Thrift Finds

It's been a while since I recorded some thrift finds on here. I have found a few beauties over the past month and I grabbed a few photos from my latest haul. I have been in the middle of decorating my living room. The sofa reupholstery project helped furnish some of the room. New curtains were hung. I still need to upholster the coordinating chair and ottoman once I find the fabric.
I seem to be attracted to shiny accents for the room, so when I found this vintage (?) brass crane lamp (with working light bulb!) for $5 I did not hesitate to throw it in the cart. I did not take a picture of the under side of the shade, but there is a half moon piece of frosted glass that helps filter the light from the bulb. It casts a soft light and I love it. I also found a few fun drinking glasses. The purple print glass is a specific type of drinking glass that I think was featured in a Martha Stewart magazine article a while back. I just tried searching her website for a link, but if you know what I am talking about, please fill me in! I wouldn't mind a whole collection of this type of glassware. And you know no home is complete without a crank pencil sharpener in the basement or garage, so I am excited I found one. I also amassed a collection of white glass mixing bowls and bakeware. I now have a complete set of bowls with this latest find. :)

Oh, and check this out. I have already shared my love of secret places and locks and keys. So I found this key, which fits into this lock.....


I was so surprised to find the key stored in an inside zipper pocket! I'm not sure if I'll leave it as-is or modify the exterior in some cool Anthropologie-ish manner. It's in pristine condition.

It's nice to find a few great used pieces to incorporate into my home. Now I can check "sew overnight bag" off my things to do. And I have a lamp for the living room. And you can't have too many dishes can you? Don't answer that question if you are thinking "yes".

99% complete

Let's review.

{Before}

This sofa showed up in my house sometime in Dec 2009. And it sat around for almost a year before I posted about it again. Then I messed around for a couple of months with the idea of making a slip cover for it. And then almost 2 years (!) after it arrived in my house I finally committed to a complete reupholstery job in Jan 2011. Then in the last month things really got moving. In my last post I shared a picture with fabric attached!

Well, my friends. It's 99% finished. If you notice in the before photo there are some buttons on the sofa back and I was debating on putting them on or not. I'm leaning on yes. My husband says leave them off. So, what should I do?

{After}

{Ah! I am so excited about how this turned out!}

{Full room shot}

I added new curtains to the living room too. I am really in love with them. Good thing too because they were on clearance which means they are non-returnable. They add a bit of pattern and make the room feel more grown up. I think I am going to sell the Falcon chairs and use the money towards his and her reading chairs. Or, if I can, find another vintage sofa/sectional to put in the room. Now, buttons or no?

Sofa progress- home stretch

As you can see.... there is fabric on the sofa! Still lots of stapling to do though. Both the right and left arms are done and fitted really well. I have to wait for an extra set of hands to staple the bottom edge under and the top edge over. If I'm not careful and pull evenly before stapling these long horizontal lines I could end up with waves. Not what I am hoping for. Once the top edge is secured I can add the buttons to the sofa back. And the cushion just arrived. It was shrink wrapped for shipping so they recommend to let it sit for a day to rebound.

^I seriously just patted myself on the back at this beautifully fitted curve.^

PS. I have destroyed my house with this project! That and my cat has "helped" distribute batting across the house. :)

Thrift Find- Book Storage

A few weeks ago I posted about my theme for this year: Everything has a place. The lovely little book shelf my husband brought home was enough space for our ever growing collection of food related books, but we still had a plethora of other books to contend with. The formerly formal dining room in our home is an dumping ground for things we don't know what to do with. It has a recliner my husband doesn't like to sit in, an odd table, boxes of magazines, and a hanging chandelier that people can bump their heads on.

This room will grow as our family grows. I can imagine we'll gate this space off for future kiddos and then it will become the reading/homework room and the family computer will eventually reside in here. But for now it'll hold our newest book storage solution!

Isn't she lovely?! I found her at a local used furniture place. Actually "the place" is more like a steel Morton building with no heat that I was scavenging around in the middle of a January snow storm. But totally worth it! She's solid walnut and in good condition. The top portion is removable. When I saw her in the barn I called my husband (at work) to tell him how much I liked her. I had to give my disclaimer that this piece was more my style of furniture, but if he trusts me I know some minor tweaks would bring her to out of the 70's and into our home. (Now how could he not trust me!) So I put the money down, traded some babysitting for a friend to haul her home for me and there she sits. Eventually we'll put built in bookcases in this corner for a library effect, but for $150 I think I got an excellent deal. You can't buy a good Target bookshelf that won't sag for under that.

I promised my husband I would switch out the hardware and replace the woven thatch in the side panels. The hardware will be easy, the thatch is another thing. At first I thought it would pop right out and I would use it as a template for its glass replacement. Then we could see the books lost in the far right and left portions of the shelves. But its glued onto a solid piece of wood that runs underneath the trim. Hmmm. I may need someone with more knowledge to help me remove it.

The bottom portion holds all of our board games, odd household papers and some DVDs. I thought for sure the drawers would be able to store all our DVDs but the cases are 1/8'' to high! If they did fit, it would have been perfect.

Bedroom Curtains

I'm finally getting around to sewing up my bedroom curtains. For me, curtains really finish a room. But sewing your own is a huge hassle. It's no fun washing, ironing, cutting 20 yard pieces of fabric. I did try a new trick when washing up this yardage. I folded the yardage in arm lengths and basted all the layers together along the selvedge edges before throwing it in wash. It worked really well! No tangled mess!

In the past, cutting these large amounts of fabric was quite the hassle. But I discovered my hardwood floors are to my advantage! After squaring off my fabric, I used the floor boards as a square, lining up the edge to the horizontal edge of a floor board then using a tape measure I measured the length.

The floor board even had a slight gap to help hold my tape measure!

Once the length was cut, I folded the panel in half and cut the desire width. I cut the lining (pictured above) 4 inches narrower than the curtain panel.

When sewing curtains, the bed remains unmade. Priorities, priorities. (I'm in love with my new bedroom paint color.Valspar: London Coach. So dreamy. Here is the same color in another apartment- link via apartment therapy.)

Here is a little trick I use to remind myself when to start/stop sewing. When sewing up these long side seam I wanted to stop 6'' short on the bottom hem. To remind myself I always place two pins right next to each other as a visual aid. I also use this method when I need to leave an opening in something. Like a bag that will need to be turned right side out.

I have all 4 panels finished with the exception of the bottom hem. I wanted them to hang a while to relax into their length. Tomorrow they'll be hemmed and the curtain rods will be installed. I can't wait!

Etsy Baby Shower Gifts

I attended a baby shower this past weekend. Made one gift using a PDF pattern and purchased the other, both from Etsy. The momma of the expected baby girl decided on a deer theme for the nursery. So needless to say, when I saw this print on Karla's Etsy Shop: enrouge there was no question. I bought it in under 30 seconds. I left a message to seller when I purchased the print and she followed up with me via Etsy conversation keeping me in the loop of expected shipping times. So nice! And the package was wrapped with care, arrived quickly, and there was a little something extra! Love that!

{Etsy Shop} {Blog}

Before Christmas I purchased a set of patterns from Etsy Seller winterpeach. She has so many cute PDF's available include this new little baby boot! The patterns were emailed within 24 hours (in fact maybe the same night even), but they sat on my computer for a few months before I got around to making them! My first attempt were these darling 3 month sized Mary Jane flats. So adorable!

Look how tiny!

The pattern is laid out very well and offers many great tips to get the best possible outcome. The directions are clear, include lots of photos and are very methodical. The pattern even offers two other variations of closure including a ribbon and elastic. I followed the pattern to a T but would make these changes next time. I would add a featherweight interfacing to the exterior pieces before sewing to add a bit more structure (the child and adult patterns do include interfacing as part of the design), and I would top stitch the little strap and top seam for a polished look. In addition, I wish the pattern noted on the exterior pieces the button placement. I made these late at night and I sewed the buttons a little forward on the shoe. It's still cute though.
I found the perfect little vintage pearl shank buttons with brass backs to finish the little flats. The one great thing about this pattern is that when you are done and you say to yourself, "I wish I could make these in my size," guess what? You can! The Mary Jane Flats are available up to a woman's size 11. You can thank me later. :P

Sofa Progress!

She's down to her undergarments! It is a serious misnomer that upholstery is a sewing project. It's not. It's about thousands upon thousands of staples! I won't go as far to say if you can work a stapler than you can complete this task, but it may not be far off. When I first started working on this sofa I really never thought about the piece as one gender or another. But as I spend countless hours working over every inch of its surface, I started referring to "it" as a "her". She's fit, she's classy, and when I'm done with her I think I'll call her Chanel.