The Fickle Hobbyist

Archive for February, 2010

A couple of weeks ago I went crazy buying four pieces of furniture off of Craigslist.  (are you surprised?  Or do you see a trend??)  I spent $105 and got a coffee table, armoire, desk, and dresser.  I thought that was an amazing deal on some furniture that I was going to bring a new life to.  Well, remember how I mentioned I’m impetuous?  Yeah, I totally jumped the gun with the dresser and didn’t take enough time to plan.  Here’s what happened, and what I am going to have to do to fix it.  lol

Here’s the dresser I got for $40.  It has a whitewash on it, so I didn’t HAVE to prime it, but I did anyway, after I filled all the imperfections with wood putty and sanded it down a bit.  Here’s where it started to go wrong, though.  I don’t know WHAT I was thinking, but I got a glossy paint.  (WTH?)  I ended up putting two coats on it, and I HATE the way it looks!  I used the foam rollers and all that good stuff, so it’s not that it’s not smooth, it just looks thick and gross now.  From far away it looks great, but close up it’s … yuck. 

Another major thing that bothers me is that I had been sitting on the ground painting the drawers, stood up, and dusted my butt off, so a bunch of debris went flying onto my WET PAINT.  DUH!!!  What was I thinking??

So now because I hate this dresser’s finish, I’m thinking I’ll have to re-sand the whole thing and repaint it with a satin finish or something.  Blah.  I was really hoping to get it into the girls’ room sometime soon, but it looks like it will have to wait a bit because now other projects are taking precedence over it..  Grrr.

Have you ever had any projects not go the way you wanted? 

-Autumn

Remember when I said I was on the hunt for a chair that I can reupholster?  I’ve still been checking daily (if not more than once a day.  haha!) and found one that I thought I’d like to recover.  The picture was bad.  It was blurry and it looked old and yucky, but I wasn’t looking at overall condition, after all I was going to paint and recover the seat and back anyway, right?  It WAS a bit more than I wanted to pay, but I haven’t had much luck tracking down the shape I wanted, so I was willing to shell out just a little more.

So today the dudes are installing the carpet and chair guy calls and says “Hey I’ll be in your area I can just drop the chair by if you want me to.”  LOVE IT!  So he gets here and he is carrying this BEAUTIFUL chair WITH THE TAG ON IT STILL!  I was like “OMG, that is way nicer than I was expecting.  I was thinking I was going to have to recover and paint it!” and he goes “Yeah, I’ve had it for a year and never used it.”  WHAA?  Why he didn’t write this in the ad, I’ll never know.  Anyway, I was so excited!  Instead of putting it downstairs where I was originally planning, I decided to stick it up stairs in the (newly carpeted and soon to be rearranged) game room.  I love it!

Do you see the tag still on it?  lol  (I forgot to remove it for the pics)  It says that the chair is hand carved.  Nice!

So, I managed to get this beauty AND have it delivered for $50.  I know, I know, some people think that’s too much to pay for a chair, but I’m not as fortunate as some of you who have these awesome Goodwills with chairs for $.99  (why oh why not?!??!)  I couldn’t be happier.  And really, isn’t that what treasure hunting is all about? 

-Autumn

I’m linking this to Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Feature Friday Linky Party.

The ideal of calm exists in a sitting cat.

- Jules Reynard

Cats are glorious creatures ~ who must on no accounts be underestimated…
Their eyes are fathomless depths of cat-world mysteries.
- Lesley Anne Ivory

A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.

- William Lyon Phelps

Kittens are born with their eyes shut. They open them in about six days, take a look around, then close them again for the better part of their lives.

- Stephen Baker

Man, cats have the life, don’t they?  As I’m preparing to clean out all of our upstairs closets for the carpet guys tomorrow, I notice Max has jumped up into one of the only sunny parts of the house; the playroom window.  Inevitably he will sit there all day, just sunning himself, soaking in the warmth.  They have it so easy.  His life is a constant vacation.  He eats when he wants, he plays when he wants, he sleeps wherever he wants, and he’s got two little girls who dote on him CONSTANTLY.  Lucky guy.

-Autumn