New House, Old Chair

The new place is getting unpacked, slowly but surely. Al and I each have an 'office' room which are box repository areas right now, but other than those black holes; most rooms are liveable.

The modern architecture of the Links house (yes, it still needs a better name), goes very well with my horde of mid-century modern furniture, which also compliment Al's modern-leaning tastes.

Here is one little corner in the family room (adjacent to the kitchen) that will surely get shuffled around, but is a good start down the 'clean & neutral' road this place seems to call for.

Navy approves of the Craigslist chair.

I got that chair for free and fixed up the worn finish. Happens to be one of these Baumritter brand ($$$) bad boys, but I have no plans to actually sell it.

El chair bones

There may or may not be about 6 other chair 'projects' stashed away in our storage area for some undetermined future use. Options, I consider them options.

Until those options are exercised: they are darn good box shelves.

-Lindsay

Getting the Condo Ready to Rent

The past several weeks have been an exercise in finishing the myriad of 80% done projects at the Cabindo.
SO MANY moments of 'damn, that looks great.....and only took an hour..... damn. I REALLY should have done that 2 years ago'.

Oh well. Nothing to dwell on.

Switchplates seem, in particular, to have been something of a huge blind spot for me.

Open switch plate with unfinished woodwork transforms to:

So, so simple

Oh hello there you pretty 'tenants-wont-run-the-same-risk-of-electrocution-that-I-did' thing.
I'll lie to myself and say I lived for the adventure of it all.

Aaaand another switch plate oversight rectified:

Call me Steel, Stainless Steel, baby

Seriously. 2+ years. I can't even remember what I thought was such an impediment to finish.
Papa Steve finished this one, so; guess I never really did get over the mystery problem, just outsourced the solution.


Actually, more than half of the switch plates that had no special construction requirements never even made it back onto the walls after painting.

Painting was the day after closing.....for SHAME, Lindsay!

But: fear not. Yesterday was momentous: ALL OUTLETS AND SWITCHES ARE COVERED.
That deserves a milkshake. Or hopefully, even better; a renter?

oh, oh but I have

-Lindsay

Time To Say Goodbye

Well, it's the end of an era. A relatively short era, but a very important one in my life.
The Cabindo is empty.
I have moved.
It's exciting and sad all at the same time.

Mr.Man and I bought a townhouse about a mile away from the Cabindo a couple weeks ago. The Cabindo was a lady, and new place is definitely a dude; so while it's a very different vibe; he's a handsome fellow, and I'm so excited to get to live there.

When the moving truck was full and the Cabindo was empty this past Saturday, I sat on the floor and ugly cried.
I loved living there.
In that moment, it didn't feel empty; it still felt like home, but somehow I was missing all my furniture and stuff, or just didnt see that it was gone.
The new house did not feel like home at that point, and still doesn't; but it's getting there. We have a mountain of boxes in every room, so hopefully as the trove of stuff gets sorted and put away (or thrown/given away), it will start to fulfill the job of 'home'. It has big shoes to fill, but I think it will do very nicely.
Eventually.
Once all the damn kitchen stuff is put away.
And there is a bed to sleep on.
And a dresser in which to put clothes away. (I know, how could I have refinished so many dressers and not have one? Answer: I'm after 2 matching ones.)

On a less sappy note: anyone looking for an apartment to rent in Reston, VA??
Thats right, the Cabindo will live on in my life as a rental property. I'm even leaving the highly prised Porch Couch for the next occupant to enjoy.
I'm clearly biased, but see above: it's a great place. And you can have kitties/puppies, and a boat, and lots of happies.
Seriously, email me if interested.


Remember the Alamo Cabindo!!


-Lindsay P


PS. I have so many half finished posts about the Cabindo, I'll surely throw a couple of them on here before all is said and done with home #1. And there's always the new place...... ;)

Artful Antique Tool Storage and Display

So, I don't really keep this blog up to date anymore. All of the things have been happening around here but some of them have made it to instagram....

But overall; I have become a social media slacker. #firstworldproblems
This is a post I wrote a long time ago and was just waiting to take a final picture for. Today is the day!


I have a thing for antique tools and industrial trinkets.

They are such a beautiful combination of form, function, elegant design, and craftsmanship. You can look at them and truly say 'they don't make em like that anymore!'. Because this, while it does a great job, is darn ugly:

Bumblebee jr.

My engineer grandfather was a man of many tools. A good example is his file 'collection': off the top of my head I'd say he had at least 20, with more than a couple duplicates. Since he passed away I have been fortunate enough to inherit some of his treasured tools and hardware items.

Sprout gazes into the distance, lost in her dreams of becoming a lumberjack.
Alas, she knows it's a dream that cannot be.....curse you, lack of opposable thumbs!!

I want to use the tools where I can; to keep them, and his memory alive.  I would also like to have them on a wall somewhere to be able to appreciate how beautiful and special they are.

Not so much going for crazy:

Ettore Guatelli

As I am sleek and modern:

source

source

source

source

I like the idea of using a framed out space to delineate that these are pieces for display, rather than 'Hi! I'm sadistic!'. I tried hanging Sprout's saws artfully on a wall, but it came across more 'Preppers' on a good day, and horror flick on a bad one. Those babies came down soon afterwards.

I picked up two matching heavy duty wood framed cork boards from Public Surplus for $10.

Sorry Sara plain & tall, it's Cork board plain & wide's turn now. 

I knew I wanted to cover them with fabric and mount them on the wall, but I had no fabric laying around that sung out to me. As I'd just dispatched with a good chunk of change buying fabric to make slipcovers for the living and dining room seating, I was not about to go out and bleed more money. It tends to stain the fabric anyway.......
There was some gingham laying around that was heavy weight and would tie in with the lumberjack/tool/etc. thing, but the high contrast colors would not work in an already high contrast yellow & magenta room. I dug through a craft box and found bottle of dye, so I did a test run.

+

=

um......what the what??
Not what I expected.

Actually, I think it's way better than expected! The blue dye clearly did not come out blue at all, but the shade of purple it ended up ties in well with the rich magenta wall on which it will live.

progress

As you can see above, I covered the cork boards with the dyed fabric. I started at the top, and using a staple gun attached the fabric going down both sides and then across the bottom. It was important to keep the fabric tight and be mindful of the pattern to avoid wavy lines everywhere. I had one box of oil-rubbed-bronze colored upholstery tacks laying around, which I used to anchor the front in several places.

The dye is not totally even, nor is the pattern completely wave-less.
Oh freekin well! I'll be putting tools all over the thing anyway, and there are too many other things to worry about; like when will I get around to laundry/sleeping/riding my scooter/etc.? Yeah I'm 30 and said scooter. Whatevs.
I put the better of the two panels right above the desk, and hung the other one wonky-side-to-the-window. (Wonky side pictured above)

I used silver push pins to hold down each item because they don't distract you visually from the tools.

board for all the small tools

Because these are HEAVY, I used 50lb wire in a triangle method to distribute the weight and ensure the structural integrity of the frame.

will be hung from the horizontal section on a anchored screw

I did not have enough D-rings, so rigged up a different kind of bracketed attachment at the bottom of each frame.

thats dust from drilling, not crumbs

It worked great and validates my hardware-hoarder tendencies.
I think Grandad would be proud.

hey there craiglisted (free!) mcm day bed, let's snuggle
and pray no tools attack us

-Lindsay

Instagram - Because it's Easy

It's a revolving door around here of thrifting, free stuff, projects, and kitty shenanigans.

I take a lot of pictures but clearly am not great at keeping the blog up to date. So, at the entirely needed urging of several friends; I've started an instagram account so they can see what I work on without wasting their breath on urging blog updates.

I am enjoying it thus far, but think I need to work on my hashtagging, which seems a bit anemic as compared to other users. #kittysnuggles #newfinds #ilikewine

I put up a feed at the top of the blog too, so enjoy the oversharing.
#thecabindo

-Lindsay

Weekend thrifting finds

Did you know Lowes has a discount plant rack?? I did not, but now I do.
Tons of poor little plants that just need a good watering and to be in either less or more sun.

I picked up a succulent mixed pot from that little forlorn orphanage on the way home from thrifting with a friend. (this happened about forever ago, as you can see from all the greenery in the background)

And I certainly did not ditch what was dead in the mix and
cherry pick from the other forlorn pots a few replacement pieces.
Perish the thought..........

It turned out to go perfectly with a little brass bowl snagged for $2 that morning!

bowl me over

Brass and succulents, it's a thing I hear.
I feel so 'hip', or whatever the kids are calling it these days....

It's happily living on the long n low mid-century dresser I'm using as an entertainment center.

When it was perfect and compact.
Now it's a little gangly.

-Lindsay

Say whaaat? - Stool edition

On my way to a friend's house for dinner a few months ago, I stopped by a bakery to grab some treats for dessert. The pastries were delicious but the real score of the evening was a wooden stool from the dumpster behind the neighboring optometrist's office.
And that's saying something, because I really love dessert.

Scandinavian simplicity? Check
Solid build? Check
A good place to set my drink/feet/cat/remotes? Check
Not ikea? Check
Freeeee? Check

The legs were pretty dinged and dirty, and though scrubbing cleaned them up; they still needed help.
I gave them a quick sand and a few coats of bright blue paint to bring them back to life.

I got a fever.
And the cure is more cowbell paint.

They got reattached to the also-scrubbed seat.

Et voila; portable side table extraordinaire.

I'm in the camp that considers painting good wood semi-sinful. But these legs were not in great shape, and in the end I really like the combination of wood grain and paint much more than straight wood on this little guy.

It fits well in the corner between my couch and trunk, and gets A LOT of use. ie. dinner table for 1.

No Mr.Stool, stay away from the light!!

Only today when writing this did I look up the makers mark.

I found out this is an Alvar Aalto 'stool 60'; designed in 1933, and considered an iconic modern design piece.
They have been in production since then, and new; a single stool is worth upwards of $300.
Um.......... wow!!! That is one good dumpster diving investment.

My feet/beer/cat/dinner are feeling FANCY right now.

-Lindsay P