Homemade Baby Swings for the twins

It's Spring!!

The birds are chirping, the branches are budding, and the sun is deliciously warm.

We want to be outside!

Have you ever tried to keep two 9 month old babies relatively clean and safe in your yard?

I have.  And it's not all that relaxing.  A lot of our rocks are getting a saliva bath. 

I started thinking that I needed a place to contain my babies while we soak up this glorious weather.  They're kind of tired of the excersaucer. Besides, I only have one.  I thought of getting two johnny jump ups.  But they won't hang from our patio beams.  So I looked into swings.  The ones I looked at online were blue plastic with yellow rope; you know the ones.  Nothing to get excited over.

But then I came across a tutorial for making your own!  Cha-ching!  

I ended up using this tutorial because I liked the look and durability of two layers of fabric.
By the way, if you are making a swing yourself, I added foam padding, instead of the batting, to just the dowel sleeves.  I also used a steel quick link (rated to hold 660 lbs) in lieu of the steel ring because the rings I found were not recommended for supporting human weight. One yard of fabric is more than enough (it says you need two)!

The babies love them!

And so does the pre-schooler.  She asks to push them in their swings every day.

It's turned out to be the perfect activity for Graham after his surgery,
as it was hard for him to crawl with his cast (he had a pin inserted into his broken finger bone).

I think the swings could use some adjustments.  If I would have been smart, I would have made one, tried it out, and then adjusted the second one.  But I was too impatient to see this kind of cuteness!

If I had to do it again, I would make the whole swing a little smaller, with shorter dowels and shorter seat measurements.  I think the babies sink down too much in the swing, leaving their butts far lower than the opening for the legs.  So I suppose I would try making the long seat piece 4 inches shorter.  Also, the front piece between the legs could be narrower.

In another year these swings will probably be a good size for them anyway. Since they currently work, I'm hoping we get lots of swing-time logged in the meantime!

Bring on the sunny warm days!

In exchange for room and board

When we bought our house, the "outbuilding" was a shed/workshop. I imagine some atv's were stored on one side, and someone worked with wood on the other.

Double doors on the left and smaller doors on the right

A nice little wood burning stove occupied the space along with lots of fluorescent lighting, a huge workbench, and a laundry sink (do you need water when building? When fixing your riding toys? Perhaps my theory is incorrect). Anyway, we don't need a toy garage, nor do we need a wood working shop (actually, it sounds fun, but I haven't the time nor the tools at this point...).

We decided the building would make a pretty good guest house, or mother-in-law quarters.  After all, it already had electricity and water. We drew up some plans and filed them away. It became a storage shed as our mothers are not in need of quarters.

Then we bought a sauna. So the guest house plans were modified to include a sauna room. Dean built a wall separating the space into two, installed an interior door, and wired the sauna into the corner of one of the rooms.

Then a friend of ours needed a place to stay for the school year.  So it became rustic living quarters (in other words, a roof over a young guy's head).  Dean added real exterior doors and a window.

guest room on the left, sauna room on the right

Then we found out that we were going to have a guest for the summer. So we decided to make it a little less rustic by finishing the electrical work and texturing/painting the walls.

And what a good thing it was to finish that room!

well...finished except for the floor

It was used by Tiina for the summer.

We said goodbye to her a week and a half ago, and we miss her dearly already.

But the room is still getting plenty of use.  I crawl out there when I can no longer keep my eyes open and need a quiet place to nap. My sister and her boys as well as my mother-in-law (hey, what do you know?! It's a MIL quarters after all!) have, and plan to, put it to good use.

I'm hoping it will see lots of use in the coming months and years!

What a blessing friends and family are! I don't know what we'd do without their help and support right now.
(And no, helping out is not a requirement for use of our guest house!
Wait, maybe that would be a good idea after all...)

If you know how to run a sewage drain line, welcome up to our beautiful mountain town!
We'll let you stay in our guest room while you work! ;)

Insta-organized

I have blundered upon another technological time-waster.
Instagram
(see right side bar).

And I have not picked up my dslr in a good week or two because of it.

Or perhaps being in week two of mothering and housekeeping a family with the stomach flu has more to do with it.

Either way, I kind of am loving having a 'camera' in my pocket or purse at all times.
It makes it rather easy to leave my bigger camera on the shelf.

It feels really strange to not have random pictures to share...but my camera card is empty save for projects around the house, the biggest of which you've seen - the laundry room progress.
And like I mentioned in that post, we are sharing the kid's bathroom sink with them.

The only storage we have in here is behind the one big door of the vanity.  I put a plastic 3-drawer thingy under there, but do you think the kids use it?!?
It drives me batty when they leave their toothpastes, brushes, and floss all over the sink.
I've tried the standing holders as well as the hanging ones. Neither of them are big enough to fit five tubes of toothpaste (Dentist's recommendations to keep the cavities in the few kids that have them).

So my solution was to hang trays on the back of the door, making teeth cleaning supplies easier to get to, and easier to put away.
One 99 cent pack of 8 cup hooks and one $1.23 pack of divider trays (for a junk drawer) from walmart had me in business.

I marked where each hook would need to go, predrilled holes (oak is a hard wood), and simply screwed the cup hooks into the door and hung the baskets on them. This way, they are easy to remove when its time to clean the dried toothpaste off.
The only hitch I ran into was that the screws were longer than my cabinet door was thick.  So they aren't screwed in all the way, but it still works.

How's that for organization?  We now have a clean bathroom counter.  And I no longer have to put away 5 brushes and pastes before I brush my own teeth.
It's the little things in life, like hanging trays and clear counters, that are making me happy this week.

Moving our Laundry, part 1

Guess who's excited to be spinning laundry in a brand new washer and dryer in a half finished laundry room?!?

Me! Me! Me!

Those shiny new machines almost make up for the bare drywall and open walls.  Almost.

But let me back up a little.

We've lived here for a little over two years, and have thrown around lots of different ideas of how and where to move our laundry from the moment we first looked at the house.

You see, I've been washing clothes for a family of seven in the entry way, between the front door and the door to the garage all this time. Yep, makes perfect sense to me too! I think the laundry must have been an afterthought on the architects part.

Have you guessed yet that our house was built in the 80's?
I can't wait to replace the tile this summer!

These two little laundry closets are in the farthest corner from the bedrooms (i.e. the dirty laundry), in the highest traffic area, and right next to the front window that any visitors look into when they ring the doorbell (more than once I've had to kick aside dirty laundry piles to open the front door. Talk about embarrassing)! Not to mention that I have to lock the garage door any time I do laundry to prevent the door slamming into the laundry closet's bi-fold doors. 

Had to. Thank goodness that is past tense now!

So when we started talking addition plans (because we're soon to become a family of nine) it made sense to tackle the laundry room first. This most recent round of brainstorming brought forth the fact that our master bathroom has a lot of wasted space.  Duh!!  Put the laundry in our master!

It may seem weird to you to have a laundry off the master, but I think I'll love it!

We had a large sink area, off of which is a toilet and shower room.

We decided to turn the sink area into a laundry room and turn the toilet/shower room into the master bathroom by knocking out a closet (it was the smaller of two closets in our room).

It was not a quick process, and my room is full of drywall dust despite hanging sheets and plastic over the construction areas.

But we are moving along!  Progress is good, even if it comes slowly!

I think that Dean expected me to be satisfied once the new washer and dryer were installed (this morning and five weeks after I bought them), but *shhh* I'm not.  I need my counter to fold clothes on to.  I need my sink to rinse and soak stained clothes.  I need my cabinets and shelves to store the laundry soap and dryer sheets in.

And I am really looking forward to an updated bathroom, not to mention actually using my own bathroom again.

Our plan. Or what still needs to be done.

So we plow forward.  Once the electrician/plumber has time to come back and finish his work in this area, we will fill in the walls and extra doorway, hang cabinets and counters, paint the walls, install new light fixtures and a vanity, and re-tile the bathroom floor.

Meanwhile, there has been drywall dust footprints down the hallway about every other night.

I'm actually looking forward to deep cleaning my room and mopping the whole house when this little project is done. 

It could be a while... 

but I guess I can go watch my clothes spin in the pretty new machines while I wait.

My DIY Stockings

Once upon a year I wanted to sew my family's Christmas stockings.
So I bought four matching green ones from the dollar spot in Target.
Because temporary stockings didn't need to be fancy.
Temporary ended up being three Christmases.
My five children had mismatched stockings last year.

Sometime in the beginning of this December I was browsing Joann's Christmas aisle and saw the cutest stockings!  I loved both the sweater stockings and the burlap ones.  But at $30 a piece...yeah, I decided it was high time I finally sew my family's stockings.

Burlap seemed too messy and too rough...linen seemed to be the best route.  And because I'm thrifty and savvy and resourceful and all that, I dug in my fabric stash and found a pair of cream curtains I was saving for just because.  While they're not exactly linen, they're close enough for me.

And while I'm not crafty and creative when left to my own resources, I am very good at copying other people's ideas...or in this case, using their patterns.

I used an old sheet for the linings (told you!) and needed only to buy 1/4 yard of fabric for each stocking cuff and whatever buttons and lace I wanted.  I paid a total of $15 for six stockings (oops, I only photographed five)!
I will claim full creativity credits for the cuffs!  I guess I can come up with something on my own!

While Aubrey's stocking, the cream floral one, is still awaiting a fabric flower for decoration (per her request), the rest are complete.  And I do love them!

The only thing I don't like about them is how limp they are.  I fully intended to add batting when I was making them, but completely forgot it on the first stocking in my excitement to see the completed product.  I wanted them all to be the same, so left it out of the rest.  But I do believe that would have helped.

Ideally, they'd hang on my deep blue wall, but that didn't work out, so they line the portrait hallway.
And ideally, I'd have added the wood name tags before I photographed and shared them with you, but that didn't work out either.

Hey, if Santa knows their face and can see their photo in the dim light, he'll get it figured out!
The stockings are made with care and hung.  We're doing good!

Oak to Rustic White hutch makeover

It was the week before Thanksgiving that I was finally able to unpack all my Mom's china.  It really was great timing as I did not have 13 matching dinner plates in my kitchen cupboards.

As I was unpacking my totes, Dean commented that "well, she's really settling in now, she's unpacking her china!"

Yes, I'm settling in.  And I do love the feeling.  Especially when setting a holiday table is as simple as taking a couple steps to the hutch and grabbing what you need.

So for a couple years I had been looking for a hutch.  But it had to be a corner hutch to fit my dining room.  I wasn't coming across too many used ones within 50 miles of home.
Until this oak one popped up on craigslist for $350. Three hundred and fifty dollars!  Way more than I was willing to pay.  And way more than anyone else would pay for that matter, because she replied to my "I'll offer you less" email after a couple weeks.

My memory is going at a terribly young age, because I suddenly can't remember what the dickens I actually paid for it!  Oh, I think it was $150.  Yes, that's what it was.

Either way, I was kicking up my heels to finally have my hutch, and I immediately started removing all the hardware, doors, and stained glass, because oak and brass are not me.  It was particularly fun the Saturday I took a hammer to the mirror backing!

And then it sat in the garage while I waited for the sky to pour out sunshine and warmth so I could tackle the 'transformation of the hutch'.

I decided to transform my hutch with a homemade chalk paint (the plaster of paris recipe), a can of flat black spray paint, some tongue and groove siding, and a can of red oak stain (because that's what I had on hand, but it is a bit too dark for my liking).

So I took to mixing the paint (a quart sample paint pot in satin did the trick), applying the two coats, and staining the wood paneling.  Dean actually nailed these boards to the back of the hutch for me, because I wasn't having much luck getting the nails in at the right angle.

And now I will share with you my high-tech secret method of spray painting brass hardware...
are you ready for this???

Incredible huh!?  Who knew those countless boxes of Huggies would actually come in useful in more ways than one!

I couldn't wait to put all the pieces back together once the paint was dry, and haul it in the house!

Nevermind that there are no glass doors on the top yet.  The glass shop was closed the day I did make it to that side of town. So those will hopefully be in place soon.

I do love the look of the delicate china in front of the wood boards.  And the crisp clean white.  And the black hardware.  Actually, it would be fun to replace the hardware with something more ornate someday...

You know, regarding the homemade chalk paint, I really wasn't too sure about it as the paint was going on.  My hutch took two coats of paint, a light sanding, and a coat of furniture wax.  It wasn't until after I applied the wax that I loved the look of chalk paint on my hutch.
And quite honestly, I don't know if the process is that different (or easier) from sanding, applying one coat of primer, one coat of paint, and one coat of poly.
The wax was easier to apply than the poly anyway, so that's one perk of the chalk paint route.

Now if I were to paint the base and legs of my dining room table...I would definitely go the chalk paint route.  It makes complete sense for rounded, grooved surfaces such as these.

I'm not sure what I'm waiting for, but I will let you know once I do get those legs painted.  Won't it look fantastic and so much brighter?!  And the two pieces will tie together so much more!
 

Okay, so maybe I need verification that I won't totally ruin my (8 year old) table by painting the legs white to match the hutch.  Opinions?  Paint the legs or leave them as is?  Or should I just paint the bench legs?
I'd love to hear your ideas.

Gallery walls and craigslist

I must be the queen of procrastination. Or have Project ADD. Or something.
I decided a couple years ago that I'd love a gallery wall in our house. I collected frames and artwork and piled them on top of the sitting room shelf. And I left them there.  For a long, long time.  I don't know what to blame. My creative mind coming up with more projects before I finish the ones I've started?

Anyhow, I love spray paint.
It helped me transform my many miscellaneous and mismatched picture frames to one unifying color.

I also love craigslist.
It helped me transform my sitting area off the dining room.
Actually, I can thank Craig and his list for much more than my sitting area.  Most of our living room furniture, bookshelves, dining room furniture, and appliances were bought used off of craigslist.  Call us cheap if you'd like, but I prefer to think of myself as practical and unfussy.
As a result of our cheap unfussy furniture, I have no guilt about changing up things (not that I do it often anyway).  I hardly ever lose more than a few bucks since I just resell items on craigslist.

This "sitting area" of ours has seen a lot of changes and different pieces of furniture.  When we moved in, it held a monstrous rock wall and shelf. We tore that out and for a long time we had an unfinished, waiting for texture, sheetrocked wall. We also had an unsightly diagonal chimney pipe running out of the stove for longer than I care to admit.  Eventually, I rolled some paint on the walls, Dean straightened the pipe, and I put a big shelving unit and one chair in this space.
It wasn't really working for our family of seven, as we hang out in this area more often than the living room.

So when I found a like-new sofa listed, I jumped on it.
I couldn't be happier with the new look, and I wonder why I waited so long to make this space work better for us.

I don't think I'd trade my family art wall for any Da Vinci or Picasso piece.  As beautiful as the professional paintings are, they don't mean half as much to me as our own art.
Besides, I have my own little budding artists.
Check out my son's version of Starry Night and another's summer-vacation-inspired painting of himself biking across the Golden Gate Bridge.

This gallery wall stuff is kind of addicting! And the kids love that their work is up in frames.
I've still got some spray paint left...Now, I'm sure I have some more frames lying around here somewhere...

28:52 Made With Love

My hubby doesn't get it.

He doesn't get why I keep my eye out for solid wood pieces that are old and worn.  He doesn't get why I would spend hours sanding and refinishing a piece of furniture, or, say, a little cedar playhouse.

He doesn't get it, but that's okay; I sure have a heck of a lot of fun doing it and usually am pretty proud of the end result.  I like changing something from old to almost new.

This one, I'll call re-made with love.

28:52

I think it's a pretty nice little face lift. Don't you?

My cute kids in front of the playhouse before it's makeover

To continue our blog circle, visit Leann to see what lovely things she's photographed.

Our Board of Good Qualities

When it comes to my children, I am a worry-er.
Are they getting enough of my attention?  Will they stand up to bullying?  Am I raising them to be confident and loving?  Is my impatience scarring them?  Do they know how incredibly wonderful and special they, as an individual, are?

Sometimes it keeps me up at night.  Because during the day, life gets kind of crazy and I have no time to ponder anything as I try to keep this ship afloat and sailing.

And it's funny to me how we can be sailing smoothly along and yet, at the same time seem to be taking in water.

Smooth sailing example:
After one of my late night worry sessions that involved positive self images, I came up with an activity for the family to do together.  I pulled out our big chalk board and set it up by the dinner table.  I told everyone to think of something they are really good at.  After we were done eating, I wrote everyone's name on the chalk board and, starting with Dean and I, proceeded to write down everyone's self-proclaimed strengths.

I want my kids to have self confidence.  I want them to recognize their own good qualities and feel good about them.  I want their self-esteem to be their armor so that they thrive in environments outside the safe walls of our home.

I tucked away the bit of knowledge that my son said "I don't know if I'm good at it, but I like to play basketball" while my daughter said in a sure voice that "I am good at reading and coloring".
Food for the night thoughts.

After everyone was done explaining what they were good at, I told them they now had to come up with something good about every other member of the family.  This definitely took some time as there were six people giving six compliments, but I really wanted them to think positively of each other and find the good in each other.

I want my kids to think of others.  I want them to be kind and compassionate, and lift each other up. I want the knowledge that we have their back, always, empower them to turn their thoughts outward and be thoughtful of and helpful to those they encounter.

And I was pleased that everyone was able to do it.  Each of the kids recognized something good in everyone else.  The older kids especially surprised me with what they noticed and thought.  Our board of good qualities was full.

Taking on water example:
Elaina was in my arms erasing what I was writing for much of the time, so I handed her to Dad.  She then proceeded to crawl and walk all across the table, stepping into a plate of chicken enchilada.  Her howl at being put on the floor was hard to hear over.
Then, once the little boys' turns were over, they quickly lost interest in the activity and started wrestling and screeching at the table.  As usual, they didn't listen when we tried to quiet them down and separate them.  Dinner ended with kids bouncing every which way, the noise level near ear piercing decibels, and one child in a time out for biting another's bottom.

I have no idea if this little self-and-sibling-praise-activity will stick with the kids, if it will even help achieve the goal in mind, but I have to believe it will.  I have to hope that I'm instilling the values in them that I want rather than the faulty ones I demonstrate.  I have to believe that they'll remember the love, the sense of belonging, and the lessons rather than the chaos that always accompanies anything we do as a family.  I have to hope that I'm learning how to parent fast enough and making a difference now before they are all grown and gone.

I have to keep on believing it.
I have to.
Because it makes the smooth sailing feel like flying
and the bailing of water feel effortless.

waiting to be sewn into something

Every now and then (usually when I'm bored) I head to the thrift store just because.  

I look through the rows and rows of ugly and worn clothing for those occasional surprises.  

Like this one.  

An American Eagle Outfitters dress (that I would never in my right mind wear as a dress). Or let my daughter wear for that matter.  Unless it was a swimsuit cover-up?

Anyhow, back to the matter.  This little number was a bit skimpy but pretty and flowy.  Kind of peasant-ish or bohemian. It had an elastic baby doll waist with a drawstring.  

In other words it was a perfect candidate for dress-turned-skirt.

Less than thirty minutes with the scissors and sewing machine resulted in this.

Ta-da!

Makes me want to head to Goodwill.

If only there wasn't a pile still on my sewing desk of stuff that needs the attention of the sewing machine.

Which reminds me of another little project I finished up after the skirt.  It was a backyard-appeal-improvement project, if you will.  One that cost me nothing as the fabric is leftover from my patio chair cushions and the old hangar was found in our closets.

It makes me wish this family didn't need dinner in their bellies and I could go sit at the sewing machine.  I've got drawers full of fabric waiting to turn into something!

Flooring!

The most satisfying feeling of the month has been to rip up the brown 80's carpet out of our bedrooms.

Yes, I did it myself.  Yes, it's a dirty dirty job.  And YES! it's so good to get it out of there!  

It's only been about a year and a half since we've lived here, on that nasty carpet, but who was counting?  

I was so eager to lay new floors, that I did all the prep work so Dean (and his brother, who came up one weekend to help) could get right to work in the evenings and on the weekends.  Prep meaning emptying the bedrooms, ripping up the old carpet and foam underlayment, and scraping the old glue off the floor (I left the tack strips to my strapping hubby. Those suckers were stuck nice and good in to the concrete). 

The kids even got in on the glue scraping action.

Child Labor!? What child labor laws?

My hubby may or may not have called me a slave driver several times throughout the whole process.
  

But for the record, I wasn't snapping pictures the whole time.  I oiled and waxed the baseboards, laid some laminate, and even learned to use the miter saw [Insert skinny jean and boot clad fist pump and bicep flex here]!  

My hubby (did I mention that he's handy as well as handsome?) showed me the ropes, or rather the blades, of cutting with the miter saw. For a part of the day he would tell me the measurement for the next piece of flooring, which end needed to be cut, and I would put on my sexy safety goggles and fire up the big, bad, saw. I should have had him snap a picture (Can you tell I'm a bit proud of myself?). 

In all seriousness though, I have to say that I enjoyed stepping into my hubby's turf for this project.  We had fun working together, and it was very satisfying to participate in every aspect of the project.  If you've never really worked side by side with your partner before, put it on your bucket list. Seriously! 

Working on the master bedroom.  Don't mind the curtain floods. Some day I might fix those.

It was a lot of work to live in a remodel job and the house felt upside down the whole time, but we are more than happy with the results.

Can you spot the three major differences between the two photos above?  And no, messy room/clean room does not count as a change!  Think home improvement projects.

Besides the flooring, the boy's room is now sporting a new light fixture and 'cool cucumber' walls (which didn't photograph well).  I think that BEHR misnamed the paint color though; every time I spend time in that room, I feel like eating a bowl of pistachio pudding.

And every time I walk into one of the bedrooms now (barefoot is the best) I marvel at the new, clean, and lighter look.  Yes, it was definitely worth the work.

In the middle of it all

Sometimes it's the little things, right?  The little things that make us happy.

Or perhaps it's the little things that get finished amongst the never-ending big project that provide a sense of accomplishment and a little bit of sanity.

We're replacing the flooring in all our bedrooms.  It seems like our hallway has been a perpetual mess of bedroom furniture and items, and it's only going to get worse.  We're doing the master bedroom next.
Can't we fast forward to next week already?

So last week, in between moving around furniture, ripping up carpet (yes!!!), and scraping old glue, I made a trip to Target.

And discovered a pretty lamp shade on the clearance rack.

And came to the conclusion that a little makeover project was just what I needed after looking despairingly at our cluttered halls and tripping over mattresses for the last week.

After some frog tape, primer, spray paint (that I didn't shake well enough which sprayed clumps onto my lamp resulting in unplanned sanding - oops), and the new lamp shade, I had a new look for my nightstand.

It was just what I needed.  A quick project.  Instant gratification in the form of spray paint.

Now, I guess I'm headed back to cleaning out the master bedroom so we can get ready to pull up the brown shag.  How did our closet get so full anyway?!?

Hey Girl

Okay, so I honestly have no idea who Ryan Gosling is.
All I know is that I've been seeing some hilariously funny Hey Girl memes popping up on pinterest and blogs.
They're kind of funny.

Okay, so some of them are really funny.

Because my hubby is a lot like most of the hubbies out there - he doesn't get it.  He has no idea why I need two hours at Joann's to choose fabric for one blanket.  He has no idea why finding a beat up dresser, the perfect candidate for a paint job, at Goodwill for $3 is so exciting.  He raises his eyebrows when I clap my hands upon discovering that my sewing creation actually fits.  He thinks all walls should be white. To him, peach is orange and fuschia is pink. I don't think he even knows what Pinterest is. And basically, he has no desire to be a part of all my crafting and DIYing schemes.

So yes, those Hey girl memes have tickled my funny bone.

I honestly don't know what I'd say or do if Dean said something like, "here, let me drill those curtain rod holders in place for you. You might break a nail," because I'm not that kind of girl.  I like doing, and making with my hands. Not that I wouldn't mind if he asked me on a weekly basis what he could cut for me with his  saw...

Anyhow, after spotting the idea here, I couldn't resist (no, I'm not linking up, just having some fun on my own).

I think that my guy is a lot better looking than what's-his-name anyway.  ;)

So, female readers, I'm dying to know, what kind of "Hey Girl" line leaves you in stitches?  

Or what kind of poster would you make? 

I'm not the only one who finds them funny, am I?

When Goodwill's ugliest chairs take up temporary residence in my home

One evening a month or so ago, as I was out and about by myself (rare!), I swung into Goodwill.  It was a spontaneous stop (I had just read about and seen pictures of some crazy amazing junk transformations) and my purchase was even more spontaneous.  Because I really wonder if I would have bought these beaut's if it had been a normal day of the week.
But no, it was a day I was feeling antsy to get my hands dirty and make something beautiful.  A day I craved a creative challenge.  So...
I came home with Goodwill's ugliest chairs.

No seriously, they were ugly!
I got into my van and actually laughed at myself.  I couldn't believe I was bringing Goodwill's ugliest chairs home.

Behold the peeling, faded, 80's-upholstered ugliness.

Really, the pictures do not do them justice.  They looked like they had been on your Grandma's neighbor's back patio, covered in cobwebs, beaten by the sun, and washed in the rain for the last 30 years.

But I thought I saw their potential.  Aren't those curvy lines the coolest?  And get this - they swivel!  And they're actually pretty comfortable. At $5 each, I just couldn't pass them up. I had an itch, remember?  I couldn't wait to transform them!

The first thing I did was wash, then lightly sand the frames.  They each got primer and a few coats of white lacquer spray paint. In all honesty, they probably could have used another can each, but I'd already emptied three cans onto each chair!  My fingers were sore, and I was trying to be cheap!

The next step was fabric. I was picturing a modern fabric in blue or green with white lines, perhaps mimicking the lines of the chairs. Something like this Waverly fabric:

But alas, I live in Flagstaff and our fabric pickings are slim. Plus, I was trying to find something on sale.  I came home with something I liked well enough, but wasn't in love with.

When it was time to reupholster the cushions (btw, I have never done anything like this before), I thought I was being so clever and so meticulous to take apart the cushions, trace them onto newspaper, and carefully plan out the placement for each "pattern" onto my fabric.

I thought that was the hard part, since I had opted to do without piping or zippers.

I thought that was, until I started sewing.

Once again, the curves had me muttering under my breath something about putting square objects into round holes.  I do not have any idea how the original cushions edges looked so smooth because mine were filled with ripples and puckers.

Anyhow, behold Goodwill's ugliest chairs now:

I'd say they are a lot less ugly.  Kind of pretty, actually.  

If I could do it again though, I'd go with an off-white paint, or a fabric with crisp white in it.

I was initially less than pleased with my upholstery work, but once I quit staring at them so closely, like I was when sewing them, I got over it.

So, not too shabby.  

But then I realized they wouldn't work in the space I had imagined them in.  I just don't have the room in my sitting area, or out on the patio, for two chairs.  Darn!

I moved them outside for a while, but got tired of the cluttered patio.  

I put them up for sale on Craigslist.

It is with slight reluctance that I will watch them go.  

I put a lot of hours into those chairs. And I do like them. 

But not enough.

Next time, I will buy the fabric I love.  

Actually, next time, I will probably leave the upholstery work to the professionals.

project update

I really haven't meant to stay away so long.  I have been meaning to get a couple summer posts up, but here it is already the second week of school.  As for this week, I'm a whirlwind. I have a signing class in half an hour, another class tomorrow morning (crazy, I know, I'm not usually so busy), I send the boys and hubby off to camp, then a few of my girl friends are coming for the weekend. Yahoo! I can't wait.

I'm squeaking this post in because I am thrilled with my recent home decor project.
Remember my bolt of fabric?
The majority of it is now hanging in my dining room.

I worked for an hour or two (or three) a day on these curtains for the first half of this week, and was getting impatient to get them hung.  I love walking in the room now and admiring my handiwork. It took a lot of work to get to this point! I had to convince the hubby that this room needed some softness - in the form of curtains of course, take down the old rod and curtains, patch the holes, paint, hang the new rods, exchange the hooks I bought because they didn't work with my curtains, sew tabs onto the back of my already done curtain tops, make the second panel for the other side...you get the point, and I still have another window in this room to figure out. And some matchstick blinds to hang.  

Basically, these took a lot longer than I thought they would, and they're still not even done (I need to hem the bottoms).

But I love them!  So I guess it was is worth it.  

However, I will not be doing any more windows any time soon.  

I've got other ideas brewing in my head (I do believe I have some pretty strong genes passed on from my maternal grandparents - oh how I miss you Mummu and Pappa!)

I think my baby, who never stays still, has the same gene.  :)

Hopefully I'll get these curtains finished up next week so I can share my other furnishing project with you, and so I can continue working on my other sewing project, and so I can start Elaina's baby quilt that I'm supposed to have done by the time she's one (in less than six weeks) if I'm going to keep up with tradition. 

It's no wonder I haven't been blogging!  I'm having too much fun playing!

Now if only all these projects would finish themselves. Either that or the laundry and meal making happen on their own.

Fabric and Color

Eeeee!!!  Happy dance, happy dance!  Check out my recent purchase.

So maybe it's just fabric to most of you, but let me tell you that this bolt is long awaited.
As in almost a whole year of bare windows kind of waiting.

I have lots of ideas for my dining room, but without lots of cash, my ideas don't often come to fruition.  And without lots of spare time and energy, my ideas take a looong time to come to fruition.
I decided that I wanted blues and greens in my dining/family room.  I decided that I wanted fabric for color and softness.  Every time I was out shopping, I would look at curtains and every time I was at Joann's I would look at their fabrics, but nothing popped up in my price range. At least nothing that I loved.  There were a couple options at Joann's, but the $40/yd price tag left me simply fingering the fabrics then walking on.
Until the founder's sale at the beginning of August.
I came home with 9 yards of the fabric that I had been eyeing for months, and I got it for about $10/yd!
It has my colors, and it has some texture.  A sure improvement over the simple burlap that I considered.

Now that I have my fabric, I can finally choose a color for my accent wall.

Man this is hard, I like them all!  And now that my paint is bought, I must stop second guessing my decision.

Okay, now that some of my ideas are turning into actual tangible items, I could use some spare time as well as energy to finish them off.  I've got a wall to paint (was supposed to be done tonight, but hubby's sick in bed), rods to install, curtains to sew, and blinds to hang.
Well,  what's the rush anyway?  The fabric has only been sitting on my bedroom floor for two weeks now.
And my sewing machine isn't going anywhere.
But darn it, I want to be sitting at it!