Saturday, April 23, 2011

thank you rhinovirus...

i have been reeeediculously inactive. i blame the joy of the family cold. i have had no interest in doing very much. so in between obsessively checking on my various pages of internet interests, i have been reading blogs. recently, my interests have been focused on making slipcovers and refinishing furniture. of course, i am lazy as hell when it comes to sanding things and using steel wool to finish wood, but i may need to overcome this to scratch my interior designing itchiness.

this has been a rather compulsively crazy diet visiting many inspiring blogs. i am beside myself with ideas... most of them prominently feature distressed turquoise furniture and nearly white slipcovers. unfortunately for me, if i bring another thing into this house, my husband could implode. i dare not test his will to live here with my harebrained schemes. like i said, this family cold has been ruining any last, good natured moment. tipping the scales to the side of frustration is not my plan.

hubby dearest is a carpenter and a really good one at that. unfortunately, he has a load of old furniture that i want to play with. the things he has are lifers here. none will ever be sold, put on craig's list, or yard saled.
he loves it all brown and in my mind, yucky colored. since it is wooden in nature, he will bow to it a very appreciative way. it is his nature to love all these things in their wooden perfection. i could care less about many of the veneers on most of these things. so i will sidestep his pieces of furniture out of a false sense of harmony.

earlier this evening, i went into the basement to check things out. i wanted to see if he had chucked out any of my finds. he likes adjust my inventory into the trash when he thinks i am not looking. i am always looking though. i seem to lose a lot of really great stuff that i remember for its potential for a really long time. my cool trash picks haunt me.

happily i found that he had NOT yet made his sneaky attack on a sewing machine table i have had stored. i never quite got to setting it up. mostly i suspect, because it is that wooden color. i just can't fall in love with brown. at least with all the grain and non-spectacular wooden species used. now if i paint it pale pink or lime green or turquoise... well my sewing skills will be resuscitated just that much quicker.
i guess i am gonna have to plan on that.

i also have collected a child's wardrobe about ten years ago. it is in my studio. that extra messy space where i harbor many supplies and dreams. its left side is populated with 4 drawers and the right side has a small door that opens to a clothing cabinet for small wearables. the front has several laminated 50's decals on it. i was sucked into buying it because of my irrational love of its decals. that and my nostalgic feelings about having had a similar one when i was a kid. i know also my husband wants that gone, gone, gone.
now with all this crazy dreaming of painted, distressed finishes, i want to repaint it . this would be ok, but those endearing decals would become a thing of the past. good thing though. i have found some new decals. old ones from the fifties and sixties. i may take the plunge, but not yet. i have not had enough time to play homage to my memories of its earlier place in my life. gosh i am so stubborn and chicken about some stuff. i seem to have many issues about change. going so far as to hang onto absurdly abstruse things from days of my own yore.
in the effort to keep this piece, i have had an idea as to repurposing it as a wrapping area. my jewelry and supplies for sale drive me crazy when i need to ship them out. the idea has been doing gymnastics in my head. i finally have come to an idea as to how i might like to use it as a station for getting things out of here and into other crafter's or jewelry wearer's lives. anything for a little progress ...

my new plans are going to include a little love fest of paint, sanding and elbow grease. i am in the mood for a fresh beginnings. they will have to fit in my own colorized world since i need their functions to be uploaded into the studio.
for now i shall show some of the things i have already painted up for companionability. you may have seen these things before. if you have, please do not faint with boredom. i am prone to repetitiveness. and i apologize for that.
i will share before and afters of the things to tackle next. you deserve some good eye candy. until then, you are stuck with these. and yeah, i still love them.

kkk

my two $2o.oo metal cabinets
lying on their backs
getting ready for some "painting spa" treatments.
the dog is just a great assistant.

starting with the joy of priming...


primed and getting a base coat of lime on one...


one lime, one aqua base coated


i found a technique on thread-banger
for spray painting through lace.
i HAD to try it.
pay little attention to those two children in the photo...
they are in front of the aqua & white cabinet.
part of the price of admission...
they helped me move the cabinets into the basement.
once the big tall cabinets made their way into place, i started on round two... the smaller drawer filled metal chests.
another pair of modest and needed purchases at $20 per set.

all those cute little drawers all lined up for their makeovers!
my backside mr. demille.
i am a shy cabinet, hence all my blush coloring.

too bad, they just couldn't stay drab olive.

on their way to a more appreciated pale, pale green.

sorta moved in and getting some kind of placement
feng shui ala bendyme

stacked up on an enamel topped two drawer table,
that my neighbor so generously donated to his trash pile.
i dragged it home with my son's invaluable help
who doesn't love FREE???

i found that fish spinny thing at the flea market for $8.oo.
who does not need a cool pencil corral for their prismacolors?
it took a smidge longer
to find the right glasses to fit it up just so.
better photos will follow soon.

finally,
i got the second pale green set of drawers
set onto my card catalog.
thank you for the freebee from providence's
Martin Luther King Elementary School!
the red shelves were at the spa for a treatment too.
i spared you those pics.
lucky you!
kkk

it is time for me and the rhinovirus to bid you adieu.
fresh pics of future renovated brown woody pieces to follow.
you have been so very good sticking with this for so long ....

xoxoxo.
W.

No comments:

Post a Comment