Easier said than done........

As I am finally feeling a bit more normal (read that as: even more sassy and noncompliant) I will take some time and share with you the journey of the hutch. It was a treat I tell you......

 Now let's pretend these two are stacked on top of each other........

.....a tiny bit rough, but can see the potential. Deciding on a plan was not as hard as I thought it may be. Putting that plan into action was another story....... to the untrained eye you will notice that these two pieces were located in two different locations from the time of their arrival.  The GLORY of having no freaking space to work in!! 

And yes even at times, we were literally walking around this new furniture inside my house. I kid you not. And I am even less kidding about the day that I found out someone knocked over my painting in-progress can of paint with the lid only partially propped on which just so happened to splatter across the room. "But we cleaned it up......" yeah, sure. 

In among these times, I can't begin to tell you how many times my back was out when I had the actual time to work on this beast. Sorry, I mean OUT. Nothing like wasting half my summer thinking about projects and no doing. All of that nice cool spring we are accustomed to was a pipe dream as well. I hate summertime... er, I mean I hate humidity and being hot! Little progress, heat and humidity makes mama grouchy.

So yet again the furniture pieces got moved around so at times we would reclaim my living room. As I look back, that time was a good thing. It aged the condition of the primer coats and paint that I hated and gave me plenty of time to come up with Plans B-D. I have a very undeniable distaste for a certain type of paint, just ask me I'll tell you about this no-good rotten runny paint!! GRR

Roll around to September: Sick to death of being held back by no space and my own committal of finishing THIS before I started any other single thing, the day arrived. It was going to be done. And it would look aged and it would be with paint I knew was capable of holding up its end of the bargain.

Exhibit A: 1 Door painted and manually distressed. 

Yes, I was kind and even sent this is a sneak peek...so I painted, I painted some more and reassembled

......and lo and behold, by the end of the day, I was finished. All was back into place with all their correct hardware and we loaded and ran. p.s. I totally skipped out on putting the glass doors back on the top- I know which battles I can fight and which ones I will win! 

The bottom turned out beautiful with the detail it has :-) not in love with the handles but being two different sizes would not have made for a fun hunt of new ones .sigh.

All done and in its new home. and the first time I saw both pieces together since April!! 

Already, I have a few things taking its place to be worked on next. The bigger question is which one to work on first and then to keep it or not......??

Motors running now!

This weekend i was able to grace my time with a friend and we went on a teeny-tiny roadtrip....2 hours away worth of tiny. That was not the highlight.

But when we arrived, overwhelming would not even begin. The amount of "junk" in that building was more than I ever expected. I took a camera with me, but in reality, my video camera would have been better. We snapped a few pics here and there as the building got more and more crowded. Tons of ideas later and treasure comparisons. There is always a certain kind of satisfaction in seeing the things i have at home with a price tag on them. However, the purchase prices were a bit high I thought as I am in the habit of looking for bargains as well. It was not meant to be.

We also ventured to one of my favorite stories ever:  www.westendsalvage.com Seriously if you have never been there, you NEED to go. Do it. Now.  It is incredibly hard to find what you want there without specifics in mind. -This gorgeous piece was exactly what I have been looking for.

I can hardly wait to get my hands on this! 

Another stop at Found Things in the East Village and we had a few purchases under our belts.

High hopes of hitting a flea market this weekend....cannot wait!!

But in the meantime, I am slowly making way with some projects that need started or finished. This is one of them........

as you can see they are not together, use your imaginations!! 

My workspace, er I mean garage, is cleaned up and ready to roll. For future reference these are the before shots......

Just because I am working on it doesn't mean I know what I'm doing. ugh. 

This beauty is also locked and loaded also in the garage. Between the two of these I may not be seen anytime before October 2014. Kidding. Maybe kinda sorta.   In reality, I am hoping the table is the fast project and the hutch; well lets not assume anything just yet. If i can beat my last project record of 3 months, I will not judge myself too harshly.

Sharing a few recent finds that have big plans as well, ya know, while I'm here and all ;)

This. Is luck at its finest. 

Being a cheapskate was almost too easy when it came to this one, that $10 bill was practically flying out of my hand when she lowered her price without my even asking!!

I sincerely wish I had something to scale this tub by, the cat in the background doesn't quite cut it. 

It is HUGE and has many BIG party plans in its future!

Yes, this drawer came out of a dumpster. And I'm okay with that. 

Just for reference, this was at the Junk Jubilee this last weekend. Cannot even begin to tell you how jealous I am of the person who someday can afford will buy her!!

I have recently had an idea of the base of a treadle sewing machine, I do believe I just got an idea for the top of that sewing machine!! How cool is this!?! 

Anyhow, that's enough for now. I better go do something productive at work to cool my pipes.

so today is a holiday......

So today is a holiday, at least that's what the rumor is.

I know, I know some of you do stuff with families and other.....stuff. Well not so much around here. Everyone is home. That means everyone has time to put in on a project or two or three.

Since it was so nice today, we are tackling a long awaited improvement. No more teetering on the hillside. No more walking in mud. Using up some of the bargain stockpile of pavers we were lucky enough to get this winter.

As quite frankly I am too damn tired to go look for before pics, use your imaginations instead.

This is how we began a week ago. Exhibit A: The back of the house. 

Not sure you can tell it, but from this point, it's all downhill. At the far end, the back steps to the deck. We used every single brick. Don't ask how many there are. I will say I got a great deal on them ALL.

We still need to spread some more dirt along the edge but for now this will have to do. I'm tired. I realize it may not look perfect. I'm okay with that. At some point, the plan is to fill up the empty spots under the edge of the house. Anyone got extra shade-loving plants to spare??

Exhibit B: Rocks. 

We were running out of pavers quickly. But it works. The walkway has a bit of a jog in it. Since this lovely new sidewalk was going to leave an empty hole, and we were clued in to a field full of rocks, a plan was composed. Silage bag plastic + truck load of rocks = nice landscape problem disguise. Totally recycling, we laid down the plastic and then unloaded rocks. No mowing makes everyone happy and later I will move a few rocks around and add some sedums. Problem solved. VERY FEW of these rocks did not come from this field expedition Friday afternoon. Part of the fun is filling it all in, then taking the hose to them and seeing what the rocks actually look like!!

Exhibit C: We'll work on the gutter a bit more later. 

Exhibit D: A landing. The biggest challenge.

At least it seemed to be, but in reality we had just what we needed. The big idea was to meet the walkway with a landing to the arbor gateway. Simple right? We really wanted more of the old stone window sills but wasn't having much luck.....until we realized we had a stash of broken ones. Perfect. We laid them out, matched everything up, leveled and away we went with laying even more bricks inside to make the transition just a bit easier to navigate.

The front of the house is now officially connected to the back of the house. :)

Here we have the beginning......

So just because I struggled to come up with a title doesn't mean a thing, right? Hey, I'm not so good at catch phrases but give me a prime piece of junk and I totally turn into Vincent Van Gogh. Ahem. Well maybe not quite. But you catch my drift. 


I must say that my ever lovely friend R.R.R. did wonders when she actually put down in print the one and only go-to title, fitted perfectly for my "style" and ya I kinda just used that term loosely. You're in for some real treats here.... ;)


Coming soon to a junk pile near you!    listen........