We're moving...

Moving day is closing in on us and I am realizing just how excited I am to take up thrifting, building, and DIYing again for a new house. I spent a lot of time on this blog the first few years I lived in our current house and when the projects I had envisioned from the start were complete, the time spent DIYing and writing the blog was quickly replaced with more "serious" work endeavors. But summer is here and we are moving to Utah! I'm not sure how much I will post about the new house but I can hardly stand not showing off some before and afters of the projects I've been working on lately... and we haven't even moved yet.

We are still under contract but I will post pictures of the new house as soon as it's officially ours. The house is a 1964 ranch and we have taken to the idea that we want to find some cool mid century modern pieces.

First up, I found these industrial bar stools that were in rough shape at an antique/thrift shop for $10 a piece.

I thought the chairs might have a wiggle problem due to all the tape on the legs. When we took the tape off we discovered that the legs extended another couple feet and were very stable. NO idea why the tape was on there...

We sanded the bar stools down and I used about 3 cans of white Rustoleum spray paint on them. The wood on the seats was soaking up spray paint like mad so I used some regular white paint on the seats and finished them off with Minwax poly for protection. 

Oh by the way.. Utah is beautiful. This is Bear Lake, about 45 minutes from the new house!

Pop Some Tags - Thrift Shop Challenge

This past Monday I trekked in the rain and the fog to my local Goodwill to participate in Young House Love's genius, Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge. Since their post last Friday this song has become my theme song! If you haven't heard it yet, check it out here.

First I had to drop off my load of donations. I keep a super cute tote bag my sister made me that says "Give" in the laundry room and it collects Goodwill donations for weeks or months at a time. I just grab it on my way out the door. Anyway - when I rolled up to the donations door I of course had the Thrift Shop song playing. Much to my pleasure, the donations guy was totally into it! He was laughing and made a comment about the song. Which made the whole trip worth it. While I didn't find too much of anything wonderful inside on this trip, I did find some house slippers as mentioned in the song.

Whenever I see a whole bunch of something like this at a place like Goodwill I imagine some crazy woman that stocked up on 30 pairs of something silly like slippers - and her husband made her donate them all to Goodwill. More likely a store donated them, but it is funny to imagine!

Since I do not have any thrifting spoils to show off from this week, I thought this would be a good opportunity to pay homage to all the wonderful things I have found at thrift stores since I started seriously thrifting back in June of 2011. My husband tells me that it has become a hip thing for kids these days to do - so I guess all us DIYers better watch out!





So here are a few of the before and afters of my junk turned treasure. Click the pictures to see the posts about them.

#popsometags!

The Flea

The Flea Market has been quite the buzzword in my family for awhile now - most of us love everything about the flea. Flea markets offer something for everyone, from tools to old sewing machines, chandeliers (I can't resist), furniture, glassware, and vintage finds. My sister has a booth at an indoor flea market called the Mega Mall in Lansing, MI - I have done posts about it before (see them here and here) and over Memorial Day weekend I helped her move in a new Seaside Green hutch and rearrange some things. Of course while I was there I snapped some pictures. Her booth is deep inside the Mega Mall - no natural light to be found so my pictures usually turn out pretty crappy. I was gladly surprised that the new camera did such a great job in there so I thought I'd share some here, for the love of the flea.

My sister snagged these decanters for me at the outdoor flea - 6 decanters for $7! How can you beat that?? My decanter collection went from 2 to 9.

Thrift Store Finds - November

Sadly, garage sale season has ended... I am counting down the months until they start up again in the spring. Never fear though, thrift store goodies are sometimes an even better deal and are in full swing all winter. This past weekend my sister and I (and her adorable children) hit up a few in Lansing, MI. Here are the highlights of the bounty I brought home with me.

Kate fondly refers to this as the "Rock the Casbah" mirror. I like to call it Arabian Nights. It was only $7.99 at Goodwill and had a sticky note on the back that said "Room 304" - using my excellent detective skills I have deduced it came from a hotel. That and my sister bought the exact same one the week before from the same goodwill to put in her booth. I think it will go in my master bath... I have been cooking up a scheme for what I want to do in there (hint: stripes/stenciled/chevron paint job?). So far it is untouched except for the towel bar rack I took down months ago in an attempt to get started on that room. I think I was a little ahead of myself. (Try to ignore the mess/leaf collection in the garage :-))

This A-MA-Zing chair we found at the same Goodwill for $4.99. It has beautiful lines and I just could not walk away. Even though my house is CHOCK FULL of chairs. You can always use one more right? This one has found a home in the man-cave for now.

This footstool might be my favorite find of the day... surprise... it opens up and has a secret storage compartment, and it was only $4. I am having fun imaging what I will keep in there... probably just magazines, but maybe something more exciting... like remotes. :-)

I also found a ton of sewing patterns and a few volumes of The Family Creative Workshop which I have been wanting to start a collection of. All in all it was quite a productive weekend of thrifting!