Pottery Barn Desk Chair Knock Off

I love the white Pottery Barn desk chair,

 

but $360 for one with arms...

 

Too much for me!

 

 

Here's one I painted white:

 

 

A while back, I saw an old wood chair

on Craig's List for $35.

 

Of course I forgot to take a "before" picture

until after I started painting.



 



 



The wood was rough and dried out.

I kind of thought I wasted $35.

(Wild Bill knew "fer sure" I did)

 

I made some homemade chalk paint using

Behr's Paint & Primer in

Swiss Coffee.

 



Here's another picture of the final result.

  

It's a little shorter than Pottery Barn's

 version, but it was only $35 compared to $360.

  



 

 

I'm happy with it.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

Sharing this week at the following party:

 

http://www.frommyfrontporchtoyours.com/

 

http://creativehomeexpressions.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 



Fixin' Up The Breakfast Nook

We're starting to make progress on the breakfast nook.

 

Someday we'll build in a bench on this wall,

but for now it holds a large mirror and

a cabinet with baskets.

 

The baskets are from Target.

The cabinet looks so much better with the baskets.

First we put the mirror on the wall.

I don't know what we did wrong with the measurements,

but the hangers show at the top.

We (and I really mean me) are planning to paint

the room, so we didn't bother to re-hang it for now 

since it will come back down real soon.

 



 

I had a really old floral hanging piece in the closet...

for now it's hiding the hangers that hold the mirror.

 When I say old, I'm not kidding. I bought it in '91.

I'm sure at least one of my three daughters
will email to let me know the 1990's called 
and want my decorations back!



My mother had the cabinet on her porch

trying to find it a home. 

 

It belonged to my youngest sister who died

on St Paddy's Day 2010.

 

I think it brought my mother sorrow 

when she looked at it.  

That's probably why it was on her porch.

 

She asked me several times to take it,

but my heart wasn't in it either.

 

Finally, when she said no one else in the family would

take it and she was going to donate it,

it came home with us.  



 The old "to paint or not to paint" debate

rages in my head.

 

At the least, it needs to be refinished and re-stained.

 

I'll  put that on my list as soon as my head

makes a decision.

 

Right now, my heart's not in to changing it...

Here's the window that needs drapes,

or maybe chunky trim with

a window treatment on the top.

 



 

I know you've seen these birds before.

 I love them.

 

Expect to see them again.

 

 

Seems the more we do, the more there is to do.

 

September is finally here. A time for renewal.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

  

Mattie's Pig Table

Over 100 years ago in April 1912, in a horse buggy in the rain near the Red River in North Texas, a Justice of the Peace married Mattie Pfaff and Will Savage.

The new couple moved to Oklahoma to farm some land with another young couple, Will's cousin and the cousin's wife.

Will's father gave him a hog for the farm. Wedding gifts were  far more practical back then!

On the Oklahoma farm, Mattie and Will had their own bedroom, but little furnishings. They had one bed, one wardrobe (free-standing closet) for their clothes, and a coal oil lamp.

Mattie didn't complain about their hard-scrabble life on the farm, but she did complain that she had nowhere to put her coal oil lamp when it was burning. The wardrobe was "...too high and the floor was too low..." she told Will.

So, when his hog had a litter of pigs, love-struck Will traded one of his piglets to a neighbor for a little three-legged table.

The table was just right for sitting next to the bed to hold Mattie's coal oil lamp.

"Our pig table", as Mattie called it, was used and loved for the many decades of Mattie and Will's life-long marriage.

Finally the table fell to pieces and was put in a shed where my mother-in-law Jessie (one of Mattie and Will's 12 children) found it one day. With her mother's permission Jessie rescued it, put it back together, and used it for a few more decades.

One day I saw the wobbly old table in my mother-in-law's shed and heard the Pig Table story. I offered to fix it up. 

 

Wild Bill (who is Mattie and Will's grandson and is named for Will) put the table back together as sturdy as the day it was made.

 

It was up to me to "pretty" her up...

I used homemade chalk paint made with Behr's 'paint and primer' in my favorite color, Swiss Coffee. 

 

 

I added a pig silhouette to the top and plan to stencil

 

Mattie's Pig Table - 1912

 

around the pig silhouette.

 

 

 

Now that you've seen the final result,

I have to show you my sad first attempt at fixin' up the table...

 

 

Yeah, go ahead and laugh!

 

As my 3-year-old grandson Ben would say:

 

"How sad, Grammy, how sad!"

 

Everyone says aging furniture is so easy...well...

 

"NAILED IT!"

And, I don't know why mod podge turns out so well for others, but mine yellowed and showed all the edges of the cut-out and looked like crap.

I quickly repainted it (even over the classy-yellowed-mod-podged-pig) with my homemade chalk paint.

The pig silhouette still showed through the paint, so I used this paint writer stuff from Hobby Lobby to blacken in the pig silhouette.

I plan to add the words and the 1912 date to the top, then it's going to have to stay this way until I learn how to do the aging and add words and pictures and crap to furniture.

Hopefully it won't take me another decade to figure it out!

For now, it's in the entry hall -- next to the bench under the chalkboard. Yeah, that's right. I need to learn how to print on chalkboards too. That's another "Nailed It" job!

I should be ashamed to show you that.

I'm sharing all the good and bad of this over at the following parties:

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com

http://nominimalisthere.blogspot.com

http://missmustardseed.com

http://www.frommyfrontporchtoyours.com

Wedding Bells

Our youngest (30-something) daughter Jaimee got married in Las Vegas earlier this month.

The chapel at Viva Las Vegas Weddings was surprisingly tasteful. I say "surprisingly" because Elvis was getting into a pink Cadillac outside when we arrived!

Jaimee's 4-year old daughter Lily is a bit flamboyant (an understatement)  and VERY particular about what she wears.

When Lily was told she would be the junior bridesmaid, she told her mother right away that she would need "click" shoes. Then she spent the months leading up to the wedding putting together her attire and telling everyone "we're getting married!"

Lily's favorite color is purple, and her favorite style is "princess". Here's the dress she picked out...

 She was lovely in it! I can't wait to show you when I get copies of the pictures.

And it turns out she's thrifty too. Now that the wedding is over, she told her mother she will wear it for Halloween too! My kind of girl.

Vintage Cabinet

Last year, I bought this old vintage cabinet from

a shop downtown called The Interior Store.

 

I love their back room...

 where you can sell furniture you don't want...

and buy someone else's stuff!

I loved this cabinet when it was down in the

consignment room of Carol's shop,

but it just hasn't seemed to fit in around our house. 

It seemed like the yellowish brown color would fit in with our distressed kitchen cabinets...

But, the little vintage cabinet is a little too yellow.

 

I'm thinking of painting the cabinet,

or moving it to another room.

 

I want to hang the old rusty sign above it

when it finally finds a place in the house.

 

Got any ideas of what color would make

the little cabinet fit in better?

 

I think our walls need a darker color too,

just haven't decided what would look good

with the kitchen cabinets... 

 

I'd love to hear your ideas!

New Shoes and The 75 Cent Dress

Remember our newest grand-girl Livvie Lu
who was born 5 months ago?

Her mama got her some new shoes recently.

 

I thought they were so cute,

I stole her pictures to show them to you...

Pink poka dots are a girl's best friend, right?

I knew you'd agree!

 

Livvie will attend her first wedding this week.

 

Mama ordered her a new dress,

which still hasn't arrived yet.

 

While at a yard sale recently, I spotted

this brand new dress for sale for 75 cents.

 

I washed it on delicate, pressed the ties in
the back a little, and told Livvie's mama  
"no worries"

 

I think the 75 cent dress will do.

 

And, just wait 'til you see the purple dress

Livvie's cousin Lily, the flower girl, will wear!

 

 

Use Or Lose

I said a few posts back that I haven't been able to find

a place for the 3-Tiered Tray from Pottery Barn.

 

Not what I was expecting when I bought it,

but trying to live with it.

 

Then I saw the same tray used in a coffee bar
at Stone Gable's blog.

 

So, Eureka! I can copy cat like crazy!

Yes. 

 

I do need to rewrite the chalkboard and hang it.

 

I'm at a loss after my "Happy 4th" rendition.

 

Not everyone can be an artist.

  

It took a lot out of me to do that one!

 

 

 

If you want to check out the original, here's her link:

 

http://www.stonegableblog.com/2012/06/coffee-bar.html

 



Love And Hate

When I returned from my trip to Illinois last month, I brought back this old tattered gray drawer thingy, which I bought at the flea market.

While it was love at first sight for me, not so much for Wild Bill.

 

 

The first time I saw it, I said "Oh My"

 

Wild Bill said the same thing, but not in a good way!

 

His was more of a "Oh...My!"

 

Is it that men cannot see the beauty in a little shabbiness?

 

Someone please explain?

 

 

 

Joining these parties this week...where people with better taste than Wild Bill will surely share my opinion:

 

 

http://www.astrollthrulife.net

 

http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net

 

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com

 

http://www.frommyfrontporchtoyours.com

 

 

 



Decision Made

My last post asked for opinions on bar stools. I want to thank everyone who gave their advice. It was really helpful.

Despite all three of my daughters saying return them, I did decide to keep them.

 

Here are all 3 stools at the kitchen counter.

Everyone who responded agreed the stools don't look as nice as the ones in the catalog and on-line. The quality is just not the same.

 

Freddy and Petunia commented that the company might have changed manufacturers to get a better price. I agree with her.

 

Other comments that helped me decide to keep them came from bloggers who pointed out they will probably get distressed after a while anyway, and it probably wouldn't be worth the effort to return them. Agree!

When I looked at the return policy of the store it did

seem a real hassle to return them.

 

This taught me to only order ONE of something in the future. Then, only if I think the quality is good, will I buy any others.

 

So, I'm taking the advice to live with them for a while. Then if I still want more distressing, I'm going to distress them by sanding down the seats to get rid of the black paint and wiping them down with dark wood stain, especially the silver feet (yuck)!

 

Sharon at Elizabeth and Co gave me a tip she uses:

 

"If it doesn't WOW you, move on!"

(Don't keep going back to look at them)

 

Advice I will use in the future as this always get me in trouble.

Among others, Irene said she liked the mix of the new stools with the old looking distressed cabinets. And, Butterfly and Bungalow pointed out the 'masculine' stools worked with the 'feminine' Country French kitchen. I wish she'd stopped there!

 

She went on to send me a link to Crate & Barrel's vintage style bar stool that she bought...

 

Perfect!

 

 

If I could go back to the start, these are what I would order.

 

But, I'm going to make the others work.

Believe me when I say -- no one paid me for this post. Only expressing an opinion and hoping it will help someone else avoid a costly mistake in the future.

I'm sharing this advice at:

http://frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com