now... and have a great day.

River stone Hot Plates

I love these little hot plates I made from river stones.  Such a country thing to have in your cottage kitchen, or in any country themed décor.


I picked up a handful of these little 8 inch straw mats at a yard sale this weekend. You see them everywhere and no one really knows what to do with them any more.

My dear hubby installs flooring and river rock is really popular in showers now so there are always little unused pieces of the flooring leftover from jobs.  It comes pre glued to sheets for installation, and being the hoarder I am he brings the bits home and I take all the little stones off the sheet and save them.  Free craft material... gotta like that.

I haven't done anything using my glue gun lately and I knew it would be so much better than waiting for glue to dry.  I decided I wanted the first one to be darker stones so I separated light from dark and arranged them onto the straw mat. 

Once the arrangement was ok I glued all the stones on the mat. These stones are for the bottom of a shower so they are kind of flat and very smooth.  They are meant to be nice for your feet.  The bonus is that a hot pot will sit on a flat surface.

When I was done I did the same with the lighter stones on another mat.









Here are my hot plates finished. Aren't they cute.  I love how they turned out. Very  beachy cottage chic. What do you think?






Bye for now... and have a great day.

This weeks treasures 1

Have you ever been so excited about something that you couldn't wait to do it,  kinda like a kid on Christmas morning?  That's the way I feel about the ideas I have for repurposing this weeks finds.

This piece was given to me by my wonderful daughter in law. It's doors match the cabinet doors in my kitchen.  I've been looking for a  cabinet to use as a sideboard  in my kitchen makeover so its going to be a perfect  fit. 

Hubby and I went on a yard sale cruise Saturday morning and found these really sturdy maple chairs.  I'm not sure yet whether or not I'm going to paint them.. they do need a good clean up and some new covering on the seats. 

At the same sale I picked up this beautiful side table with storage.  Its lines were so beautiful and the chicken wire on the door was perfect. I could picture her   finished before I even made an offer.  Of course she went straight from the truck right to my work table.  What a marvelous way to spend the rest of my weekend.


The very next sale filled up our truck and put an end to our yard sale shopping for the day.  I spotted these antique beds and was so excited I could hardly contain myself.  We had to take everything out of the truck and repack to fit it all in.

These pieces are at least a hundred years old and the turned posts  have a pretty, unique shape.  The side rails are wood as well so there are extra pieces to work with. The metal pieces that attach the rails to the ends look like old square barn nails,  at least the ones that are left do.


I've never come across anything this old before.   The rails are to damaged to be fixed and the beds are an off size so they don't fit any mattresses today,  so I won't try to restore them as beds. 
Instead I see two of the most fabulous benches I can imagine. What do you think?


Bye for now.... have a great day everyone.

Welcome to the new Kidlets

This week we had two new kids in our daycare.   All of us were really excited to have new kids to play with and we had so much fun showing  them our favorite things to do. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a lot of pictures.  Most of the week was focused on making sure no one felt left out.  Its always a change for both the new kids and the older ones when we add to our group.  Later in the week we had  this playtime outside and everyone was having such a good time I had to take a few pictures to share.

 

 

 

We hope your week was as much fun as ours was.

 

 

Bye for now... and have a great day.

Cabinet makeover

 

Sometimes things  just come together, even when there isn't a plan.  That's what happened with these two pieces.

A few years ago my hubby was given this cabinet from someone remodeling a cottage. 
I used it for toy storage in the playroom for quite a while, but since we moved here its just been in the office collecting dust. 
Its really solid so I couldn't part with it.




It was pretty beat up but would make a fabulous liquor  cabinet  change table   games storage  well you get the idea.  
See the  beautiful grey plush lining.
I finally decided to just go ahead and paint it.  






I dug it out of the office and cleaned it up with some water and vinegar. 
I gave it two coats of my home made chalk paint. 
Its a nice grey/blue that I think goes well with the lining.  
I think it makes a  nice liquor cabinet.  But... its just nice.






Then last week I found this book case at a yard sale.  It had long been forgotten, was covered in dust and grime, but had both the shelves and a really nice shape. 
After a good clean up and patching a few missing bits with wood filler, I decided it needed the same paint as the cabinet. 









Even before I was done painting I new both pieces were going to go together perfectly. 

So was I right?    I think so.













Now  I have to  decide what to put in it. :)


Bye for now... and have a good day everyone.

Kids Activities

Here are a few things the kidlets have been doing to keep busy this summer. 

Playing in the Mud Pie Kitchen. It's  the first place everyone goes for. This is very simple to make.  Mine is just a part sheet of plywood that I fixed to my fence and I use two chunks of firewood for the front legs.  All the pots, bakeware and utensils came from a second hand store where I paid $5 for the lot.  Of course the cooking ingredients come from mother nature herself.

 This Music Wall is another easy thing to make for your kids.  Mine is just some wind chimes, a few pans and jello molds, a xylophone no one played with before I put it on the wall and some plastic and wooden spoons for drumsticks.  It's great fun for very little investment.  We sometimes add some plastic water bottles with rice or beans etc. for shakers as well. Indoors we have a container of music toys and we have music play almost every day.  Rattles, drumsticks, harmonicas, and anything that makes noise is on the menu for this activity. 

This cloud dough sensory bin is great. I put the recipe and instructions in this post. The kidlets have played with it numerous times now. When we use it indoors I just put an old sheet on the floor and let them do what they do. It's easy to change out the play items for a whole new direction and clean up is so easy.

An Idea that came from sensory bin play was this take on a sand table.  Here we are using it with cars, but we have had dinosaurs, farm animals, and little people in the sand as well.  Just put a tray on your tabletop and add a few cups of sand.  I bought a bag of play sand in the spring and while we lose some each time I just dump what's left back in the bag when we are done. 

And of course there's always bubbles on those hot days to keep us busy for a bit. 









One of my favorite places online to find great ideas for everything kids is Happy Hooligans.  Her blog is fabulous and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for first rate ideas to keep your kids active and creative.  I follow it faithfully and once you see it you probably will too.

Bye for now and have a good day everyone.