The Chair

I know you all (All 3 of you faithful followers. You are the best! I love you. When this blog hits it big time I will forever acknowledge you as being my first.) Sorry for the side track.

Anyhow, like I was saying. I know you have all been waiting on pins and needles for the unveiling of "The Chair". It's a sentimental one so get the kleenex ready kids.

When my grandma decided to move out of her house, the only house I have known her to live in, the house that holds so many childhood memories..sniff sniff. She started cleaning out. As she decided what to give away she would put things in her basement. We would occasionally go over to shop in "Grandma's Bargain Basement". When I saw "The Chair" sitting down there looking lonely in the corner I knew I needed to take it home. I remember playing with this chair when I was a kid. There was no way I was letting some stranger buy it at Grandma's yard sale and take it to their strange house and let their strange kid play with it. I would rescue it and let MY strange kids play with it! But not before giving it a little nip-tuck.

Now, if any of you know me, you know I am not the best at finishing projects. Really good at starting...I won't tell you when I started it. The important thing is that I finished it before my kids were too big to use it! Victory! So once more here are the "befores". Lovely floral with touches of harvest gold....




Here is the "before" of where Emilyn used to read her books.



We gave her the chair for her birthday. Here she is reading her books before bed. Happy as a clam in her new chair.


The After

Much better!

Grandma and Emilyn


A small tribute to Grandma's house.

Better After

So my friend Stephanie did me the not-so-kind favor of telling me about this blog (Better After) quite awhile ago. I know she was well-intentioned, 'cause that's the kind of gal she is, but knowledge of this blog has been quite detrimental to me. I am obsessed. Really I am. If you don't take the time to go to the blog, it basically highlights people's home projects by sharing a before and after picture and a few details of the project. There is usually a link to the do-it-yourselfer's (if that wasn't a word before, it is now!) blog as well. I never follow the link, so I am left with two pictures. It always looks SO easy, but that's mainly because I don't pay attention to all the in-between steps. I leave the blog wanting to scour flea markets for inexpensive things I can redo. It is very inspirational. This summer I found a few things needing a little sprucing up. Here is my own little version of Better After. It's a lamp I got for $2 at a garage sale. It came with a "nice" pale pink shade. The kind with all the folds. The ones I hated dusting as a kid, because no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't get the dirt out of those darn folds! I told the guy at the garage sale I didn't need the shade and left it there.



So this is what the poor girl started out looking like. Yikes! It just took a little sanding and a few coats of paint to add a few more years onto her life. For some reason I already had the shade laying around the house and the paint was leftover from when I had the red wall. So this project was SUPER cheap! Yeah!
Here is the after. Much better!



Stayed tuned to see what I do with this beaut of a chair. It came from my Grandma's basement when she moved. I used to play with it as a kid. Sentimental make-overs. Double whammy!