Say hello

.... to Jeffery!

Mr. Jeff sat around my house for over a year waiting to find a home... which was totally OK with me because as you can see above, he helped to hold a few things for me... like my tri-pod, my radio and any piece of furniture I could lift high enough to set on top of him. My friend C saw him in my gallery of naked furniture ready for restyle on Facebook and thought he would be perfect for an entertainment center. He was just low enough for a large LCD on top and had ample amounts of storage.

Funny story though... once I got Jeff over to C's house, and she saw just how great he was against one of her walls in her great room, she said... "uh oh.... I think I want to use him here instead of for the TV." HA! Well, that just means we need to find another piece to do for my dear friend!!! Once C has figured out where Jeffery is staying I'll take some more pictures of him settled in with her camera.

I must give her a loud shout out too... I was very reluctant to paint him black (more specifically, "Beluga" by Behr). To me black is void of color, but after seeing how absolutely great he turned out with his subtle sanded edges against her pale wall and the little round pulls that had that sanded look too, I was sold. He had me at hello. So in the end she was spot on with her color choice. Also...this wonderful friend of mine has commissioned me to do a ton of work on a bunch more pieces, and for that I am truly thankful. I cannot wait to see her whole 1930's dining room set (table, chairs, buffet and china cabinet) get the Retro Restyling makeover.  

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed my new furniture flip!

Again, so many apologies for the grainy pictures.

Not enough lighting + iPhone pictures = not the best results.

XO

Say hello

....to a set of four captain's chairs that taught me a few things....

1. Don't leave Citristrip on too long. If applied thickly it will definitely do it's job in a jiffy and leaving it on too long will make you kick yourself in the butt. The stuff get's sticky and hard to wipe off.

2. Working on rungs is time consuming.

3. Being a perfectionist can actually be a hindrance. I've known it for the longest time that working on something and getting it right the first time is good. Working on it too long when you know it's already perfect is bad.

4. Shellac is the devil.

5. Shield everything close to you during a stain application. Let's just say I went a little cray-zay and got stain all over the floor and on a piece of furniture and pretty much ruined it. Oh well... I'm using it for storage now, so that's good. :)

6. Spraying chairs with a sealer is so much easier and efficient than applying it with a brush. But be forewarned... If spraying for a long time you will loose feeling in the application fingertip if you don't buy a special nozzle to help prevent that. It's been 2 weeks... I'm just getting the feeling back in my index finger.

7. Last, and most importantly, the feeling of finally getting a project done...seeing that the end product is beautiful, and making a customer happy is truly a wonderful experience.

My apologies for the bad pictures....

I dropped my camera on the lens and it's busted and I have to use my iPhone for pictures.

Makes me cry sad face tears. 

:'(

Anyways, thanks for stopping by today! I'll have another "Say hello..." tomorrow featuring Jeffery!

XO

Remembering Our Veterans

"On this Veterans Day, let us remember the service of our veterans, and let us renew our national promise to fulfill our sacred obligations to our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much so that we can live free."

- Dan Lipinski

For as long as I can remember there has always been a military presence around me growing up...

My Grandpa would share stories about his time served overseas during WW2, and my Grandma was so proud of her adventure of leaving the house as a full time mom to be a Rosie the Riveter building tanks for the war.

Before he passed I always got to hear great stories, usually passionately over-animated stories, of the war from my Great Uncle Frank too.

My Dad (left) would share with me his funny stories of manning missiles in Italy in the 60's... Doesn't seem too funny, but when you're bored watching a missile collect dust, apparently there are good ways to entertain yourself. Ha!

Then when I got a little older I watched my brother (2nd to Left) enlist, graduate from basic and then go into the reserves... wasn't much longer and he was gone... so I cherish these last memories I have of him....

Check me out rockin' that pink hat!

Then I followed suite in 1996... and thank god I did... I met my love of my life there...

From there on I was introduced by my love to his wonderful family which also ran deep with members who served this great nation.

My beautiful oldest niece, who I met when she was just 5 years old, recently graduated from Basic...

Her mother was also in the Navy before starting her family of wonderful girls!

Then there's Uncle Jerry! Love this guy right here!

...and his son Tom who's just as kick butt as his dad!

When I think about the family tradition of joining the military, and I see how it trickles down the line to my children... it makes me tear up a little to know they are just as passionate about their love of the military too. This is my oldest... he's talked about joining since he was little and wants to eventually be a military strategist.

So please take a minute today and tell a Veteran thank you for their service... for keeping our Stars and Stripes flying every day... for keeping us free... for sacrificing their time and sometimes lives for us.

XO

Back on Track

Well... it's just been one of those months ya know?

Where you try like heck to get things done then one thing after another get's in your way... I kinda felt like....

...this little black cloud of rain had been following me around... it just wouldn't go away. I picked up a commission to strip, re-stain and seal four captain chairs (which I'll share with you this week) and during that time I started doing a lot of this.....

....so when you drive a bus around it's like a mobile germ factory and I got really sick. Then I got a little better, and got sick again... then I sprained my ankle and went to the urgent care to get x-rayed and picked up a staph infection...then once that was gone I rolled my ankle again... all of this over a period of a month and a half. I was like... BAH! STOP IT!

By the time this was all done and over with my best friend, who loves me dearly, self diagnosed me with Dyspraxia. I truly am the most clumsiest person I know!!! But not only that, I fall under a lot of the developmental profiles... time to go see a doctor...again...

Anyways, in the meantime we had a great Halloween. I cut myself some bangs and we took my son to his 3rd Mushroomhead concert....

Seriously, we are so goofy. I painted his face... he loved it. I wanted to paint my face like this...

...but I was juuuuust starting to feel better after the staph infection (I barely made it that night) so I focused on my son instead.... which, he again left his father and I speechless when he got up on stage and played the water drums again....

Just in case you want to watch it....

These guys are amazing... they are great friends of ours and we are thankful that they let our little man up there to jam out every time they come to St. Louis... 

So, after a lot of thinking and determination to get back on track I have some new things to share on my blog... a new format so to speak. I've been way to blog absent and I regret that...

Furniture. Blogging. Filling up the Etsy store....That's the plan. And of course much love to you for sticking around...

XO

A Homemade Halloween

Happy November 1st everyone! We had a lot of fun yesterday and the night before doing a literal last minute Halloween house decoration. I spent a whole $4 decorating the outside of the house, so I basically just used items in the house that I had laying around or had as extra supply....

Like a king size sheet with a ton of shredded paper inside it's head, plus eyes cut from foam sheets made an excellent, and rather huge, ghost above my garage!

I bought some orange tissue paper to give the lights an orangy glow and spider webs to creep it up a bit!

($4 total) 

Then to make things even scarier, the hubs dressed up like this and sat on the bench with the lights off to scare would be trick-or-treaters when they ring the doorbell for candy.

Even though this was all last minute quick decorations, I did however, know a few weeks ago that I wanted to do some homemade hanging lanterns lining the driveway so I collected 6 plastic milk gallons.

I grabbed some sticks from a neighbors burn pile...used some of our kitchen trash bags cut into strips to secure the hanging sticks to the base sticks....cut Seymour away from the bench and used his extra vines to hang between the lanterns... I used some brown spray paint I had to "age" the bags on the sticks and the vines...then used some foam sheets I had here at the house and cut a ghost face, a small ghost shape and "BOO!" then hot glued them to my milk jugs.

They turned out like this! Very cute!

This is all of them hanging!

And this is all of them lit up with white votive candles!

I walked Mr. Ninja....

all over the neighborhood so I didn't get to hear the numerous compliments everyone gave him about the lanterns. I even had the neighbor say to him, "Wow! I really like your wife's jugs!!!"

Hahahah!

Hope you guys had a great Halloween!!!

XO