Hall-lelujah! ;)

Hooray! The hallway/entry table is finished. It looked a little rough when I picked it up but it's pretty fancy now. 

Before: 

The stain on the top was uneven, there were some pretty noticeable water/ink stains and the legs just looked a little dry and sad. 

After:

$65

The top sanded down pretty easily and the red mahogany stain just made a world of difference, don't you think? I debated trying to sand and stain the legs but with a few chips out of the veneer on the little foot accents, it made more sense to paint it. I'm glad I did, because playing around with the Annie Sloan waxes was fun. 

Have you ever come across a table like this? I wish I could find out something about it but so far, I haven't managed any Google image hits.

Slow and steady wins the race?

Like many people, I do image searches and Pinterest searches and blog searches to find ideas or just see what else is being done out there in the world. I thought I was being smart when I started saving bookmarks for all the blogs and projects that I like. Little did I know that I would end up with WAY too many to keep straight. This sort of hoarding leads to incidents like the other day, when I wanted to find the blogger who talked about putting new fabric on her old lamp shades. I hunted through saved links, Googled "fabric for lamp shades blog" to see what would turn up, and even briefly considered just going back through my history... surely it wasn't THAT long ago that I read the entry, right? haha

I DID finally find the blog I was thinking of (over here at Thrifty Inspirations) and then got lost for another hour or so, finding new things to swoon over and hope to recreate some day. 

After that fiasco, I thought maybe I should just write down a list of future project ideas with quick reference notes. Surely having it all on paper somewhere would help... And then I told my husband about it and he was all "Isn't that what Pinterest is for?" *sigh* Yes. Yes, it is. And if I were smart, I would have been making boards for each type of project/technique that I want to someday try. 

Anywhoo... that's what I've been boggled by lately. In case you wondered. 

And here's what I've worked on:

Ok, this cute little tea set isn't really a 'worked on' kind of thing. It's more of a 'Yippee! Look what I found!' thing. Home Goods, you came through. :) 

Thankfully, the finish on this little table was almost completely worn through already. I think someone tried sanding it before donating it, too. Anyway. 10 minutes of hand sanding got a lot of nasty off and made it super smooth to the touch.

I cleaned it off and decided the ink stain or whatever is in the upper middle area is just too deep to try to sand through. It adds a little character, anyway, right? (Like this table needs it!) So after wiping it down again, I busted out the Red Mahogany stain and gave it a nice thick coat. It wiped down really nice but I'm considering adding another coat to see if I can get the color any deeper. The legs will probably get an old white finish, since they're missing some veneer and just aren't as pretty.

Vanity time! I LOVE this little vanity. It was a little plain, though, so I added the accent moulding on the front lip to dress her up a little. I haven't named the last few things I've purchased... what a shame, right? How about Claire? 

Claire

                                    A little close-up of the accent. I love this one and you might recognize it from another  piece, too. Yup. I used it on "Chester". Which just goes to show... even boys can use a little embellishment from time to time!

I found this at the local Goodwill store. It has three glass doors that swing up and slide back to allow access to whatever you decide to store here. I'm guessing it's a curio cabinet of some sort. There are 3 more adjustable shelves, I just have them out for the painting process. I think the doors are going to get a coat of Heirloom White so they stand out a little. 

Charles

Time's a-wastin'!

I promise you, I have not been slacking in the project department. It just seems like I'm too busy working on things to stop and take pictures of them.

This week, I've got 5 new pieces to work on. A desk, vanity, dresser, entry table, and a table/chairs set. I'm not sure what I'm most excited about but now the reality of how much time will be necessary is kicking in... where is it gonna come from? Certainly not nap-times. Those are getting shorter and shorter by the day. Anywhoo... I'm so excited to have come across so many interesting pieces to work on.

Entry table. I cannot WAIT to slap a fresh coat of paint on this . The details are going to look uh-mazing.

Update: the kitchen table has SOLD. Yay! The lovely lady who bought it is going to use it as a sewing/craft table and I'm so happy to have found it a good home. I hope it gets a LOT of use.

The little turquoise magazine table is going to a new home today. I'm a little (ok, a lot) sad to see it go but that's the whole point of things here so I'm just going to hope to find some more like it and maybe get to hang on to one.