Adventures in Spray Painting!

Did you guys ever watch that movie "Adventures in Babysitting"? What a great mid 80's girly flick. I remember <3'ing it when I was about 11 or 12 and I thought how funny it was to have a hair-raising babysitting adventure with a bunch of kids in the middle of Chicago. Anyways, this post has nothing to do with babysitting other than it also ends in "ING", but more to do with my adventures of spray painting my first piece of furniture ever!

What? Yes, I've never spray painted a piece of furniture... ever... my whole life.

Hence the reason it was an adventure for me! So now you know that I do all my restyling by hand. It's that added little touch of time consuming goodness to make sure it's absolutely perfect.

This bench was something my grandfather made before he passed away in 1992. I snagged it from my grandma's house in 2004, let it get time worn from rain and sun for a few years then finally knocked the cobwebs off of it and gave it a new color to brighten up my boring porch. Meet Rustoleum's "Lagoon". Oh yeah, preh-tie blueness. Oh yes, and I totally forgot to take a before picture until I was a quarter way through my giddy hyper painting craziness.

Then in my crazily addicted "I must spray paint something else" brain I realized I had 4 cans of green textured spray paint hanging out in my garage with the intended use of painting some deck chairs. Those never got painted and I had a can of high gloss black that my father in law painted on my trailer. All these painting opportunities and I didn't utilize them? What's wrong with me????

So what could I use these cans with?

Of course! I had a nasty hand me down fire pit from my friend "B" that needed some love!

Wow, thanks "B"! He wanted it back after I showed him an after picture. HA! Too bad so sad dude. ;) So by now I was on a spray painting mission... did I have anything else that needed some color love?

No? NOTHING???

 Oh well, I guess this would do me for now. But don't think I won't totally consider endlessly search to spray paint the heck out of something in the near future. In fact, I think I have just the thing in my stash 'o goodies! But that will have to wait for another week very soon. :)

xo

House Crash!

I was out at my Dad's on Saturday visiting him on his first full day of being home from the hospital after his amputation and as I visited with him I thought..."you know this house is amazing. I should really do a house crash on my Dad's house." Granted he will jokingly tell you it's "his wife's house" and that he just lives there. Well... ha! I guess he's right! My Step Mom has the most beautiful things that doesn't match my Dad's taste at all. And little does she know, but when they moved into the house a few years back and I finally got to see all of her stuff (she moved here from Oklahoma), she inspired me to start antiquing.

So this is really more of a house crashing/furniture showing more or less. Considering the short notice I didn't take pic's of the whole house. She would've killed me because she was cleaning and I only had my iPhone on me darn it. I just focused a lot on the furniture and decor.

Enough typing, on to pictures (a lot of them!)!!

Let's start with the extra bedroom with the amazing antique bed that in the old days used ropes to hold the mattress instead of a wood frame.

Then on to the master bedroom.

A stack of wood Anheuser-Busch boxes in the office.

On to the living room!

Then the dining area. I wish I could have got a better picture of the whole room.

The kitchen!

There ya have it!

I wish I could have been able to take more pictures of the whole house, including her awesome sitting furniture in the living room. She has a couple of wing-backs and older couches, all different patterns of fabric but all beautiful.

So whatcha think?

Not one piece of painted antique furniture in this home, but all her stuff is just amazingly beautiful and some of it is over 130 years old! Can you see now where I grew a liking to searching for that perfect antique piece?

;)

xo

My Pride Overfloweth

Before anything comes my children, and when my children need help, advice or love their Dad and I are always there to support them. In the case of my goofy 13 year old, we recently decided to stick by his side in a sticky situation.

Last school year my son was physically and verbally bullied relentlessly by a child smaller than him. My son, being the kind and gentle soul that he is, ignored the other child and went through the ranks at the school to get the bullying resolved. Even by the end of the year the school totally dropped the ball after we had contacted them numerous times. So finally we told our son..... Listen, there is no reason that another person young or old should put their hands on you, speak to you in a negative and demeaning manor in a way where your already fragile negative self-esteem will deepen because of their ignorance. We told him that after all the failed reaching out he was doing at the school if it happened again to take matters into his own hands. Now, we don't condone senseless violence or starting fights in school, but we will support defending ones self if they are attacked physically.

So our son listened to us.

One week into school beginning, this child started again with my son. He was behind my son kicking his feet trying to get him to fall all the while (pardon me for being frank) was calling him a faggot and gay and saying "Oh look, he's crying!" when he was actually wiping sweat from his brow. Now, my son kept a steady head and carried on his conversation with his friend while walking down the hall. Just another day as usual. Until he was kicked one too many times and decided to finally stand up for himself.

My son turned around, pushed this child as hard as he could and yelled, "If you don't leave me alone, I'm going to put you on your ass!" The child fell back into his friends, threw out the *oh my god I'm totally embarrassed but I'm going to act like a cool guy* "ooooo I'm so scared!" At that point my son turned around and walked directly to the principal and told him exactly what happened. He basically tattled on himself.

Then came the punishment and where my flesh begins to crawl.

After all the bullying... after all the dealing with the abuse from this child...

My son was treated as the bully and the other child was the victim.

And the punishment reflected exactly that. My son was suspended from school for 3 days while the other child received 2 days in school suspension.

Why you ask?

Because "it was a new year and my son didn't start over by telling a teacher before he resorted to violence". What makes them think that after a full year of trying to get them to listen he would go back to them again? Then I got the referral slip today and was amazed that the principal jotted the whole thing out and it was one big lie. My son "had a verbal confrontation with the child before pushing him down." No sir, my son was ignoring him and being physically attacked, but in your eyes it doesn't constitute violence.

In the end, this will all be taken care of. We will go to the board, we take the means necessary to make a point to this school where they have failed at protecting their children and sending them an unhealthy message of bullying is ok.

So I'm sharing this with you because I know some of you are parents to the most precious things in your lives... you wonderful children. Love them, cherish them, be their rock when they need a strong foundation...

My son.... my silly military guru... my "hey my face looks like my shirt" comedian... my Harry Potter fan... my beautiful "May the schwartz be with you." goofball.... Know that I will always support and love you and will fight for you until the day I die. You make me so... so proud.

xo

New Teenage Bedroom Advice

Happy Friday everyone! I've been working hard at getting the garage sale ready for this weekend and in the process sold my 13 yr old son's blonde and blue bunk/trundle bedroom set from Ashley Furniture. This is what it looked like....

This is the new cool stuff we are getting for his room... a great 1950's blonde bedroom set!

Granted, there are some scratches and water marks, but it's so unbelievably cool and my son really likes it. He's growing up ya know? So he needs something a bit more age appropriate.

Anyways! My thing is now, the drawers are in great shape but the shells (outer surfaces) have the scratches and water marks.... do I paint just the shells? Should I mix it up with different colors? Should I let them be and just paint the tops? I want to keep them blond and not stain them either.

Then I think... Ok, I want to mix it up and not focus just on the mid-century style but add other styles to his room too. He is an avid star wars fan and loves the military so we have to consider that, but I just don't want a matchy matchy room. I'm so adamant about it not being a totally matching room that I don't necessarily need to use the headboard or the night stand. I need help! Leave me a comment, links to pics, whatever you can and let me know what you guys think!!! :)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the help you can give!

xo

Passing Time

Instead of working on furniture this week, I decided to finally get ready to have a garage sale this weekend. I've been needing to have for awhile now but I'm sure all of you have seen that Hades sent its weather up to the U.S. for the month of July, so I wasn't able to have it earlier. This weekend though... it's gonna be perfect! 84 degrees and no humidity! Yes!

So I've been passing time since Monday getting ready for it, which has been somewhat helpful to keep me not focused on the stresses in my life, the main one being my Dad and his amputation. I do have good news on that, my Dad went through the final surgery yesterday and it was below the knee. THANK GOD. It's so much easier to live with an amputation if you can keep your knee. Now all he has to do is heal and get ready for another prosthetic.

Anyways, I spent 12 hours outside yesterday weedeating, de-weeding, gardening, landscaping and cleaning out my garage. You should've seen my yard... I was ashamed. A few weeks ago, when my morning glory plant started to take over the wood bench on my porch, I thought... that one odd nasty chair in my studio would be perfect as a climbing source for the plant. So I dry brushed some white paint on it and sealed it off with some high gloss poly and stuck it in the ground! I wrapped the plant around it and it looks great!

This was a before and after pic I took of the chair when I did M and K's walnut table and chairs.

Left: New Hotness. Right: Old and Busted.

I tried really hard to save some geraniums we planted earlier this spring, but the weeds engulfed them and a few died from a really bad hail storm we had. They look so sad... but alive! :)

I dug up the right side of my garage and made a little area for my youngest son's bell pepper plants. I used some left over bricks and soil from previous landscaping projects. Nothing like a little free DIY landscaping!

As much as I want to work on furniture right now, I have to make it through this week, get past some of my stresses and come back bright eyed and bushy tailed next week. A little self healing I guess. ;)

Thanks for stopping by today, much love goes out to you all for supporting me in all ways!

xo

Unexpected

Sometimes things happen completely out of your control and all you can do is sit by and try to be as positive as possible.... which can be especially hard when the person you are trying to help has given up on life. What started as a case of dehydration and the inability for an ER doctor to correctly diagnose my Dad last week with a blood clot, ended in the amputation of his left (and only remaining) leg. In 2004 a collapsed bypass destroyed his right leg from lack of circulation, and for a year afterwards he tried so hard to save it. Eventually the leg wouldn't get any better and an amputation was inevitable. It was hard physically and mentally on him, but my Dad became strong again and was able to get back to life as normal as he could. That picture above of him golfing (his favorite addiction pastime) was his first trip out after he successfully healed and went through a ton of physical therapy. Now we have to go through it all again, but this time life will be extremely challenging as a double amputee.

It's weird how what happens to one life close to you can throw the balance of your life completely out of whack. And to think I would ever think that way is truly silly... especially after losing my 22 year old brother to suicide when I was 14. Just a false sense of security I guess. But nevertheless I am the poster child for optimism and after talking my dad out of giving up I saw promise and hope in his eyes, which by the time I left the hospital made me satisfied. And now we take each day a step at a time....

So I'm so sorry for no furniture posts this week. Believe me when I say I will be working like a crazy person next week... it helps me focus on what is going on around me. Plus... I'd like to add, for those of you who don't know, smoking doesn't just give you cancer. My dad smoked for decades and because of that and the inherited circulatory issues, constricted blood vessels were the result. A lot of people don't know that you can loose limbs from smoking. Reason #746 to not smoke.

Take care this weekend, hug the ones you love, don't go to bed angry at your spouse and be thankful for your friends that make you laugh. Because you just never know.....

xo

I just fell out of my vintage telephone chair....

.....and landed on the floor. I swear I must have bumped my head and had some weird Marty McFly flashback dream or something. It's like waking up to your "once dorky but now yuppie" parents walking in from playing tennis, your bratty siblings actually talking to each other before they go to their middle class jobs, and of course stumbling out to the garage to check out your new 1985 Tacoma buffed up by Biff himself.

Yeah, it was one of those types of days. And I can't complain one bit.

First off, Anne was featured over at Be Colorful's Motivated Monday.

I was so thankful for the feature.

I love following Pam over at Be Colorful... she gets an A+ for her to the point witty blog posts.... and because I'm totally jealous of her beautiful home. Ha!

Then Suzie was featured in another treasury list on Etsy, which was pretty cool.

Now if only I could find her sweet little striped self a home...

Then came the whopper with cheese!!!

Dwell Studio featured Anne on their blog as well!

*enter falling out of chair*

Actually, I was driving when I found out so there wasn't much falling to do while safely driving but still.... I was like....

I think I might have actually made this exact face though which is not safe while driving... 10 and 2 people, 10 and 2. But I was just so happy I could have skipped everywhere I went today. Granted I would have embarrassed the crud out of the kids and they would have been like.. Yeah, we dont' know her, but even as awkward as it would've been, it was definitely a possibility because of my happiness level.

So there ya go. Look at that would'ja.... what a day.

Give me "misty rub the eyes wow what the heck is going on here" Monday's for the rest of my life and I'll be happy forever and ever. :)

xo

A Pretty Stool for Amelia

This weekend I had the pleasure to hand paint another stool for another birthday girl named Amelia. This stool was a different style than the Yo Gabba Gabba stool I painted last weekend. It was definitely a lot bigger which meant I had more room for a great design. I was told Amelia was a girly girl, so I wanted something fun and colorful but not "princess-y" either. I love girl stuff, but too much pink will make me cringe. When I run by good 'ol Hobby Lobby to grab the stools, I usually swing by the scrap-booking paper section for color inspiration, and low and behold I found this great sheet of paper with just the colors I was looking for.

It's not too girly with the different shades of blue, but definitely could become girly if you used them the right way. I was loving the circles but I have always wanted to paint a harlequin pattern so I made my own little stencil out of an index card, measured everything out (even the circles) and got to painting!

Lots of pretty colors all complimenting each other.... and I had another satisfied customer, which always makes me smile. The good thing is I still have 2 more (yes, 2!) stools to paint for her. She purchased all of these as gifts for her friends, though I am making a special stool as a Christmas gift for her sweet little daughter. That one I'm very excited about because I have lots of ideas on how I want it to look. I think I'm going to go for a personalized piece of furniture type of thing...

So, are you digging the squares and harlequin together? Know someone who would like a stool like this? Send them over to my Etsy store where I have them for sale!

Thanks for stopping by again today! I'm working on furniture this week so keep an eye out for some "Say hello" posts from me!

xo