Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Projects?

Is there such a thing as too many projects?  I don’t think so, but I get bored easily and always need to have something to do.  Of course, housekeeping is not considered a project, that is a boring chore.

I recently had a tenant move out and she didn’t have room for some of the big things because she was downsizing  so she signed a waiver that I could dispose of them any way I wished.  One of the things was a large dining room table complete with dog bit legs and torn seat covers.  I knew that I could do something with it and this week I began another project…amongst finishing painting the house and painting the bathroom cabinet in the same house and clearing out the garage, etc.  Those other projects are work that has to get done.  This is a projct I want to do because I just want to do it.  Wanting to do it makes it fun!  I can work on it when I am taking a break from everything else, right?  Well, at least I keep telling myself that!  🙂

I have this plan for this piece of furniture.  I want to paint it in beige and golden brown tones and decoupage the top with tea stained sheets of music.  Then I want to decoupage French sayings on to it and re-cover the seats in a beige burlappy fabric that has French stuff printed on it.

Since today is my birthday I decided to play with my project instead of paint the house.  I found a book of music with over 1000 pages to it and I have been slicing the pages out and soaking them in a pot of tea and then laying them out to dry in the laundry room on a towel.  I hope the cat does not decide that the towel is where she wants to sleep.

I also went to Auto Zone and bought a can of Bondo which is normally used to repair metal dents in cars.  Tomorrow I get to play medic to the table leg that the dog decided was a chewtoy.  There are a few other spots that need to be fixed as well and I am looking forward to some time to play around with my project.

I will let you know how the Bondo works when I get done.

My Favorite Painting Tools

We have been working on fixing up a house that was in pretty rough condition when we got it.  We have the first coat of paint on all the rooms and now we are working on finishing up the second coat and the trim.

Recently I found the coolest tool to help me with painting the trim.  Trim is a pain.  You have to get down on your hands and knees or lay down and prop yourself up on your elbows and try to maneuver the bucket of paint, your body, the paint brush, etc all the while trying not to spill paint on the floor.  Try doing this for very long on a tile floor and you will kill your knees, elbows, back and butt.  I injured my ankle last April and it still is not healed, so trying to crawl around on my knees with my ankles extended is very difficult for me right now.  I recently purchased a CreeperZ from Advanced Auto Parts and have been using that in my painting sprees.  A Creeper is a long padded board with wheels onit that you see mechanics using to wheel themselves under a car to work on it.  A CreeperZ is a long padded device that not only lays out flat and has wheels on it to move it around, but it also flips up into a Z-shaped chair that is about 12-18 (?) inches off of the ground and will hold up to 300 pounds.  I purchased it for $50 and absolutely love it.

Yesterday when I was working on trim I put it up into a z shape and moved around the room dragging my 5-gallon bucket behind me and painting the trim.  No back pain, no butt pain, just total comfort while doing a normally pain-in-the-butt job.  The day before when I was refinishing the inside of the bathroom cabinet I laid it out flat, laid on it and was able to  paint inside the cabinet without straining myself.

Another piece of equipment I love is a small red bucket that has a handle on it and a magnet inside at the top.  Since I am just taking paint out of the big bucket there is no place to put the brush down if I need to do so.  Having this little bucket handy allows me to put the metal of the brush onto the magnet and step out of the room for a minute or move stuff around without fear of dropping my paintbrush into the big bucket.

One last favorite item is my Paint Brush Cleaner .  At the end of a long day I always try to clean my brushes very well, but sometimes the paint just won’t come off.  I have a can of Paint Brush Cleaner that I bought at Lowes and I pour it in my little metal bucket and let my brushes soak in it over night or a couple of hours if I don’t leave the jobsite immediately.  When they are done soaking, I take the brush out of the metal bucket and place it in my metal paint roller pan.  Then I take a scrub brush with hard bristles and pull the excess paint off of the brush easily.  Since I love my Wooster Paint Brushes and they cost $17 to $24 per brush, I couldn’t do without the Paint Brush Cleaner.

So there you have it, my favorite tools:  My Creeperz, my little red bucket with a handle and magnet, my Wooster Paint Brushes, and my Paint Brush cleaner.  I don’t paint without them.

Who am I?

I am a Recovering Realtor turned College Student who dabbles in the art of Junking while trying not to be classified as a Hoarder.

Ok, ok, I am a Hoarder, but what can I say?  I love all these beautiful things I find.  It is so hard to part with those wonderful little treasures, but once in a while I find that I am bored with a piece or it just doesn’t fit with the newest changing of the furniture so I put it up for sale.

Recently I had two beautiful cabinets that just never worked quite right in any spot where I used them.  I had used them in my pantry  to hold my canned goods and then in my livingroom to hold knick knacks but the one end that needed work just never got redone so in the light of trying to downsize I posted them for sale.  They went the very first day and when I told the couple that bought them that another person had called for them they decided to come right over.  Ends up that they were made of Heart Pine and were probably built in the 1920s.  More than likely they were worth way more than what I sold them for, but I know they went to a good home and that makes me very happy.  Someone will cherish them like I cherished them and that is the important part.

     

In the meantime, while they were at my house they asked me if my pie safe was for sale.  I told them no and in our discussion I found that they were built sometime in the 1800s.  Further searching on Ebay placed them around 1840 and shockingly more valuable than I had ever expected.  I don’t know enough yet about antiques to know values, but I do know beauty and this piece is gorgeous.

The story behind the pie safe is that it was a sidewalk save.  Someone was just tossing it out because one of the tins was coming out of the bottom right front.  I threw it on the truck and brought it home.  I am so glad I did.  Now to refinish it in a manner that will speak to the era of it and beautify my home as well.

One woman’s junk is another woman’s treasure.  I will treasure this piece forever.