Monday, May 25, 2009

I have a whole week off to do projects around the house! I hope the weather cooperates--some of my projects involve messy steps that need to be done outside.

The list includes (among other things):

1. Spray painting the 4 frames I bought at the Elegant Garage Sale. And sourcing out some matt board and someone with a matt cutter who will be so kind to lend it to me.

2. Gardening, gardening and more gardening. Ugh, it's a jungle out there.

3. Beginning to work on the last bedroom upstairs. Unfortunately, I wont' be able to do much of that due to my arm problems (work related repetitive strain). Thankfully, my husband is willing to do it without my help.

4. Refinishing and reupholstering a great new chair I just bought for $50.

Here's some photos:

First the chair. It has great lines. It just really needs some TLC.



And then there is the last spare bedroom upstairs. It's going to be my craft room/studio. We've left it this long because of the nightmarish walls that will need a lot of work.



Yep. Stalactite stucco. Watch you don't hit the wall as you walk by--you'll require stitches. This is all going to have to come out to be replaced by drywall. It's the only room where we couldn't save the plaster. It makes me sad, but trying to sand all of this down will make me sadder.




The floors were covered by carpet and old linoleum (taken out years ago by us). The wood floors aren't in bad shape at all. I plan to paint them. You can see the bare wood square in the middle. This was in all of the bedrooms upstairs. I'm guessing they had a linoleum or canvas floor cloth there when the house was built.


The closet will stay, but get a makeover. I also hope to put an organizing system inside.


The upper portion of the closet still has the old wallpaper from ? maybe the 50's. I love it and it must stay. Yay to Robin Hood.


I don't, however, love the ceiling fixture. That must go.

As you can see, there's a lot of work involved in this one--even though it's a small room. The plaster walls have to come out, drywall has to go in, be sanded, primed and painted. The floor and closet also have to be primed and painted. New doors need to be made for the upper portion and a curtain will replace the main doors (that fall on your toe on a regular basis--just like all of the closet doors upstairs).

Whew!


Friday, May 08, 2009

It's spring! And with spring comes the possibility of new home projects. My question is, when does the money roll in to finance these house projects. Argggg.
I haven't started anything yet but I'm torn between fixing up the yard (a huge mess) and tackling the remaining spare bedroom--soon to become my craft room. Stay tuned...
In other news, I've been keeping my eye out for some remaining items for my kitchen. Recent purchases include:

A much coveted Fire King polka dot bowl. I'd love to have a set of these (like the photo above) but I want to find them at rummage sales. Ebay is too expensive now with the dollar so low and shipping so high. I purchased mine at "The Bag Lady". A cute neighbourhood lunch place/vintage shop.



Black Cat sugar and creamer circa the 1950's. I actually bought them for my sister, who has the teapot. But she had them already. It turned out to be a bonus for me because they look awesome in my kitchen.

And three reproduction posters from postercartel.com (a fantastic Canadian poster company).

We mainly tried to stick with WWII propoganda posters but we couldn't resist the WWI Navy poster (Gee, I wish I was a man).





This afternoon I'm going to the "Elegant Rummage Sale"--a huge rummage sale put on by the Rotary Club at the fairgrounds. I'm in the market for frames, but I'm secretly hoping I find lots of red polkadot fire king items :-)