He fits. He sits.

Someone dropped off a basket of cookies at the station the other day. We all enjoyed the cookies, and I snagged the woven wood basket.

Like this, but with less flowers and more handle.

It's nothing fancy, but I thought it would be a cute fall piece, and that Mr.Beans would like sitting in it. True to form, ~2 seconds after it walked in the door; he checked for fit. Spoiler: good fit, he sits.

I had to wake up much earlier than normal for work today, and Beans was NOT pleased. He loves sleeping in (after hopping back in bed from an early morning jaunt to the kitchen for breakfast).

The 'not getting out of bed' face

Mr.Beans is a sleepy guy in general:

sheepskin on the porch couch?
loves it

new chair?
quality assurance testing in full swing

fluffy blanket snuggles?
all in

mom just got back from out of town?
insta dog cat pile
that happy little smooshed face.....adorable

So this morning when I had to be up early, he begrudgingly crawled out of bed and redeposited himself in the new basket over where I was getting stuff together in the front hall:

eyes. don't. want. to. open.

 Navy thought I was crouching down to hand out treats and ran over to get some. Always the optimist.

No treats, just picture taking.
Thanks for the photobomb.

I'm glad Beans looks comfy in the basket, another recent fits-n-sits attempt seemed a little too snug:

next size up, please

Oh Mr.Beans, you are a silly guy.

-Lindsay

Weekend Treasures

While trolling Craigslist on Friday I saw a posting with blurry pictures for a shipping trunk and old speaker.

Mind the sea-sickness

Is that teak I see? And a shadowy peg leg?
Yar.

From what I could see, they looked good enough to go for, so I said I'd take both and headed over during lunch to pickup.

The trunk was gone to an earlier scavenger by the time I got there, but the speaker was mine all mine. I also landed a barely used cat tree and an old wooden Encyclopedia Americana shipping box.

NEEDS MORE COWBELL JOINTING. Said no one ever.

The box is drying out, after which I'll mount it for use as a wall shelf somewhere. Comme ca:

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For the speaker, I plan to do a speaker-gut-ectomy and add simple ledger shelves.

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It has beautiful mid century bones with solid teak construction and 3 brass-tipped peg legs. It's banged up pretty well, but is structurally sound. I'll only sand and lightly seal the exterior ala the entertainment center. Hopefully it will come out just as well. The inside will probably be painted something dark to contrast with the lighter exterior wood box.

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I haven't seen any speaker-to-shelves floating around the interwebs, so perhaps it will be a genuinely new fangled idea.


The super sweet lady who put up the craigslist post was cleaning out her parents house after they moved into a condo. I offered to help lift/move around anything she needed since she was kind enough to give away good stuff for free. She declined at the time, but our pleasant interaction must have made enough of an impression that she emailed me the next day offering a different trunk she'd intended to keep, but couldn't, and could I help move a couch while I was there? YES and YES.
I'd seen a trunk the day before and was hoping really hard that it was the one she was offering. Because it was a real-life antique version of a Restoration Hardware piece that I've been loving from afar.

Reproduction
on sale for $1045

And it was.

The Real Thing.
(Pardon the spiderwebs n schmutz on the carpet)

Stenciling, and leather handles, and shipping stickers; oh my!

With a promise to never throw it away and to email her should I ever not be able to keep it; I loaded it up. Judging from the shipping label on the back, I think it was used by her Dad's while he was in the Army in the 60's. I understand it's an important piece to her and am glad she thinks I'll give it a good home. Not that I ever plan to stop loving it, but if push comes to shove, I'd be happy to get in touch with her and send it along.

In the meantime, I need to clean up several decades of cobwebs & dust on the outside, and check the state of the inside. There might even be some junk in there.

What will I use it for? Where will I put it? Do I even have room? Am I losing my marbles to get another trunk (this makes 3)?
Excellent questions. I have no answers yet.
Much like sparkly things, shiny things are appreciated here and resolutely kept, murky future or not.

Leather handles also appreciated.

-Lindsay

Pillow Talk

My Bf threw out his back  last weekend, so I ran into to Bed Bath & Beyond to grab him a heating pad, an ice pack, and some goodies while his non-mobile self waited in an 'almost comfortable' position in the car.
I told him I would be quick.

Uhhh.......about that: I should have known better.
No trip to BB&B sticks to the list. It's unpossible.

My intentions were good, but the '$4.99 & Under' pillow bin was better. 

I may have definitely went a little pillow crazy.

Mostly neutral colors with interesting texture, embroidery, or accents that go well with the furniture and fabrics already in my house.

11 pillows for about $45, when most of them were in the $30/$40 dollar range each at full retail price. Not too shabby!

Fill types:

5 are down-filled, the rest are cotton

Coverings:

4 are silk, 3 felted wool, 1 chartreuse sweater-knit, 2 cotton, and 1 HAS SPARKLES!!

Captn. Sparkles has already received a kidnap threat. But you just go ahead and try Michelle; I will take you down like a cheetah on an antelope. Except with way more shrieking, wheezing, and jiggling from both of us. Somebody might loose a shoe or an earing. Who knows, it could get crazy. Moral of the story: not worth it.

Idle treats aside; 'That's an unreasonable amount of pillows!' you might say, especially since I already have a handful of pillows. 

Nonsense. 

Don't you love how lush and inviting a seating area or bed full of pillows looks? Well I know I do. 

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I've got a lot of seating both inside and out on the patios that can use some pillow-licious comfort:

outdoor

1 couch, 1 rocking chair, 2 side chairs

indoor

1 couch, 1 chair & a-half, 3 comfy chairs, 1 settee, and 1 big queen bed.

So comfortable and REM-inducing, I miss it when I don't sleep there.
It could use some flair to make it as pretty as it is comfy.

With all the available spots, I'm sure the new pillows will quickly find happy homes.

I'm happy that the Bf's didn't/couldn't turn around to see me loading 2 big BB&B bags o' pillows into the trunk. My excuse for the delay was long lines.....sorry hun; pillows' out of the bag now. (bazinga)

;)


-Lindsay

The Entertainment Center Has Landed

Craigslist did me a solid and finally produced an antique, mid-century modern dresser in shabby enough condition to be given away for free.
I drove all the way from NoVa to Capitol Hill on a Nationals game day to get it: and it is worth every bad word that flew out of my mouth on 395 (you DC people will know what I mean). Ie. its the $hit.

Let me back up and regale you with the 5 other possible entertainment centers I went through first.

1. The large and in charge wardrobe that got sold on Craigslist.
- Too big and underutilized.

2. The tall red bedside table.
- Goes much better in the bedroom, from whence it came. Good fill-in during the search.

3. The long glass console table.
- Glass top and gold-tone bamboo legs. Really pretty and on-trend. Wide as a boat and has never found a good home over 9 months of floating from wall to wall in the living room. Am giving to a friend, hopefully. I can't seem to get her to take it home though, so if anyone wants it; let me know.

Up against the wall.

4. The pressed wood n 'metal' 90's special.
- The picture looked great and the people were too nice for me to change my mind on once I saw it in person. It went straight from the car to the curb. Luckily, it was kept out of the dump by a fellow Craigslist stalker.

Said curb alert post 5 minutes after I got back home.

5. The night stand with clean-ish lines.
-It was ok, but underwhelming. I stared at this one for a week and contemplated how I could redo it, but was not sold and curbed it the second I secured the mid-century piece.

Pardon the awesome Craigslist posting photo. 

*****

Then, enter this beautiful mid-century modern dresser:

Hey you, yeah you sitting on Craigslist 'free' page. Where you been all my life?

I love the peg legs, rounded edges, integrated wooden handles, and overall simplicity. It's classic mid-century, without being overwrought or too big for my living room.
While it's beautiful as a dresser, it's form, size, and # of drawers lends well to being converted into an entertainment center.

It was being given away by a really nice British lady, who's tenants had left a bunch of furniture when they moved out. It looked a bit rough, but I think thats how I was lucky enough to get it for nada.

The 'made it free' finish was dirty, dingy, scratched, and stained.

In my excitement, I'd already sanded one side here.

I started sanding with an 80 grit sandpaper on a corner to see what the wood underneath looked like, and was instantly rewarded.

Boom.

I completely sanded the whole thing twice (80 then 120 grit).

I believe it is maple.
Whatever it is; it's grain is much better than, say barley.
Har, har. Terrible 'joke', I know.

The grain of the wood popped out and was beeeeautiful. Theres plenty of dark and mid tone wood in my dining room, so I decided not to stain this piece at all. A thin layer semi-gloss of polycrylic was instantly absorbed by the thirsty old wood. Dry; it is just barely glossy in the sunlight and manages to look both antique and modern. Which clearly, is my thing.

big change in the wood

The details of the piece were even prettier once it shed the old opaque finish.

Ahhh. Those handles were a PAIN but so worth it.

As for how it became an awesome entertainment center as opposed to a beautiful dresser: just remove a drawer.
I did finish all the drawers together though, so that if I want to use it as a dresser one day, the whole thing will match.

With the top drawer gone, theres plenty of room to put in cable box, dvd player, internet modem, remotes, wires, random junk, a sleepy cat, DVD's, an elf, etc. Ya know, just the basics.

The simplicity of the dresser's form helps it to not be overwhelmed by the various stuff in the top space. Placing it perpendicular to a window also helps, as without direct sunlight into the top space, all the stuff stays shady and visually recedes.

Now to figure out how to hide those cords on the wall.




-Lindsay

Recent Projects - from the Land Where Nothing Ever Gets Finished

As is pretty clear: new posts have been MIA lately.
I blame a lack of time, a bad habit of not finishing projects, and my constant failing to take some damn pictures of the things I do get done!

Below are a few of the projects I've been working on recently, in no particular order.
As I get my $h!+ together and finish them up, I'll post a rundown on each.

• Mounted my TV on the wall.
- Getting rid of the massive entertainment center and putting the tv up on the wall has totally changed the living room.

Makes my living room hotel-sexy.

• Worked on screening in the back porches.
- Started on this in the spring, and when it got hot outside I got lazy. 
- Came back to it his week and discovered a roadblock I'll have to overcome with a bit of rework. But, progress is being made.

Patio progress. Catio creation.

• Reupholstered 3 old office chairs for use in the dining room.
- Related pattern (chevrons) and color (pinks!).

$5 each, and now all sassy.

- And made a bunch of coordinating pillows.

Modeled by the glamour-puss.
Meee-ooow

• Customized and hung a new dining room light.
- Changed my original plan from this post, but the result is close.

Real pictures to follow.

• Refinished a mid-century modern dresser and converted it into an entertainment center.
- Waited forever for the right piece to come along, and am trying to keep it classic enough to do Don Draper proud.

This was an exercise in patience and high # sandpaper.
I cant' wait to be finished and show you more. It's crazy gorgeous.

• Picked up a couch and two chairs from Craigslist and skinned them for their leather.
- Then washed and conditioned the heck out of it.
- Then made a purse out of said leather.

Lots of oiling. And shooing away cats who wanted to lick up ze oil.

• Received a used OTR microwave from the BF's parents to replace my broken one.
- Pictured below is die kaputt maschine. Mounting is in progress for the new-to-me zapper.

Best looking appliance when I moved in: only one that totally didn't work.
'Best' being SUPER relative.

• Mounted my grandfather's antique tools.
- For display and ease of use.
- Progress has gone at the same (snail's) pace as setting up the office/second bedroom.

Aaah. Love, love, love this project.
More to come!

• Relined an antique humpback trunk from my grandmother.
- Removed the old lining and blitz cleaned 40 years of dried mold. During which; the house smelled kind of good, in a granny's-basement sort of way.

Creative fabric manipulation 101.

• Played florist and created all the flowers for a friend's event.
- Tons of happy flowers to honor the passing of her beloved aunt.

10 arrangements, 2 Xl altar pieces, and a 24' broken heart.

• Found and shined up some old silver pieces.
- Sunday afternoon thrift store browsing.
- $20 in my pocket got me both of these AND a bangin smoothie. #winning

A good deal + a little elbow grease = not-so-shabby chic accent pieces.

• Turned a retired firefighter coat into a throw pillow cover.
- Will be a wedding present for a fellow firefighter, made from his old coat.

The most ridiculously complicated 'easy' project ever.

• Made a fuse box cover.
- Out of leftover paint chips from picking my wall colors.

For an ugly eye-level fuse box.

• And spent some quality time with my favorite furry guy.
- Like all good animals, anytime his person is on the floor for more than 10 seconds(dining room chair upholstering, in this case); it means PLAYTIME NOW.

He managed to get himself stuck in a bag handle and dealt with it by flopping over and looking cute.
Good call, actually.

One of these days I will find the missing hardware, cut the last piece, install the whatever, take a picture, or write a post about each of these projects. In the meantime, they are already improving The Cabindo, half-finished states and all. 

At the end of a recent post, John from Young House Love touched on being content with a home in-progress. I'm accepting that more and more, and it helps that most of my big projects are to the point that I don't have multiple construction zones 24/7. Home feels like home when I get there, rather than a to-do list. Theres still plenty to tackle, but I'll get there eventually.
My wallet surely appreciates the lul. Though it feels too long since I've last seen my buddy Mary at the Home Depot paint counter.....

-Lindsay