Winter Thrifty Finds

Even though I have been quite busy during the winter we did manage to get in a few stops to our local Salvation Army.

I got this sweet little enamel planter with lace-y deer border for only at $1.   I'm starting to get into all things enamel and will definitely be on the look out when at flea markets this spring.

My husband stopped in at a Salvation Army one day without me and found these two solid wood tall but narrow book cases.   They now are on either side of my desk in my office and almost look like built ins.   There are a few dings in them so I may end up re-staining or painting them in the spring.   I think they would look nice in an antique white with a robin's egg blue in the back. 

Earlier in the fall my husband had stopped by at a yard sale and bought this tin painting for $3.   We added it to our foyer where we are trying to build a gallery wall.   The size of the painting worked perfectly over our front door.    You can also see the German Expressionist painting we had bought back in the summer.

Kitchen - Before and After

Our kitchen is now 99% done and it looks amazing!   It is so much brighter and has the farmhouse look we were going for.   I can't believe we waited so long to make the updates.   In total we re-did the entire kitchen for about $250 (paint, tile and a new range hood).  The cabinet color is Ashes by Behr and the grout is Delorean Gray (I pretty much picked it out because it was called "Delorean").  I love the new kitchen so much and can't wait to start cooking in there more.

Before:  You can see the old wood molding around the cabinets as well as the lovely blue backsplash.  What makes the old backsplash even better was it was black tiles that were painted blue with painted on "grout" lines, ugh!  You can see we also briefly thought of a tin panel backsplash a few years ago and never took it down.  Yup, so this is what we lived with for the last four years!

 In progress: 

 After:

We just have a few minor touch ups left to do.  We need to re-paint the window frame and add a new piece of molding underneath it.   My husband also wants to make a mason jar light fixture for the center of the kitchen ceiling and we want to find a new rug.   

Shades of Gray

Our current cabinets are white, and by white I means slowly turning more chipped, yellowed and scratched up.   We haven't done much to the kitchen at all since we moved in four years ago.  Originally, there were large pine colored square knobs on all the cabinets.  Within weeks we bought brushed nickel knobs and pulls but never got around to re-painting.  There is also wood color molding around cabinets, it makes the kitchen look dated. The whole time we had planned on painting them white.  However, the other day my husband mentioned painting them antique white.  I wasn't too crazy about it, we have a lot of bright white and I thought it would clash.   When he went out to get some paint chips for the antique white he picked up some grays as well.   I don't know why we hadn't thought of gray before hand but we loved it!  We bought a few samples to try out,  two were too dark, the third was perfect, Ashes by Behr.   It wasn't too dark and not too light.   Our kitchen is open to the dining room and living room which are all painted a pale gray (Titanium by Benjamin Moore).   By painting the cabinets a darker gray I think it will really make them stand out.

We chose the color on the right:

Also, I will finally get to incorporate some white subway tiles, every kitchen with them looks amazing!   I think the white will help break up the grays in the kitchen (between the cabinets, stainless steel appliances and the walls, it is a lot of gray).   We also realized we had some black, gray and glass colored tiles left over from our bathroom remodel that we originally planned to use for a backsplash.   By splitting them up into two rows we will be able to make a border that goes around the entire kitchen.
 

My husband is going to start the kitchen next week,  can't wait to see what it will look like!

Bird Bath Project

I never posted this completed project from early fall.   In September we went to a local craft fair.  There was a vendor with some amazing bird baths made from table legs and old glass/porcelain bowls and dishes.

Here is the one we bought.

The vendors had a witty little sign that said "Yes, you could make these, but will you?".   I guess we saw that as a challenge.  The next day when we were at Todd's Farm we headed to the $1 junk yard section and low and behold there were table legs and crates overflowing with dishes.  Nick said to me, well we could make some bird baths!

We bought 4 table legs and 4 bowls.

This one is my favorite... how perfect is it!

And here are the finished bird baths:

Dining Room Update

Wow, I can't believe it has been so many months since my last post!  In the fall I was so busy with work there wasn't a lot of time for antiquing, thrifting or blogging for that matter.  I can't wait for spring to come so I can get back out there again.  

In the meantime we did end up getting a wool braided rug from LLBean for Christmas from my parents.   While I originally wanted to get a blue/green/yellow one, my husband thought it would be too "matchy matchy".   We ended up going one with red, greens and touches of yellow and blues.  It helps add some other colors into the room.  We love it so much we are saving up to buy another braided rug for our living room.

Here is the whole dining room put together with the chairs we painted and upholstered ourselves, the Brimfield table (with one leaf in) and our vintage hutch.  

Buy now, no regrets later...

Read a sign at Todd's Farm this past weekend.   I wish I had followed it.  There were two Witney Point wool blankets, a mint green and pink one, in excellent condition.  I saw them as soon as we drove in and knew I had to stop to  see how much they were.   The woman was selling them for $125 for the pair (she wouldn't split them up, "they belong together" as she put it).   My husband didn't quite understand why I was so obsessed with the blankets and didn't think it was worth spending the money.   Until later when I was showing him Witney Point blankets online for $150-200 a piece.   By the time we were ready to leave I had convinced him we should buy them... and sadly they had sold.    So here I sit regretting not buying the blankets.

Here is the same pink one for sale on ebay...sigh.

The day wasn't completely filled with regrets.  We did find buy a few items inspired by a bird bath we bought at a craft fair over the weekend.  Here is a little preview of our project.    

Nick had bought some vintage car advertisements from LIFE and LOOK magazine as well as a very cool Christmas themed Master Charge ad.

We also bought an oil painting by an artist named Jacallo, all I can find on him is that he was a German Expressionist painter.   I loved it and my husband thought it was "cool".  He told me that it reminded him of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, which I'm not sure is good or bad.  Its a little dark but I really like the colors in it and the subject matter.  We saw it originally the day before but decided to think about it.  Luckily it was still there today (I really need to learn my lesson to "buy now").   We might hang it in our foyer or in the hallway heading into the "man cave". 

Last Two Chairs

We finally found 2 more chairs for our new dining room table about a month ago.  My husband found them on the side of the road for free on his ride home from work.   Although they do not match the style of the other 4 chairs they are a similar size.  We also liked how they were a bit more modern to off set the ornate style of the other 4 chairs.

We knew we didn't want to paint them blue like the others.  We thought about yellow however I thought I was starting to copy the Country Living cover a bit too much!  Instead we went with an almost hunter green color (its darker shade than it looks in the pictures.  We are upholstering the seats in the same striped fabric as the blue chairs.  Pictures of the whole table set up with the chairs will be coming soon.

On another note... our garage is starting to look a bit scary with all our projects we have going, eek!  Definitely need to tackle that before fall!