So excited to do this one!

I can't wait.

Well I can, I have to, but oh my.

I went to my Junk store. I had to find a chair spindle. Found that and found something else that made my heart skip a beat. Sitting outside the front door I spotted this amazing cabinet. 

Acting nonchalant I walked in and eventually found the piece I was looking for. Then casually mentioned the radio cabinet and asked him how much he wanted for it. It was after all sitting outside in the snow with no top on it. 

He named his price and I nearly jumped through the roof..good price! 

He said the top was out there and we literally had to dig through the snow to get all the pieces. SCORE! 

I loaded it up and took this baby home with me. 

 The "guts" were already removed so that part of the job was taken care of before I even brought it home. If you've ever done one of these or an old TV, you know how hard it can be to get the guts out.

 This is the top..in three pieces but it's all there! The curves on the front are amazing and I'm so glad we were able to dig it all out :)

 6 awesome legs!

 And curves to absolutely die for!

I haven't even started yet and I'm IN LOVE! 

What have you found lately? 

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The 36th Avenue 
  

What to do when storm stayed at home.

We are in the middle of one of the worst winters I can remember. 

Maybe it just seems bad, but I'm sure a lot of you will agree with me. 

So since I've been stuck inside a LOT, I've had a lot of time to look around my house and do things I've been meaning to do. 

Like my kitchen. Check it out HERE

Then I moved onto the bedroom, redid the furniture and then the walls and the closet and husbands office. I posted a bit about it HERE

Now our bathroom. 

I figured since I was up there anyway...I might as well do that too. 

So this weekend while the storms were passing through and my husband was out of the way (he's sick on the couch downstairs) I tackled the bathroom. 

I didn't get any before pictures, but I grabbed a couple of pictures of the guest bath which has the same cabinets.

 oops...dirty lens

 Very very dark cabinets that collect dust. I'm an anti dust kind of gal and these were/are driving me nuts.

 So I painted them an off white. Did some distressed and painted the mirrors to match.

 I am totally loving the new rustic look.

 Now I have this hutchy type thing that has been sitting in my basement without a use for at least 2 years. Yes I said 2 years. I've always wanted something between the mirrors but could never figure it out. Then I thought of this piece but wasn't sure my hubby would go for it. I know it wouldn't have worked before the paint..but now I'm kinda digging it.

 I put it in place to give it a try...going to let it sit there for a day or two and if I still like it, I will fix it up, paint it and cut it to fit. Would like your opinion on it...would you do it?

 I replaced all the brushed nickle nobs with these wonderful porcelain ones I picked up at hobby lobby. 

 Now It's perfect...well almost.

Now to get some custom orders finished. Crossing my fingers it clears up enough for me to run to town and pick up some supplies. 

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Our Delightful

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Big and Black!

I love custom orders with heart

Seriously I do. When a family comes to me to make over a piece of furniture that has a lot of meaning for them, well it just makes me work even harder to make that piece something they will love for a long time. And hopefully one day they will pass it on to their children.

This buffet and hutch is one of those pieces. 

 When the husband dropped this off he let me know how special this piece is to them. You could tell how attached he is.

 I know it looks a bit rough, but that's because you can't see the people involved and the love in their eyes.

 They wanted to keep it as is..pretty much, but update it to fit better into their home.

 Please excuse the mess of my workshop...but I think that's just what a workshop is...a mess...lol

And here she is...brought into the 21st century! 

 All done in Black! The perfect choice for this classic beauty!

 You see, something doesn't have to be "antique" in order to be pretty :) It just needs to have great bones and lots of love :)

 The hardware was replaced with something that just screams "look at me"!

 The inside was given a splash of colour, and I love it!

 Now I challenge you to go into your home...pick a piece you love for sentimental reasons and see what you can do to bring it up to date with YOUR style. :) 

Update. Quote from the owners
" Pictures do not do this justice I it is so beautiful, I can't even express what an amazing job you did!!!!! Thank you SO much. It's better than I could have ever imagined. I can't express how happy I am!!!!!"

Comments like these are what keeps me going when I have a bad day. 

Now to paint their chairs and table skirt to match :) 

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Working on my bedroom

One of the things I've been wanting to do is work on my house. 

I started with my kitchen. 

You can read about that HERE and HERE and HERE

We decided that we wanted to work on our bedroom which hasn't changed at all since our house was built 6.5 years ago. 

We had terrible dark wood furniture. 

I mean the furniture is beautiful. I absolutely loved it...but it collected every speck of dust that floated in the air. 

I was tired of dusting every other day. 

Ok, maybe not that often, but it certainly needed it every other day. 

Isn't this dresser pretty? The whole bedroom set looked like this. 

Pretty but a pain to keep clean. 

So we decided to lighten it up. 

We painted it grey! I LOVE it now. I glazed the edges and painted the tops red. Then glazed the top as well.

Ohhh still playing with PicMonkey, can you tell I'm having fun with it? :)  See the nasty brown walls? They were great when we had to choose a colour for the builder, but I was really feeling depressed about that colour.

I can't believe the change in the whole feel of the bedroom set. That lovely grey is just perfect now.

I couldn't leave the walls that awful brown...so I changed it to a darker shade of grey. And who would have thought that grey would brighten the room up? Totally ignore that bed coverings. I will get around to replacing that soon enough. But I still work, so it won't get all done overnight, and I'm not going out and buying something just to get something. 

This time I'm waiting till I find "the" perfect piece I can't live without.

The bed was painted to match.

We have this bench sitting at the end of the bed. I love the bench...but the colours are all wrong now. 

Not sure if I should paint the base and switch up the material to this one...or switch out the bench for something else. 

I think I may have to sleep on this one for a while. 

I still have one wall to finish then move onto my hubby's office and then bathroom and hall way.....oyyyy what have I started? 

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Playing with PicMonkey

One of my goals for this year is to start taking better pics. 

I've been using Picasa for years and it's letting me down. Or I'm letting my editing skills down. 

Either way I thought I would play with pic monkey for a bit and see if I like it any better. 

There are pro's and con's to the program

Con- I can't make albums (if I can, please let me know) 

        - if there is a way to add a link..I would like to know that too

Pro's- well there are so many...and it's fun :) 

 I tried to get the lighting better...I seem to be able to do that in a hearbeat, big pro

 overlays are great,

 lots of edging options, but if you want the really cool ones you have to "upgrade" For Cheap umm Frugal people like me, this is a tough pill to swallow

 Again, linking is an issue.

 There is a focus thing in there that I'm just starting to play with, hope my hubby doesn't mind I used him as a guinea pig ;) 

See the difference in lighting? We were both at the same spot on the same day (Virginia mountains) last summer. 

So much to learn, so little time. 

If there is another program you like to use, please let me know, I'm really open to making this blog better :) 

Sharing:
My Romantic Home
French Country Cottage 
Redoux Interiors 
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What I do when I'm supposed to be relaxing.

I've been out of commission for almost a week now.

 It SUCKS! 

No I haven't been sick, but I put my back out badly. Most people have bad lower backs, mine isn't like that at all. I have rib problems. I "pop" my ribs out regularly, this one was one of my worst. Thank goodness for my Chiropractor who fixes me up on short notice. So while I was told to not do anything...and by that I take her to mean I'm not allowed to lift furniture I did manage to finally do something I've been meaning to do for over a year now. You see about a year and a half ago I bought a wonderful coffee table with matching end tables. I painted and distressed the bottom of them but left the tops as they were till we figured out exactly what we wanted to do with them. This is what I started with.

 Don't mind the dust on there, I quickly snapped a picture before I forgot.

 I love the detailing on it and I'm still very much in love with the white. It fits perfectly with what we have done to other pieces in our home.

 But the top was that stupid "paper" veneer. So stripping it and restaining it was not an option. 

So we already knew painting was the way to go. We finally picked a red we loved and decided to go with a black glaze over it.

 I think it was the perfect choice for these pieces.

 Thought I would play with the light a bit...but I'm not happy with the way the pics turned out.

 What I do love is the way the tables did turn out. 

Now I'm back to normal and I'm allowed to get back to my workshop. 

Ohhh I'm thrilled with that, and I promised my husband I would start going to the Chiro on a more regular basis to avoid the pain I was in over last weekend and earlier in this week. 

Health really isn't something I should play around with. 

I'm such a bad patient. I know it. 

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