From old brass to old iron!

So I have wanted to recycle a brass chandelier and use it in the back patio for the longest time.  I love the look and was going to use our old one, but it got tossed before I could!  So I was real happy when this one came my way. Plus it was FREE!!!  It had lights going up and down, so took awhile to take out the electrical inards, but finally I got it.

And here is what she looked like before I transformed her.

Here is the after.  I reworked some of the pieces parts to make it what I wanted!

The weather here has not been cooperating, so it took me awhile to get her done!  I found some Rustoleum textured spray paint on clearance at JoAnn's for .97.  Old Iron is the color.  Gotta love those red tags!  I think textured spray paint takes a few more coats for coverage.  So after a few days, and a little rain delay, here she is!

I love how she turned out.  I found these cute little candle cups at the .99 store.  They were 2/.99.  They fit perfectly. And tealights fit exactly!

The chunkiness of them reminds me of an old insulator.  As you can see I haven't hung her yet, cause I want to use a pulley system so she can be raised and lowered over the table.  Waiting for the weekend so DH can help me with that, but I do have the supplies.

 So hopefully she will be in her new home soon.  Here is a few more pics.

I think I may look for some beads or crystals to hang from her as well.  The total cost, was for the rope, hardware to hang her, 2 cans of paint for .97 and 1 additional can at full price, and the candle cups. 
So about $15.00.  Can't wait to get her up and have dinner on the patio.

Hope you like her.

Laura

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PS:  She is hung!  Wanted to show you the pics, got her hung this afternoon (Sat).  Love it!

Love my new/old chairs!

Last July I painted our tired adriondack chairs.  It was a process but they turned out great!

But mother nature was not kind to them and they were looking sorty of 'rustic', per DH!  See that post here.
Here are a few of the disaster pics:

They were pretty bad and I was ready to throw away the 'lemons', but DH had me thinking better of it!  After a little elbow grease, stain and sealer, they look amazing!  Here is my lovely 'lemonade', along with the new pillow covers I made.

Love the patina with the stain added to the wood where the paint came off.  They definitely look 'rustic'.  Much better!

Sometimes thinking out of the box, gets you the best results!









Have a great weekend.

Laura


  

Weather!

I have been meaning to post finished pics of the green chairs, but here in So Cal, we have had the weirdest weather!  On Monday it drizzled all day.  All day!  I had to run outside in my jammies and pull all the pillows, wipe down the new cushions and cover them with a tarp!  Today we are supposed to get up to an inch of rain!  What is up with that! 

I am excited to show you what I have done with this baby!
I got it from the contractor my Mom used for her bathroom.  He was redoing another house in the area and was going to throw it away!  I have been wanting to redo one for the patio for forever!  Here it is in destruction mode.  Took forever, but I finally got all the wiring out and reconfigured it to look like this:

I have been trying to spray paint it, but the weather is giving me fits!  I found some textured rustoleum spray paint on clearance at JoAnn;'s for .97 a can, but it takes longer to cover with the texture.  I am almost done, but it may be a day or two before I get it hung up.  Oy.

DH has been working crazy hours, 10 hours a day 7 days a week, for the past few weeks, so getting something hung, well I will have to do it myself, which he won't like, or I wait.  Maybe when I get it ready to hang I will take a few pics for you to see. 

Ok enough complaining, hope you are having a great week weather and all.

Toodles,

Laura

A little pillow happy!

In the process of 'refreshing' the patio, I needed to recover a bunch of pillows that we had been using outside.  A few on the porch swing, and the a few more on the chairs.  The 'rustic' green chairs turned out great!  I will post a pic of them at the end.  But now I want to talk about pillows.

As you know outdoor fabric can be pretty expensive.  But I have found a way to go around that!  Recently I found some outdoor fabric on the red tag table at JoAnn's.  It was $8 a yard, which is OK, but I knew that they routinely discount that table by 50% off!  Lucky for me that was this week!  I was thrilled, because they added a few more outdoor fabric choices to the mix!
Here is what I did.
I used the awesome envelope pillow cover tutorial over at Stephanie's blog, Under the Table and Dreaming.  So easy peasy.  I purchased 1 yard of the discounted fabrics and a few remnants as well.  That is another secret, if you are looking for fabric and it is on sale, check the remnant bin.  Not only will you get the sale price but it will be 50% off!
Here is the before:

Faded and in need of a little pop of color!  And here is the after:

So much better!  I redid the cushion as well, recycling our old dining chair cushions, that is another post!  The fabric on the far right was one of the one's from the red tag table, so it was $4 for a yard, which I can get 2 covers out of!  The fabric on the far left I purchased last year on sale, and the red and tan one was a remnant which was $5.64. (Here is how the remanant pricing works, the fabric is on sale for $13.99/yd, it was .806 of a yard, so $11.28, then you take 50% of that!) The other red print is a pillow I purchased from HD at the end of the season last year.
Here is another cool fabric I love, this was on the red tag table.  Last week it wasn't!

I am gong to make bolster pillows, reusing the old dining chair cushions,  for the green chairs with this.  Funny thing is, they have high back cushions out of this same fabric at HD for $35!  I really liked them but they were too much for DH.  So pillows it is! 
I love doing this it is so easy and brings a new life to the patio area.  Now I want to go read on the swing!

Here is a peek at the renewed green chairs:

I will take better pics when I get the pillows done.

Have a great week, and if you need fabric, don't forget to check out JoAnn's!

Toodles,

Laura

 








 

Making Lemonade.

When life gives us lemons we are to make lemonade, right?  Well I started this ready to chuck the lemons and buy new, but DH of all people inspired me to make a little lemonade!

Last summer I painted our adriondack chairs, I posted about it here.  They were great and I loved the color.  I had did everything right, or so I thought.  I sanded, primed and painted.  After that I asked DH if we should seal them.  (Here is the decision that would change my spruce green chairs to yuck)  He said, no they don't need it!  Now I am not pointing fingers, cause I love the final result, but I should have known better!  Here is what they looked like after a few months outside.

Pretty bad, huh! We live in So Cal, so our furniture sits out all year.  This is mainly from rain, and the patio getting hosed off, water!  I was ready to go buy new, but then DH had an inspiration.  He said, 'I sort of like the rustic look', now I don't know if he was kidding, but 'like' and 'rustic' in the same sentence usually doesn't happen.  Then a light bulb went off.  See the little turquoise table there,  the one that withstood the weather?  Well I had painted her and then sanded and stained her.  She still looks great!  So what if I sanded the chairs and stained them and then sealed them?  Rustic, no?  Couldn't hurt to try?  I mean I was going to buy new so...

  So I got my sanding wedge out and spruce green paint was a flying!  Here is the pile of remains.

Yuck,  I started with the little footstools first, they weren't that bad, but I was liking what I was seeing.  With the stain added, it gave them an awesome patina.  Like they had been sitting on the edge a lake for years.  Loved it.

Such character.  So on to the next footstool, then I just had to do a chair.  Awesome.
Here is the before after sanding.

Here is the after, with stain added.

This was all done on Saturday, and with yesterday a family day for Easter, I didn't get back to them till today.
So I consulted my friend Marian at Miss Mustard Seed, and Kate at Centsational Girl. as to the best way to seal these beauties and decided on Minwax Polyacrylic.  So off to Lowes I went to get my supplies.
Here is a pic of the stain and polyacrylic.  The stain is Aged Oak.

 
The footstools were first, the first coat is done and I am waiting for them to dry to lightly sand and put on another coat!  I still have the back and bottom of one chair to finish with the stain.  So hopfully I will get everything done by tomorrow.  Cause wouldn't you know it, it is supposed to rain!  Yeah for 3 days!  Yikes, So I have to get at least one coat of the sealer on before then so I can get them protected.  Hopefully I will be able to cover them as well.
Here is a pic of the footstool with it's first coat of sealer.

Love how they turned out, so you can turn lemons to lemonade with a little elbow grease!

Have a great week,

Laura

PS.  As soon as it stops raining, I will get updated pics of the set.  I was in such a rush to get it finished, dried and covered, I didn't get a finished pic.