Don't Let Furniture [di]Stress You Out

I am notorious for starting projects and not finishing them.  Or, wanting to start projects and never starting them.  The fact that I not only began but COMPLETED a project I've been thinking about for years is a tremendous feat all its own.  The resulting fantastically awesome piece of furniture is just a bonus.

I forgot to take a picture of the dresser before I removed all the drawers and I didn't feel like putting them back in just for a photo.  So here are the "before" photos, getting prepped to paint:

 

 

I bought it several years ago at Hawthorne Vintage while I was still living in The Hut.  I liked the way the bold blue color looked on the black and white checkered floors.  But once I got it in my room here at The Brain, it just didn't hold together very well with the décor.  I've been wanting to distress a piece of furniture for a long time, so it seemed like the perfect time.

 

 

Nelle also had a piece she wanted to distress so we brought the dressers to her house and over a few sporadic sessions not without many, many beers and bonfires, I distressed the crap out this already pretty damn awesome piece of furniture.

 

 



Here are the steps to distressing from a total amateur who has never done this before:

1. Paint everything white (or whatever color you want the piece to be).  I did two coats for evenness.
2. Let it dry so it's fully set.  I left it for several days.
3. Start with a coarse sandpaper and sand the places where you want the wear.  It helps to be delicate with the coarse sandpaper -- too much pressure and it'll take off the color underneath.
4. Go over everything with a medium-grit sandpaper to refine the worn areas.
5. Finish with a very fine sandpaper to smooth out rough edges and snags.  Wipe everything down with a cloth.
6. I topped it off with vintage-inspired knobs from Hippo Hardware (which, by the way, is the best place ever on earth, EVER. http://www.hippohardware.com/index.htm?lmd=40605.680382).  For variety I used five of the clear glass fluted knobs, two clean-lined metallic grey knobs, and *one* clear glass amethyst colored knob and mixed them up.  Finished with the badass gilded mirror I bought the same day I bought the couch.

I love it!  It's perfect in my bedroom.  Once I make the room not a total $#!t hole anymore, I'll post a pic.

Pretty Things

Loves of my life.

Perfume bottle collection

(and various doilies)

Poppy, Polka Dots & an Array of Wedge-Tables

New Favorite Color: Poppy
  (not-so-incoincidentally the color of my new cardigan)

New Favorite Day: Thursday (because it often feels like
   Friday but without the hype)

New Favorite Color to go with my New Favorite Color: Taupe



           Happy Administrative Professionals Day?
           Wish I'd known beforehand.
           I might've asked for something.




                                Like a raise.


Just hearing the word "deli" makes me feel excited.
                                                       


     Get Lost
     .in a book.
     .in a moment.
     .in a day.
     .in time.
     .in a feeling.
     .in a gaze.
     .in an embrace.

Why is it so sad when a grocery store closes down?  A gift shop, clothing store, restaurant -- When these places close it is very sad indeed, but something about a grocery store feels much worse, cuts far deeper in an intimate way.  Is it because they symbolize health, life, vitality?

Grazing 101

1. Assortment of vegetables (any and all varieties)

2. One delicious dip (no, that's not what I call the Boy)

3. Something surprising on the side (in this case, a nice stuffed olive and a crossword puzzle)

4. Rinse, chop, dip, eat (say that ten times fast!)
5. Repeat as necessary (Voila.)

     WOAH. Watch where you're pointing

                                                         that thing.

Moonstruck, Awestruck, Lovestruck

  

Yesterday I went to my usual appointment in the afternoon, only it felt like Friday because today I have the day off.  Upon leaving the building I discovered the sun was intermittent enough and the air warm enough to warrant parking myself at a metal table outside Moonstruck with, do I dare say it?, a cup of coffee so smooth and easy that cream would likely have ruined it.  I sipped from the cup that fit neatly in my hands, nibbled on the shortbread cookie with the zig-zagged edge, and admired the way the sun came in and out of the tree branches, laden with fresh April blooms. 

Sometimes it doesn't feel real.

Sometimes I don't feel real.

Then I discovered an entire world

living inside of my coffee cup.

And my new favorite butter jeans looked so compelling in the light; strangely complicated and pretty with pattern.

 Oh, and I almost forgot!  Look what Mom sent me!

The most perfect, timeless, fantastically elegant

Yellow Teapot in the world!  Yeesh, this photo does it

no justice.  In person, it just glows.

Thanks, Ma. :)

Chai + Samosas On A Beachy Sunday

Tao of Tea

3430 SE Belmont

Atmosphere: A magnificent cave

Tea: Sultry & complex

NomNoms: Eclectic & delectable (Eclectable?)

Staff: Appropriately distant

Overall: A good place to lose track of time

Aaaand, I know you're jealous that I got a

Tea Date with Devon, even though sometimes

it is a little difficult to be around

so much pretty.

Dear Old Laugh-o-dills

It is rather convenient that the first Weekend of Spring includes the official day the Daffodils decide to wake up from their naps.  They laugh in the face of rain, spit on cloudy weather and chilly nights, squash the wind storms and torrential downpours.  Winter -- PUH!  To my delight, I get to bask in their bright perky faces, admire the strong stems from which they stretch and yawn, smooth my fingertips over their sweet petals as I breathe the March air brisk with salty ocean smells.

 Hi. Thank you for making my weekend.

 Eerie, strange, a little unreal. 

Beginning of a science fiction story?

As the sun ducked in and out of passing clouds, the Boy and I parked ourselves on a curb to admire the weather, the folks passing by, the playing children. I got lost in the reflections on my shoes.

               Day One of iPhone:
               I don't like this thing. It can't do what I want it to do.
              
               Day Seven, eight, nine...: 
               I can check out audio books from the library on my phone!


                             PS - Love the red hoodie.  Some really
                                    awesome chick must have gotten that
                                      for you...

Good hair lately.  It makes me feel like me.

'Quectic' Friday

Love
Quiet Fridays
The accidental Coffee Club
Tiny coffeepots


Hate
When quiet Fridays become hectic Fridays
Repetitive repetitive repetitive . . .
Apartments out of my price range
 Looking for apartments that I know are out of my price range



. . . . .


Really Love
Aveeno Intense Relief Hand Cream
The waitress at Utopia with the fish skeleton tattoo
Peanut butter toast

Here I go again, lust lust lusting away . . .

Week One of Brother's Kamikaze Arrival: Success

First things first:

Makeshift Mattress (and Other Bedding)

Conveyor Belt Sushi

Ikea Brouhaha and the Ice Cream-capade

-->Love<-- this pattern. 

I want an entire wall with this pattern.

  

 Why, for less than ten bucks, did I not buy this?!

Idea: More chandeliers. 

Just one is not nearly enough.

I do not speak Swedish. 

But it sure is pretty.

Right now:

English Breakfast tea with a splash of half and half
The sweet muses of Fleet Foxes
Bear cuddled up in bed with his nose glued in a book
Not one, but two pairs of wool socks


Totally twitterpated over:

New kitchen arrangement
Mineral oiled butcher block countertop
A certain red hoodie
Florence Welch

                                                                      Five dollar
   Fake tulips                  polka-dotted hen (!)

This spectacular lampshade I

happened upon at Goodwill

Thank you, day.

Today I am wearing puke colored shoes that match my puke colored sweater, the color not of my heart, but close to it.  I slept deeply last night in spite of unsettling dreams about robots, dinosaurs, and a horrifying upheaval of the world as I know it.  The robots themselves aren’t the unsettling part, but the part where they discover I’m the only human left and try to destroy me –-

I still feel a little unnerved. 

In the dream, my friends and coworkers, the ones I’m with today, are all robots that look unmistakably like humans.  I feel more than a little compelled to give them a once-over, maybe examine them a bit, to see if I perhaps find clues to their true origin.

     Yeah, MG – I hope you don’t mind. I’m just going to lift up your hair and have a nice long look at the back of your head where the hair meets the scalp.  Maybe a lengthy gaze into your eyes, deep into your pupils.  Feeling okay today?  Any, uh, malfuctions, per se?  Oh, no reason. 

Sweet KT ...

No strange findings to report thus far.  Except dried chocolate on the crotch of my pants.

The Objective

That is not the objective. 

The objective is to do what I’m doing,
go where I’m going, for the sake of doing so. 
Not for the sake of someone else wanting it,
not for a means to an end.

----> I’d rather have my own problems than anyone else’s.


Oh, for the love of --
       
          Sephora by O.P.I. in Metro Chic
          Godiva Chocolatier Gems
             You're like Joan Jett, only better.
          Fresh fruit bouquets