Saturday, August 1, 2009

Bits and Pieces

So, as I've said, I've been working on organizing photos in my basement. When I cleaned out our office closet turned crafting space, there were mountains of photos to organize. This is a fraction of the photo albums I have ...

All different sizes, shapes, some in boxes, etc. What could I do to unify them? Bookcovers. Remember back in school when you'd get textbooks and you had to put bookcovers on them? That was the idea here. On the albums, I put bookcovers. On the boxes, I just wrapped them in paper like a gift. I used double layers of gift wrap rather than paper bags people often use in school, but I'm sure there are other papers that would work better but I had the wrapping paper on hand. Here's a good tutorial if you don't remember how to do it.

After that, I put some of the albums/boxes on a shelf. I think it looks a little neater to have less of the rainbow effect.

I left the gold box and a black album since some of the albums had gold trim and black trim. Looks better than the rainbow of colors I had before. That plug bothers me and I need to think of something to put there to hide it.

Next - Where that bookcase is now, I had my sewing machine that was once my mom's that she bought when she got married nearly 40 years ago so its not the modern kind that you can use anywhere. Its the super heavy type that came in a cabinet. This cabinet was a faux-wood once and I painted it black years ago.

The particle board bench that had been with the cabinet had seen better days so I finally just got rid of it. However, this chair was in a corner in our utility room being used merely as a stand for holding recycleable bottles.

This chair belonged to Mr. T's grandmother. She did the caning on the seat. I take full responsibility for damaging the seat. You see, I don't believe in ladders. I use chairs. Mr. T is always yelling at me for this because he's afraid I'll break my neck one day. Well, I guess this chair is more for sitting than standing because the caning broke in one section when I decided to stand on it one day. Since it belonged to Mr T's grandmother, we couldn't just get rid of it, but we also couldn't use it and it didn't match anything we have so it ended up in the utility room. I asked Mr. T if he would be okay with painting it. He agreed. At least we'd be using it rather than leaving it in in a corner collecting dust. So now here are the sewing table and chair ...


The seat on the chair is still broken, but I have plans to eventually upholster it like my dining chairs. This way, the caning will stay where it is but it will just be covered by a usable seat. That project is for another day.

After many, many phone calls and lots of discussion, I will be going to the D.C. Big Flea bright and early this morning. Tomorrow, I leave for NY with my parents to attend a funeral while Mr. T stays home with the two monkeys. I'll only be gone overnight, but I'm going to miss my girls like crazy.

I'm busy working since I'll be missing work on Monday and have some deadlines to meet before I leave for NY but maybe if I'm lucky, I'll have something from the flea market to share next week!

6 comments:

  1. Melanie!! Nice work girl...There is just something about white that makes you feel all cleaned up. Love how the sewing machine and chair turned out, great job. xoxo~Kathy~ @ Sweet Up-North Mornings...

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  2. You use chairs as ladders and step stools too? I thought that I was the only one that got yelled at for that!

    I like the new home and color for the chair:)

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  3. Good job! The table and chair look great painted white and they look made for each other!

    Manuela

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  4. Love the sewing table and chair makeovers. I don't believe in ladders either. ; )

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  5. You have given me hope for our fireplace brick wall...it is very similar to yours!

    diydecor.blogspot.com

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