chair re-do.

I have a sad collection of furniture that needs repair and I finally got to tackle one of my chair finds.  I love the lines of these guys - I was lucky enough to score them for free!  My favorite!

As with about all of my staining projects I look back and say to myself "Self, maybe I should have sanded it a bit more... nah?!" 

This makes me smile, my favorite teacher in high school Señor Salazar always said "I said to myself, self..." and it cracked us up.  I often find myself saying it now.  He died in a tragic car accident a few years after I graduated.  Señor would be sad at my forgetting spanish but he is still with me in a way that I think matters more :)

front room in progress: decisions.

We finally received delivery of our new love seat - I am one happy camper!  We hadn't bought much furniture, aside from beds for the house because I couldn't decide where our decor was going.  In the past I had gone down a path that was nice and finally 'came together' in the end but I didn't always love it and often felt limited.  After the fire I was determined that the pieces we purchased would be more thought out by my wiser and older self!  Which really just lead to procrastination and self doubt!  Which left our main living room looking like this - sad, right?!

We have a true living room with some hand-me-down sofas but it is SO cold in that room that with Elly we spend little time in there.  It is so nice to now have more than one seat in the most used space of the house!  

I love how I've been able to incorporate the use of the old door knobs and stolen scavenged artwork from my parents place.  I need to paint the vintage lamp my Gaba bought long ago with green stamps.  I think the room is finally coming together - other than the overflowing toy box I'm attempting to hide under the end table :)  

I knew I wanted to use my shabby chic pillow, see my guest post on Welcome to the Mouse for the tutorial, and my new sweater pillow (shown here) along with a blanket I picked up in Mexico a long time ago but I can't decide on an accent color for the pillows.  

I took a few pictures of fabric scraps in colors I've been mentally playing with in hopes it would help me decide.  Nothing is a clear winner for me.  Although I can easily rule out the yellow which was oddly my front runner before.  Dave will likely vote for the light blue in the first picture or the green.  Dave has suddenly decided he wants a new chair and an ottoman for the love seat so maybe I'd be wise to wait on those decisions before making pillows?  See, I can justify waiting pretty logically.  Terrible!  

Which direction would you go?  Thoughts and comments are always appreciated!

sweater pillow.

Oh, how I adored this sweater.  Dave called it my woobie during my office days.  My co-workers saw this thing all too often.  It was so comfy and while it probably wasn't all that flattering I felt like it went with everything because it was neutral.  I once washed it with a neon yellow post-it note in the front pocket leaving a stain but that didn't stop me.  I wore it at home until the stain faded and then started wearing it in public again.  

Oddly, it was one of the few things that survived the fire.  Oh yea, because it was amongst my packed items for our trip to the city.  It was high time to say goodbye to this old friend.  I had put it in my donate pile numerous times but I knew was afraid they would throw it out because any person with sense was aware it was well past its' prime so I always dug it back out.  

While shopping for our new love seat I saw these adorable sweater pillows that were way out of my price range.  Ah-ha!  I could finally stop wearing my 'woobie' while not really getting rid of it!  

Yee-haw!  I'm a happy lady!  And it was super simple to stitch together and I had a pillow insert left I scored for a buck that I mentioned in my frugal finds post.  So basically free and will look lovely on our new love seat!  

furniture repair.

I officially have spring fever!  Even though it's been pretty chilly on and off I can't stop cleaning.  Unfortunately once a surface is clean I've been finding things that need a little more than dusting!  When we moved the above end table during my front room re-model the bottom shelf completely fell out.  An overhaul on this table was a long time coming as it was my Gaba's and has seen it's share of abuse from small hands.  For example, the large glass ring that I intentionally left on the top from my brother.  It's sentimental - I even asked for his permission to sand the table at all.  He's practical and didn't care.  I'm not so practical I guess.  :)

Dave got sweet talked into helping so the project went faster and I may have promised would allow the front room to be functional sooner.  I better get on that!  Elly hung out in her stroller while which seems to be the best use of this city stroller thus far, see my bumpy ride post for details.  

In hind sight I could have sanded the table a little more but I didn't want something that looked 'new'.  It wouldn't fit in with our other damaged shabby chic furniture.  I think it looks great after receiving a few teak oil coats and wax.  A small corner of sanity in my disaster zone.