Sorry about yesterday guys. I didn't think my dentist appointment would take it out of me like it did. I'm usually pretty good about dental work. Not this time.

Not to get into too much detail, don't want to go TMI, ya know, but I have inherited gum disease from my darling mother. :) Thanks Ma! Not.  I had to have scaling done. Yesterday was the final half of my mouth to get done, and boy did it take it out of me. I don't know why. I couldn't feel a lot of, but the sound. Oh the sound. I hate the sound of metal against my teeth. Its like nails on a chalkboard. I think I cringed the whole appointment, and if I wasn't cringing then I was wringing strangling my hands. Not. A. Fan.

So anyways, after my appointment the only thing I wanted to do was pass out, so the hubs graciously let me sleep the entire time that H was down. He'd gone down for his nap about 20 minutes before I got home, and then let me sleep for the next 3 hours - you have to love when the baby sleeps for 3.5 hours. I felt a lot better when I woke up. Not 100%, but at least 90%.

Today, however, I am 110%. I got up at 5:55 this morning with Harrison, and we had some nice time together before Dev joined us. We had breakfast, we chatted it up, I told him to get over himself. :)

Then while I was walking the dog, I decided to snap some pictures of the awesome thrifty find I talked about on Monday. At least until she got herself tangled under the car. I don't know how she did this, but suffice to say she's an idiot. A cute idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

So here are the shots of the thrifty find and the next project in the list. :)

There is a mirror with this dresser. Its a lovely harp shape and the mirror swings. The dresser looks like its an old dressing table.

Want to know the best part about this piece? It cost me $53. Amazing right? And there's more! All of the profit from this piece went to benefit people with disabilities. Cool, right? I think so. :)  As you can also see the garage is a MESS right now. There are like 8,000 projects going on in there right now.

This poor darling also needs some good TLC. I'm thinking of stripping her down and pickling her, and then adding some glass knobs to the drawers. What do you guys think? She'll end up in our guest room. The current dresser in there will be refinished and then I'll put that one up for sale. :)

So here's the next project on the list. Stephen is actually hounding me to get this one done, but there's one small problem.
He's using the new TV console as a stacking area for the bookshelves he's putting in his study, which I still haven't shown you. I'll get there. :) Makes it a little difficult to get the piece ready for paint and stain. I've already run some liquid sander on her, but I forget why I stopped after that. Oh yea....I started working on the Faux Bois Nightstands. :)
 The cabinet is a good height. Small hands will not be able to reach the electronics, which will actually go on the top of the unit. I don't mind having them in plain sight. I can always build a riser over them to put stuff.
 Look at all the detail on this thing. I hate the color, but love all the moulding work. I'm painting the body of this piece and then the top will get stained a nice walnut color. I'm hoping that I can stain the top. There is some damage to it, and I'm hoping its not veneered. We'll see when I strip it! Oh and I got this little number for $63 at the Salvation Army on 25% off Wednesdays! Love me a sale. :)

So that's the next big project on the list. I have things I want to sew and a few other small projects. Wow, the list is still growing. Oh well. I guess I better get started.

See you guys tomorrow! I can't wait. :)

Heather

So I haven't had a good haul while out scouring the thrift shops lately.

I don't know why, and it kind of makes me sad.

My luck has apparently changed though, which makes me super happy.

I've scored at two different shops in the last month and I'm going to share the latest haul with you.

Its  not a big haul. I small one. One item. But then I'm going to share something the hubs bought for me, cause he's awesome like that. :)

So here's the hubs gift.
Isn't it perfect? For me, at least? :) He was shocked that I wanted it and that I put it in the kitchen, but I love the grubbiness of the sign, and the phrase is oh so true. :)
I wanted to put this sign above our cabinets, but it was too big. :( I need to put a sign up there, but it'll have to wait till I find perfection. I hate that masterpieces take forever to complete.

However, I did find something to put above the cabinets. She's perfect. She has a gleaming personality, albeit a little dented here and there.
 LOVE!!! I found this copper beaut at the Salvation Army store for $12, but I went on Wednesday and got her for $9. :) Love 25% discount day.
 Just look at all her texture! I love the hammered look.
 She's copper all the way through. She weighs a small ton.
And now she sits atop my cabinet, but I'm not sure if she'll stay there or not. She kind of blends. Wouldn't a small wildflower bouquet look precious with her? I do. She may have to come down from that perch.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed my finds. Have you been shopping lately? Find anything good? Tell me about it. :) I like to chat.

Tomorrow - I may share the other find. Maybe.

TTFN!
Heather

So we know that terrariums are still big decorating items. Pottery Barn uses them all the time in their advertising, and they're all GORGEOUS!

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So I mentioned last week that my 1 year blog birthday is coming up. It's Friday! Can you believe it? I can't. A year seems so long at the outset, but then when you finish it you're kind of left going.....well...where'd it go?

Luckily, we can go back and see where this year has gone, but before I do that I wanted to share with you guys how great Overstock.com is! I'm certain that I don't have to tell you guys, but here are just a few of the things you can get from there....and if you pay attention you may notice a theme. ;-)

{Mr. Movie Voice Guy} In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue....and discovered the Caribbean! Two weeks ago, I went to an auction and found Dev a new bed. {/end Mr. Movie Voice Guy}

Ok so that didn't rhyme or really roll off the tongue, but it's Columbus Day, so I had to add the bit about Mr. Columbus. :)

Well, this project was both a joy to do and a PITA. Joy because the bed was fun to work on, and I was so excited to give Dev the bed that he has wanted for a while. PITA because the older two males in the house were chomping at the bit to have it done, and one of them was even aghast at the recoat time of oil paint (24 hours). Sigh.

**Updated to include some previous pictures!**

I have waited all week to put this up, and I am so excited!

Saturday I went to my very first auction with my grandparents! The auction was down in Fluvanna County, so I went down Friday night and spent the night, because my grandfather wanted us to leave the house at 7:30.

We got a slightly later start, but by 8 we were all piled into his 1980 GMC Sierra. That truck is older than me!

Sorry about the blurriness, but the truck, or maybe it was the road, was a bit rough riding. :)

It didn't take long to get to the farm where the auction was being held. It was an estate auction and the farm had once been a dairy farm with a canning operation, and the family never through anything out. Yay!

Well it's finally cooling off here in Northern VA....and thank goodness! I was very sick of those 90+ days.

So in honor of our cooler days and the fact that September is upon us, I made up another wreath. I like my autumn wreath, but its a little too 'autumn' for right now. I mean its gorgeous out, but the leaves aren't turning quite yet, so I didn't want to put up a wreath full of full-on autumn colors yet. So I stopped by the Dollar Store and picked up my materials, but once I sat down to make the wreath I decided that I did not like my wreath form, so out came the rope!

I wrapped the wreath form with the rope, gluing every few wraps. Then I just started cutting the flowers just below the bloom and gluing them down. After I had gotten most of the flowers set, I started on the greenery. Then it all just came together.

I have to admit that I almost titled this post Coup de Grace, which is not what this post is about. I am not delivering a death blow to anything...other than the spider I found in my sewing room this morning, but I digress. Death is the exact opposite of what I want to allude to. Love. Love is what I want to convey. The feeling of euphoria when you find that perfect whatever.

coup de coeur

loving something impulsively. 

to buy something just because you love it on first sight.

to fall for something or somebody. 

So my love that I found has now been in my house for 2 weeks, and the spark is still there. I am talking about the newest addition to my dining room, a lovely buffet!

So 8 years ago, my husband and I started dating, then after a while we moved in together, and I disliked most of his furniture. So we set about buying new furniture that we both liked. Enter Barewoods Furniture. They had a mission style table set that I liked, and for 4 pieces it was $300 or so. One hitch...they were unfinished. Well even back in the day, I said I can finish it. So I did, and I hated it. Polyshades by Minwax was a new product back then, and between a combination of inexperience, conflicting advice about how stains should be applied and not doing the proper prep work I did not like the finish on the new tables. They only lasted about 8 months until I stripped them down and refinished them. I am proud to say, however; that the tables are still in use with that 2nd refinishing still looking pretty darn good. :)

I know this is an old picture but there are 2 of the tables that I refinished.

When it rains, it pours.
Thank goodness I love to dance in the rain....one of the only places you'll see me do it too :)

After brutally attacking my hem gauge the other day, my scissors, rotary cutter and cutting mat have all decided to retaliate. Today's post was supposed to be a tutorial on how to make a powder puff pillow. Yea, that's not going to happen, because it's still in 2 pieces. Also doesn't help that I don't have a black zipper....sigh.

While no magic spell will transform a trashcan into anything other than a receptacle for holding whatever, we can pull out our magic craft sticks and transform it into something pretty.

So here is our first volunteer!  She isn't much to look at, but she's got potential!

So Saturday was uber-busy for us, but I want to tell you about it anyway. As most of bloggy-land knows Saturday was the day of the Luckett's Spring Fair and I was going. Come hell or high water. Despite the fact that at 1 o'clock Dev had a game and at 4 o'clock we were having a pot-luck of finger foods with about 22 of our friends and family. I figured that if Mom and I got out of the house by 8 (Lucketts is about 45 minutes from me) then we'd have plenty of time to get there, browse and then be home by noon, because Dev's game was in Manassas and it'd take me at least 20 minutes to get there.

Yea, none of that plan happened. I didn't wake up early, because H decided that he'd sleep till 7, but we still made it out of the house by 9....I still figured we could have some fun. So up Rt. 15 we went. We got sidetracked though. By a pink and black polka-dotted silo and a handwritten poster board sign that said antiques. I stopped. I couldn't help myself. :) We never did  make it to the Spring Fair at Luckett's. We drove by saw the crowd and said....ehhhh, not gonna happen. We got sidetracked on the way home by Michael's and Dev missed his game, because I didn't get home until 1. Ooooops. :)

Here's the take I ended up with:

The effect is nice, and exactly what I wanted, but yea...not gonna happen.

So this weekend I had a major minor setback with the room. I was doing some stenciling, and there was no way I could finish it by myself, ever. If I had super powers, then maybe I would have been able to finish it. Scaffolding probably would have helped also.


I spent two hours and got 9 repeats done of this stencil. I was working on my bed, because I figured that if I got dizzy and fell {and I did get dizzy} it would at least be soft, but then I remembered that I was holding a wet paint roller. Doh! Oh well, at least I never fell or accidentally painted the wall/ceiling. So that's good, I suppose.

Sorry for the picture, but I was lying down, face up on my bed for this.

I did, however, think of another option for my stenciling dilemma and it arrived today. So excited!

Here's another project for my master bedroom. The wall space above the vanity needed something spectacular. Its a big space and that poor vanity was being a little overwhelmed, but not any longer! As all of us know, large mirrors are expensive, and I, frankly, did not want to fork out the cash for one. I wanted a mirror that was as big, or almost as big, as the top of the vanity and square. With only an idea in tow, its off to Lowe's I go. :) So on to the show!

I didn't know it at the time, but Pottery Barn also had a similar idea. :) Here's theirs:
and my finished product. I like mine better....especially since mine did not cost $249.00

I'm just including this little guy because he lives under our air handler, and I didn't know that until today. :)

Well, I am just going to have to admit it. There is no way on this green Earth that I am going to finish the bedroom this weekend. Part of the reason is because I have not yet even begun to paint our dressers, and the mirror projects one mirror project is being a pain. The other reason is because I have no nightstands. Well, I have our old ones, but I really don't want to use them again, and well, I have no replacements. Sigh.

I do, however; want to share with ya'll what I have gotten done, and marked off my checklist! I wanted something above my headboard, but had no idea what. Art really wouldn't work. I don't know why, but I feel like the only 'art' I want in our room is the art from our life, but I don't really want a family portrait over our headboard. So while I was discussing this dilemma over with Mom, we came up with a solution. A mirror! But then I got the thinking that a mirror is kind of boring and can get pricey. So while we were walking around Ikea, we found an $8 mirror that was the perfect size and proportion, but the frame was lacking. I have a solution for that! I also had another idea for layering some interest. :)  So on to the show!

Trash to treasure is overused don't you think? Which is why I have rescued some garbage :) Ok, so not really garbage, but there was no way this chair was making into my house with the way she looked. The desk, a little beat up, but has some awesome bones. :) So welcome to first real glimpses of my bedroom revamp.

I also need to explain, that while I took pictures of my process, I am in know no way advocating the way I did it, because there are most certainly better ways of creating a slipcover. So on to the show!

Sometimes things are meant to be, unfortunately the first suit was not meant to be. The jacket is not going to fit.....this month. It will fit after I dry up, but apparently that is not going to happen any time soon, maybe I should have brought out the cabbage sooner. :)

The skirt is another issue in and of itself. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that the zipper was not playing nicely, and I have given up trying to make it work. The belt...I'll finish just because it will complete the outfit, but in all reality this suit may just end up donated.