Painting zebras

This little table and chairs have been screaming for a makeover since the moment I saw them.
I just can't believe I waited this long. By the way, let me introduce you to Tonka, our feline friend. He parked himself on that chair the moment I sat it there and wouldn't move, well I guess I could've moved him, but I was too lazy.

 Noah's Ark sure had its heyday a few... decades ago, and i'm sure some people are still using this theme in their nursery's but hopefully not like this.

After I picked this up at a garage sale 2 years ago, seriously you guys I have so many projects to do, I wanted to paint it for sure, but I didn't know what to do about the picture part.  It's actually just a picture that has been adhered to the top then painted around the edge. I wasn't sure if I should try peeling it off or sanding it off. Then when I discovered B.B. Frosch's chalk paint powder when I painted the desk, I knew that was my solution to this table and chairs.

So I ran to Home Depot and picked up a paint sample can of a blue that I thought could go well in a boys or girls room, since we have both in our house.

 Goodbye Zebras, Elephants, and Tigers.

Can't wait to show you how it turned out.

Our Pallet Couch Progress

A few weeks ago I posted this picture on Instagram, 7 bed pillows, and didn't explain what I was using them for. Well its one of my "secrets of the trade". It's by far THE cheapest way I have found to stuff a HUGE pillow on a shoestring budget. Not the best, I'd LOVE a down pillow really, and you have to be careful and smooth everything out when you are stuffing so you don't have lumps.

So $30 to stuff 5 pillows that were 25" by 25" instead of paying $30 for one pillow insert almost that size was definitely worth it. By the way, I had to go back and buy 3 more pillows. So 10 pillows at $3 each comes out to $30.

Now remember this is still a work in progress. The plan is to go buy more of my fabric and sew a bolster pillow for each end to act like an "arm" to the couch. And to finish covers to go over those pink and green pillows that are basically stand by's right now.

So maybe this black and white image will help you visualize the end result a little better.

Really its also to minimize the bright, actually very chic... coffee table we are using right now, our boys dinosaur train table with a volcano in the center. :) These are the problems you have when having a basement man cave + play room for the kids. 

  

Actually I should probably update you really quick on how this whole couch came to be.

So the anderson estate is a very old house as you can see, and with that comes wonderful character, maybe some livable quirks and also some horrible challenges.  Well one of those challenges is the basement. It isn't very big, but we think its big enough to fulfill our needs: needs to be a play room, man cave, entertaining space, and a guest room. The hardest part though is that the stairway to get down is short (as in even I have to duck at one point) and skinnier than normal. If you want to see a little of that, and what it looked like when we moved in you can click here.  

So we quickly found out not many furniture items could even fit down the stairs unless you could dismantle it first. And not many couches can do that. Then we decided okay we just have to go to Ikea and buy one and then put it together in the basement. Well there was a problem with that. The nearest Ikea was more than 3 hours away, we had a budget for this said couch (driving that far and back costs money, gas, snacks, time, etc...)  and how would we fit all of the boxes and cushions in our vehicle plus us, plus our children and their car seats. So that option was pretty much off the table pretty quick.

So then we started talking about doing 2 daybeds, then that would help with our guestroom qualification.

So one day on Pinterest I saw this pallet couch.

prudent baby

Don't you just love it?! Well we ended up using a different kind of pallet, but we figured out a way to "re-create" it and we got started.

This is my hardworking husband who doesn't normally do projects like this completing the first one.
This was last year though, so yeah we take awhile sometimes on projects. His motivation was football season. And then funny how again this year the motivation for me was football season, the reason our family visited, to get the sewing done/started.

We put taller wheels on ours, I wanted it higher, we are tall people over here. and I also wanted it closer to the expected height of a couch. We also put swivel wheels so we could move them around more easily and they also lock so the kids can't move them around. They actually turned out pretty heavy for a child to move anyway.

So there was a little back story. Actually if you guys are interested in more details on what we bought and how we did it, I'm hopefully doing another post with that inf when its all finished, but knowing you'd be interested might help me be more motivated to get it done faster.

And just so you can have a better look at the whole thing here you go. And yes some day that coffee table will change, but for now this is real life.

New pillows for the porch

A few years ago I made the multicolored pillows in the picture above for our screened-in porch with the cheapest outdoor fabric I could find. Actually with coupons and their close-out sale, I only paid $5 for the fabric and filler for 2 pillows.  They were never really my favorite but they served their purpose. But we've always needed more so a few weeks ago I thought I'd grab some more outdoor fabric from Joanne's to help with comfort and asthetics.  

We also had family coming to visit and I wanted it to be ready in time, luckily this project was a fast one. All I did was cut 2 long rectangles, fold them each in half with the right sides facing in and then sewed around them leaving a hole that was big enough for my hand to stuff it. Then after I stuffed it, I sewed it shut while watching Suits. (Where we are at right now Louis Litt is quickly becoming my favorite character, who knew:) )