I'm Contagious

Yep, you read that right. I'm contagious! Don't worry though if you have come into contact with me in the last few days, I dont have an infectious disease or some weird virus. I have officially passed on the "furniture bug" to my 13 yr old son Preston.



A few months ago when he decided he wanted a "trick" scooter, he asked if I would buy it for him. Naturally, I said "NO, you already have a scooter and you never ride it." he of course then responded with something like this...."But mom, this scooter is way better then the one I have and I promise I will use this one ALL THE TIME" and again, I responded with "NO". Generally, this back and forth doesnt work with me when my children "Have" to have something.....I advise them that they will need to save up their money and because they are not huge fans of hard manual labor, they usually forget about it and move on to something else. Not this boy, he is extremely persistant. So, what did I do you ask? Nothing! He did it all himself....

He earned $20 for watching the neighbors dog while they were on vacation and he said to me, "MOM, I want to go with you the next time you go to the thrift store and look to see if I can find a piece of furniture to re-do" Sure, I said assuming that he would forget. But sure enough, the next day when I was ready to head out "treasure hunting" he jumped in the front seat....Ready to go!

He looked around Goodwill and he spotted a coffee table. He called me over to inspect it. "What do you think mom? Do you think I could sell this?" I of course saw that it was marked $24.99 and said, "Yes, I think you could sell it, but you only have $20 and this is marked $24.99" Hmmm...."Oh, dont worry about that mom, I printed off a 20% off coupon" Wow!!! This boy has actually been paying attention to me. Sure enough, he managed to get the coffee table for $19.97. Sweet! I was so proud, my oldest son had just made his first thrift store purchase! TEAR....ok seriously, though I was pretty amazed at how much thought he had put into it.

I told him that I would paint it for him IF he did all the prep work. Taking off hardware, sanding, etc....here he is getting ready for me to paint it.







He made a great profit and believe it or not was able to buy his scooter and still put away some money for his "NEXT" flip. I think I may have created a monster. Shhh, dont tell him but it's kinda cute!! Not only did he learn that Dad & Mom arent the ATM, but he also learned that if you want something bad enough and you work hard, you will be rewarded. Its a great leason to teach your children.

Thanks for stopping by,

Kris

Before and After's for the week

Having all the kids home for summer is proving to be a challange. The constant fighting, the empty stomaches that seem to never be filled and the sound of "Mom, we're bored" running through my head....my escape from it all??? FURNITURE!!

As promised I have taken lots of "before" pictures and cant wait to show you the "afters"


Remember this piece that Jackson was helping me with?

Well here it is all finished. I love the "Barn Red" color.





See these two dressers stacked one on top of the other??



Well the top one met an unfortunate fate when the "helpers" at the thrift store were "helping" me load it into my car.....notice the clamps and gorilla glue?



But here it is all fixed and painted a very bright but super cool funky "Peacock Blue" color...just in case you are wondering, this color is one of the top 2012 colors of the year...just a little bit of info for ya ;-)





And the bottom dresser was an absolute beast!! This thing is HUGE!! But I'm absolutely in LOVE with how it turned out. What do you think?








Well, hope you enjoyed some of the before & afters of the week.
I have lots more to show you but I must pace myself. Hope you have a great week and weekend.

Kris

Busy week of Re-Do's

Happy Summer ya'll! IT'S HOT!!!! What happened? It went from 85-90's to 110 degrees overnight. This weather puts a serious cramp in my DIY side. However I did manage to get several pieces done this last few weeks.

First of all....take a look at my To-do pile of furniture and projects just waiting for me in the garage



MASSIVE huh?? I know, I know....with a pile this BIG I even enlisted the help of the smallest DIYers of the family


He is so stinkin' cute!!

I found this old solid wood hutch, display cabinet the other day for $24.99 at the thrift store and I had to have it. I love the curves at the top and the fact that its unique and not super huge.




I lightly sanded it down and then into the "paint station" she went. Here she is all finished and isnt she lovely?





I also have been doing a lot of custom pieces for clients lately. I found these two side tables the other day and it wasnt long before I had a client dying to have them for her daughters bedroom.





She wanted them glossy white. I think they turned out awesome. Amazing what a little paint and some elbow grease will do.



I've started on a couple more pieces and I'll show those later, but until then here are a few more pics of some of the finished pieces I've done. I dont have before pics of these. I got too excited to get started. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Kris

Just Me, a Staple Gun and Dr. Phil

Normally I'm not the type to watch those cheesy day time shows. You know the one's I'm talking about, Oprah, Dr. Phil, The Dr's etc...but sometimes a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do!!!

I have been thrifting and re-doing junky pieces of furniture for a long time, but recently I have tried re-upholstering. The thought of such a thing used to be scary and completely "out of my league" but when stumbling upon some recent "treasures" I thought, "why not try it"

Enter in trial #1

I know its hard to see, but this couch is amazing. The curvy lines, her french legs....oooh be still my beating heart. And as if she wasnt lovely enough, she was only $35 at the thrift store. This poor beauty sat neglected in my garage used as a storage heap for months and months and then....FINALLY it was her turn. It was time to tackle the BEAST. I pulled her out into the middle of the garage and started taking off all of the cushions. I immediately encounter problem #1. This thing smelles like smoke. Like 60+ years of Grandma and Grandpa sitting in their dark panelled living room watching Happy Days kinda of smoke! YUCK!!! "Ok" I think, I will just get new cushions.....I toss the old ones off to the side and began to pull out all of the millions of staples and tacks.

Enter in Problem #2

As the fabric started to come off the back of the couch, I quickly realized so was the entire back cushion of the couch. It was literally disintegrating as I went. "Oh no", now I was going to need an entire new back cushion for the couch. Uuugg! It filled my entire black trash can full of nasty old crusty pieces of foam cushion.

I left what I could salvage of the old batting and support fabric and painted the wood frame a robin's egg blue color. I distressed it in certain places and sealed it with a satin polyurtheane. Sorry I dont have pictures of that process. Now, it was time to get the cushions and start covering this bad girl.

Enter in problem #3

New foam cushion material is EXPENSIVE!!!! Who would have thought. I took the 3 old cushions into my local fabric wholesale store to see how much it would be to get new cushions for the bottom and 1 big cushion for the back. This seemed like a reasonable question to me, however their response hmmm, not so much. $160 for the cushions....WHAT??? "Just for some foam", I asked. "Yes" the lady behind the counter quickly answered "And that isnt even the real good foam" she said. Well, I wasnt about to pay that so, what I decided to do is re-use the 3 old cushions from the bottom and just get a new back piece. $64.00 later I had a new back cushion and 3 stinky, smokey used cushions for the bottom.

I've seen people using canvas drop clothes as furniture fabric and I just love that idea. I went to my local Home Depot and bought the biggest drop cloth I could find (make sure if you are going to try using this, you DONT get one that has plastic backing on it)I think it was about $36. I brought it home and washed and dried it. I then took the old fabric covers from the 3 stinky cushions and used them as patterns to cut new pieces. I even used the old zippers. The new covers fit like a glove. I love it when I sew something and it actually looks like what it is supposed to look like. I forgot to mention that the 3 stinky cushions had been temporarily living outside in the fresh air with about 1 bottle of febreeze on each of them. No more stinky, smoky smell!! Once the three cushions were recovered and done, it was time to tackle the back. This process was a little slower.

I had my love help me carry the couch into the family room so that I could be inside instead of in my dirty, hot, lonely garage while I worked on the back. Well, once I got all the kids into bed, I decided it was now or never and I started. I did the back first....cut to size, stretch, staple. Cut, stretch, staple.....over and over until the entire back was done. "Wow" I thought, this looks pretty good. I'll keep going. I moved onto one side and then another.

By this time, my love had gone to bed and the house was quiet....I always work better and faster alone! Well, alone with the TV on. I looked up at the clock and it was 2am, there sure isnt much on TV at 2am, but I did manage to find Dr Phil. Lucky me, I happen to catch a Dr. Phil marathon. As Phil solved the world's problems one "baby daddy" at a time, I continued to stretch and staple, stretch and staple and it wasnt until my love came around the corner with his morning coffee and said, "Wow, you finished it, it looks GREAT" that I realized it 6:30am and YES I had finshed it. Me and Dr. Phil finally finished my first "Real" upholstery job.

Here she is....

Isnt she lovely??

I have officially conquered my fear of reupholtery and have even managed to do a few other things. Her are a few pictures of some of the other pieces I've tackled. Oh and I ended up selling my "beauty" on Craig's List for a pretty little profit.

Good Luck with your projects and thanks for stopping by,

Kris

Merchant Square Flea Market

I know, I know its been a while...I'm sorry. Instead of boring you with all the excuses of why I havent posted in 4 months, I thought I would just jump right in there with some exciting stuff.


This last Saturday I had the priveledge of participating in my first real "Flea Market". My dear friend Tana from Vintage Charm asked me to share a space with her and I couldnt have been more excited if I tried!!!


As you know I already have a booth/space at Qcumberz in Phoenix. If you have never been down to Qcumberz you really should go....it is such a fun little shop. All kinds of different and unique things. Anyway, Tana's shop (Vintage Charm) used to be down on Main St. in Mesa but when the market "tanked" she had to close it. So, she has been looking for some other "avenue's" to sell her most amazing things. When she heard about Merchant Square having these flea markets a few times a year she thought it would be perfect, and arent I lucky she invited me?


Between my duties as a wife and mother and running my catering company (which has been CRAZY busy) I have been a busy little bee getting things ready for the Flea Market.


Here are some pictures of the day

We had so much fun and made some great contacts for some possible business opportunities and although we both (and my mom) just about had heat stroke, I know we would have done it all over again in a heart beat!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Kris