Curb Sale Directors Chairs

Update: This blog has moved! You can check out this post here.

There are few things that I love more than finding something on the side of the road. These are what I call my curb sale items. Since the beginning of this blog, one of my categories has been “Curb Sale Items,” and I have featured many things that I found in the trash. You can find these posts by going to the Category pull down menu on the right side of this page. One of my all-time favorite blogs is Things I Find In The Trash. Because I have so much fun trash-picking myself and would like to encourage more people to do so, saving as much as possible from unnecessarily entering the landfill, I am going to start posting more of the things that I, or Douglas, find in the trash.

The first item featured are these directors chairs that Douglas found in June.

Update: This blog has moved! You can read the rest of this post here.

 

 

 

Mow, Mow, Mow Your Lawn

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Mow, Mow, Mow Your Lawn

Gently cut the grass,

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
I’m a happy lass.

You can imagine me singing the opening lines of this post to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Actually, it would be even better if you sing it yourself, but then you might get it stuck in your head all day, which is what happened to me. I would attach a video of me singing the song for you, but then no one would ever come back to this blog.

If you did not already figure it out, this post is about cutting the grass. While this is vastly different than cutting the rug, there is a certain grace to it, especially if you have a push mower, which we do.

Update: This blog has moved! You can read the rest of this post here.

A Tribute to Our Parents

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Our living room has been devoid of family photographs since we moved in. I have been looking for a way to incorporate some for a while now. Last week, we took advantage of a rainy day to put up some mirrors and shelves. I put some photographs on the shelves but still wanted more. I also felt that the wall with the mirrors was lacking something. Empty wall space + need for photographs = new project for Douglas and Jessica. 🙂 I think that the wall looks much better now. What do you think?

Update: This blog has moved! You can finish reading this post here.

Rainy Day Projects

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I wrote this post on Monday, and I  considered not publishing it considering after the tornadoes in Oklahoma caused so many people to lose everything. It suddenly seems petty to be worried about how my walls look when some people do not have walls at all. I decided that life must go on, but my thoughts and prayers are with the people that suffered so much tragedy this week.

Although I live in New York, the events hit close to home for me. My family moved to Oklahoma while I was living in Venezuela in high school. My father and sister still live there. I am a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. Though, I am not “Sooner born and Sooner bred” I am a Sooner through and through. Oklahoma is a special place for me, and Tuesday was a difficult day while I waited to hear from my dad, sister and friends. My family safe, and so far I have not received any bad news from or about my friends in that state. I was back visiting my father and friends after the tornado in 1999. The devastation at that time was overwhelming to me, and I cannot imagine what Moore must look like now when the tornado was worse. My heart is with you.

Image from Oregon Live. Visit to see more pictures of the destruction in Moore, OK.

The following post is exactly as it was written on Monday. Update: This blog has moved! You can finish reading this post here.

A Shrubbery and the Knights that Say Ni

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After two years, we finally have our shrubbery. When someone tries to come into our yard, we stand there and say, “None shall pass.” Well, that part is not true. Even with the shrubbery, the neighbor’s kids are constantly coming into our yard. Our neighbor is mortified by it, but I do not mind. I actually like having the kids around while I am working. They are two and five.

There are no pictures of how horrible this side of the yard ever looked. I was sure that there must be photographic proof somewhere, but I have spent a couple of hours now searching for evidence and have come up empty-handed. All I have is this picture of the back yard before I moved in.

Update: This blog has moved! You can read about the shrubbery we planted in this post here.

Drum Roll, Please! New Coffee Table

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I have been excited for this project for a long time. After finding this drum in the trash in 2010, it did not take me long to decide what I wanted to do with it. I thought that it would make an excellent coffee/side table. What did take me a long time was actually getting started on the project. Anyone else have a problem with procrastination, or is it just me?

On Monday, I decided that this was the week. On Wednesday, I took the drum to a local glass cutter to get a piece of glass cut for the top. The shop is a lovely family-owned business. They quoted me $50 + tax to have the 1/4″ glass custom cut. It goes to show how I have been raised that I balked at the price at first. My grandmother attributes our thriftiness to our Scottish ancestors, but all I know is that no one on my mother’s side of the family likes to spend money needlessly. I justified the cost in a number of ways. First of all, I was supporting a local business, and that always makes me happy. Secondly, I did not spend any money on the drum, so in the end it was going to be a cheap side table. When I went to pick up the drum and glass on Thursday, they only charged me $45 total. I am so glad that I went ahead with the project.

Update: This blog has moved! You can see how I made the drum table here.

She Got Hers….Here’s His

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There has been a new addition to the living room.

You might remember that we got a new couch a couple of months ago. I searched for months before I found something that I liked within the price range I set. If you have not been following the blog for long, you can read about the story about how we got it and when we set it up. Here is a picture of the sofa in our living room.

Update: This blog has moved! You can finish reading this post here.

No Whining Over These Crates

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Here is one of our projects from this weekend. I have had these wine crates for several years. I took three of them from the trash outside a wine store when I was living in Manhattan. They put some out every week, and I wish I could have taken more. At the time, I used them as “drawers” on my bookshelves. Later, I found another and used them in my kitchen cabinets here. Then, I saw this post on offbeathome.com. I have wanted more storage in my kitchen since I moved in, and this seemed the perfect solution. Here is how it turned out.

Update: This blog has moved! Click here, to finish reading this post and see how we mounted these crates on the wall.

The Neverending Story of Home Renovation

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January is the time to think about the new year ahead. I love beginnings, and even though January does not feel like much of a beginning to me since it falls in the middle of the school year, I do like the thought of New Year’s Resolutions. I always make a couple, some of them are annual objectives, such as leaving the country at least once every year. Last year, I resolved to write more, and this blog was the result. Therefore, I am thinking about what I want to do this year, particularly in the house.

I guess it goes beyond this year. As I look through my list, I have to admit that there is no way that we will ever accomplish all of these things in one year….or one decade. I am now hoping that we will be able to finish this lifetime. Here is the breakdown room by room.

Living Room

• paint the door
• set nails in trim
• putty and sand trim
• paint trim
• crochet plant holders
• replace t.v. cabinet
• hang coat rack
• build narrow table for under front window
• reupholster couch
• refinish chair
• finish cushions for chair
• sew slip covers for chairs
• repair purple pillows
• get wedding picture
• hang lamp
• replace screens
• cover door bell

Update: This blog has moved! You can finish reading this post here.

Sit and Stay for a While

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The new couch is FINALLY in place. If you have been following the blog, you might remember a post in November, “To Hell and Back, How We Got Our New Couch.” As soon as it arrived, I was ready to pitch the old sofa and begin using the “new” one. However, it was missing a couple of legs, so we could not sit on it until they were replaced. As always, this was a much more arduous process than one would imagine, and thus, we spent over a month with a large, unusable sofa taking up much of our living room. The OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) in me had a very difficult time relaxing in such a visually chaotic setting, but finally, things are clean and orderly once again.

Update: This blog has moved! You can finish reading this post here.