Take a Seat!

I believe that a home should reflect who you are and what you love.

I want to share with you what I love!

Starting with my Entry way. I love all things vintage.



I love all things design and I loved studying historical and modern furnishings when I was in design school. I LOVE these pictures of chairs, they remind me of all I learned, each one telling a history.
This is how I decided to display them. There is no short supply of seats here!


I love to re-purpose old furniture! My mom gave me this chair, it came from her old 70's dining set. So I took this old chair that needed a second chance and gave it a make over!


I wasn't lovin' the sunburst carvings, so I filled them in with a wood putty. Sanded and primed.


I painted the chair a high gloss black. Now the little carvings are a lot more subtle and I love the country chairs juxtaposed with the modern high gloss finish.


Next I recovered the seat in a vintage pattern. This fabric, if you notice, has a little sunburst pattern in it as well.

I added some numbers to it just the other day, I felt like it still needed something. Still a little grandma-ish, but that's what I love about it.

This is another beaut that I found at D.I.

It was a gold and teal, so cute I just couldn't take a pic........ or I forgot.

Again, I sprayed it with a high gloss black.

Added a little topography for fun. (It's our wedding date!)

Now My Love has no excuse to forget now! (Not that he ever has)

Recovered the seat in another vintage fabric.

My 3 little chairs. I have something fun planed for the middle chair, I just need to buy some freezer paper and figure out my new Silhouette!

That's what I love! Thanks for stopping by!

(I also love these guys!)

Dining Room Preview

Here's one view of our Dining Room before.  Pretty boring* with the builder beige walls, red curtains I brought from my last house, and don't get me started on the el-cheapo builder standard chandelier (but it does give off tons of light, I'll give it that).   The room has some nice newer furniture going and crown molding we put up shortly after we moved in.  

BEFORE:

Enter the same wall,  in the process of the room redo.  I told my husband I was going to paint the new chair rail white and then do the panel boxes underneath, and paint them white.  Then he came home from work and looked at it, and said, "I thought you were just going to paint the boxes white and leave under the chair rail the beige to match the top?"  HA!  Little does he know there is going to be nothing to "match the top" because that builder beige is PAST DUE  for a makeover. After I get all this painted, and the boxes added, I have some fun things in mind for the rest of the room.  Now if only I could work as fast as my little brain can dream!

DURING: 

**I feel I should add a disclaimer:  I hope I'm not offending anyone when I say that builder beige makes me want to puke. :-P  Our homes should be about what makes us happy, and how we feel when we are in them.  Whatever color makes you feel calm and happy, that's wonderful.  Unfortunately, the colors the walls in my house are painted are not doing it for me --Don't even make me bring up the 'mental institution gray/green' in my family room!  (but that's going to take a whole lot of arm twisting with the hubby, since it was 'professionally painted' by the previous owners.... then I remind myself Rome wasn't built in a day). 

Until then, I'll be up to my eyeballs in putty dust and paint.

It has a purpose again! Furniture Re-purposing.

Finally! I've been wanting to post for a week but could not find my camera and on it it held all of my hard work! It was one of those things that got lost after we came home from our 2 week trip and started unpacking and the once nice clean house we came home to was now trashed! So anyway, I found it, in the same place I had looked through about 10 times! Augh! whatever.



So I love that my husband one day, come to me and said he wanted to do a piece of furniture for his mom for Christmas so we hit D.I. and found this beauty!



I love even more that he did most of the work! It didn't have a bottom or a back but that wasn't a problem for him. He went to Home Depot and had some ply wood cut to size and he put it in..... unfortunately he forgot to get pictures of that part.
Oh, we also primed it with grey primer from Krylon. Love the grey primer! A must when using dark colors!
(great for walls as well)


(Sorry about the pics. It was dark out and the lighting was florescent)
My mother-in-law decorates with red and we thought this would be great in red...and it is! We used Banner Red spray paint from Krylon.


Then me, being the master glazer that I am (wink wink) glazed it in a black glaze.




Lastly, we took off the old brassy knobs and replaced them with these black ones we pulled off some old doors.

It was a hit! She loved it and is using it as a T.V. stand.

Checking off the Honey Do List

I have had the best holidays ever.  Not because of the Christmas presents (although those were GREAT).

Mainly because my awesome step-dad came over from Denver and worked on 3 projects for the house.  Here is just a peek at the current state of the frame we put around the chalkboard, before I sand the putty and paint it.  I need to hurry up and get the other projects painted as well so I can share those. 

We used 3 inch MDF and added a quarter round trim piece on the edges

 Now that the holidays are over  (well, after I make a birthday cake for a 1st birthday boy they will be:)) I'll have some time to put towards a little interior decorating.  Have a Happy New Year!

Christmas!

Yeah, pretty much gave up posting these past 2 weeks! We'll be back though next week!
Merry Christmas!

Winner!

I sent the winner her message but thought let you all know Jill Griffiths name was drawn by my husband! Congrats and thanks to all who entered!

What's black and white and red all over?

My house! (what?) Yeah some how I ended up with a black, white and red Christmas! It wasn't on purpose I just kind of started decorating and that's what became of it. Check out some pics below!


My mantel. I really was determined not to spend a dime on Christmas decorations because we're not even going to be here for Christmas and I have enough as it is really. Frames I had in my basement that I spray painted.














I have a ton of Christmas story books we've been given over the years. This is one of my favorite. It was given to us by Jordan's grandmas who passed away this year, so I wanted to put it on display. It has silhouettes that pop up. The detail is so intricate and pretty.

Not Just for Husbands....

I had this moulding sitting in my garage for about 5 months.  It's some pretty thick & chunky stuff, so this cost more than my usual projects at $60.  Life is busy, and so the project started collecting dust.  I knew I was capable of doing it,  I mean, really, how hard could it be? I let myself get sucked into thinking:  "I can't do it with a baby and 4 year old at home right now."  I realize I have been letting myself say that dirty word all too often: Can't.  So that gave me the resolve to "git-er-done."  [During nap time and a movie]

I had never used the miter saw before and my hubby was at work, and I  wanted to surprise him.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find the instruction manual:-(  I had to call him twice: once to figure out  how to unlock the blade from the safety position (duh!--but actually hard to find that thing if you don't know what you're looking for), and then again to slide the blade to the correct angle  you want  (you have to loosen the handle and then tighten it again).  Finally, after being embarrassed about having to call for help, I got guts back to tackle this project, it was pretty smooth sailing.

 Here's my beautifully cut corners all laid out, ready to get glued to my kids bathroom mirror for the bathroom makeover I've been working on.  [In front of my sweet swagger wagon-that's how I roll]. It's pretty liberating for me to tackle projects on my honey-do-list. I highly recommend it.

Topiary Tree

Here's a look at my twirly topiary tree dressed up for Christmas.

I tied up a couple of bows for the top out of some of last years ribbon.

Some of my favorite ornaments are these psychedelic Reindeer I got at Poppy's Home Decor in Phoenix a few years back.

Then I added some red jewel ornaments  (Taipan, I think) and green balls came from Wally World.  Then I added in a few glittery snowflakes and green glitzy stuff, and that's a wrap!

I was featured on one of my most favoritist blogs ever! Check it out! She does/has amazing stuff!
(Maybe I'll run into you at our D.I. Mandi! I consider us friends now ;)