Before and After, Occasional Table

I recently repainted this small vintage table that holds my magazines.


The shape reminded me of a Jonathan Adler table I'd seen and I was tempted to paint it orange but settled on this turquoise which is more appropriate in my living room.


I paired it with two prints by one of my favorite local artists, Addie Rementer.


It was exciting to see some of Addie's gorgeous original pieces in Georgia and Barbara's home from Apartment Therapy's recent Room for Color Contest. So pretty. Click here for a previous post about Addie.

Surprise Coffee Table

Last week I took a little detour to the local bargain barn on the way to....well, I'm not sure where I was going. Anyway, I picked up a short upholstered bench with teak legs. I love small upholstered things because of the redo potential, but immediately upon getting it home I realized it didn't fit in my living room, as seating anyway. I thought, however as the legs were easily removable, I could rip off the stinky upholstery and unscrew the legs to store for future use.


I expected to see plywood under the fabric, but was pleasantly surprised by the nice blond wood with a finish that had been well protected under the layers of batting.


The funny thing was that it didn't match the legs at all. It appeared that years ago someone had married two separate pieces of furniture. I tried it in place of my old coffee table, which I wasn't super in love with, but the height was all wrong. The different woods were really bugging me too. I must of dreamed about it over night, because very early the next morning it dawned on me that I had a small mid century stool with the same light wood legs as the bench and oddly they seemed too tall for footstool. I jumped out of bed and had to check.


Amazingly I found that the legs on both pieces were attached by the same hardware and could be instantly interchangeable so I swapped them. Now the bench/coffee table and footstool were at appropriate heights.


By about 8 a.m. I had a new and unexpected coffee table. For my next trick, I will attempt to upholster the footstool.
Bench $10
Footstool $7
Leg Swap $0

DYI with a little help- Labels

I just received a set of vinyl canister decals that I purchased from Jenn Ski. I'm still trying to incorporate color into my kitchen.


I have some vintage clear glass canisters with graphic labels in black. One is for coffee, but I realized that when I fill up the canister with black coffee you can't see the label. That's when I found these cool decals from Jenn Ski that come in several colors that can be adhered to all sorts of surfaces. I acquired a vintage ceramic canister which had worn remnants of some sort of design that I had to remove.


Then after having read the directions carefully, Voila. It's a fun way to add little bits of color to a kitchen. I thought it might be interesting to use another color like lime on the flip side for a quick an easy change.

Succulents

A few months ago, with permission I had the opportunity to divide a succulent plant (Hens and Chicks)from a spot nearby my home. I had a bare spot in my yard after some gophers had done damage and a tree was removed.

Free plants are great and this particular one grows well and is easy to care for.

A family member was also disposing of some irises that did not do well in her shady yard so I made use of them too.

They were a little droopy when first planted, but three months later they've really filled in.Now I have a new stash to plant this weekend. They are very drought tolerant and are supposed to be fairly tolerant of the cold, at least in this mild California climate. In colder climates they can be taken inside.

DYI-New Life to a Vintage Mirror

Whether I needed a new one or not, I saw this mirror and was itching to do a DYI project. This mirror had some pretty detailing, but was a little drab for my taste.




Now, updated and fresh this color makes me happy. It only took about 20 minutes