Tales from the Trash Pile: Fudging Architectural Awesomeness

Anyone in love with the DIY channel?  I really like HGTV, but the bulk of their programming seems dominated by House Hunters.  There isn't anything wrong with that show, but it gets old fast.  I prefer design shows that not only utilize smart design, but show us average joes how to pull of the look for less.  The DIY channel seems to marry great design with construction.  I'm a fan for sure.  So after discovering that our TV package included the DIY channel (YEAH) I have been wandering through their viewing selection as I've been pulling late nights getting our house ready for real estate pictures for the listing.  One of my new favorite shows is called Black Dawg Salvage.  Now I cringe every time I see them gut an old structure for all its beautiful parts, but knowing that these items will receive a second chance at life is awesome when you understand the building are going away regardless.

They are always looking for those unique architectural pieces that look awesome on their own, or can be made into something else unique and one of a kind.  I visited an architectural salvage yard in Jackson Mississippi, and it was straight up dreamy.  I'm pretty sure I just floated through there in a daze of possibilities (if only I was independently wealthy).

This is just a sampling of exactly how dreamy it truly was, and as always Miss Phoebe was more than happy to be my willing model.

I will say there was pretty much nothing there that I could afford.  Obviously I want the look, but now I just needed to mimic it for less.

Then the new year arrived, and with it a desire not to be a chunky chick anymore.  So I started taking the occasional morning walk, and I came across this gorgeous pile of garbage!  Can anyone tell what this is?  No?  Its a broken king size bed frame.  This thing is made of extremely nice SOLID wood.  No veneers up in here folks.  It had broken, and you could tell someone had tried to dismantle it...like an animal and done further damage to something that probably could have been fixed from the get go.  I came across this about midway through my walk, and I can tell you I've never finished up a walk so quickly before in my life.  The bulk garbage truck was in the neighborhood hauling off piles of garbage just like my treasure find.

So I practically ran home (a feat in and of itself), and jumped into my suburban, and drove straight there before the garbage truck!  I may or may not have played "We Are the Champions" on my slower drive back home.  To celebrate my obvious victory.

I got home unloaded it in my garage, and just looked at it while waiting for inspiration to strike.

Fast forward a few months, and we are getting the house ready to show.  I have always been awful about hanging pictures and other things on the walls.  It just seems like a lot of commitment.  What if I hate it?  Regardless I needed to dress the walls to just take everything up a notch visually.  Not everyone is into the cool furniture pieces I have.  

My formal living room is a funky mismatch of furniture and styles that all somehow work with each other.  There was a space above my swanky sofa that was screaming for something cool, awesome even. So I went back out, and took a look at my awesome bed pieces again, and came across this broken bit off what I'm going to say was head board.  

It reminded me of some of the cool fancy door headers I've seen them salvage on Black Dawg Salvage.  So I set about transforming this headboard into architectural salvage inspired awesomeness. 

My first order of business was to cut off the joiner pieces that stuck out of either end.  That was a dead giveaway that it was from furniture, and not a piece of architecture at all.  So even though Señor Hotness was gone I gathered my courage and used the circular saw to cut the blasted things off myself.  I am happy to report that I am still in possession of all of my fingers, and no body got hurt although the teen was highly skeptical.  Then I used a rotary sander for the part in the middle where I had actually knocked off half of a broken fleur de lis.  I wanted to leave the edges looking as rough as possible without them actually being in danger of giving someone splinters.  Then I hand sanded the rest so it would take the spray paint better.

This middle part I'm going to gloss over since we had nothing but rain for days on end, and this was literally the only break we had had for 2 days.  Also there is insane flooding happening here in Northern Louisiana.  I feel very blessed that our home was not affected by the flooding because I know several were not so lucky.  Long story short I was so preoccupied with the time that I didn't remember to take any pictures.  I know, rookie mistake.

I used my spray paint stash to give this thing a few good coats of Krylon Blue Ocean Breeze.  After it was dry to the point of handling I brought it inside to finish drying in a less moist environment.  Once it was inside I thought the Blue Ocean Breeze was a little to intense looking.  I needed to dull it down, and help it to look more weathered.  

I opted to use a technique called dry brushing to achieve this look the best.  Dry brushing is done when you barely wet the brush with paint, and then wipe more of it off the brush before putting it on the furniture.  I personally prefer that you can see the brush strokes really well.  These are great, and you can use them to accent different features of your piece.  I was going for the look of an architectural piece that had been weathered outside. So I gather colors from my paint stash to help me out.  The first color I used was Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue, which is a super dreamy blue with a hint (super tiny hint) of green.  I'm a huge fan of the color, and have painted two room in this house that color and our family room in our Texas house this color.  It has a super relaxed beachy quality to it.  After dry brushing that on it helped to mellow out the intensity of the krylon blue.  Next I dry brushed on Krylon Classic Gray followed up with Valspar Shooting Star which is a super brilliant white color (I was very sparing with the white).

Then I let that dry for a hour or so, you won't need much time with the small amounts of paint actually used for the dry brushing process.  Then I used valspar glaze in the color barista (I have been using this same quart for going on 4-5 years now...it still has at least a third of the quart left).

That left it looking...awesome.  Don't mind the pizza boxes.  I horde them to use when painting.

As awesome as it looked sitting on the greasy pizza boxes I thought it looked a 1000 times dreamier perched on the wall above my formal room couch.  It brings just the right touch of funk, and class that the room needed.

And provided just the right backdrop needed for an impromptu sister photo session.

This was the nice polite one that they always take first, but then...

Their true personalities always shine through.

Just a few close ups of some of the dreamier parts of it.

I love the detail that was put into the background.

Just another picture of them looking deceptively cute.

And here is how it looks in the room.

All in all I would put this project in the mission accomplished category.  Also how great was my garbage find?  I mean really that was the best, ever.  Don't forget that it just takes time and imagination to make something plain become something outstanding, and in most cases you can get the look for less (or in this case completely free).   So get out there and make something pretty.

linked up at: www.funkyjunkinteriors.net, www.acrosstheblvd.com, www.simplelifeofafirewife.com, www.thededicatedhouse.com

Scary Honesty

Sometimes honesty can be scary.  Especially if you are like me, and incapable of being serious...ever.  Seriously.  Its a real problem.  You'd think that was a good thing to always be happy, but you see I'm not one of those rainbows and giggles type of girl.  I'm more sarcasm and sass. One of Señor Hotness's most uttered phrases is, "Can you be serious, for just a minute?"  The answer is almost always an emphatic and enthusiastic, no.  So I think it can be frightening for people when they ask if anything is wrong, and instead of joking about it or laughing it off I simply say, yes.

What could possibly be wrong when you have such a rosy outlook on life?

I'm going to get real for a moment, and lay down some truth bombs.  Kids can be huge jerks.  True story.  Parenting is often a crappy job.  Sometimes quite literally.  Sometimes a toddler tantrum coincides with the teen pulling epic amounts of righteous angst.  All while the moody seven year old is choosing to still be moody...about nothing, and I haven't even mentioned Joanie aka Destructo Girl who is often bouncing so quickly between things (translation: fiascos) that its hard to keep track of what she's getting into/destroying presently.  You know the jerkiness is especially high if you've ever said, "I don't negotiate with terrorist"...during church, in response to willful and vigorous pew kicking.  The tween is a pretty stand-up chic right now.  She's choosing to fly under the radar...I'm sure until I least expect it.

Sometimes parenting feels a little like trench warfare.  Especially when going head to head with the most willful five year old on the planet (and feeling like you are losing no less).  I always feel awful for whining, but whining is kind of my thing.  I enjoy the whining...it completes me.  But in all honesty I feel awful to complain when my life does more closely resemble the sunshine and rainbows than the doom and gloom.  I am not doing this alone.  I do have a partner in crime.  Maybe you've heard of him...Señor Hotness, and who doesn't want to a husband that is willing to be called Señor Hotness.  He is also a pretty stand up guy.

At the end of the day, even with the occasional heap of jerktitude floating about, I have five of the coolest dang kids around (don't even try to compare...mine are always going to be cooler than yours).  I feel it an honor to be their mother, and consider myself blessed that I am able to be such a huge part of their lives.  Even if I am often embarrassing to them. (Which is something I go out of my way to do because that is my job as their mother, to be a huge embarrassment, and I aim to excel at life.)  

In the end these people are mine, and I am theirs and I wouldn't change anything about it.  These girlies are my purpose for being, and I'll always pick them any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

So make sure before you go to sleep to give a jerky kid a squeeze and a kiss, and just remember they aren't always the jerks...sometimes its you.  :)

All Keyed Up: 2.0

Hey remember when I talked about my somewhat questionable eBay purchase turned key holder?  Since the move it just didn't seem to be doing it for me anymore.  So I decided a new face lift was in order, but what to do with it?

First I thought about doing a fun and quirky saying like: 'Not All Who Wander Are Lost...Some are Still Just Looking For Their Keys', or 'Out Running the Zombie Horde Could Come Down to Where You Left Your Keys'.  In the end I thought I would rather do something classier than a zombie themed key holder.  No offense for my zombie loving peeps, but I just couldn't pull the trigger.

My first step was removing the decorative paper that I had decoupaged on the back a few years back.

I just spritzed some water on the back to reactivate the glue so that it would just scrap off.

Slowly but surely it all came off.

Then I decided that I wanted to have a super rad harlequin pattern on the background.

So then I spent the next hour measuring, and taping off the pattern.  It took me an hour because I had help.

Aren't they cut helpers.  Totally worth the extra time added to the project because making memories takes time.

Ok, confession time.  Obviously the zombie theme made it all the way to the mock-up stage before I realized that it wasn't what I really wanted for my house.  I may have a crazy quirky sense of humor, but I just didn't think my home decor could handle it.  So, classy it was.

I carried the whole thing outside to give it a quick shot of silver paint.

I went with Rustoleum in Metallic Bright Silver.

First off lets just all agree to pretend that I'm better with a camera, and able to take a picture without having my toe featured in it.  Someday I'm going to make it though an entire post without my toe making an impromptu appearance somewhere...but I digress. After this step is when my project hit its first hiccup.  While I was allowing it dry out under the sun...in nature, there were apparently two tiny suicidal spiders out there just waiting to ruin my day.  When I went out to check on the drying, apparently two little spiders had landed in the wet paint, and flailed about enough to ruin...everything!

So using my putty knife I scraped off what was remaining of the gummy paint.  Then I let it sit on my counter for well over a week while I made up my mind on how to fix it, or if I wanted to head in a different direction altogether (or if I just wanted to live like an animal and not keep track of my keys anymore).  

In the end I decided I was civilized enough to want to keep track of my keys after all, and wanted to just go with a crisp clean look, and painted the whole thing a nice bright white.  I had a tiny little sample size container of paint that I turned into chalk paint with a little bit of plaster of paris, and after two coats I was in business.  

So...I got a CriCut Explore for Christmas this year because Señor Hotness loves me, and I have used it for a ton of paper style crafts for everything under the sun it seems, but I had yet to use it to do any vinyl cutting.  The youth at church held a MASSIVE garage sale to help raise money for youth camp.  Some awesome person donated some Cricut supplies, and a roll of turquoise vinyl.  So gave myself 2 whole seconds before I absconded with the goods because lets be honest I REALLY wanted it.  Also I didn't abscond with them so much as pay for them.  So now that I was a proud owner of a partial roll of vinyl I thought this would be a good project to cut my teeth on.

So in Cricut Design I found this awesome skeleton key design, and chose it as the background.  

  

So other than the fact that my kitchen was obviously trashed, and I was working on this project instead of cleaning it (because thats how I roll).  Let me just be honest.  Putting vinyl on free hand it WAY harder than you would think.  Next time I try something big I will most certainly invest in some transfer paper to make the task an easier one.  So after I wrestled that bad boy on there I realized that it was not totally centered on the background.  I tried to talk myself into thinking that it was fine.  So I snapped some pictures, and texted them to my, go to, truth tellers aka my sisters.  

Aren't sisters awesome?  They love me, and they feel absolutely no obligation to sugar coat, ANYTHING. So they agreed that it was looking sort of wonky(technical term), and one sided.  So instead of peeling that beast of a key off of there, and trying to reposition it...again.  It was suggested that I just add a bit of embellishment to try to balance it out.   

I found this cool little corner, and cut it out in my vinyl.  After I placed it I sent it back out to the ladies, and they all agreed that it was the final touch that it needed to look balanced, and well...awesome.

So at the end of the day I have this super awesome key holder with an awesome classy feel that I spent less than $5.00 on, everything, for it.  I can't wait to get it hung on the wall.  So the lesson I learned from this project is to not be afraid to change directions in the middle of a project because the end result could be cooler than your original vision could have ever been. 

Linked up at:  Savvy Southern Style, The Dedicated House, Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson, Shaken Together Life, 

Confessions of a Lazy Blogger...

Bless me Bloglandia for I have sinned.  It has been over a month since I last blogged, and if we're being honest my few posts since the move have been sorely lacking.  Our internet issues are still very much, well, an issue.  We opted to go with the crazy slow "high speed" internet that was the best offered in our area.  Well, peeps, its not even fast enough to support WiFi.  Who knew that internet would be so important to a blogger.  It boggles the mind.

The other reason I have been MIA is that my projects have been very much subject to the weather. Fun fact: Louisiana gets a LOT of rain.  Shocking I know, but with the rain and tons of humidity most of my projects have ground to a halt.  I have a few ugly pieces of furniture that are desperately needing a good overhaul, but not being sure how the crazy high level of moisture in the air will affect them has me being caution.  

Other than that we have been house hunting because who loves renting?  Not me.  Also Destructo Girl broke our dishwasher so the amount of dishes that the older girls and I have had to do it staggering, and then we have to do it all over again the next day.  Talk about first world problems.  The amount of dishes generated by a family of seven is no joke, and, believe me, I've tried to joke about it.

All of that being said spring is upon us, and I sense a few awesome projects in my near future.  So stay tuned for new developments...

If It Looks Like a Duck, Smells Like a Duck...Sometimes That Means it Could be a Stinking Skunk!

There are a few things that I have always had absolute convictions in.  One, people can have a true love/soul mate, and I found mine. Two, being a mom is fun, but being mom to the female horde is AWESOME.  Three, if your husband has a cleft chin, big ears, and somehow still manages not to look goofy he will help you produce 5 of the prettiest girls EVER.  An added bonus is they will be able to use their hair to cover up their inherited ear size.  Four, if your honey is willing to be a complete dork, just because it makes you smile, and then post evidence of those dorky activities on your social media/blog page, you, my friends, are truly blessed indeed...for example.

See what I mean...he's fantastically awesome!

Fifth, any ad on craigslist that possesses the words "solid wood" and "antique", but looks like it needs a little love is usually worth the long, gas guzzling trip to get it.

Today my good friends I find myself on a somewhat shakier foundation.  I have finally found a piece of furniture that I needed to walk away from.  The ad said it was a "solid wood", "antique desk" that needed a "little work".  Probably from the "30s or 40s".  What the ad neglected to disclose was that it was an antique piece of junk, and I'm not talking about that junk you buy then restore and wow your friends with.  No I'm talking about J-U-N-K, JUNK!  The man with the ad said through our email correspondence that it was "hand crafted with reclaimed wood".  What he meant was dude pulled stuff out of the burn pile, and made what could have possibly passed for a desk if you have a serious stigmatism, a lazy eye, and early onset glaucoma.  My sincerest apologies if this describes you.  

The moral of this post is, first and foremost, that Señor Hotness is super crazy awesome.  Secondly that sometimes when something looks like junk, sounds like it could be junk...it possibly really is junk.  The clincher is some of the coolest treasures have been potential junk.  So I guess I'll just have to keep playing with fire, and hope I don't get burned too terrible often.