Painted Lady

It seemed wrong to talk about the hutch behind its back. She came to us a hippy horror, wood knobs and all... but free. Yes. Nothing sweeter, and solid, thick, heavy deliciousness that comes with scoring an outdated but quality piece. Her glass was murky greenish-brown, glazed with some kind of awful thick stuff.




















Sand paper, primer, 1 whole gallon of paint (it needed 2) and she was lookin’ pretty good. I couldn’t replace the hinges so we got new knobs to match. She was close, so close. I couldn’t figure out what to do about that u-g-l-y glass. Replacing it would be spendy, but I considered punching a design through thin metal or fabric. When I went to clean the paint off the glass, miracle upon miracle—the glass came clean! Beautiful, clear retro colored glass was hidden by half a century of grime. Really a magical moment. So here’s our painted lady. We’ll be sad to see her go (but love to watch her leave. teehee) Moral of the story? Paint is good, really good.

Dining Desk

We don’t have an office, and won’t anytime soon. My dining room looks like this:

I might be exaggerating a little.

We’re selling our hutch. Though it’s come a long way and we’ve grown to love it, it is completely impractical for our needs. What we need is a desk, that lives in our dining room and doesn’t look like a desk.

Sideboard for dining room, to double as office space. Apothecary inspired?

So the idea is that the side would have a desktop hinged, comes up, dining chair slides underneath and you have an instant desk. Office things are stored in the “sideboard” out of site. Also, maybe one of the drawers is a filing cabinet? And there are drawers at the top for storing table cloths and such. I can keep my polish pottery collection on top (2 pieces is collection right? Well it’s a start) Or on some floating shelves above, maybe real rustic reclaimed looking ones… Okay I’m getting carried away.

So the inside looks a little something like this:







These top drawers are for linens, left is filing cabinet, middle is baskets for office supplies, right is laptop shelves.

Options for the front include apothecary:












OR, and now that I look at it I’m leaning more this way, something a little more modern:















OR we could always go somewhere a little more whimsical like so:

















Well the plan is a little schizophrenic, but I can't build till after we move next month so there is still some time.

Clock, To Buy or Not to Buy...

Last year, I tried to revamp a free clock my husband brought home from the trash seven years ago. I sanded and painted the cromed plastic, but was not in love with the now-even-cheaper-looking clock. I came across this tutorial http://alchemyjunk.blogspot.com/2010/01/pottery-barn-clock.html and had some scrap wood from a corny beach sign I had made from scrap (so this was like re-recycling) and set to work.
I loved the result and felt like quite the artsy lady, but wanted the clock to work. I disassembled free hideous clock, but the mechanism wouldn't fit.


I tried to frankenstien the thing, but ended up drilling throught the back of my masterpiece, trying to fix it and ending up with a goth look that I was not going for in my country dining/living area.


I was in mourning for quite awhile, and shopping for clocks was painful. I finally bought this clock. I know. My husband said "You bought THAT clock?!" He only says half of what he means to so the translation is "Seriously! After a year of not having a clock because you were holding out for the perfect clock, after you made your own clock, after you ruined our perfectly good clock THATS the clock you come home with!?"


Look. A clock mechanism is expensive and I have yet to come up with a good solution for how to make my own clock for less than $50, so this is my next best idea. I love the funky design, but the best part is you can customize it, making it your own "hand-made" item. The white frames have the number printed all over them, and they're magnetic. Once you take one off, the number underneath is paper and you can replace it with anything. The clock itself is metal so I'm envisioning removing the frames alltogether and putting on my own magnetic or vinyl numbers. So for now a clock is definitely a "to buy" item, but making my own operational clock is still on my to do list.