one of the great loves of my life

Back in the Saddle?

Let's see... it's been over a year since I last posted. Lots happened: I moved (ugh), got married (yay!) and did loooooots of projects along the way. That is to say, I have lots of fodder to get the ol' blog going again.

For now, here's a pic of a creamer cow living out an alternate life as a bud vase:

And Marble using a ridiculously stupid pillow cat toy as an actual cat pillow:

Round Here

Here's what's currently going on around here:

Broken toes

Painting chairs

Puzzling

That's all she wrote.

Side Table

Most of my furniture is stuff I've picked up secondhand, and my living room side table is no exception. I got it for $30 at the local junior guild resale store, which has some really good stuff. They had a beautiful mission side table that I was coveting, but at $70 I had to pass.

But I love this table. It is some heavy-duty wood and I actually like the color a lot. The original pulls were these strangely shaped loops, so I replaced them with a couple of knobs from Anthropologie. But that's all I had to do to make this one presentable... not too shabby.

Ugliness ---> Awesomeness

Remember that basket that is hanging out in my TV stand?

Well, it is kind of ugly. Whatever wicker material it's made out of is unfinished (read: dull) and a light, nondescript, blah color. I got tired of the ugliness and decided to do something about it.

I actually got two of these baskets thinking they would both go under the TV, but the DVD player and VCR made it impossible to use another basket opposite the one in the picture above. The other basket found a home on the bottom shelf of my bookshelf and now holds oversize books and Scout's growing collection of cat toys. I used that one as my guinea pig basket.

Here are my supplies for the ugly basket renovation project:

Counterclockwise from left: gloves, wood stain, piece of old t-shirt, plastic drop cloth, chip brush, newspaper. Also, ugly basket (not pictured).

Basically the idea was to stain the wicker using plain old wood stain. Everything else is for protection of the work area besides the chip brush and t-shirt, which are used to apply the stain. Wood stain is so easy to use and really makes a remarkable difference in most cases (see this post for example). The key is just to have an unfinished surface to work with. If my baskets hadn't been inexpensive unfinished wicker, the stain would not have had much effect. As it is, though, here's the photographic proof of the Power of the Stain:

Before.

During (1st coat).

After 2 coats (finished basket on the left; yet-to-be-done basket on the right)

How 'bout DEM apples.

In which I get lucky twice

This is my TV stand. I got it at Goodwill for $50. I was actually a little disappointed I had to pay $50 for it, but it's solid wood and there was no way I was going to buy something new that was laminate and cost twice as much. Plus I was really desperate at the time, since my living room looked like this:

Watching TV while it was on the floor was not so fun. I was worried when I was looking that I wouldn't be able to fit a stand in the skinny/smallish space in that corner.

I stood in the Goodwill looking at the stand for a good 15 minutes arguing with myself about whether it would fit. Eventually I bit the bullet and took it home, and phew did I get lucky. It fit both the space and the TV perfectly, and it wasn't that ugly. If I had my way I would strip and restain it, but that's a bigger project for another day. The more immediate facelifts: 1) finding that basket that's in the top picture to hold movies and 2) replacing the drawer knob with something with a little more pizazz soon. I found the basket for like $12 at HomeGoods, and that thing slid into the space like it was made for it (lucky break #2). I also have plans to spruce it up as well. All in good time.

Guess

Here's a hint for one of my projects that's currently in the works...