Victorian Chair Makeover

A few months ago my MIL brought over a victorian chair that she had in storage.  While I was cleaning it, the top part fell off and shattered on the floor.  I was originally planning on keeping the chair natural, but since I had to piece it back together with wood glue and putty, I decided I should probably paint.

When the wood glue and putty dried, I lightly sanded to even out the texture of the chair.  I didn't prime before spraypainting (I used Valspar's Exotic Sea Gloss) because I didn't mind if some of the wood coloring of the chair seeped through for a more antique look.

The cushion was full of hay and wool and was fastened to the wooden seat with rusty nails, which definitely had to go.  I padded the wooden seat with couple of foam chair cushions from Ikea that I cut to size and stapled a heavy batting over it.  I then cut the fabric to size and used my upholstery gun to finish off the seat.

How cute is the rose detailing?!

Taking the Hot Tub Out of the Sunroom

This past weekend my dreams came true - the hot tub was removed from the sunroom all in one piece even if it meant taking apart the room.  As you can see from this previous post, we never used the hot tub or the sunroom so it was wasted space in our house.

In less than four hours, Tim's dad, along with his contractor friend, and Tim tackled taking down a wall, moving the hot tub out, and putting the wall back up.  Here's how it went down:

The windows, interior panels, and side of the house including siding came off:

 

 

 The hot tub was lifted onto wheels and rolled down a DIY ramp system:

After the hot tub was removed from the room, everything was quickly put back together and the room now looks like this:

The next step is to replace the flooring, paint, and add bead-board onto the ceiling.

Getting Rid of the Pool & Dream Patio Plans

Last summer we opened our pool and didn't use it at all, so this past Spring we got rid of it.  We posted an ad on craigslist and got a ton of responses with offers before people even saw the pool.  We wanted it gone fast because we didn't want to waste our money on chemicals to open and maintain the pool and let's face it, we couldn't leave it looking like this all summer:

View of the pool from our deck

The guy we ended up selling the pool to had taken down and put up pools in the past which definitely was a plus because we had no idea where to begin.  So on one Spring Sunday, Tim and his dad, along with the pool purchaser dismantled the pool.  This is what our backyard currently looks like:

Currently, our bare area in the back yard is being used as a giant litterbox by neighborhood cats.  Yup, I'm totally serious.  One night when we were admiring our pool-less yard, we spotted three cats in there at the same time.  Our future plans for this space include a stone patio with built-in fire pit, which we will most likely do ourselves to cut down on costs.  Some inspiration photos:

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DIY Burlap Pin Cushion Board

When we moved in, the prior owners left a cork bulletin board above our little desk area in the kitchen.  It wasn't really our style, but we left it there untouched for a while.  Rather than throw it out, I re-purposed it into a large pincushion board that I could hang on the wall in my sewing nook that's currently in progress.

It was super easy to do.  First, using my upholstery gun, I stapled a layer of thick batting onto the bulletin board.

Before 

I cut my burlap, making sure that there was enough room to wrap it over the batting and securely staple it behind the board.  I also glue gunned the corners of the burlap on the back of the board because the staples weren't long enough to go through both the burlap and the batting in the corners.

Here's the finished product!

Brimfield Finds

As many of you probably know, Brimfield, MA holds three multi-day antique shows each year.  This year, Tim and I met up with my Mom and perused the 5,000+ dealer tents.  We went during a scorching hot 95 degree heat wave, but nothing could keep us from trudging through the fields, searching for a good deal.

I loved the industrial looking lighting, but they were hundreds of dollars.  Maybe a DIY project in the future?

This burlap lighting would be fun and simple to make.

 

 And the only use for these that I could think of were futuristic looking small dog/cat houses...

I ended up leaving with a ton of inspiration for future projects and with a Sunkist grapefruit box for $10.  I discovered that once we got the box home, the little bit of paper that was left on the box fell off, so I applied a coat of modge podge under and over the paper to preserve it on the box.

I also left with an old key for $2.  I love the heart detailing.

Not a bad day! Who's going to the show in September?

New Outdoor Lighting

A while back, like seven months ago, we picked up two outdoor sconces that I was originally thinking of using above our fireplace.  They didn't quite look right in that spot, so we figured we would use them as our new front lights to spruce up the front of our house since the original lights were builder grade and in serious need of replacing.

We loved them so much that we recently went back to Lowe's and bought three more for the back deck, and on the two doors on the side of the garage. For under $25 a light, it's definitely a steal!  Here's a quick before and after of just the front light swap.  If you're wondering, they are the Portfolio Rust Outdoor Wall Light.

Before:

After:

Deck light

Our Wedding in the White Mountains

On 10/23/11 we had a small wedding in the White Mountains. It was a simple, stress-free, and perfect weekend. We mostly DIY'ed our entire wedding which was surprisingly easy and affordable.

Up until the day before the wedding, I didn't have a plan for my bouquet or flowers.  I didn't want to put a lot of time or energy into stressing about flowers so on our way up to the White Mountains, we headed to our local Hannaford and Trader Joe's to pick up our flowers and just went with whatever looked best.  I assembled my bouquet the day of the wedding with the help of my brother, who also served as our photographer.  I wrapped the bouquet with some antique lace that I picked up at a boutique and secured it with pearl pins.  For the table flowers, I simply placed each bouquet into mason jars tied with raffia.

I tackled the flowers, my hair and makeup (thanks to the talented ladies at Sephora who helped me pick the perfect wedding day makeup!), and the place settings which were munchkin pumpkins with name tags tied to the stem with jute twine.

We had our rehearsal dinner at White Mountain Cider Company, a rustic restaurant in the White Mountains.

One of our innkeepers served as justice of the peace and we had a beautiful outdoor wedding amongst the fall foliage.  A few photos of the big day:

On our wedding night, we enjoyed a five course meal with our 11 guests at our inn.

It was an amazing weekend we'll never forget and hope to spend many anniversaries to come at the inn :)