A New Year's Intention

Have I mentioned that I don't make New Year's resolutions? I generally prefer to just set goals for myself whenever I feel the need. However....the timing simply worked out on this one, so here it is.....

I am setting a goal to write at least one blog post per week all year this year. Garden, house, life....whatever, but at least one post per week.

So what are your New Year's resolutions? Do you make them? Better yet, do you keep them? Or are you a rebel like me (please hold your laughter) and circumvent the whole thing?

Painting a Thrift Store Find

I have a seriously embarrassing lack of seating in my house. One of the things about moving from a 900 sq ft apartment to a 1450 sq ft house....you can't fit many chairs in 900 sq ft, but it starts to get embarrassing when I try to have people over now. I shuffle chairs from the dining room to my music room so I and my cello students can have a place to sit. I thought about it the other day....I only had 5 dining-ish chairs. I'm not really sure how I ended up with that odd number, but I decided to remedy the situation.

There is a thrift store not far from the house called Southern Thrift that I've taken to wandering through every so often. Sometimes I don't find anything, sometimes I find something really cool....like this guy.

Now, I know it looks a little worse for wear in this picture, but I figured that for $3 (thanks to the fact that Southern Thrift gives 50% off all furniture every Monday), I could scrape off the K-Swiss sticker, sand it down and give it a fresh coat of paint.

I chose a basic glossy white. The other chairs in the dining room are stained wood, but they were significantly darker stained wood with upholstery (and don't match), and I liked the idea of a little variance. The other thing I chose to do was use spray paint with primer already in it. I'm all about saving work where I can. Some people call it lazy....I like to call it efficient.

I dragged the chair outside, sanded it down and then wiped it down with a damp rag. Once it was dry, I started spraying in thin and even coats (to avoid drips). Here's a picture after the first coat.

It took two full coats, plus a few touch ups. I let it cure for a few days in the garage before bringing it into the house to let the paint harden and to give the paint stink a chance to dissipate. Here's the finished product.

I like the contrast of the white with the darker wood tones and the aqua color on the walls. Have you been painting furniture lately? Tackling other projects? I'd love to hear about them!

Excuses, Excuses and Painting the Potty

Man.....I've let it go another month between posts again. Sorry y'all!

I have a (sort of) good excuse though.....I've been working my tail off. Not at blogging, but with my music. The month of October hit with a vengance. I think I played two or three weddings, sang at a master class (the same day as one of those weddings), performed on the red carpet at the BMI Country Awards (what?!) and performed a solo recital. Whew! I actually have one more thing to do before I can stop, breathe, and take a mental health day (or two or five)....I am auditioning for grad school next week. Because, you know, I didn't already have plenty to do.

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have already seen this picture, but in case you didn't see it, this is from the BMI gig. Sorry for the grainy image....it was an iPhone picture.

 

And yes....I was playing on a platform that was five feet off the ground. On a ghost chair. In a VERY glittery dress. And don't you just love the calla lilies they used to decorate our music stands?!

Onward.

So before the whirlwind hit, I actually did get a thing or two finished around the house. Like painting behind the toilet....something I had been putting off for way too long.

Back when I painted the bathroom green, I left out one spot. Mostly because I was intimidated and foolishly thought I was going to have to take off the toilet tank to paint behind it. This is what I was left with for the better part of three months.

Not so cool right? Once I finally got sick of looking at it, I started looking online to see how I could remedy the situation and I read that hardware stores carry special tools for painting behind the toilet.

There is no such tool. They looked at me like I had three heads when I asked about this.

So I improvised. I had one of those thin rollers that I could fit behind my toilet, but  I would have ended up with green paint all over the back of it, so I taped a trash bag to the back of the toilet tank and painted away.

Here's everything put back together. Isn't that so much better?!

So what have you guys been up to for the past month? Any cool happenings? Improvisations to share?

Changing the Furnace Filter

Oh the small joys of being a home owner...keeping up with all these small tasks that must be done on a regular/quasi regular basis. Exhibit A: Changing the furnace filter.

I have to admit from the get go that I failed to take any pictures in this process, but furnace filters are not the most interesting things. This post is more to remind myself that in three months, I need to do it again!

My understanding of furnace filters is that they are supposed to be changed every three months or so, so I didn't worry about it when we first moved into the house. Since it's been getting cooler here, I decided to check on it before we needed the heat. Let's just say that whoever replaced the furnace filter last got one that was supposed to be changed every 30 days. Let's ponder that for a moment. We've been living here for nearly four months now....gross. Makes me really glad I didn't take a picture. How embarrassing! No wonder my allergies have been so bad...

I did purchase a nicer filter this time that is supposed to last for three months. And I washed my hands thoroughly when I was finished.

Bringing in the Bounty

Before I get into the title topic, I thought I'd share this picture, taken about 7 o'clock this morning. I love foggy mornings!

So onto the topic at hand....this is what I pulled out of the garden this morning.

Yes....that colander is as wide as my kitchen sink. There actually are also some jalapenos and bell peppers under all those green beans. Oh, and then there was the turnip that's the size of my hand.

Granted, I have small hands, but that's a pretty big turnip!

So, anyone have some good recipes that use lots of green beans? I've actually already frozen about a half gallon of them so far!

More Fall Plantings

The rest of my fall planting order has arrived! Woo hoo! Here's what I've got:

Moon River Peony
California Hard Neck Garlic
Naturalizing Daffodils
Apricot Beauty Tulips

With that, and the fall season, comes some to-do's:

1. Find spots for and plant my new goodies!
2. Plant bulbs given to me by my voice teacher and his wife (I have a giant tray full of bulbs! Mostly daffodil...they think)
3. Plant more green onions, lettuce and mustard greens
4. Clean out pots. I have some iris and daylilies in containers from the apartment that I have been waiting to plant in the ground. Others are just past their prime and are looking scraggly or need to be brought inside before it gets too cold.
5. Stir compost and add leaves as they fall and are raked up

What does your fall clean-up/to-do list look like?

Painting My Drop Cloth Curtains

Ok, I've shared how I went about making curtains from drop cloths from the hardware store here and here. I actually made them a couple months ago and lived with them plain for a while to make sure I wanted to go to the extra effort of painting them. Finally, I decided to jump in.

I actually got the idea of using a stencil to paint curtains at this Apartment Therapy post, so I picked up an inexpensive stencil at a craft store, dug out some leftover red paint I had leftover from a painting project at our old apartment, and grabbed some roller covers and a paint tray from the hardware store.

Before I could get to work, I had to clear a large-ish spot in the garage, sweep it (so I didn't get my curtains dirty), and tape down some builders paper left over from this gardening project. Once that was done, I brought my curtains out to the garage (with the door open for ventilation) and got to work.

I lined up and taped down my stencil over the fabric so it wouldn't move around and started rolling. Here's a mid-process shot:

Every so often, I'd have to take the stencil out to the back yard and hose it off so I didn't get smears (got a few of those anyway, but it would have been way worse if I hadn't done this). Oh, and I also tried using an old rag instead of a roller.....the roller works way better, and is much faster.

In total, this probably took an hour. I decided to only do the bottom portion of the curtains instead of the entire thing. My best guess is that it would have taken 3 or 4 hours to do an all-over stencil like this. Anyway, here they are drying.

You can see where I had a little bit of smudging at the top of the pattern. Here's a closeup of the stenciled pattern. I have to say I'm impressed by how cleanly it came out on the whole.

And here they are in all their glory...I'm giving myself mental high fives all over the place. I'm usually not a craft person!

Oh, and the reason I only did the bottom of the curtains? There were a couple. First, there is a convenient seam at bottom-of-window-height that made it a natural choice, but I was also trying to avoid an overload of red. You see, I love red....it definitely qualifies as my favorite color, but the giant area rug under the couch is red, the doormat is red, the front door is red, the toss pillows are red....you see my meaning? There are plenty of other colors in the room to balance this right now, but I am acutely aware that red is one of those colors that is easy to over-do.