Loot

The other day, my friend Tom called and said he bought me some items at an auction.  This is Tom!code for "I bought several rooms at an auction and you can come take your pick of what you want in exchange for some light manual labor."  We have a great relationship.  :)

So, at 10am today, I headed down to this dusty, grimy, buggy place full of metal, wood, and everything in between.  Yikes.  It was a rather terrifying at times and absolutely hilarious in others.  I'm headed back tomorrow because I need to work off the goods I claimed...

I'm on a mirror kick and got a bunch of large wall mirrors to spruce up.  The tall one in the back and the oval one toward the front have the hardware to use on a stand, so I think I'll make something for them so we have a floor mirror in each of the bedrooms... 

I grabbed a few more picture frames... even though I just got four at Goodwill yesterday.  Yes, that's my bff the Valspar silver spraypaint - I used it on yesterday's frames and they look awesome (I'll post pictures as soon as I settle on where to hang them).  :)

There were lots of sewing notions and I found a brand new tin of German straight pins, plus enough bias tape to go around the block at least twice.

 These are metal bins that I plan to hang on pegboard (via S hooks) for a recycling station in the garage.  I kind of like the yellow, although I may paint them eventually.

These are sturdy wooden magazine racks.  I need to figure out how to incorporate them into one of my favorite Pins, although one needs to be devoted to my Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple magazine collections.

I was looking for a table upon which I can keep my sewing machine and instead I found several sewing machine tables!  This table was in the best condition; the included machine is modern-ish, yet worn.  I'll dig it out later and see how it works.  :)  Otherwise, I am hoping mine can go in (or just on top).  :)

Jackpot!!!  I found one of these bedposts earlier in the morning and spent the rest of the day keeping my eyes peeled for the rest.  The headboard was attached yet very un-salvageable, so Tom cut the pieces down so I can use them in a new construction.  Super excited.  The piece of wood behind is a veneered piece that has great potential.  We found several wood rails that I may be able to adapt...

 I'm still on a hunt for a lamp to go with the shade in the bedroom... maybe this one?

I grabbed this table to go as a grill station on the patio... it just needs a little TLC (the missing side is somewhere in Tom's car, perhaps?)...more picture frames on top.

I found some other odds and ends (spray paint, paint brushes, some metal baskets/organizers, etc)... and finally this slightly rusty gem from the 1930s:

 Do you like to go to auctions?  What sort of gems have you discovered?

Ding Dong

Happy Summer!!!  We have just one day of school left (a Teacher Day), so I got started on my summer projects on Saturday.  Here's two:

One of the first things I noticed about my house is was the doorbell.  Crooked...yellowed...rusty... yet somehow not my thing:

Since the doorknob and deadbolt are brushed chrome, I wanted something of a similar hue.  Lowe's didn't have much in the way of brushed chrome selection (at least not in my price range), so I ended up buying a silver-tone one.  After turning off the power to my porch (I didn't fancy getting knocked on my butt just to pretty up my house), it was just a matter of unscrewing the top screws, disconnecting the wires from the old bell, and then connecting them to the new bell, and reattaching the new bell to the house.  Voila!  

While at Lowe's, I also picked up some Valspar silver spray paint.  It was under $5 and my intention is to use it on the dining room chandelier.  However, that is currently stuck on my ceiling so until it detaches itself, I thought I would use it to give the kickplate a makeover...

...because the second thing I noticed when I first saw this house was this brass kickplate:

Yowza.  Funny story - the bottom left corner was not screwed in.  There wasn't even a hole for the screw!  This happens a lot in my house.  I think the builders were lazy.  

Anyway, three coats of the spraypaint - dry to the touch between coats.  Totally dry in about an hour.  

The screws were brassy, too, so I decided they needed a paint job as well.  To keep the screws stable as I sprayed the heads, I poked them into a paper-towel roll covered in foil.  The foil was not to protect the paper-towel roll (I'm not that weird), it was so the roll wouldn't...well...roll.  In the picture below, there are only ten screws... if you're counting you know there should be eleven (#12 never being installed).  I found the missing little guy on the porch and poked him into the other end later.  

Once everyone was dry, I removed the painted screws by unscrewing them (they wouldn't just pull out)...

...and reattached the "new" kickplate to the door:

 

I think it looks pretty snazzy!  Although in this picture, the peaking-out doorknob looks brassy.  :D

What have you spray-painted new life into?

Eurovision Love

My dear friend Deanna is, like me, a ridiculous fan of ridiculous European music and on Saturday our favorite annual event, the Eurovision Song Competition, was held in Azerbaijan.  Since plane tickets to Baku were out of the question, this year we held our viewing non-party at my house.

Going into the competition, my Top Three were:
- Cyprus (La La Love has been stuck in my head for days)
- Turkey (I love boats <3 )
- Ireland (What can I say?  I also love me some Jedward!)

Also, an honorable mention to Russia!!  :)

We invited Summer (a new teacher at our school who used to live in Sweden) and decided to go international for our snacks: I made my famous French onion soup, and German pretzels, and bought Italian wafer cookies, melba toast from Holland, and German herring.  Deanna brought French bread and brie, Italian red wine, Belgium "Abbey ale" beer, and these Israeli cookies that I used to buy all the time in Connecticut.  Summer made a real Greek salad and brought Swedish coffee.  Yum!!

In the end... Sweden won.  Perhaps it was Summer's presence! :)  We were bummed about Cyprus's dismal finish... oh well, though!  We still had fun!  :)

What's your favorite international music hit?

Indiana Jones and the Bathtub of Doom

I have a confession to make.  I've been spending a lot of time in the bathroom lately.  Not very glamorous?  Well, I've been in the master bath, actually.  In the bathtub.  Tragically it's still not glamorous.

It turns out the bathtub was not properly sealed and there are giant cracks just asking for a water damage party on my downstairs ceiling.  Last Sunday, I spent a few hours peeling off the small amount of caulk that happened present.  I used a baby screwdriver to 'cut' the seal and it worked pretty well.  While I was at it, I also cleaned off the paint on top of the bathtub, because someone had a heavy hand when it came to painting.  Shocker.  :)

When I got to the section where I suspected water damage (where the tub part meets the shower wall part, on the water end of the tub [see above]), a quarter-sized chunk of wall came off with the sealant.  The drywall was squishy underneath.  Is that called wetwall?

I didn't take a picture of the final 3/4-inch deep hole I ended up creating as I removed all of the squishiness.  Trust me, it was awesome.  I had to keep digging - I just didn't feel right about the pink film I was seeing...

On Monday, I found some leftover Spackle in the garage, so I filled in the hole and cracks with it.  It was surprisingly rewarding.  I've never Spackled before, although I've iced a lot of cakes.  Using Luna Lovegood's movie logic, how different are they really?  Plus, I watched a ton of Bob Ross growing up and he could make beautiful happy trees with a putty knife, why couldn't I fix my wall with one?  After the Spackle dried, I caulked the daylights out of every nook and cranny of the bathtub as well as the baseboards.  I think I did a pretty good job.  :)

Are you a weekend warrior?

In a White Room

I'm testing some color palates for the master bedroom... and I put the down comforter on so I could look at the duvet cover.  It's white with pale lavender fern-like designs.  My current obsessions (as evidenced by my Pins) are pale grey walls, yellow accents, and a few fuschia pops.  Note: the walls are not yet painted (chips are currently all over the window seat), and I am itchy to move the former owner's curtain rod up to the outside of the deeeeeeeep window.  Drives me crazy about four times a day.  It's on my to do list.  :)

As always, a work in progress:

What's your ultimate bedroom color scheme?

Poor Poly

The cat's food bowl was mobbed by ants last weekend.  :(  Poor kitty cat looooves strawberries and tragically, didn't finish the last bit of her snack.  The anties came out of the woodwork (literally, I think they squeezed in through a crack between the kitchen and the garage).  I tried my usual cleaning supply (vinegar) and that did nothing.  Since I don't have a lot of chemicals in the kitchen and zero bug sprays, I grabbed the only thing I could think of: the oven cleaner.  Those buggers haven't been back yet.

Poly's pretty happy:

What treats do your pets enjoy?

Ace is the Place (for Candles)

I'm on a crusade to find a magnetic hook strong enough to hold my aprons.  I've tried Target, Big Lots, Fred's, and now Ace.  Ace has ginormous ones and not quarter-sized ones.  So, Ace is not the place for smallish strong magnetic hooks.

They are, however, the place for candles.  The local Ace Hardware has votives and tapers on for 50% off... and they were only 35c to start!  Since someone burned all the candles I got at the Yankee Candle flagship store in S. Deerfield (who would do such a thing?), I stocked up on colors that match the current decor:

I managed to sneak out a precious antique cupboard from my mom's house when I moved out time #2, I now store my candles in it, just like she did.  Hi Mom!  I keep vases, candles, fancy soaps, and my Hanukkah items in here.  Also, two bags of potpourri Ace gifted me.  Thanks, dudes!

And it sits nicely between the Harry Potter closet and the powder room:

Picture of my lovely parents on the front right.  Unframed Paris art (three of countless) here until frames are located... Mah jongg set chilling on the bottom because I keep forgetting to put it away... :)

Where do you keep all of your smelly-good stuff (and 50lb Chinese games)?