Change is good...

....or so they tell me.  I'm not crazy about change, but I've sure seen my share of it in my lifetime.  So I didn't quite make Sunday, but I'm 'close'... workin' on it!

Anyway, that's another story.  This story is about my recent living room change.  I've lived in this house for almost 28 years and there haven't been too many changes during that time.

I've had two 'vintage' (nice word for old) chairs against one wall in my living room for a number of years.  They came out of my mother's house and while they served a purpose, they didn't necessarily serve the one I wanted at this stage of my life.  Couldn't find a picture of both of the chairs, but this gives you an idea.  The other chair is this one's twin and sits to the left on the other side of the cute little yellow table.  BTW, that's my cute granddaughter sitting in one.

So what did I change - the chairs have been moved upstairs, the clover table to Ariel's left is now in the office and the cute yellow table has traded places with another table on the other side of the room.  The fan has gone to fan heaven.

And, in the place of the chairs..... drum roll please.... is a comfty futon that I can lay down on if I get tired and want to lay down to watch tv without going to bed.

The futon is a story in itself.  I've had the frame for years.  We originally bought it used, for my office years ago.  It lived in there for quite a number of years, then moved to my sewing room, then moved to storage when I got a nicer futon for that room.  Bear in mind, each time it moved to a different place it had to be completely disassembled - it wouldn't fit through my doors assembled.  It's really a pretty frame - metal with 'sleigh' ends.

So, when I made this momentous decision that I wanted a sofa/futon/bed - something - in my living room I remembered the frame.  Now, I'm cheap (I actually prefer frugal, but...) so even cheap sofas they were more than I wanted to spend.

On top of that - this was a job what was definitely above my pay grade.  Enter Jeff (my oldest son).  Now, he lives a gazillion miles away in St. Louis, but he does come to Alabama every few months to check on me.  So, on his next visit we checked out the frame and found what we thought were all the pieces (turns out they were all there).  And, made a trip to Big Lots where I bought a new mattress - not the best one, but not the lowest priced one either.

The color wasn't anything I was real excited about - actually a beige about the same as my love seat, but I fixed that with a green sheet.  Add lots of pillows, rearranged a couple of tables and I have achieved an acceptable look.

It's actually pretty comfortable and I may just enjoy it some later today.  You understand that I don't get to lay on it alone.  Koda is always happy to keep me company.🐕💖🙂

Coffee table is finished

... and I'm officially out of the furniture refinishing business.  I'm TIRED of painting furniture.  One table wouldn't have been so bad, but of course, I had to get carried away and do 3 pieces.

Aside from the 'hunt' to find the tables (several months actually), I started the first one on January 19 and the coffee table was moved into my living room late yesterday (February 8).  Almost 3 weeks.

My coffee table actually has 'sage green' legs - they don't show nearly true color in the photo.  I used a fabric swatch of my drapes and had the paint matched to that.

In case you missed the original post - here's what it looked like when I started... pretty ratty and scratched up - but all wood and quite solid.

So, I sanded... gave it 2 coats of primer (then curing for 7 days), 3 coats of sage green on the legs and skirt, 2 coats of stain on the top, then 3 coats of polyacrylic on the top.  In case you're counting - that's TEN COATS of some sort of paint, with all the waiting/curing time time between each one which means it wasn't a quick project!  I don't understand how they do this kind of stuff so quickly on HGTV.  Oh wait!  It's TV, right?

And, here's the inspiration photo (which did come from HGTV):

And here's what it looks like altogether:

I considered doing the coffee table in yellow (did I mention, I love yellow?), but decided to use the green.  I'm really pleased with the results - but I did get pretty tired of painting stuff.    (note - that's a cat on arm of love seat, and dog sitting on love seat... though he does like his new dog bed.)

Refinishing furniture

Found a great idea online to create a cute dog bed from an old end table.  FINALLY found the old table - really ratty and beat up, but that's okay.  Actually found a second (very different) table about the same time and decided to use both of them - after all, my love seat does have two ends.

Here's the original idea - I love it.

I still have to choose the fabric for the inside.  Looks like I'd better get busy with that.

Anyway, thought I'd have to wait a bit to start work on them but yesterday turned out to be a pretty, and relatively warm day - so I dashed out to Lowe's, got my supplies and got started.

Sanding was first.  Well, no that's not actually correct.  FINDING the sander was first.  Son finally found it in hubby's shop.  (The shop is such a mess it's difficult to find anything - we've GOT to clean it up - but that's another story.)  My patience level is zip and I'd probably have given up and bought another on... so I'm especially thankful that he found it.  Of course, there was sandpaper galore - hubby always had plenty of everything.

Took the entire project outside as I didn't want fine powdery dust over everything in the garage (the shop is in too big a mess to work in there - oh yeah, think I mentioned that).  So, got the sanding done.  (Yes, I wore a dust mask.)  I hate sanding! 

This is the table as I bought it - you can't really tell, but it's REALLY rough and beat up. Found it on Craigslist for next to nothing.

After sanding - but before cleaning.

This is the second one - has a little drawer in the top and then a file drawer in the bottom.  One can never have too many drawers to put "stuff" in - right?  Got this one at an antique mall - also really cheap.  This picture is before any sanding or anything.

Cleaned all the fine dust off both tables and moved everything back inside (well, son moved everything back inside).  Got the original idea table up on saw horses and applied primer.  Now, this table doesn't look very big, but there's LOTS of wood surface so that took awhile.

It's been drying overnight and now son has switch the tables and I've just finished putting prime on the second one this afternoon. Then they need to cure for 7 days before first coat of paint is applied.

When I was younger, I loved doing this sort of thing... (except the sanding - I always hated that part) but my back is still bothering me from yesterday, and I have body parts that hurt that I'd forgotten I have.  And you know - it's not like I really needed any more furniture in my house.  But, I've been slowly morphing my living room into something different for a couple of years now and I think I'm gonna like these little tables.

It's a good thing I didn't have room to work on both of them at the same time though or I probably wouldn't be able to walk. 

More on this project later...