Decorating my washing machine!

If it's a flat surface or a blank space, I will decorate it! Seriously. Just ask Juan Patient-Husband.

So it stands to reason my new washing machine was doomed the day it was delivered. Talk about a blank canvas!

What follows is its wordless (almost) story.

Pantries across from washing machine. 

Notice almost secret sliding door to master closet.

Doomed washer!

Designing on my Mac.

Cutting on my Silhouette Cameo but you could also
use individual press-on letters.

This is called "weeding." 

I use blue painter's tape for letter transferring. 

Use ruler, level, and pencil for proper placement.

And BINGO!

Another blank space conquered!

Second rule/wisdom is a family joke, 

which is why I like to make my own signs. 

Happy laundry day!

My chippy addiction!

Michael, here's the chippy cabinet I bought from Renee at Round Top/Warrenton a week ago.

The patina is so lovely!

And I adore the fact that someone made repairs to the piece many years ago. The back even has a flat tobacco tin covering a hole made by some long dead mouse family.

The finish on the top has been worn down to smooth wood but it has so many beautiful brown and red colors in it.

I wish this piece could talk. 

The stories it could tell, unlike the next piece which I made new.

 I did give the new wood as chippy of a look as I could, though.

 Do you recognize the towel hanging bar?

It's leftover decoration from the bedstead gate that Juan Handyman made me!

 Yes, I hoard everything! Get over it, son!!!

Come be my guest!

Last year my friend Renee gave me four of these chairs. Three had severe caning problems as well as joint issues. 

So I decided to take two of them and make a chairbench to use as a luggage holder in one of the guest bedrooms.

I wish I could say it was as easy as it looks! Maybe if I had two more hands or a helper it would have gone smoother but I finally got the frame done. 

This would make a great pallet wood project but I used the wood from the frame of a futon which Renee and I had found on one of our garage sale runs.

So I filled in all the recessed screw holes...

...and painted the whole thing Annie Sloan's Primer Red...

...just in time for weekend company!

What do you do...

...with all those pillows on your bed? 

You know. The ones that crawl halfway to the bottom of the bed. The ones your husband hates because there are so many of them and they are over the place! 

See this old pine wardrobe? 

All my pretty pillows go in there! The shelving side holds all my jeans...the jeans that are one size too big. The jeans that are one size too small. And the jeans that today fit me just right. You know what I'm talkin' about. 

During the daytime, our sleeping pillows rest in the wardrobe. No stuffing them into pillow covers and placing them onto the bed for me. That's too much work!  Plus we sleep with LOTS of pillows!

Where do you put your pillows? 

Birdbath in the Bedroom

I met these three sweeties at a "pre" garage sale... 

...and just had to take them home.

I mean, who could resist them?

They were hanging around a birdbath but I couldn't bear to leave them outside where they belonged!

So I put the whole thing in the corner of our master bedroom. Instead of filling it with water, I loaded it up with my jewels...

 ...and added a glass top...

...turning this birdbath into a corner table for my morning coffee.

If I only drank coffee!

Of course, when you're on top, you must have a tiara!

Claiming Reclaimed Wood

Weathered wood. Barn wood. Reclaimed wood. It's beautiful no matter what you call it. 

I found the sides of an old, red grain truck in a friend's barn and quickly claimed the reclaimed wood!

Heavy. Oh, my, they were heavy but Juan Hauls-It-All helped me lug them home. My idea was to turn this room...

...into this room...

So I separated the boards, scrubbed them clean of dirt and bugs, and started planning the best way to use the limited supply of long boards.

The wall is 13 feet across with windows five and a half feet apart. The boards were 16 feel long. To make the boards go as far as possible with the smallest amount of seaming, I decided to rip some boards that were in almost unusable condition and use them to trim around the window. The trim work cut the between window width to five feet exactly, letting me get three boards from each 16 foot board.

To help wedge together the tongue and groove boards Juan showed me how to use a small jack and a long board. Every time I put a new board up, I also had to chop off five inches of the long board. I ended up with a very short board!

With that system in place, it was just a matter of working down the wall until I got under the windows. At that point I started working up from the bottom. I knew I would have to piece together one row of board and I didn't want it to be the bottom one. A whole board would make the bottom edge even and make working on the electrical boxes easier.

 

At Lowe's they sell a little blue see-through box called an outlet extension for a whole $1.39.

As its name implies, the box extends the original outlet box to make the outlet cover flush with the new wall surface. BE SURE TO TURN OFF THE ELECTRICITY AT THE FUSE BOX (or whatever they call those boxes nowadays) BEFORE PUTTING IN THESE EXTENDERS!  I figure if you're handy enough to be redoing wall surfaces, you'll easily be able to add these extenders!

Perfect is good enough!