My Favorite Yard Sale Find

I love yard sales. I love to redo furniture and make it my own. I've showed pictures of this hutch before, but I've linked up to the Best Yard Sale Finds Ever at the Nesting Place. I bought this hutch at a yard sale for $40. I didn't really want the top part and it's now being used as a garage for our vast collection of Tonka trucks. I wanted a sofa table. When I put it on the back of our sofa, it was a little too high so I decided I'd put it in this corner of the room that is kind of a waste of space. It may not be a usable space, (there are stairs that come down in the bottom left corner) but it's a decoratable space!

The hutch sat in this boring state for a few months. I couldn't decide what I wanted to do. At the time we were looking for a new sofa and in the stores I had seen some colored furniture that I loved. Did I dare to go that bold though? I thought of doing it antique white and glazing it, plain black, but I then I gave in. I decided if I hated it, it was just paint and I could always repaint it. I decided on this teal color.

I restained the top in a darker mahogany color. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but I was glad I didn't have to do the legs!

Here is that corner of the room now! That black frame is also a yard sale find that was brass. Thanks for coming to my little sewing/ decorating site!

More Pillows!

When we bought our couches last year I didn't like any of the pillow choices. We decided to just have the pillows match the couch and I would recover them later. Well, I am now on the third pillow recover and I think I've found what I like best. I did an orange cover before and didn't love the fabric. Also, I used quilting fabric and it kind of slipped around on the pillow form when we actually used the pillow. I went to Home Fabrics and found this fabric. It wasn't quite what I had in mind, but it's the right colors and it doesn't slip around when you lay on the pillow. I kind of wanted a bolder fabric, but this allows me to make other pillows in bolder fabrics to go along with this one.

Picture Frames

I love picture frames but they can be expensive. I want to do a gallery wall going up my stairs from my entry way to the second floor. For that I need a lot of picture frames, but I don't want to pay$10-$40 each. So I've discovered the joys of yard sales and spray paint. All these frames were bought for $2 or less at yard sales. I have bought some at DI in the past, but they are getting too expensive for me. Once I find a picture frame I just paint it the way I want, get cheap prints at Costo and I have a decoration for super cheap.

Pillows!

I'm all about short projects lately. Short meaning projects I can get done while a certain 2 year old sleeps. Have you seen all these pillows in the stores lately? The ones with the felt flowers? They can be expensive. I've seen them for as much as $40 each. I believe I showed one earlier that was all felt. Then I found this Amy Butler tutorial and made this one. It was easy and fun. Now I want to make more for every room!

Home Improvements

When we moved in we knew we had a lot of work to do. Over the past few years we've realized that is an understatement. Here you can see our front doors. They look ok, right? I haven't loved the double doors. Sure, it was great on moving day, but it looks weird if you only put one wreath on it. Also, I've found people get confused about which door is the one opens. Who knew? The worst thing about these doors is they only have those four tiny windows at the top for letting in natural light. They open into an entry way with a formal living room on the left and a formal dining on the right. There is no light and very dark entry.
(I can't get this picture to go below the other, but we've replaced the double doors with this. Hopefully our door guy will be back soon to finish. We love it and it makes for a much brighter entry.) In this picture you can see the banister going up to the porch is missing at the bottom. Well, a week after we moved in we took out the carpet in the formal dining room and added wood floor. My husband, dad and I worked on it ourselves. As my husband had a long piece he took outside to cut he hit the rain with the tip. Barely. The whole thing fell off. It was rotten all the way through. This was just the beginning.

Here's a better picture of the railing. The part that isn't falling off.

This year is the year we've designated to help out our overgrown yard. We've replaced the rotton railing with a vinyl one. Hopefully we can get our drip system working and I can plant flowers in my flower boxes soon!

I'm Back... I hope

Sorry for the wrinkled fabric below, but I wanted you to be able to see what the fabric looks like up close and took a picture of the scrap. Obviously, I didn't iron it first. Just keeping it real!

Maybe I'm back. I hope. Three little kids are really keeping me busy. I've been doing projects, both sewing and home related, but I haven't been posting them. I'll try to better. Maybe blog at least once a month?

In April I decided I'd had it with my plain white Roman shades. We put them in when we first moved in because I wasn't sure what to put there and they were cheap. It looked like white sheets hanging in my door. I decided to cover them. I went to Home Fabrics. Have you been there? I love that store. Cheap decorator fabric. This fabric happened to be on sale for $3 a yard. It's thick, heavy fabric. I debated. I kind of wanted a bold floral, but I also wanted to do pillows and other accessories and I didn't want it to all match. I went with a teal and tan stripe. Kind of boring, but better than plain white, right? Sorry you can't see the fabric very well in the pictures.

It's kind of a dim day outside. Anyway, I measured the existing shades for the pattern and then sewed the new fabric right on top of the old. These do have wooden (at least I assume they are wood) dowels inside the folds. Every time I got to one I backstitched and then didn't sew over it so they'd keep their shape.

Here is one down. They are so much thicker and darker. Before I wondered if people could see through the other ones. Not anymore!

Today I have plans to make my boys ties. I'll post pictures if that actually happens!