Graphic Sweatshirt Even Cooler as a Pillow

I went over to my thrifty friend Amy's house today for a visit. In her son's bedroom I noticed a cool pillow with a San Francisco graphic that I quickly realized was some sort of fabric or clothing item wrapped around a pillow. She had staged it there knowing that I would see it and like it. It happened to be a sweatshirt that she thought could be made into a pillow for me or one of my sons. I thought it was a fabulous idea so she got to work. I just "supervised".


In about 45 minutes this is what she came up with. Notice she even sewed the sweatshirt label into the bottom seam of the pillow. Love it! Thanks my friend.


This graphic wrapped all the around the back too.

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

Little 'Ol Me On Apartment Therapy - L. A.

Today I was thrilled to have a photo of one of my rooms featured on Apartment Therapy Los Angeles. It was included in an article written by Beth Zeigler, contributing editor of Apartment Therapy, about using scrap wood in decorating. The partial Ghiradelli Chocolate sign in the corner was an item I had saved from the trash. It had been turned around and the back side had been used as paneling in a garage. During a renovation, the owner who had removed it from the wall had thrown it into a pile of trash. She couldn't figure out why I saw any value in it. I organized this room with the hope that I will use it for artistic ventures. For now it's where I store and package my vintage items for shipping. This photo can also be seen in the Rearranged Design House Tour and Corners of My Home Group on Flickr

Arrangements

Kids are away and I had chance to arrange some things. The cabinet is in transition as I am still in the process of painting over a damaged dark veneer Mid Century hutch purchased for $30 from the Salvation Army. I still have some touch ups as I ran out of paint and am thinking of re-covering the drawer fronts with a woven wall paper instead of painting. I stumbled upon an educational book from 1971 at the school that had pages of these large green letters on thick card stock. It's a little yellowed with age and becomes a bold art edition in the black frame I already had.