Thinking about making a bench.......

I love this bed.

I have had this headboard and foot board for a few years now and I absolutely love them. But using them for a practical purpose proved to be a challenge.

The colors are perfect.

 

The layers of paint and the patina from age are too lovely. I adore the peach coming through the green and yellow. 

But what to do with it?

Benches seemed to be the only thing but there were two sticking points that kept me from doing a bench.

•  The uncomfortable straight-up-and-down back

•  Cutting the foot board in half to make arms.

I didn't want to cut any part of this bed.

 

As I said, i think it's too perfect.

Anybody who saw the long-ago post where I tried to decorate with this bed is probably now thinking, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah already. So what's new?'

When I tried decorating with the headboard and foot board the result was a disaster. And that's being kind. It was beastly awful. That's being kind, too. You can see my crazy attempts here.

My mistake was wanting all my treasures on display. I couldn't cull anything.

In the end I used them as a decorative headboard and foot board on our bed, even though it's a king and this set is for a double bed. It was a challenge getting it all to work because there was nothing for the pieces to attach to and we already had a brass headboard.
Heh heh heh. Stubborness won out and I made it work.

Sorta.

 I used cardboard boxes, wood planks, brackets, 4 x 4s, clamps and a good dose of ugly. It stayed that way for a couple years. It was a rickety solution at best and either the headboard or foot board would fall sideways. One leg of the headboard wiggled off the wood plank and punctured down into the cardboard box. Putting it back together was hard. It was heavy and awkward trying to maneuver everything without moving the bed. And the bed was way too heavy to budge.


But the bench idea was always in the back of my mind. Finally, I came across a woodworking blog showing the foot board in front, upside down.

Why didn't I think of that?

So I attacked the bench idea with Mr Bad's help.

On the left side of this photo you can see one of my engineering marvels.

We used the blanket chest as a stand-in seat and brainstormed how to get the back rest to a comfortable angle.

After I took the blocks off it started looking pretty good. I

don't know when I'll find the time ....

but when I do, I think I'll build a bench.

Linking to
villa barnes
knick of time
niftyt hrifty things
domestically-speaking
diy by design
the dedicated house

Back in the saddle again - the primitive little kitchen cabinet

 I used up all the seat in my 2nd-hand recliner within weeks. I was sitting on springs. Okay, so that's why it was for sale on Craigslist. I get that. The hunt began for used-recliner-number-two. I never thought of myself as a recliner girl but having to elevate both legs changed all that. My feet and ankles would look like Fred Flintstone feet. 

I set myself up on the sofa with pillows, cold packs, remote, iPad and waited for the swelling to go down. Then I couldn't get up. There wasn't room to prop myself up on my elbows. I couldn't swing my legs over because my broke femur caused too much agony. My walker was out of reach. And while I was wearing a Life Alert, I didn't want to call and say I was laying on the couch and couldn't get up. Seriously.

Suddenly I was Recliner Girl and on the prowl for #2.

  

With a friend, I went to look at this little cutie. (No overstuffed, over-big recliners for me. It had to be CUTE!)

We went to look at this (dark areas are wet from test cleaning):

And wound up looking at this as well:

My motto is: Ask if there is anything else they might consider selling. 

 

The little cupboard was up in the seller's garage attic. I couldn't go up there because of my walker but my girlfriend did and she took pictures. I asked them to bring it down for me. Want want want.

The baby-boy-blue was bad enough but someone had put wallpaper on all the panels and someone else had tried to tear it off. The old, exposed glue attracted dirt and bug parts and was kinda disgusting.

Dawn and hot water took off the wallpaper and glue. Clorox cleaner took off the rest of the dirt, and sanders smoothed it all out.

Before:

Inspection:

After:

 

The cupboard has already sold!.

And the recliner got a new home:

 

•  •  •  •  •  •

linking to:

knick of time
diy by design
villa barnes
the dedicated house

Geez, I'm a bozo

First off, let me say I have never dropped my cell phone in the toilet. Okay?
So I'm not a complete bozo.

I have a girlfriend who saves emails from me that make her laugh. And many times I have thought when she reads them back, "but that wasn't funny, that was
what happened!"

So Bozo Stories was born, and I'll drop one in now and then.

One can only shake their head.

The disappearing green dresser

Seriously, I barely had time to look at it.

We put this dresser and two night tables in the booth and the dresser sold the next day, with the nightstands right behind it.

Wow, and this was like my maiden voyage after breaking my leg. Picture in your mind: me thunking around, painting this while using a walker. It was challenging.

I don't know why I didn't have the mirror put on before taking pictures.
So, imagine a large, pretty mirror on there. Nice, huh?

I mixed the color from what I had on hand and I added chalk the second time I painted the top. Because I didn't sand enough, the laminate was too slick for paint to stick to.

YES, I sanded it. sheesh. I just did a really rotten job. I was in a walker, for Pete's sake.

 sigh

I was able to rub the paint off the entire top. The drawers were sanded by a girlfriend. Thank goodness I wasn't sanding the entire thing. I shudder to think.

For the accent trim, I wanted to be subtle instead of painting a coordinating color. I tried a few things but ended up using silver metallic wax. The photo doesn't to it justice.

At the same time we painted these nightstands.

I almost passed these up because I thought they were press board and laminate, then I tried moving one and that baby was heavy! So I looked closer and they were hardwood. Beat-to-crap hardwood, but none the less. But why would anyone paint something to look like laminate?

Aside from the warped and broken top (above) there were a couple pieces either chewed up or missing. I fixed all that and set my visiting girlfriend on painting them.

I didn't take pictures because we've almost all seen the dread tannins from Mahogany. Still, we watched with dread as our white paint turned pink.
Kilz primer fixed all that, then the white "chalk-like paint" was reapplied.
The pulls were painted Oil-Rubbed Bronze, the tops were painted with Fat Paint black mixed with craft paint brown.

 Some distressing - I had put wax on at the very start.

The small things.

 

My wild turkey buddy was hanging out.

 

 

The finished nightstands are at a new home.
 

Bad Rabbit is back, with the burning question, Should it Stay or Should it Go?

Few things slow you down like a broken femur.

It's been a looong four months. I'm not totally healed yet but I don't have to use a walker any,ore.

Hallelujah!

Now that I have a cane I can go to garage sales again. And going to garage sales means buying furniture, right? And what happens when you have too much furniture?
Something has to go. At my house any new thing starts a chain reaction: this will go here, that mean's that has to go over there, and now that has to go ..... out the door.

I can't decide because I want everything and an addition to the house to put it in. So I need help.
Let's have a vote:

Should it stay or should it go?

A low table from France.

Apothecary cabinet

 Small primitive cabinet

Deceon"s bench

Vote now!

 

Sharing with 
miss mustard seed

The little blue toy table

Yes, yes, I AM taking a break, as I said in my last post. This is one of those random posts.

First off, I realize that people are assuming that cancer is the reason for me taking down time. Oh no, it's much worse than that. I was in a car crash and broke my femur. Later I'll write a post about my 15 fun-filled days in the hospital and how I've grown to love my walker. And my Grabber - one of man's greatest inventions! Who knew?

Meanwhile, let's look at furniture. I can only work on small things now, so I decided to put a transfer on this little table. This table really was found in pieces at the back of a barn. My barn. I ran across it when I was looking for hardware and looking in all the boxes. There it was, legs taken off, one leg broke in two. I have no idea where it came from or when.

There is no before picture...... again. But you can pretty much see what it looked like pre-transfer.....

because I didn't sand or paint the table. After I fixed the broken leg and put the table together, I thought it looked perfect as it was. So authentic!

Beautiful

We lovers of milk paint strive hard to get this patina.

 I love how the paint has chipped away to show old paint colors and two colors of wood.

Here we have the finished table with the transfer.

The chippy paint texture showed right through.

Even big areas showed through.

My learning-curve moment.

I spent a bunch of time with colored pencils pumping up the red in the spring horse, and deepening the shadows. Then when I applied clear wax all that work wiped away. I decided to just let it go. The horse would just have to be as it was.

However, not wanting that to happen again, I got online to my favorite art website, Dick Blick, and ordered oil-based colored pencils. I'm hoping that's the answer.......

Sidebar:

The image is my own photography. i sell digital downloads of my images, some of which can be seen on etsy.

 Folded down neatly.

So the new table joins the other little blue tables that I can't seem to part with.

What to do, what to do....... I think the one in the far left of the photo will be the one I keep. I painted it a few years ago and couldn't bring myself to sell it. Since then whenever I approach it with a tag I get the screaming heeby-geebies and can't do it. Although I occasionally have it on etsy at some ridiculously high price that no one would pay. They would have to love the table as much as I do.

I have a couple more little tables coming up.

Linking to:
shabby nest
miss mustard seed
french country cottage