Frame and Fortune

One day while visiting family, the Mr. and I meandered through Kirklands in the mall. They were having a pretty good sale, but we didn't go in with the intention of buying anything.... that was, until we saw this beauty...

It's a huge beautiful painting of a town setting, and I had the perfect empty wall for it. The original price tag said $130.00 (ouch), but it was marked down to $45.00. Why so much? Because it "damaged." Their definition of "damaged" was a scratched up frame -- nothing wrong with the actual painting.

See? The scratches aren't all that bad...

Oh, but wait, it gets better. Remember before when I mentioned that Kirlands was having a sale? That's right... an extra 35% off! Wahoo! That makes it a whopping $30, plus tax, of course. Still -- that's $100 off! That's my kind of shopping!! But the frame... what would we do about that? Well, seeing as how I'm all into distressing and antiquing, I figured we'd just try sanding down the frame to give it a distressed look. That way, the scraches all over the frame would just blend right in. We used some 80-grit sandpaper that we had on hand to sand all over the frame, and here she is all finished..

Isn't she a beauty? Well, I think so... and now that big empty wall isn't looking so lonely. Plus, I think the roughed up frame goes better with the painting than the chunky brown frame. That's not bad for $30 and 5 minutes of sanding...

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Looky Looky....

Look what I got...

Yes, that's my brand new Husqvarna sewing machine. My sweet mama surprised me with it. She called me and told me to go to a nearby store to pick something up that they were holding for me. The Mr. and I hopped in the car and got there only to find a brand new sewing machine! YaY! Now, let me clarify... I've never had a sewing machine, and I barely know how to use one -- but I plan on putting this to good use! I've been wanting to learn to sew for forever, and I've been practicing on my grandmother's old sewing machine. But now, I have one of my own -- and it's sooooo easy to use. I'm really excited, and can't wait to try out my first sewing project on it! Thanks, Mama!!

A sneak peek...

What project is taking up soooo much of our time that we can't even do other little projects to blog about? PAINTING OUR TRIM & INTERIOR DOORS. Yes, we are painting ALL of our trim and doors. Originally our trim/door color was cream -- definitely not my favorite. It darkens the rooms, and it makes everything look a little dingy IMO. So, Mr. H and I invested in some latex based Behr Ultra White semi-gloss paint to repaint everything. Here's how we got started:

First, we went to Sherwin Williams to pick up a couple of little brushes that Sherry at Young House Love bragged about in this post. They're only $5 a piece, and she's right... they're perfect for painting trim. While we were there, we asked the Sherwin Williams guy a few questions about painting our trim. He said that we should first make sure we didn't have oil based painted trim because if we did, we'd have to take an extra priming step (if your existing trim is latex, then you can just paint right over it with another latex paint -- no priming necessary). In order to check, he suggested putting some denatured alcohol on a rag and wiping it over the trim (he said rubbing alcohol would work too). If the paint rubs off on the rag, then you have latex painted trim. If the paint doesn't rub off onto the rag, you have oil based trim. Welp, guess what. We had oil based trim. Boo.

After a minor pity party, we went to Lowe's to pick up an oil based primer because, after hours of Google searching, it seemed like that was our only choice; however the gentleman at Lowe's suggested Zinsser's 1-2-3 primer that isn't oil based (yay for no VOCs), but it bonds the oil based paint and the latex paint together. And the verdict? It works like a charm.

Working hard on the trim in the pantry

Ever since then, we've been patiently priming and painting all the trim and doors in the house. So far -- we've finished the laundry room, kitchen, and living room (including the fireplace). I know, I know, that's a lot of work to just change the color of your already painted trim. And there are moments throughout the process (especially when my back is aching and my hand is cramping) when I'm like, "Is this worth it?" Oh, but it totally is. I've even found a couple tricks to make it move a little faster (for anyone who's considering painting their trim):

1) Grab a mini roller from the store -- it makes makes painting the doors and other plain, solid pieces (like on the fireplace) go a lot faster.
2) Cut off the flap of a piece of cardboard and hold at an angle against the baseboard to prevent getting any paint on your floors. It also works well on carpet. It helps hold down the little carpet fibers so they don't get stuck in your paint. This was a tip from my grandmother (Thanks, Meme!), and it works wonders. Just make sure you wipe off the edge of the cardboard every now and then so paint doesn't build up and smear all over the place... not that I would know from experience... yea right.

Cardboard Box Method

Anyway, the new white trim is amazing. It makes everything look so much cleaner, and I feel like we have more decorating choices now. I'm ready to have it all finished so I can work on wall colors. But for now, we're working on one room at a time. We're about to start the bedrooms and bathrooms, so wish us luck.

Finally, a white fireplace. Yes, we have to clean up around the edges,
but it's so much easier to me to clean it up than to tape it off.

All-You-Can-Antique-Buffet

So as some of our friends and family know, we scored this super sweet china hutch off Craigslist for -- wait for it -- a whopping $75.

Not bad considering it was in pretty good shape. Really, I just wanted the bottom part of it to use as a buffet table. Buffet tables, even on Craigslist, can be pretty expensive IMO (=in my opinion). I also wanted to try to antique/distress it, so I definitely didn't want to spend a lot since I've never antiqued before. One problem though: we didn't have a truck or anything else big enough to bring it home in. But with the help of our sweet brother-in-law, we lugged it home in a borrowed truck. Then the fun began...

We washed it down, and since at this time I wasn't totally sure I didn't want the hutch part, we sanded, primed, and painted the entire piece an off white color (Valspar paint from Lowe's). Then, we glazed it using Valspar Antiquing Glaze in Asphaltum. Basically, the glaze is pretty easy to use. We painted it on in sections with a foam brush, then we wiped off the excess.

It was looking much better at this point, but see all the decorative mumbo jumbo on the drawers and the top of the hutch in the above picture? Well -- that's just not my style. I wanted clean, classic lines. I also wanted it to have an even more distressed appearance. Soooooo --- I sort of hinted to Mr. H that I wasn't feeling the whole decorative design of it. Being the sweet hubby he is, he immediately took the drawers out to the garage and removed the decorative pieces on the drawers. They were pretty easy to pry off since they were simply stapled to the drawer front. The next day, he sanded down the drawers, painted, and antiqued them. Oh, I should also mention that we hated that original bulky hardware, so we puttied the holes with wood putty and painted over those as well. Since we couldn't remove the decoration on the top of the hutch, and since I wasn't in love with it anyway, we axed the hutch and took it to the thrift store.

Now that I was seeing the clean lines of the whole piece, I wanted to add a bit more distressing. So, to give it an even more distressed feel, we sanded down the all the edges of the buffet, doors, and drawers. Last but not least, we drilled new holes for hardware and put on oil rubbed bronze knobs. Isn't this much better?

Sorry for the bad lighting and shadows. Mr. H took this pic at night.

It's definitely not perfect, but it's not too bad for our first attempt at redoing a piece of furniture IMO. Oh, and remember the hutch part that we axed? Well, as I did my daily scour through Craigslist today, I found this...

Yes... it appears someone bought it from the thrift store and now he/she is selling it for $85 -- $10 more than what we paid for the whole thing. Well, you know what they say, "One person's trash is another person's treasure."

And on a side note, it's snowing!! Snow is a rare occasion in the deep south, but yay for some snow..... and going into work late... :)

 

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"Um... problem: our mailbox just fell off..."

The title of this post is a text message I received on Friday while I was at work. "Um... problem: our mailbox just fell off..." was all it said. Of course, my response was "Wait, what?" I mean, how often do you get a text message saying your mailbox fell off? The remainder of the text conversation went something like this:

Mr. H: "Mailbox fell OFF the post."
Me: "Snap. Um. How do we fix that? Homeowner's association?"
Mr. H. "Idk. It was like welded on. Three steps for fixing it: 1) Pray that God would fix it. 2) Call HOA. 3) Pray that God would fix it!"

Then I received this picture:

Apparently Mr. H went to get the mail and found our mailbox laying on the ground. You see, we live in a neighborhood that has a homeowner's association. You pay your fee every year, and they use the money to fix up the front entryway and whatnot... I suppose. They also require you to keep a certain look about your house. If you decide to do anything that would alter the curb appeal, you must submit in writing what you plan to do and then the HOA approves or rejects it. Crazy, I know. Why would someone want to pay to be told what you can and can't do? On the other hand, it also holds everyone in the neighborhood accountable so you don't end up with a junkyard next to you. Well, per the HOA, we're required to have the SAME mailbox and post as everyone else -- which just happens to be an expensive die cast aluminum mailbox post. As you can see from the picture above, we couldn't remedy the broken mailbox by just screwing it on. The whole decorative horizontal piece that the mailbox sits on broke off due to being weakened by rust. So, we called the mailbox people that the HOA told us to contact. We left a message. They never called back. So -- I checked out their website which says their mailboxes are designed to be "rust free" and should "last a lifetime." Welp, this one didn't.

Out of hopes of them returning our calls and saying they'd fix it at no charge to us since they're supposed to "last a lifetime," I didn't want to mess up the aluminum by screwing holes into it or anything. Also -- I needed a quick fix so we could get the mailbox up to receive mail (Mr. Mailman won't leave mail if there's no mailbox -- understandably so...). So, Mr. H and I hurried off to Home Depot to find a remedy. This is what we came up with:

Yes, those are hose clamps holding our mailbox onto the post. Might I add that it is very sturdy -- perhaps even more sturdy than before it broke off. Hose clamps are simple to work. They come in different sizes and have a screw on them. The more you tighten up the screw, the more the clamp tightens up. It worked for us. Oh, and the clamps were around a dollar a piece, so that makes this quick fix a mere $3 project. The plan is to spray paint them a rust-resistant black. Then, I don't think anyone would even be able to notice. It might not work forever, but it works for now!

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