The Old School Desk

Here's my son sitting in an old school desk that my mom bought years ago. She probably picked it up at an antique store or garage sale or maybe the side of the road. She embarrassed me... that was before these things were cool. Now I've turned into my mother, yes, the same mother who embarrassed me. Luckily my kids think it's cool and I don't embarrass them.

What do you think the kids that used these desks back in the day would have thought if their teacher told them that someday kids would have phones that they carried around with them sitting on their desk top? They probably would have said, "yeah, and we'll fly to school in our cars."

Anyway, I love it. I think it's pretty cool. I had it in my room when I was about his age....and I think I may have sat in a desk or two like this in Jr. High.

More Goodwill Goodies...

Here are my most recent thrifty finds from Gwill....

cute stuff, huh?

He is now turquoise.

My daughter said I shouldn't paint this one... don't know if I can resist though. I'm thinking maybe white and then distressing for a shabby chic look.

Maybe Pink?

Maybe red or orange?

I love, love, love this frame! The marbleized {or whatever it's called} mirror has to go though.

Goodwill is making me very happy these days. I usually go on Thursday when I go to town to deposit my check. I try to spend at least $10 so I can get my card stamped. I've almost spent $100 and when I do I get $10 worth of free stuff. Woo-Hoo!!

TOTAL COST $11.31

New bright paint colors

I picked these up at WMart the other day...

.99 each.

I'm lovin' these bright colors!

And here's my dining room table.
My plan for tomorrow is to finish some of these and start painting some more.

Oh No!

I was getting so close to being done with this table.  The blue part of the table showing in the picture had been painted white and I was getting ready to put on another coat of white and then distress

and

this happened!

I noticed a bubble. I tried to sand the bubble, but it wasn't working so I had to get out a box cutter and cut the bubble. It was painful!

I had to peel....

...and peel. I even had to use a spatula to get under the paint.

Painful!!

{Truthfully, it was kind of like peeling a sunburn.. it's not good, but it feels kinda good when you get a big piece... I know! Gross! but that's what it reminded me of when the huge pieces of paint were coming off.}

I ended up peeling the whole section off. It was MAJOR shallac. Probably from the 70's or earlier. I'm hoping I don't get anymore bubbles. I have kilzed that section and now have to buy more spray paint.

I'm so frustrated! But I'm looking at it as a learning experience.

I want to buy this building

Ever since I saw Flashdance I've wanted to live in a warehouse. Ok, I know that was WAY back in the 80's, but I've always secretly dreamed of living in one of the old buildings in my hometown. My dream is to have a store and live upstairs. Well, our house is for sale and my husband said he would actually consider it. What? Really?

There are quite a few old buildings for sale in the downtown area of my hometown (the town we'll be moving to when we sell our house) and I've been known to pull over my car and get out to look in the windows and imagine what it would be like to have a store and live upstairs.

I pulled over to this building the other day and the store owner next door happened to be outside and asked if I'd like to look at it. He had a key. I said, of course I would. He let me look around and said he'd lock up when I was gone. Woo-Hoo! It was so much fun. Since then I've gone back and walked through with some of my family. My cousin happens to be a real estate agent and he walked through with me. It has a lot of potential. It's 3 stories and even has living quarters on the top floor.

I sat down the other day and drew out a bunch of plans and ideas. I do that a lot. Sometimes dreams come true.... we'll see.

To some people this building probably looks like a mess, but to me it has all kinds of possibilities!

You know what they say..... Dream Big!

Chippy Shelf

I finished something!


Before

After

This is my first really distressed piece. I like the way it turned out.

More pics....

 My new chippy shelf in front of my chippy front door.




Remember this table?

Now it looks like this.
I'll finish putting a light coat of turquoise on top and some spots on the legs and then one more layer of white on the legs (over the turquoise) and a couple of coats on top. Then distress. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

~Linked  ....

HERE

Paint and finish day...

that's what today is supposed to be. I'm pretty sure I finished a headboard that... um, no.. I just remembered I have to wax/seal it. Ok, so today is not FINISH day, but work on finishing something day.



I did do this today though.

This is my laundry/mud room. See the chippy table? My mom bought/found on the curb (?) many, many years ago.




Look at all that chippy, distressed goodness! (My mom had cut a piece of linoleum.. you know the kind that's white with small gold flecks/dots?.... UGLY.. on the top. It wasn't attached so I took that off real fast!)

I sanded it and then thought it looked pretty perfect.

So I cleaned it off and put it in the laundry/mud room.
My husband needed a place to put all his "stuff" when he comes home so I wandered around the house looking for something.

I tried this...

It was a little too "mod" for the table.

So I tried this...

Actually, I'm not totally happy with this one, but it's bigger and holds more "stuff" and the style goes better with the table. But... it's too close to the color of the table so I may have to rub a little bit of color on it or find something else. It works for now and my husband couldn't care less. Maybe he won't lose his keys now.

More pics....

One side of the table and the legs are metal and it's hollow inside. It's an unusual little table. 

I wish I had prettier things to hang from the hooks, but this is reality. Caps, hats, dirty lunch boxes. I think the spurs are cute though.


Maybe tomorrow I'll FINISH something. (Probably not.)