When chair stain goes bad!

On Friday I promised you a look at the Danish chairs I picked up at a local thrift shop.  They have possibly the worst DIY stain job I have ever seen.  It looks like a lot of hate went into the staining and upholstering of these chairs. 

Here they are together.  I'll admit they don't look too bad from far away.  A little lumpy maybe, but not ready for the scrap heap yet.

But take a closer look and you can really see the shoddy job that someone did on these poor chairs.

I can't stress how terrible they look.  The stain is right over the brass sabots (yes, I totally had to Google to find out what the little brass feet on mid century furniture is called!).

I felt so sorry for them.  The upholstery job is almost as heinous as the stain.

And I don't even want to know what this is.  Bleugh!  Now do you see why they were only $12 each :-)

It was easy enough to separate the seat from the wooden frame.  I Googled around and decided to use Citristrip (from Home Depot) to try and bubble up the horrific stain job so I could scrape it off easily.  

I did a small text spot on the back of one of the chairs before layered it on the rest of the frame with an old paint brush.  I waited about 30 minutes and it seemed to work really well - cue lots and lots and lots of scraping.

And that's pretty much as far as I got this weekend.  Fingers crossed it's a case of getting a LOT worse before it gets better.

Kate

xxx

Viva Las Vegas!

Ok, so this time I'm really back.  I promise!  Just in time for the weekend :-)

But before all things DIY, a quick recap of this week because we were in ............. Vegas!!! 

Check out the crazy round field things I spied on the flight over.  Is that a thing in the US?  Round fields?  I spotted them as we were flying over Texas (thank you flight tracker) and they just amazed me - every single one was a perfect circle.

The flight was painless.  A few complimentary nuts and a Sprite later and we were there.  Can you tell what this huge sculpture was made of?  Boats!  Hundreds of boats.  Strange but impressive.

I'm not a big gambler, but I love seeing all the hotels and crazy lights.  We stayed at the Vdara (part of the new city centre development) and this was the view from our room.  Not to shabby.

Of course no trip to Vegas would be complete without a visit to one of the mega buffets. We stopped by the Bacchus buffet at Caesars.  There was a bit of a wait to get in, and that's where I spied these unusual light fixtures.  They were made of upturned glasses with fairy lights running behind them.  Seemed like a pretty easy DIY if you have a pillar the size of a double decker bus that needs jazzing up.  Who doesn't?!

In thrifty business news, before we jetted out to Vegas I picked up a pair of Danish chairs at a local thrift shop.  They are looking soooo sad so I'm hoping to transform them this weekend - weather permitting!  Check back on Monday to see whether they look amazing or even worse - yikes!

Kate

xxx

Homeward Bound

I'm back!  Sorry about the humongo break in posts, but a few things came up including an unexpected trip back to the UK.  Sad circumstances but good to see fahhhhhhmly - said in my best Peggy "Get outta my pub" Mitchell voice (if you don't know Eastenders, its a long running British soap that irritatingly got cancelled in the US just as I moved here.  Why BBC America, whhhhhhhhyyyyy??).

I took a couple of quick snaps while I was home - mainly to prove to my doubting Thomas of a husband that the sun does come out in the UK.  Most times we go back home it's cold and wet, so here is exhibit A.  Beach, sun, people.  See, I told you so, ha!

This was taken on a random Wednesday.  I'm not entirely sure why these people weren't at work - I get the feeling there were a lot of sickies pulled that day!

Things around to the house are moving along.  I've been on a window treatment kick with new faux wood blinds in the kitchen and new curtains in the dining room.  Pics to follow once I take them down and iron them (the curtains, not the blinds, clearly ironing faux wood would be madness!).  I was hoping the rumples would drop out once they had been hanging for a while, but no such luck.

I've also put my name on a couple of waiting lists for booth space in flea markets around Birmingham.  I am beyond excited about getting my own little shop.  Ok, maybe shop is a bit of an exaggeration, but that's what I'm calling it.  And I plan on packing it with amazingness.  I'll keep you posted as soon as I hear anything.

Phew, feels good to be back!

Kate

xxx

Picture this

Are you on Instagram?  I'm becoming slightly obsessed.  It's like a behind the scenes look into my fave bloggers and celebrities everyday lives.  And I'm all for being nosey!

Some of the photos people post are so creative.  Rhonna Designs and House of Smith are always adding amazing graphics and fancy lettering to their pics.  I'm sure you can print them out, but I thought I'd try a more crafty option.

I started with one of my own photos.  I printed it though Walmart photo center as an 11x14 poster.  It's great quality and because it's poster paper you can't see any nasty finger prints.  I took the picture out of the plane window as it was coming into New York when I was moving to the US, so it has some sentimental value.

I searched the web for some inspirational quotes and found the perfect one "adventure is worthwhile" by Amelia Earhart.  I thought it fit my photo perfectly.  I picked up some letter stickers at Michaels (they had loads to chose from) and just stuck them on.

I also found this frame at Michaels - it was on clearance for only $10.

Now all I need is somewhere to hang it!

Have a super happy 4th of July whatever you have planned.

Kate

xxx

Be with you in a minute!

Just stopping by to say hello, and that business as usual will be resumed very soon.

I broke my computer.  Like, completely broke it.  Broke as in cracked the screen so I couldn't read anything or see what I was clicking on!  Don't ask me how, I have no idea.  Luckily I started backing up my pics a couple of weeks ago, so had just enough time to frantically save everything else before it packed up.  Lesson learnt in a big way!

So, no photos or fun posts, but plenty in the works as I get this new comp up to speed.

Kate

xxx

Coffee Table Before & After

Here is my starting point - a $30 Craigslist coffee table, in all his gingery glory!

This was definitely a well used table - and it had the rings and stains and scuff marks to prove it.  Some were just on the surface and others were deeper ridges and nicks in the wood.

There was only one thing for it - invest in a sander!  (hmmm, he was looking extra orange in this shot.  Lovely!).

I sanded and sanded and sanded.  You can tell how long it took me by the fact the table was in complete sunshine when I started and complete shade by the time I had finished.  It was totally worth it as I was left with a nice smooth clean surface to work with.

I knew I wanted to paint the legs white.  I gave them a rough sanding by hand and then layered on 2 coats of white paint.

Next up was the table top.  I was really torn between painting or staining.  In the end I went for stain.  Mainly because I've never stained anything before and thought, at only $30, this was the piece to experiment on.  And also because I wanted a more muted/subtle finish.

Now for how to tackle the staining process.  I could have gone with an allover dark finish - but where's the fun in that!  Since I had decided on stain, I thought I might as well go all out and try something different.  I considered a chevron pattern, but the idea of trying to tape all those zigzags really didn't appeal.  In the end I came up with a Union Jack.  The table had the perfect dimensions (44" x 26"), and being from the UK I figured I should own at least 1 Union Jack based piece of furniture!

A quick stop a Lowes and I had picked up 2 tins of Minwax Wood Finish (Golden Pecan and Dark Walnut), a roll of painters tape and some foam brushes.

I started by applying an allover coat of the lighter pecan colour - this would represent the white in the flag.  I used a foam brush to apply the stain and rubbed any excess off with an old rag.

Next up was taping off the white areas to build up the darker colours that would represent the red and blue.  I used 1" painters tape.  There was a lot more measuring involved than I had bargained for (the chevron wasn't looking like such a bad option at this point!), but I wanted to make sure it was as to scale as possible and not off center or wonky.  For anyone interested, I used a 1" outline round the larger middle cross, and 1.5" and 0.5" on the smaller diagonal cross.  The large cross is 6" wide (including tape) and the diagonal cross is 3" wide (including tape).

I Googled to see how the painters tape would hold up with stain instead of paint, but I couldn't really find any info on leakage/bleeding/tips etc  In the end, I just went for it.  For this stage I used Minwax Dark Walnut.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little alarmed when I began to sponge on the wax.  It was much runnier than I thought it was going to be and looked like oil, and I felt certain it was seeping right under the tape.  I powered on regardless, following the directions on the tin.  I didn't let it sit for very long as I was paranoid it was going to be a blotchy mess.

But unbelievably, after wiping away all the excess, I peeled of the tape to reveal crisp clean lines.  There were a couple of spots where I hadn't sealed the edges properly (mainly around the outside lip of the table) where the wax had gathered, but with a bit of elbow grease it was easy to blend in.

Next up was the second layer of Walnut to make the blue area of the flag a little darker than the red.  This was much easier than the initial taping as all of the measuring was done.  I simply ran the painters tape around the existing triangles, trying to stick to the lines as I went.

I was a little more confident this time around when applying the stain.

Between each stage I allowed the stain to dry for 24 hours, and I sealed it all with 2 coats of Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane.  The new knob was a $2 Hobby Lobby find.

I'm so pleased (and surprised!) with how well it turned out.

Now for a good old before and after shot.  No more ginger coffee table for me!

More pics to come when I get it off the ugly driveway and into the living room!

Kate

xxx

I wanted to stop by to add just 1 last pic of the table in its new home (excuse the quality - its a phone snap!).

Linking up to East Coast Creative's amazing competition

www.eastcoastcreativeblog.com

Adding some Storage

I'm trying hard not to turn our house into an Ikea showroom, but its really hard.  Their furniture is just so functional and well, cheap!

On one of our recent trips we picked up 2 white Expedit .  I initially wanted to use them as nightstands in the master but they looked terrible.  They were waaay too big for the space and quickly made their way into the junk guest room.

This weekend I decided to move them into the kitchen to see how they looked, and I kind of like them there.

This is how it was looking before, with the extra slimline shoe cabinet also from Ikea (of course!).

Anything that gives me extra surface space for all my knick knacks is always a winner.  You can never have too much storage especially in a kitchen, and there is still plenty of room to sit at the table.

Yes, that is a real plant and no I haven't killed it (yet!).

This sweet little pear shelf was a couple of dollars from J&J Junk.  Any ideas what I should fill it with?

I love that I can finally display my green Catherine Holm bowl (even if it is just plastic!).

Extra points for spotting the wonky white lid, ha!  I didn't even realize it was at a jaunty angle until I uploaded it.  Note to self - must pay more attention to detail!

I collected most of my treasures from thrift stores and flea malls over the past year.  The Cafe print was only $7 from The Christmas Tree Shop and the round orange geometric tray was from Michaels.  It's definitely an eclectic jumble.

And I promise the big coffee table reveal will be on Monday, because I know you've all been eagerly awaiting the amazing unveiling, ha!  Just one more coat to seal it and it will be finished.

Have a great weekend whatever you have planned.

Kate

xxx