Flower Bed Fixing - Wine Bottle Style

I've been saving wine bottles for a year in prep for this project, and it looks like I have (much) more drinking in my future.  Not because it went badly, but because I don't have nearly enough empty bottles.

The side without the bottles...all undefined and encroached on by our crab grass full front yard.

After digging out the other side and pulling an unknown chunk of concrete we started putting in the bottles.  I usually drink the same kind of wine, but I had a few random clear bottles as well.  We decided to use them on the ends to anchor it...we'll see if we like it.  

We used all the green bottles we had (clearly I need to drink more often...or start dumpster/recycle bin diving), and it's only partially finished.  We'll add to it as we get more, and as with everything else we do it will grow and change with us.  

Oh and yes, we have a flamingo in our front yard, his name is Fred and he is made of concrete.  My husbands late grandfather made him and we love him.  No bashing on Fred.

Half finished...and darn it I just noticed that the right edge isn't as far into the ground as the left edge.  Oh well...we'll fix it when we add more.  Now where is my wine?

Gotta love Craigslist furniture.

We've been stalking craigslist for mid-century modern furniture for a while now.  Two weeks ago we found what we were looking for....well mostly.  A Vintage Flexsteel sofa & matching chair plus a vintage recliner for $150.  Since they were an hour + away I sent Justin, in a rented cargo van, to go pick it all up.

(The giant black overstuffed monstrosity in the background is our old couch.  Nothing wrong with it, SUPER comfy, but it totally didn't fit the look we wanted.)

I LOVE the lines on this sofa.  The down side is that it does need to be reupholstered.
New burlap, new batting, new cushions (change the cushions into 2 wide cushions instead of three little ones), delete the piping on the back & kick board, and last but not least change the buttons to one row straight across. After the changes it should look even more true mid-century.  I'm thinking we will reupholster it in a grey/back heavy tweed fabric (if you look closely you can see the swatch on the back of the couch).

Beautiful vintage green tweed recliner (Justin LOVES it).
Whichever chair stays (this one or the one that matches the
couch) will be reupholstered in the lagoon blue tweed you see
on the top back of this picture.

Matching Flexsteel Chair, and yes for some reason
there is a cat door into our closet.  Add that to the must be
fixed later list.  Something tells me Maggie isn't
getting through there.

The owl print on the wall is from my mom.  My Aunt did that
print from a wood carving.  Thanks Mom & Aunt Sue!

 

So this is what our living room looks like with all the new furniture.  I think we need one less chair.  Currently Justin and I don't agree on which chair needs to leave with the black overstuffed sofa, but we'll keep you updated on who wins which way we go.

New Year...New Paint.

Thanks to the help of some wonderful friends & a painting party we finished painting the living room.  We used Benjamin More Stonington Grey color matched to Clark and Kensington low VOC satin.  We went with the more expensive low VOC paint due to it being cold outside and we really didn't want the boys being cooped up inside with the paint smell.  

This was our first trial of low VOC paint and Justin and I were both impressed.  It covered very well, barely smelled at all and we are able to wipe grimmy hand prints and dog drool off it easily.  

Here is the living room last year before we moved in.  

It was a very warm almost yellow off white.  Which was nice, but claustrophobia inducing for me.  

Here is our living room now.

We love it.  

It feels much more open and we are now eager to get all our art back up on the walls.  

This is what Maggie thinks of it.  

I'd say it gets her approval.  

New Year...New Paint.

Thanks to the help of some wonderful friends & a painting party we finished painting the living room.  We used Benjamin More Stonington Grey color matched to Clark and Kensington low VOC satin.  We went with the more expensive low VOC paint due to it being cold outside and we really didn't want the boys being cooped up inside with the paint smell.  

This was our first trial of low VOC paint and Justin and I were both impressed.  It covered very well, barely smelled at all and we are able to wipe grimmy hand prints and dog drool off it easily.  

Here is the living room last year before we moved in.  

It was a very warm almost yellow off white.  Which was nice, but claustrophobia inducing for me.  

Here is our living room now.

We love it.  

It feels much more open and we are now eager to get all our art back up on the walls.  

This is what Maggie thinks of it.  

I'd say it gets her approval.  

And the wall (paper) came down.

As always the holidays made us finish up some projects that have been hanging in we'll do that later land for a year a while.  Yay for crossing things off the to-do list!  

We started with the wallpaper border that's been bugging me since we moved in. Partially because it was old, & starting to come off in places.  Partially because we needed to remove it so we could paint, but mostly because it's been staring at me everyday bugging me since we moved in. 

The kitchen with fruit/pair border (and my horribly unorganized top of the fridge).

Dining Room flowery ribbon border (and LOTS of dirty handprints from my wonderful children).

We started by trying to peel the boarder off the wall.....with a scrapper.  Not recommened.  Learn from us don't try this at your house.  After about 30 min we decided it was time to rent a wallpaper steamer.  Lucky for us our local hardware store, Cottins hardware, had one available.  So Justin ran out to pick it up.  I don't know what I was expecting a wallpaper steamer to look like but this wasn't it.

After Justin reciting all the warnings that came with the steamer, and hearing it heat it up I let him do most of the steaming while reciting lines from The Fifth Element "Gimme some heat, man! ", "I need some HEAT over here, maaan!"

Even Justin admitted that the steamer was a bit scary and donned his fire fighter gloves.  

The steamer worked wonderfully and in about 45 mins we had all the border off from the kitchen and dining room.  

Next...Paint!

A sunny new face

We had an outdoor wedding, on a pond at sunset.  My mom made my dress. There was a horse and carriage to take us to the reception.  It was perfect.  As luck would have it a friend of the family made the "pews" for our event.  As a wonderful wedding present he was kind enough to give us one.  That was seven and a half years ago.  Since then he (the bench, not the friend of the family) has sat outside in the baking sun, awful humidity, and frigid winters.  He has been nibbled on by termites, sat on by dozens of people and climbed all over by two kiddos and a dog.  He's seen better days.  


I sentimentally view this bench as a symbol of our marriage (beautiful, solid, comfortable, and impossible to move) and since we don't look all worn and faded. I decided he needed a make over.  


This is what he looked like before.  Well...after Justin helped me wedge the cardboard under his feet.  He is a monster to move.

.......Sad I know.  




So I chipped off the loose bark on his feet and primed him up.....four times....with Kilz Stainblocker.  

I let that dry...mostly...but I'm impatient and wanted to finished the main part before the boys got up from nap so I painted him with 2 coats of Weather All Latex paint in Tawny Port.  

As you can see he was still on his protective cardboard when I snapped this.  Those have since gone away. 

Cost break down:  A quart of Weather All paint in Tawny Port - $12.00 ish...Justin isn't sure.

A quart of Kilz Stainblocker - Free left over from an earlier project.

So for about $12.00 our sad weathered bench got a sunny makeover.  Here is the happy new face of our house.  I'm a happy camper.