Reupholstering!

My husband and I have been looking for nice dining room furniture. We have found plenty but the problem is....we don't want to pay the high prices for it! The prices on furniture are ridiculously high. So we decided to find chairs we could refinish. We found 6 chairs are the Re-Store in Huntington. If you haven't checked out this place, you should. This is also where we found my antique typewriter desk that Seth refinished.

We found the chairs and they were in great condition, other than the hideously colored and stained fabric. The chairs are solid wood which means we can stain them later if need be. In the meantime, we decided to reupholster the chairs using fabric we found on sale at Hobby Lobby.

Our dog Polly decided to photobomb the picture.

As you can clearly see in the picture above, gross stains. 

Reupholstering the chairs was simple. We went to Hobby Lobby and picked out the perfect fabric after measuring the chairs. We then cut the fabric to fit on the chairs, leaving extra to staple onto the cushion/wood bottom. We flipped the chairs over and used a screw driver to take out the screws holding the fabric and chair cushion on. 

We didn't remove the old fabric. We left it on there; no need to waste your time pulling out staples when it isn't necessary. We wrapped the fabric around the cushion, pulling tightly before stapling it down using a staple gun.

After stapling it, we popped the cushion back into the seat frame and screwed it back together. 

The chairs and fabric match the dining room color scheme and hardwood floors perfectly. Seth is going to make a dining room table to match. We can make the table for a lot cheaper than we could buy one. Also, isn't it better to have something custom made? I think so.

In the meantime, we are purchased a table from the Re-Store in Huntington as well. Our goal is to sand it and stain it. Pictures of that project will be posted later. The table will work until we can build our own.

 

Finished project :)

The dining room is not finished yet so stay tuned!

Exploring the world of flea markets and antique shops

Over the past week or so I have been trying to pick up pieces here and there to decorate our home. I want to decorate my house but I want to do it as cheaply as possible because I am a frugal type of gal. Since my husband and I bought a huge house, I feel overwhelmed to get it all decorated. However, once I stepped back and realized I need to take it one room at a time, I discovered I felt much more comfortable with the task. Plus, it is loads of fun!

I found the following items at the flea market in Milton, WV. My friend (shout out to Jessie!) and I went flea market shopping last Friday. Unfortunately, we discovered most shops aren't open during the week :( A variety of closed shops didn't deter me from finding a few cute items for the home, however.

The first item discovered was the set of 3 copper plated canisters. These were found in one of the many primitive stores featured at the Milton Flea Market. I have been looking everywhere for adorable canisters. I have plain silver ones but I wanted something to help tie the vintage colors in my kitchen together. These look great paired with the turquoise in my kitchen!

The next item discovered was an adorable turquoise magazine rack. This was found in yet another primitive booth at the flea market. I am going to use this in the kitchen to store cook books and cooking magazines. I'm not sure where I am going to station it but as of right now, it looks cute in the corner!

The final item I found at the Milton Flea Market was this adorable "Old Glory" sign. It is made out of half of a table leaf. It has two metal stars on it that pop. We have a building out back and decided it would look nice there. When washing dishes, you can see it out of the kitchen window. Adorable.

This item, I found when perusing local antique shops in my neck of the woods. I love to find anything vintage Marshall possible. I am starting quite the collection. I was browsing in this shop and noticed a price tag that said "jug lamp." I had never seen a jug lamp before so I decided to move items out of the way and discovered a vintage Marshall lamp. SCORE! I had to have it. Of course, I haggled the price down some :) The lamp shade needs replaced; I'm thinking a kelly green lamp shade :) 

That was the end of my shopping excursion. However, I do regret not scooping this guy up when given the chance. 

I'm joking. Kind of. This would have been an excellent conversation starter and it is reminiscent of a Seinfeld episode. If you're a true fan, you'll know the exact one I am eluding to.  

After shopping, we had to have our weekly girls' craft night session. I discovered that much to my dismay, I didn't have a cute wreath to hang on my door. I made a 4th of July one but seeing as it never made it out of the trunk of my car, it never made it on to the door. Whoops. Oh well, there is always next year ;) So I decided to make a summery wreath to welcome visitors into my home. All the flowers and the cute bird came from the dollar store. I stole this wreath from Jessie so all and all, I had about $8.00 in this wreath total. I owe her $4 for the wreath so we will call it an even $12 in the wreath. Per a friend's suggestion on Facebook, I may be adding a nest for the bird. I think that would be a nice touch.

Pool and Money Pits :)

Ever heard the saying, "a pool is like a large hole in your yard that you just throw money into?" Yeah, well, it is kind of accurate. When we bought the house, we were not privy to the issues we were going to have of the pool. The pool was not properly winterized so let's just say it was gross. The previous owners had slung a tarp on it; not an actual pool cover! On top of the tarp, was water a swamp and mosquitoes galore. Our first step was to drain the nasty water. We did this with a sump pump. However, the hose to the sump pump did not want to stay in the pool so we tried to secure it with a cinder block. My mother-in-law and I are in the kitchen trying to square away the shelf liner (see previous post on my hatred of shelf liner) when I notice that I can no longer see the sump pump hose. I run outside to see that it has fallen in the pool and for at least an hour, it has been doing nothing but circulating the already disgusting water in the pool swamp. 

Okay, so now we have all of the water out of the pool, except for the small amount suggested to leave in by other smarter pool owners than ourselves. Now, we have all this NASTY, NASTY, NASTY junk on the bottom of the pool. Junk including: algae, mud, rocks, and even a wrapper or two (what?!?). How in the world do we get the bottom of the pool clean? We are told to scrub and shock the heck out of it. Okay..... So my husband gets in it and begins to scrub away. Yes, that is right! My husband, the once germaphobe gets inside this nastiness (albeit with his socks on) and begins to scrub away and start sucking the nastiness out with a Shop-Vac. The story of my mother in law and I trying to assemble the Shop-Vac is for another day. So as my husband is sucking out the nastiness of this pool swamp, he begins to see these red bugs swimming in the pool. He asks me to Google it and my brother in law discovers that they are blood larva. Now while that sounds very ominous, they were not dangerous to humans. They are related to mosquitoes but they only eat algae. Thank goodness. However, as you can see from the picture above, it does not look like they were doing a very good job.

All right. We have all most of the stuff sucked out of the pool. Now, we have to fill it. Yes, folks, that is right. Even with it looking disgusting, we now have to fill the entire pool to see if the pump works. Now, this is a huge gamble because if the pump and filter do not work, we have to replace that ($$$$$) so we were taking a giant leap of faith to see if all the mechanics of the pool worked. So we fill the pool and this is what it looked like once filled:

It looks like I went to the Ohio River, scooped it up and dumped it into a pool in my backyard. Okay, so now it is filling up. We check the pump. Good news! The pump works. However, the filter part of the pump has a plastic lid that must stay on but guess what? It's broken! Okay, not a big deal, we will replace it. For a whopping $40! A PLASTIC LID!!!! Okay. We purchased it. We think we are in business. Now we notice that there is rust along the frame where the return box is. The return box is moving away from the frame which is causing the water to leak out of the pool. All right. Now we need to fix it. 

So my husband and his uncle devise a plan to fix the rusted area. They purchase a piece of sheet metal and cut out a new hole for the return box. They secure it and voila, it is fixed. Then they use sealant to secure the area and make sure no leaks occur. Now this has all been fixed. The frame and liner are secure. We start to get a closer look at the hoses and realize they need to be replaced because the elbows and other areas are leaking. We go to Lowes for the 189th time in two days and buy the pieces needed for the repair. All that is secure. Starting to see a pattern? Oh I forgot to mention that we had to drain half the pool (yes, after filling the whole flippin' thing up) in order to pull back the pool liner and fix the rusted area! Now, we refill the pool. We bought tons of shock. We begin to shock the pool while still sucking out the nastiness. All the time we are vacuuming out the pool, we have to have new water being put into the pool. $$$$$$$$$$$$!!!! 

Within 15 minutes of putting the shock into the pool and vacuuming it out, our green, swampy water begins to turn a cloudy blue. YAY! Progress! By day two or three, I am able to put my feet in! PROGRESS again!!

Within a week, all our hard work began to pay off. It took us a total of 3 weeks to get it up and working and crystal clear but it was well worth the wait. 

Needless to say, I have been in this pool almost every day. It was worth the trouble but I am still scared to see the water bill. I hope I'm not home that day ;)

Until next time.....stay classy :)