Chairs!

After 3+ years of talking about mis-matched dining chairs, hoarding collecting dining chairs, and a few false starts, I officially have a set of 4 funky, colorful, pseudo-matching, and COMPLETED chairs. Can you see me grinning ear to ear?

And I also have a new favorite tool: a Critter paint sprayer  (although let's be real- isn't any new tool usually my favorite?).

It's like spray painting but 100 TIMES BETTER!  Better paint, better finish, and more powerful!!

There was a little bit of a learning curve with how much to spray and not get drips, but I think I finally figured that one out.  The finish looks totally professional.

The color may have ended up being brighter than I anticipated, but I kind of dig it.  Luckily with the Critter, changing up the paint at a later date wouldn't be too hard.

And here's the obligatory cat pic  ("ma, can I go now?").  What a chubby handsome boy!

Now that I can put the chairs to bed (and sell all the extras....), I need a table that can fit them all!  I'm hoping I can buy this one from Craigslist for $70.  Waiting for an e-mail response and keeping my fingers crossed!

Let's just ogle at the chairs one more time

So, what do you think?  Crazy awesome or just plain crazy?

Dining Dance

Yesterday, in a flurry of inspiration, I figured out how I can finally make my dining room work. Up until now, the dining room has been fine, but something has just been missing for me.  Now that the china cabinet is in it's new home (and looks amazing in her dining room!), I have to room to play around with the space a bit.  And play I did.

I brought all of my collected chairs up from the basement and started playing around to see which 4 of the 7 would work best in the space.  I think I have come up with the right combination.

I know they're looking a little random right now, but once they are all painted the same color and reupholstered in the same fabric (with seats), I firmly believe that it will make perfect sense.  The 2 upholstered chairs will stay as is so they can ground the table.  Speaking of table..... You may have seen on instagram/facebook I'm on the hunt for a slightly larger, rectangular table that can accommodate 6 chairs.

After playing musical chairs, I started playing musical artwork- hence the lack of something on the wall between the windows.  In digging out some unframed pieces I had also collected, I realized I had one that felt 100% right in the dining room.

It's an unframed print that I had bought at an estate sale this summer for a whopping $5 and has been sitting behind the door in my office since.

Everything really fell into place when I took this print with me to the fabric store.  The planets aligned, the universe was on my side, and I ended up with 2 large pieces from Calico Corner's remnant clearance section ($10 for each yard piece!!) that look spectacular with the print.

I swear, these are the moments that happy dances are made for.  The stripe is going on the chairs, and the floral will probably be the piano bench.  I can't quite get Hubby to jump on my granny floral bandwagon yet.  I can get him to jump on the light pea green chair bandwagon though!

Now I just need to decide between "Golden Delicious" or "Sweet Vibrations."  I'm leaning toward the latter, but I'm going to look at them in different lights throughout the day.

I'll be getting started on painting the chairs today, so hopefully I'll have a room to show you in the coming weeks.

What do you think of my new dining room plan?  Not toooo crazy/over the top I hope!

60 Minutes

Ugly sweater to cozy pillow in 60 minutes or less. I love me a quick project, and a quick, cheap project is even better!  I found this delightfully dated sweater at the thrift store for a whopping $3.99.

The style may have been screaming "Cosby Show", but the pattern was screaming "make me a pillow!"  At least that's what I heard.

So I did.

I started with a 12 x 16 pillow form, and since I like my pillows overstuffed (no karate chopping in this house!)  I cut my fabric slightly smaller.

With the "right" sides together, I sewed 3 and a half sides, leaving an opening on one end to flip and stuff my pillow.

I then sewed the opening together by hand (and since both of my hands were occupied, I wasn't able to get a picture... I tried... it wasn't pretty)

And a cozy sweater pillow was born!

And the cats rejoiced.

Just kidding.  They were indifferent at best.  I'm just happy I was happy to bribe a cooperative model with a treat.

And there you have it- an ugly sweater- turned-cozy pillow in under an hour.

Have you tackled any speedy-but-gratifying diys lately?