"New" Kitchen Chairs

Yesterday I took the kids to a couple of garage sales.  I rarely shop at garage sales, mainly because I hate driving all over town looking for them, but on Friday night Ryan saw an ad online for a sale with a ton of furniture.  They called it a furniture painter's dream, and they weren't kidding.  I went early hoping to find kitchen chairs.  I think I would have brought a lot more furniture home had I been able to fit it in my SUV!

I got four matching chairs for $50!!

They are very solid and in great shape.  When we got home we started wiping them down to get rid of the cob webs and grass clippings.  They looked clean until I realized that what I thought was stain was actually grimy build up.  Surprising since the fabric is clean and stain free on all four chairs.  So I busted out a bucket of warm soapy water and enlisted the kids to help.  Sorry the lighting is so bad in my pictures!  My iPhone's finest. 

The "new" chairs match the table amazingly well.  Ryan thinks I should touch up the stain on the chairs since they match so well.  I'm thinking more along the lines of painting them and recovering the seats. I've been pinning lots of fun ideas. I would love to be brave enough to paint them all red.  But that might be too bold. Maybe just some bright and cheery red fabric instead?  Any suggestions?

Have you noticed a theme on the blog lately?  We've been doing a lot of projects with recycled or reclaimed materials. I used to prefer everything be shiny and new, but as I've developed more confidence in my DIY skills I've realized I can create some pretty amazing things from left-over or left-behind materials. I've pushed myself to take more design risks (purple shutters I'm talking to you) and not stress over making sure every little thing matches.  I find myself surrounded by unique pieces that inspire me and make this house my home.  Not to mention the good feeling that comes from helping out the environment by reducing our contribution to the landfill.  That's pretty awesome, too. :)

No Rest on This Day!

We kept busy working on projects around the house today. I don't feel like we actually finished anything, but I feel good knowing we did as much as possible in one day.  My hands are blistered from mowing the crazy jungle of a back yard that is growing out of control thanks to a lot of rain.  While I mowed, Ryan chugged away working on the patio until eventually he ran out of bricks.  Rather than go dig more bricks from the mound we moved on to the garage.  It took at least an hour or two to get straightened up but at least we can walk though it now without fearing for the safety of our shins!

Here's a pic of the progress we made on the patio.  I'm guessing it'll take another 7-10 loads of bricks to finish....  

To be continued...

A Ton of Bricks

About a month ago I posted pictures of my little patio update here.  Since then we've been hard at work making even more changes.  Remember how I posted a picture of the red brick pavers we were thinking about?

Well, we jumped in with both feet.  We were able to strike up a deal with the owner of these bricks.  A really, really good deal.  Maybe it had something to do with this...

Yup, that's the pile of bricks being taken over by the land.  We are unsure of the details of the history of these bricks, but judging from the wear (and concrete stuck to some) we know they've been used before.  Even better.  :)  So we dug, dug, dug and loaded up the truck about 5 times over the course of a couple weeks. 

One truck load...

Three truck loads...

We layered fine gravel on the concrete slab patio for the first phase of bricks.  In order to expand the patio out into the yard (and to meet up with the sidewalk that stops suddenly in the back of the house) we dug out a large area of grass.  Luckily we have had so much rain recently that the ground has been softer than usual.  Regardless, digging grass makes for sore feet....

Luckily we had a very enthusiastic helper.

The digging is finally done.  Hopefully we'll make more progress leveling and laying bricks tomorrow!

A Little Boy's Baseball Bedroom

A while back we started to transform our son's room from a fairy tale nursery to a little boy's baseball bedroom.  It took a while to get it together and it still isn't finished.  But I thought I would share the progress we've made.

You can read more about how we added baseballs to the bedposts here.

My mom gave us this shelf that once hung at her dad's house.  I painted it deep blue and hung it over the window.  I found some hardware at Lowes (for hanging closet bars I think) and hung the curtains right between the corbels.  That bat was an old Busch Stadium giveaway from when I was a kid.  It is laying on a notched out piece of scrap wood so it won't roll off the shelf.

The toy box got a new paint job with the same paint as the shelf.

This is what the toy box looked like before (in all its crayon colored on glory!)

This summer we moved the kids' play kitchen into Little R's room.  He plays with it more than the girls so it works well.  It has seen better days but the kids love it.

We also added a cute baseball lamp that my father-in-law found but my picture was blurry so I'll have to take another one tomorrow.  :)