Starting over..

First off I would like to apologise for being away from the blog for so long. It's been hectic around here lately! Over the last few weeks we had a new roof put on the house. It was well over due since the old roof was ugly, wavy, and leaky! During the replacement of the roof we had a run in with bad weather that caused flooding in the attic, the half bath we have been remodeling, and the front wall of the house. The roofing company had insurance to cover all of the damage but it has still been very stressful and a little sad since we were so close to the finish of the half bath. So we will have to gut and redo it all over, replace lots of insulation in the attic, front wall, and in the spring replace some siding. Right now we are worried about what we can't see inside the walls that had alot of leaking since mold can be so dangerous. On a good note the finished roof turned out beautiful. I promise new posts will be coming your way soon!

French Side Table: Before and After... sort of

Last week our new neighbors threw this French Provincial side table out to the curb. When I saw it I ran in the house, got the dogs, and took them for a walk to get a better look. Like a nice neighbor I waited until it was dark to sneak over and take it.. but it was REALLY heavy so my loving husband went over and got it. Do I sound crazy? I though I took a before picture of the table but I couldn't find one so I guess I forgot. It was painted a glossy black that was pretty banged up. It even had the drawers still full of socks..

I decided to paint it cream and strip the top and stain it but the top turned out to be heavy plastic. I thought it was odd since the rest of the table was wood. I started to paint the top but didn't like the look. So I thought for a little bit about what I wanted to do and remembered a picture I had seen on Pinterest. Antique sheet music! I had been collecting it for a while to make some wreaths as gifts and It sure came in handy for this project too.

I used a mixture of glue and water to apply the sheet music to the top of the table and decided to add it to the drawer fronts too. After the glue mixture dried I used a very sharp paring knife to trim the excess paper off the table top and drawers. I sealed the top with a good coat of light and dark wax.

I loved the way the original hardware matched the color scheme..

Pretty curvy legs...

Here is a glimpse of the top...

I had quickly snapped all the pictures above right before I took this table to the local antique market so this was a not blurry picture of the top I took a few days before.. 

I hardly had the side table out of the truck before someone scooped it up. It turned out so pretty and I'm happy I saved it from going into a landfill somewhere. I would say this little table had a very happy ending!

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Refinishing Hardwood Floors: Part 2

After sanding, we crawled around to look for holes and gaps that needed to be filled in. This is where all the bags of saw dust comes in handy! We took some of the left over saw dust and mixed it with plain wood glue to make a paste. We filled all holes and big gaps with the paste and it dried to the exact color of the natural wood. We smoothed out the filled holes with a palm sander. After cleaning up all the dust for what seemed like years we finally started to stain! We chose Minwax stain in Dark Walnut to match with all of the original trim. 

We started from the top of the stairs and worked our way down to the first floor. We wore latex gloves and used terry cloth type staining sponges to apply the stain. We applied the stain on the wood planks in rows of 2 or 3 and wiped up any excess after letting it sit a few minutes.

I love the way the floor took the stain in the dining room! It took a day to stain the floors. Can you believe it only took a gallon of stain to finish the floors! We bought six gallons thinking they would just soak up every drop but they didn't! We let them dry for a week, we could have started the polyurethane sooner but since we only had weekends to do projects we had to wait. 

We used a fluffy "sheep wool" attachment  to apply the polyurethane. Since it was in the middle of December opening the windows weren't an option. So we wore respirator masks because polyurethane is STINKY and put large fans in the doorways to keep air moving.

After two coats of polly we were finished! It took three weekends to finish the floors. After renting sanders, buying stain, sealer, and supplies we spent under $300 dollars. It was hard work but so worth it! We saved thousands doing it ourselves and it looks great! We refinished the floors before we moved our furniture in the   house and I highly recommend it if you have that option. 

We are so happy with the floors. I cant wait to show you complete decorated rooms one day!

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Refinishing Hardwood Floors: Part 1

When we were looking at the house the curiosity of what was under the ugly green carpet was something I thought about often. We were told by the Realtors that hardwood floors should be throughout the house but the condition was unknown. So the moment we got the keys and could get in the house we started to tear up the carpet(and 4 layers of linoleum flooring in the living and dining room). We found beautiful toung in groove floors.. in the 1920's our living room was once a general store. When we had all the old flooring pulled up you could see the out line of where display cases, cash registers, and shelves once stood. It was so neat to see some of the houses history with our own eyes! We decided to refinish the floors ourselves and with the help of my dad, father in law, and my sisters boyfriend we got started!

After owning the house for a few hours we started to pull up the carpet...

and the linoleum that was made to look like carpet.

Here is one of the outlines of a display case!

We also had to pull up staples, scrape glue, and sink any nails that could catch on the sanders.

We rented two different types of sanders to refinish the floors. They claimed to be dust free but its just unavoidable. The bags did cut down on alot of the dust but I still had to sweep, sweep, and sweep some more!

Here is the hallway.. to get an idea of the layout of the house I'm standing in the bathroom doorway, the doorway to the living room is on the left, and the doorway ahead is to the dining room.

The steps were the hardest part because the carpet was glued directly to the wood. It took days to sand down to the bare floors.

We sanded the living room, hallway, and dining room in one day to keep renting costs down. For touch ups and sanding the stairs we used palm sanders we already had on hand. All the hard work was well worth it and saved us thousands in the end. I cant wait to show you the staining process!

To keep this post from getting any longer I'll write about the stain and sealing in a separate post :)

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Happy Weekend

I hope you are having a great weekend! I thought I would pop in and show you something I found this morning at a yard sale. It's an antique platter and I just love the lobster on it!

Have a lovely weekend!

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Our Half Bath... The Before.

Other than refinishing the original hardwood floors, painting, and tearing out green 1950's carpet that was even in the kitchen (it was so gross that I can only dream of the day we have pretty tiled kitchen floors) ... we haven't done much to he house. Our first big project was to remodel the half bathroom addition. The bathroom was added on sometime in the 60's and it showed its age. Before we even closed on the house I had bought the new floor tile (it was on a black Friday sale so I got a good deal). Here are the before pictures of the bathroom in all of its outdated glory...

This is the bathroom door... the bathroom was added where the front door was so that's why it has the solid glass window. I'm going to sew a pretty curtain for privacy. I love the antique wavy glass.

Don't you love that very outdated linoleum floor?

I honestly don't know how the sink was still standing. It had seen better days.

Before I took these pictures I had removed all of the towel racks, and tooth brush holders that had corroded to the walls from getting wet all the time.

This was the picture from the realtor site. Do you think I'm crazy for falling in love with this house yet?!

Were almost finished with the remodel and I cant wait to have our little bathroom restored to look like it should have been here all along. And on a small budget my husband and father in law have done all the work themselves! I cant wait to share it with you... if you use Pinterest you can check out my board here for a peek at some of the products we used.

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Antique Iron Child Bed: Before and After

Hello! First off I would like to apologize for the blog being so quiet! I finally bounced back from the long Labor Day weekend and just being plain old busy. Last week my husband and I went to some yard sales, flea markets, and antique fairs! I bought so much stuff! One of my favorite finds was this antique iron child bed. I think it's from France after searching for similar ones on the Internet. I got it for only $3 dollars.. Score!

I think the bed would look so pretty in a little girls room.

I love the original green paint showing through..

I used milk paint with the bonding agent to get the flat soft finish. I used rough sand paper to rough up the previous finish to get a good bond. I wasn't sure how it was going to work out because I have never used milk paint on metal before. The crackle that happened all over is so pretty...

Here is the before..

I didn't really like the glossy, drippy, and ugly brown paint that covered the beautiful original green paint. Why would someone cover that up?! So I thought a light creamy finish would look so pretty. I'm so happy the milk paint took to the metal after roughing it up a bit.

Have a great Tuesday.

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