before and after - tv corner

In my post yesterday I totally forgot to include a picture of our TV situation before we upgraded to the new dresser. Because it took so long to finish this dresser I will have to milk it for as many posts as I can ;) This and the fact that my week was pretty hectic and exhausting again, with no time to prepare a post for today, gave me the idea to just show you before and after shots of our TV corner.

Looking forward to catching up on sleep this weekend and volunteering at the Open House New York Weekend again. Hopefully I will be able to share my experience with you again within the upcoming weeks. Have an awesome weekend!

ikea dollhouse furniture

On Wednesday I browsed the new section on the IKEA website and one of the first things I saw was this set of tiny dollhouse furniture. So cute! I want it even though I don't need it. All items that are part of this set are from IKEA's regular sized furniture collection.

Happy Friday and hope you get to enjoy the long weekend! I will have to start clearing out the guest bedroom as it has become more of a storage room lately, in order to store some of the stuff away I will have to reorganize the basement. Sounds like fun...not! Do you have plans for the long weekend?

1. lack side table 2. klippan sofa 3. expedit shelf 

4. stockholm rug 5. pillow 6. ikea ps lounge chair

waiting for the new ikea catalog

My mailbox is longing for the newest IKEA catalog to come out. The time is finally here and I am counting the days until I will hold it in my hands until then you can already check out the online version.  I do not know why I keep waiting for this day every year but it has been like this for quite a while, I even kept a lot of my catalogs over the years. Since 2007 I have kept all of them, not that I really have browsed through them in the past years but I always feel giddy flipping through the new catalog for the first time and I will immediately pick my favorite pieces and dream about redecorating the house. Of course I will not buy many items but a girl can dream, right? This year the walnut veneer pieces from the Stockholm 2013 (available in the US in August) collection really speak to me or the yellow nightstand, you all know that I cannot resist yellow. And what about the green velvet sofa? It looks comfortable and might age well. Are you waiting with me for the new catalog to come out? 

Enjoy your weekend! Stay cool!

street find turned sweet find

I know most of you remember the Saarinen chair I found in the streets of Jersey City last year and I already gave you a little peek of the finished chair on Instagram. Here is the story how I found it. P and I were on our way to visit friends to have a spontaneous bbq last summer, on our way we stopped at a liquor store to pick up some beer. While I was waiting outside the store with our bikes I spotted the chair about half a block away. It got me so excited but I was also afraid somebody else would snatch it up before I could get to it. Luckily nobody did and I grabbed it. I pushed my bike with one hand and the chair with the other to our friends place which was only one or two blocks away. I made a happy dance when I found out the Knoll tag was still in place and also found a Met Life Insurance Co. inventory sticker underneath the seat as well. Somebody was probably sitting in this chair working on insurance claims, or selling insurance or something like that. In September I started my second upholstery class and it was finally time to work on the chair. When I took off the old vinyl fabric I got hit by a mildewy smell, the chair must have been sitting out in the rain and the foam never dried completely for a long time. So I did what everybody in my situation would do and soaked the backrest and seat in a water and bleach solution in our tub, as well as one round in a vinegar and water solution and let it air dry in the sun. After the pieces were dry they didn't smell anymore and the re-upholstery could begin. Unfortunately I didn't finish the chair in the last class but I started another class in February and last week I finally finished it. Love how it turned out, it is such a big departure from the sad ripped and somewhat flesh colored chair I started with.

Have a great weekend my friends! I have some more painting planned for this weekend (bar cart and side table), I am on a roll right now and need to take advantage of it to get as much done as possible. There will be times ahead when I do not feel like doing much on the weekends. On Sunday I will be visiting a friend in Connecticut I haven't seen in forever. Looking forward to a fun weekend. Do you have any plans?

estate sale finds - lane acclaim table

Since I already found so many treasures at estate sales I thought I would share them with you in a series of posts. So far I have only showed a piece here and there on Instagram. Actually I wrote about my very first estate sale I attended with Santa last year in September. Since then I have attended a bunch more and became quite obsessed with the hunt for hidden treasures. One of the treasures I found is this Lane Acclaim coffee table, which was sitting in a basement covered in dust. Even though it was pretty rough around the edges I liked the details and the size of the table. Because I did not want to refinish the table I used the trusted method from Morgan of The Brick House to refresh vintage wood. I tried it out previously on other pieces, the first one was the desk I found on my way to work. My coffee table had some kind of varnish finish so I was afraid of sanding it lightly as suggested and instead used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to scrub of the grime, after a good scrub I followed Morgan's instructions. Once I was finished I gave myself a pat on the shoulder for making this table pretty again. Of course the coffee table does not look like a new piece of furniture now but I do not mind that it has dings and other imperfections. It is a piece with history, that has been sitting in someones living room about 50 years ago and I love it for exactly those reasons.

Happy weekend y'all! Do you have any fun plans lined up? The main thing I have planned is to finish the gray dresser, that some of you might have seen on Instagram and in Mondays weekly recap...

rocking around the christmas tree - eames rocking chair

If you have followed this blog for a while or my Instagram you already know that I have a thing for chairs. Most of the time I find them on the street but sometimes there are great bargains on Ebay as well. Back in September I snapped up an Eames upholstered armchair shell on ebay for 20 something bucks and knew right away I wanted to turn it into a rocking chair because I always dreamed about having a rocking chair for our home. The chair arrived in great condition, the fabric only has some minor wear and tear and the foam underneath is still in great shape. The only thing missing were legs or a rocker base. Of course I searched Ebay for that as well and bought a reproduction rocking base from Modern Conscience and once it arrived I assembled the beauty. Now the chair is living in our bedroom, which sometimes turns it into a catch all for clothes but we are working on keeping the chair clothes free. For the last photos I had to throw a sheepskin on the chair because everything looks better with a sheepskin on it and it feels so cozy sitting on one too.

I am looking forward to a long holiday weekend and a short week in between the holidays but I will be back blogging next week as usual...

Have a happy weekend!

 

ikea ps 2012

As you might now from reading this blog I have an affinity for IKEA. This year it is time again for a new IKEA PS collection, which will hit stores in Europe on May 1st and US stores in August. Love the colorful pieces as I'm getting more and more out of my black, white and gray color rut. I definitely need to have the candle holder and the polka dot pillow case. Can't wait for the items to arrive at my local store. What are your favorite pieces from this collection or IKEA in general?

p's new desk

Now that my office is making progress we started working on P's working area as well. 

The desk I found on craigslist for free sometime in the summer and it was sitting in our kitchen for the longest time waiting for us to be moved somewhere more convenient. From the picture on craigslist you couldn't tell if it was real wood or just plastic laminate and the lady who gave it away didn't know. It turned out to be plastic laminate but I still liked the lines of the desk as well as the skinny legs and the hardware. Since the laminate was beat up in so many places I decided to paint the desk. I had seen RustOleum countertop paint for plastic laminate countertops at Home Depot and thought I could give it a try. P chose the color pewter and I started painting it. The paint has a pretty strong odor and is super sticky but rolling it on was nice and easy. After a couple of coats I decided I was done and let it dry for a couple of days. In the meantime I spray painted the hardware black. I have to say I like the outcome (P does too) and only time will tell how good the paint will hold up. 

As you can see in the after shot more changes are afoot and I hope I can give you an update soon...

Happy hump day!

 

grandma's sewing box

This sewing box from the 50ies or 60ies used to be my grandmother's. She didn't need it anymore and gave it to me because I had been admiring it for a looong time. It is like a treasure trove, some of the things inside must be around 50 years old...I don't think I'll ever need to buy yarn, buttons or sewing needles ever again in my life. Now I just need to start to learn how to sew ;)

I brought the box over as my carry on luggage on the last flight back from Germany. Luckily the legs can be detached. Of course I emptied out any sharp object, which I put in the checked bag...


Do you have any treasures you inherited from family members?

new (old) dresser

I discovered this dresser on craigslist last week. P picked it up after work one night and it is sitting in our basement right now. The paint was already pretty beat up so I decided to strip one corner to be able to see if there would be some nice wood under the coat of paint. It was and because the paint was coming off so easily I started stripping the whole dresser. I am nowhere near finished but it's a good start.

The rest of the weekend was really productive and we got a lot of things done:

*painted the front door (not quite finished - will update soon)
*put up our new house numbers
*hung the new mailbox
*checked out our local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores for a desk, sadly didn't find anything
*prepped all door frames, baseboards and window frames in the upper hallway for paint

chair progress

Another chair update - I have finally gotten around to sanding the backrest/armrest piece after gluing the cracks back together as good as possible. All the cracks have been filled with stainable wood filler wherever needed that I mixed with wood dust from sanding the piece. On the pictures I circled the most obvious crack. Still need to sand it once more with fine grit sandpaper and it will be ready to get the finishing touches.

The natural wood looks so good I haven't made the decision if I should stain or just oil the wood. Wood stains on hand are Minwax Dark Walnut and Jacobean. Maybe I should try to achieve a similar look to my Eames DCM dining chair?

Once I finished the backrest I can start looking for a nice fabric to match...

kitchen island chairs

Another small project got crossed of the list this past weekend. Yay! It only took me about three months to finish which is kind of ridiculous because it was such a small task. I started out pretty motivated and primed the unfinished chairs right when we purchased them but then nothing happened for a while...Finally I painted the chairs banana yellow by Benjamin Moore on Saturday.

On the last picture you can see one of our next projects - a cover panel for our kitchen island.