Simple Stools.

So people were about to be at our house this Saturday for our housewarming party and we happened to have a shortage of chairs.  At some point last year, I tried to use acrylic paint to paint a pair of stools I got off of Craigslist, but they turned out horribly gaudy and ugly.  No, I can't find pictures, but they were pumpkin orange and pink and aqua and green.  Poor decision on my part and I didn't really want to share those with our guests, especially knowing they would ask about the paint job.  With two cans of spray paint and five minutes, voila!

Simple golden yellow and aqua match with the rest of our house and our dishware, so these go great with the mossy green kitchen color. 

Just another little project. 

Jessie 

Currently Listening to "Creep" by Stone Temple Pilots

Happy Birthday to Tom! ....and Presents to Me.

So I inherited my absolute need for bargains from my dad - he is always on Craigslist trying to find a good deal. Nearly half of the items in their home (at least half) are from CL. He even got a motorcycle and a boat for next to nothing. Needless to say, we utilized him to try to find furniture for the house. Two weekends ago, we went up to Baltimore and went around to some of the Goodwills around there as well as picking up some free stuff off of Craigslist. To show you the great furniture we found, I'll have to put up a post in a while. We could only fit one piece in our car and the rest is sitting in his garage until the next time he comes to visit.

Throughout the weekend, he asked if we needed certain things around the house. In his basement, he has at least 3 full sets of workout equipment (all of which he got off CL). So I asked him if he had any extra weights he wanted to get rid of, assuming we could buy the weight bars if we got some weights. Tom has been wanting to start lifting weights for a while, but we just couldn't find a good price anywhere and weights are expensive!

Needless to say, we shoved random weights into various crevices in the car and made the trek home. Dad even included a few weight bars. Since the sets were older, they had some rust spots on them and you could definitely tell they were worn.

So I took an iron bristled brush and scrubbed them to get the rust off.  Even the weight bars had some rust and other signs of wear on them, so I took the bristle to them as well. 

...but they still weren't quite pretty enough.  Tom went to NC State and has a bit of an obsession with the Wolfpack and everything related.  Another part of his birthday present was making him a work table in Wolfpack colors (red, white and hints of black).   So I decided to make the work area in the basement match the workout area. 

Thanks to spray paint (I know it is not eco-friendly at all, but sometimes it is the absolute best option for the project in question), I started to create the birthday present. 

For Tom, I used a matte black, a glossy red and white for the main parts of the weights.  Since the white weights looked a little dorky, I misted them with the metallic silver I used on the weight bars to give them a somewhat different color.  I'm pleased with how they turned out. 

This weight bar went from a gross looking black and rust color to this beautiful metallic silver. 

His manly half of the weights. 

After coating both sides until they were sufficient by my standards, I covered them in a clear spray paint coat (matte clear, I believe) to make them more durable and last longer. 

However, I also managed to secure a set of weights for myself as well, so I had to make those look pretty too!

Ahhh, I love Krylon and their magical colors!  While the Ivy Green color and the Bahama Blue (I think those are the exact colors) were just regular cans, I had to use the outdoor stuff for the pink because I couldn't find the regular kind in the color I wanted to use.  

Of course, I refused to go along with standard silver for the weight bars and went a different way. 

While I have already painted them sufficiently, I think I might still go back and add a sparkly brown misting over the regular dark brown just to give it some shine. 

and the finished products...

This picture makes me so happy - the colors are beautiful. 

His and hers. 

Spray paint is awesome.  

Until later (when I catch up on the last two weeks), 

Jessie

Currently Listening to "Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)" by Jim Croce

Holy Hot Lips!

Benjamin Moore's Aura is my new best friend.  Here is what an incredibly small bit of paint and about half an hour can do.  There is only primer on the very left side of the dresser (on the scroll work) and nowhere else.  While I will need another coat to really make this solid, I'm thrilled.  Never again will I use cheap stuff....ok, I probably will, but the whole time I'll be wishing I had this Aura stuff.  Yes, the name of the paint is "Hot Lips".  Love Love Love.   This is definitely going in my studio downstairs to hold a bunch of my fabric and sewing stuff.  Plus, it will look really sweet in that currently dark, dreary space in the basement.  Can't really have Barbie doll pink in any "real" part of the house since I kind of limited all NC State paraphernalia to the basement.  Anyway, take a look at the beginning stages though the lighting was terrible because all we had was a flashlight and a floor lamp since the fan was not yet hooked up and working. ....and I'm rambling again. 

I'll try to take some more pictures in the daylight...especially when I get a chance to do some more painting. What kind of hardware should I use for this piece? 

Speaking of hardware, the aqua and gold dresser will be done as soon as I get finished cutting the screws for the back of the knobs down to size.

Due to a bout of mild insomnia, the time away from the blog due to a weekend in Baltimore and a party at our place this weekend, there will probably be another few posts in the next couple of hours. 

Jessie 

Currently Listening to "No Cars Go" by Arcade Fire (Thanks a lot Marie). 

Pain in the Boo-tay

  These are the most horrific things in the world to paint.  It is times like these that I wish I had that really awesome Benjamin Moore paint that Sixty-Fifth Avenue praises at her blog.  Apparently it has built in primer which means no 2 coats of horrible Kilz primer just to cover a piece of furniture and THEN onto the colored stuff.  Once this gallon of Kilz is gone, I'm done with that type of paint.  Aura Paint from BM has a built in primer AND is colored, but it is also Low-VOC, which I am loving.  As soon as I figure out where a BM is around here, I'm there.

Enough ranting, but I will at least show you the reason for the ranting.  Worst things to paint EVER.  I need to find a better method - maybe a paint sprayer?

After I go over the rocking chair another time or two, I want to paint the rings around the legs and front of the arms a hot pink color, but it will just be a small accent.  We are going to have wooden rocking chairs on the front porch and I think the pink will really do a good job of designating which chair is mine.  This chest of drawers, found at Polyvore was the inspiration.  I want this dresser...or at least to create something similar because I most likely can't afford that dresser. 

My other PAINting project from today.

Jessie 

Currently Listening to "Rocky Mountain Way" by Joe Walsh 

Collection O Furniture

As it turns out, our house here is a lot bigger than anything we've lived in. Before we left Portland, we sold a LOT of our stuff, especially the bigger stuff. Now we are trying to acquire furniture so we can actually have space to put our things away. Basically, we have a few things but haven't started revamping many yet. You've seen the aqua and gold dresser (oye, I wasn't happy with a few things and am in the process of redoing a few things). Anyway, we have gotten them from Craigslist, garage sales, secondhand stores, off the side of the road and from friends. Sneak peak of some of the items in their "before" state.

Lots of posts today, I know.  In a few days, there will be a "Part 2 of Collection o Furniture".  Also, I would like to pseudo-brag that we have not paid more than $30 for any single piece and most of them have been far under that or free.  I've resigned the thought of having ever having furniture that matches.  Yay for cheap finds!

Jessie

Currently Listening To "New Slang" by The Shins

By the way, I figured I would link up all of the songs I am listening to on Amazon's MP3 Download, which is where I get most of my music - either there or through iTunes.  If you want to listen to it, all you have to do is click on the song title.

Another Next Project

When I was at Goodwill the other day, I saw this and wanted it. I thought about buying it and then saw the price tag of $15. Yeah right. So I took a few pictures of it and decided I was going to make it myself. I didn't take measurements or anything, so I sat on the couch for a bit today and sketched out what it was going to look like.





...the chop saw is calling my name.

Jessie 

Currently Listening to "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" by George Thorogood

Bike Clock Tutorial

This week, the theme at the CSI Project is Fabric, so I am posting up some previous projects in order to potentially get some more traffic here. Plus, I want to share the projects and ideas I have because I feel like I'm just being greedy taking everybody else's ideas and making them into projects without contributing some of my own.

Last Christmas, we had a gift exchange at work and I drew somebody who loves bikes. Since we had a nonprofit bike shop in Portland, getting used parts was easy. Additionally, I was always curious if I had the ability to make a clock and as it turns out...I can!

While there are only after pictures, you can imagine what a pile of fabric, a scrap piece of cardboard/matte board, clock parts and a bike gear look like sitting in a pile.

To create this clock, I picked some fabric that was fairly heavy in order to make the cardboard backing even stronger. After sorting through the pile of fabric that I had acquired from secondhand stores, I came across this heavy bright blue piece which seemed perfect. To make the backing, I cut the cardboard down so it was just smaller than the outer edges of the bike gear. I wanted to ensure that after the fabric went onto the cardboard, you could not see the edges peeking out from behind the teeth. Then, I attached the fabric to the cardboard with some Gorilla Glue Super Glue only around the edges so the uglier parts were covered up with the gear.



To get the clock parts through, I used a utility knife to puncture a bit of a hole in the center of the fabric. After that, I used a drill bit to CAREFULLY drill through the cardboard backing. From there, I stuck the back of the clock in, but didn't put the hands on quite yet.

Meanwhile, in order to tell what time it actually was, I took a Dremel and ground down the edges of the gear equidistant as it happened to have exactly the correct number of teeth! While the teeth are not numbered 1-12, the clock works however you want to mount it. I could have numbered it, but that would have taken away from the simplicity of the piece. At this point, I got my husband to help me Gorilla Glue down the gear in exactly the right place and we both sat and held it for a while to ensure a good stick. Within the next few hours, we just popped the hands on the front of the clock and then placed a battery in and VOILA!



The great thing about this clock is that I used nearly ALL reused or repurposed materials with the exception of the actual clock parts.

Jessie

Currently Listening to "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat and Tears