Decisions, decisions...

I've been wanting a pedestal table to cut down into a coffee table for awhile now.  Similar to these: 

Or this one: 

Or this: 

I found one on craigslsist earlier this month...already cut down. It was painted a color I didn't like but that's an easy fix. Logistically, it didn't work out and someone else ended up with my table. 

This weekend Jonathan and I went after a Beauty!  Price was right but it's really pretty and solid and antique and I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on cutting the pedestal. :/

Here it is in pieces:

Look at that solid base! And those feet! I might be dying!,

And those are the leaves (2!) leaning up behind the couch. 

Here's the top: 

Imagine it not on the floor and a cushion not hanging off the couch....

It's really pretty wood...solid wood. The top is about 2" thick!

I have no space for it as dining room height table but I'm seriously struggling at the thought of making major changes to this piece. 

And look what I found on the bottom of the table top: 

It says "All my love, Mike"

To shorten or not to shorten...that is the question. What would you do?!?

Front Porch Sitting Accessories

So, I went to the Salvation Army's in my work town today. I was hunting an ice cream freezer. My Dad's gave up the fight this weekend.

I didn't find a freezer but I did find a few treasures!

If you follow me on Pinterest, you know that I pin a bunch of junk to a board called "front porch sittin". Click {here} to see my board. I'm working on an easy space that's pretty but not fussy. Comfortable but not sloppy. I'm getting closer, I think.

Today, I found a couple of plant stands. They are really tall so I'm going to use them for side tables. For a buck each, I got both!! :) One may make it to my sun porch so I have a coffee perch...we shall see.

I just set them out on the porch...found condition. I think I like them as is....we shall see what Jonny says.

So anyway, before you get bored...

That's a tiny glimpse of a Church Pew my Mom picked up for me at an auction a couple of weeks ago...$50. Score!!!

I'm a sucker for legs and that green leg is just beautimus to me!

Here's my other table:

That's a whole vingette of second hand finds. I got the wreath, covered in grapes and weird ribbon at a yard sale for a quarter. The chair I got from a road side junk store for around $25. I probably over paid for it as it is in pretty rough condition but I still like it. And so far, it has held me up. :)

I'd like to find a small area rug for this corner. Maybe like 4'x6' or so.

Here's the table a little closer.

Here's the burning question...with my purple house and eclectic tables and chair...what color would you paint my Church Pew?

And, I'm linking up over at Southern Hospitality's Thrifty Treasures party. Click {here} to play along!

Momogram J + Empty Frame = Pretty Eye Candy

I started with this wooden (MDF) letter that I got a couple of years ago at a shop in Rolla, MO while paper shopping with my Dad and Sister.

Side Note: For part of our Christmas, he took us to this local scrapbook store in Rolla. He gave us each money and let us pick out whatever we wanted. While we were shopping, he walked around and picked out stuff he thought we would like too. We had a blast making memories that day!

In that picture above, I had already used some Tim Holtz distress ink in Antique Linen around the edges. I tried Frayed Burlap but it was too dark and too green (like olive drab green).

I covered the letter in Mod Podge and pressed my paper on top. I decided it needed a bit more pressure so I turned it upside down.

That didn't seem to be heavy enough so I did what every girl would do...

I grabbed my knife block and sat it on top!

Fancy, I know. :)

I let it dry for a bit...like maybe an hour and then cut around the letter from the back. In hind sight, I think I would have let it dry a little longer.

I grabbed an old frame I had out in the garage (from a project that didn't go as planned). Now I have this in our entry.

I wish I could show you how ugly those frames were!!! They were all gold and had nasty water stained mats with stinky pictures that were all crinkly from water. I think I got 4 total and they were $2 each...I'm pretty sure I said "perfect" out loud! And I also got crop dusted by a 'gentleman' that day in Salvation Army. Nasty! But worth it for the frame deal I suppose.

Here's a farther back look:

I added a dainty little crocheted doily, about the size of a drink coaster after...but I didn't snap a picture...oops.

I'd like to add some more too..but I just don't know what yet.

See that green in the corner? It's this horse of an Elephant Ear plant my Mom gave us last summer when we bought this house.

So what else would you add in our entry? I'd love to hear.

Besides Murphy's oil soap and poly the baseboard and get rid of that DREADED green tile!!

I'm linking up with Rhoda @ Here's the Party at which I'm playing.

I also linked up with Jennifer Rizzo. Here's the link to the party at which I'm playing.

Man Worthy Christmas Tree

In our downstairs, I wanted to have some more Christmas Cheer. Jj vetoed a big Christmas tree. Which I guess was fine considering I didn't have a big Christmas tree anyway...

On Pinterest, my friend Shelly pinned a great little Christmas tree! And it got me to thinking...I bet Jj would go for an unconventional Christmas tree! Because while he likes to pretend he's a Scrooge, I really think he does that just to give me a hard time. :)

Since I've never had much of a vegetable garden, I was fresh out of tomato cages. I put out an APB on facebook and my good friend Margo came through!!!

She brought be 2 tomato cages that were in a perfectly used condition!!!!

Thank you, Margo!!!!!!! (Picture taken at my Mom's house)

I clipped off the tags and bent the tops (actually the real bottoms) together to form the top of my tree. I also had to add some vertical wires to the tree. Otherwise, when I wrapped the lights around, t basically turned into a 3-D triangle rather than cylindrical. (Of course, I didn't take a picture, I was too excited about that I was making.)

I stacked up a couple of wooden soda flats, I had out in the garage, and put the tree on top!



I love it! And Jj doesn't hate it = DOUBLE SUCCESS!!

Since I doctor'ed that photo so much, I took a few more so you could see the actual tree better.





See that blue man on the toilet in the background?



I got it from my Dad for Christmas. If you pick the guy up, his hiney is a magnet and the toilet bowl stores paperclips. Funny!!!

While we are down here, I'll show you around!
We've done quite a bit of decorating down here and making it just so. This is probably one of the areas in our home where we spend the most time.



This is our little bar area. This is our first time having a full-sized extra refrigerator. It has came in handy with our family Thanksgiving and Christmas hosting!

Did you see that "God Bless the USA" sign over the sink? The Girls got me that for my Birthday! It's made from license plates. I love it. It's so so me!!



I love this little setting. Simple, pretty and oh so wintery! (Bonus, I had all that stuff in my stash so free!!!)



This is looking from the bar over toward the TV side. And that's our helper, Janie. She's about 16 months old. She's a boxer we adopted the beginning of November from Columbia Second Chance. We love her bunches!!!



This little area is also on the bar. I'm really liking mini-Christmas trees this year. And, I've committed to trying to have a little piece of the beach in every room of our home. Enter: Brass crab. He's actually an ash tray but...we won't be using that.



Here's standing in front of the TV looking back over the furniture, into the corner...with the bar in the background. I'll have to tell you about my smokin deal on that lamp another day!

Have you had any thrifty finds lately? It's not really the season for such but I'm still stumbling one a few once in awhile.

Oh, And Merry Christmas to you!!!

Drawer Pulls

So, you know that I am working over my kitchen drawer pulls at the moment. You can read all about it here.

For the drawers, I wanted something different (from the pulls I rehab'ed for the doors). I've been in love with domed cup pulls forever! In fact, I had purchased these cuties for my kitchen at our old house...but I never got brave enough to drill into the drawer fronts!


Imagine my excitement...FREE PROJECT!!!!!!!!!!

Enter second fail!

My pulls were 2.5" for my 3" drawer spacing. RATS!!

No big deal, I have 10 drawers in the kitchen so to purchase new won't be devastating. Off to Lowes and My Home Depot (so named my Jj. Maybe I go there a lot, maybe I don't :) ) we go! What do you know, 2.5" whole spacing must be the norm for drawers and the person that built our house went cheap? easy? and made all the whole spacing the same.

So...To the Net I went. I ended up finding something I liked for a good price on Amazon. The seller tuned out to be AMAZING!! One of the pulls had an odd defect with the screw threads/spacing. This seller, Cabinet Hardware 4 Less, sent me a new one, no questions asked! The postal service lost it somewhere out in Kansas (according to tracking) and the seller send me another new one! Now, you don't get that kind of customer service often!!

Anyway, I love the way they turned out




You didn't notice a couple of door pulls missing did you?
Oh good! I was hoping not.
They accidently took a little trip to the burn pile, still attached to a cardboard box. I have a little work to do on them before they are show worthy. :)
It's always something!



Are all your kitchen pulls the same or have you mixed and matched too?
I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks for stopping by!

**I was not compensated for this post.

Let us E-A-T!

A long, long time ago, in the days before Pinterest and other smart ways to keep inspiration organized, I once saw a kitchen adorned with big letters...and I loved it.

I promptley went to HobLob and purchased my self the same letters...E...A...T! And fully planned on painting them black RIGHT THEN and putting them up in my kitchen.



Well, that never happened. Now, 3 kitchens later, I have no idea which wonderful blog I was stalking but I have my letters done and I want to show them to you!

Hold on! After some quick googling, I found my source. Thank you Beth @ Home Stories A-Z for being so memorable!

Ok.

I learned that you must prime cheap particle board letters or use better paint.

Here is after one coat...I know! Can't even tell:




..Terrible!!!

Plan B: (I'm getting good at plan B lately.) I primed them and painted I-don't-know-how-many-coats! I got a little heavy handed on one coat and had to do a little light sanding but after the next coat, you couldn't even tell.

My idea was to lean them above our pantry...I thought it would look cool just up there...willy, nilly and random- Just like me! Jj vetoed that idea.





And since he doesn't do that often, I got these little 3-M things so that I could hold them to the wall without messing up the wall surface since I wasn't sure how I would like them. The holder things are velcro...one part of the wall and one part on each letter.





I love them! Jj does not. He actually asked me to take them down...My plan was to respect his wishes as he almost never says anything about our decor.

But then, we were at a local steakhouse, The SmokeHouse in Lee's Summit, MO and we saw this:


>> You still with me? I do have a point. I promise! :)





I wanted you to get the whole effect...





Just one more...



Point ahead:

I think it restored his faith in me because he hasn't said that he doesn't like them anymore. However, I have mixed ideas...my good, good friend Leslie said she like them (after I asked her) but I think she was being nice. :) I asked my friend Nicole, she LOVED them. I asked my step-Mom, she said they looked just like something I would love. I'll take that as a vote in my direction.

So, the score is 2-2. What do you think?

Should they stay or should they go now?

How do you like that? Slipped in a little song lyrics on you now didn't I?

*Linked up to Best DIY Project of November over at Beneath My Heart. (I hope Traci doesn't kick my out because my post date is December 1. I really did complete the project in November.)

An epic fail followed by success...I think...

It all started two Thursday nights ago while I was lounging on the internet. I was going through some of the Fall Outdoor Spaces Party over at Thrifty Decor Chick. I saw a few things that caught my eye and I ended up spending some time on the Creative Juices for Decor site...

I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the pictures of what Selina had done to her brother's kitchen cabinet pulls!! Go ahead, click here and check it out...I'll wait. Told you it was AWESOME!!!!

Wondering why I nearly fell out of my chair?? I have those same pulls, minus the rose. But I have that porcelain part...plus a little sassy brassy but the same pulls!!!!! Here are mine:

I have a bunch of them!! Re-purposing would same me literally, a couple hundred dollars!!

Notice the missing one? Wait for the fail. :)

I left a comment for Selina, the author of Creative Juices for Decor telling her how much I loved her idea to paint the pulls. Her re-do was ahwile ago so I was wondering how the pulls were holding up. She said brother's reports are good for ware. I thought what the heck! We don't like the sassy brassy so if I can paint them, the project will be free, if I ruin them well...they are on the replace list anyway.

I started with priming...Just grabbed the first primer I saw in my stash...happened to be Kilz. Here's where my epic fail came in. The primer went on thick and nasty and clearly was not going to work.
Look: told you it was bad!

Oops. Good thing they were on the replace list but really? I would rather buy cool rugs or some cool fabric for curtains or pillows.

SECOND TRY! (Is that like radio edit? Just kidding)

Jj suggested a different primer...turned out he was correct! First though, I sanded the metal part with 220 grit sandpaper (that's fairly fine) but it too like 60 (really rough) to get the shiny surface off the porcelain. Anyway, I sanded them down really well, and applied 2 coats of Krylon primer for metal.


To paint them, I knew I didn't want them lying on their sides for paint to drip and pool and such. I did a quick scan around the garage and stopped at the trash can. Enter cabinet pull holder:


It actually worked very, very well! I added 2 coats of primer followed by 2 coats of Oil-Rubbed Bronze (pretty sure it was Rustoleum) spray paint. I followed it up with a clear coat made by Rustoleum too.

I let them dry overnight and installed them!


I love the way they look; now we will see how well they wear!

**As this post publishes, it's been one week and all is well.**

***Edited to include that I liked up to Trifty Decor Chick's November Before & After Party, here.***

****And as of 11/7, I think the pulls have been up for about a month. All is well!! I am about halfway through the rest of the billion, just over 30, pulls in my kitchen.

But think of all the money we have saved!!!!!