Tiny tables & things

You know you live in Springfield when some of your favorite haunts are antique malls.

The trick to finding good stuff when antiquing and thrifting, I think, is imagination. Even if you don’t plan to refurb a piece, it can help to don your thinking cap to picture it outside of the clutter and/or weird lighting of the store. Maybe with a nice flower pot or picture frame on top. Or a cat. Whatever.

Since I’m great at this exercise, I ignored Soner’s protests when he begged me not to buy this metal table for 50 smackaroos:

You know, I think it’s got a lot going for it until I get to those “decorative” swirl things. They don’t match the thickness of the rest of the metal, they give it a weird old lady vibe. I mean there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you’re into. I’m going to get myself in trouble.

Anyway, so it’s the weekend and I decided to use our shiny new Dremel tool to cut those suckers off.

Because I don’t know much about these things, I got a pack of these guys.

My first one broke after ten seconds.

But dammit, I paid for them and I am not going to Lowe’s five times in one weekend. Because I did that last weekend. So back to work (with my safety goggles, of course).

Anyway, it was easy after that. I have some grinding to do to get rid of the old welds, and now I’m wondering if I should paint it. Stick with black? Gold? Silver?

Until next time, signing off.

We’re still here!

Let me kick things off by explaining that our absence is due to still not having a camera – we’re waiting on a criminal trial to conclude before we can get it back. It’s a weird complicated emotional mess. However, we all have phones these days, so no more excuses!

Between trying to learn German, attempting to cultivate a garden of succulents such that would make all of Instagram instantly jealous, and putting the grill to work on every piece of food we eat, we are finding time to install trim and baseboards throughout the house.

We came into the house with no trim. Anywhere. Not exaggerating. Drywall has been installed, but around all doors, floors and windows, we have variations of this:

Master carpentry by a previous owner!

We got tired of looking at insulation poking out everywhere, so we’ve been working at it.

Don't judge us.

This is more involved than we thought. Walls are not thick enough for the width of each doorframe, drywall needs replacement and patching. I’m sure all of you seasoned renovators are nodding your heads knowingly. It’s a good thing we love this house.

I’ll save our window casing dilemmas for their own post. Here are some finished photos so we don’t leave you hanging:

I love my table. Oh yes

Wut

Don’t mind Taco and her derpiness.

We’ll keep updating on the trim front. And, provided my camera is returned somewhat soon, expect photos of succulents.

Here’s one to tide you over. Signing off!

dresser refurb!

Hello, again, and sorry for my absence. A lot has happened – some not-so-nice things (my camera was stolen – and recovered – but it has not been returned to me yet from the police. I am borrowing my friend Autumn’s camera for some shoots this weekend), but Soner and I also had our wedding, so the knot has been tied and I am officially Mrs. Acar! I will probably share tons of photos here from the big day once I get them back from our lovely photographer at Love By Serena. Here’s one to tide you over:

Meanwhile, we’re working on getting our house up to snuff. We ended up having to completely rebuild our balcony – I will try to get some photos of that process, but we will definitely have photos of the finished product ASAP!

This is not about that. This is about my dresser. A dresser I bought several years ago – I have been lugging it with me, trying to figure out my vision for it, since it has potential. I would say it’s seen better days, but it probably has not. This thing has a paint job from hell.

I was using it to store pieces of fabric and scraps for projects, all the while hmm-ing and ahh-ing about what to do with it. Well, enough of that. I’m going to just bite the bullet and paint it a solid neutral and put it to good use, instead of hiding it in a back room for a rainy day.

Trying to decide if I should keep the hardware. Any ideas?

I was going to just sand it down and repaint, but I didn’t want any lumps or cracks…so it was time to strip the paint. Yuck. I hate that stuff, but it seemed like the best way. I figured I’d follow my heart on the paint color, but the original paint had to go first. My cat Caesar decided to inspect everything, meanwhile.

I chose a paint-stripper-for-dummies – it’s a gel that can actually be used indoors (allegedly), it has “no” chemical odor, and is not as caustic to skin as typical paint thinner. I say all of this as a first-time paint-remover, so I don’t really know how it stacks up to the competition, but I can say it was a relatively easy job, if not messy as heck. I grabbed the bigger jug of the two at Lowe’s, and I’m glad I did, because it looks like I had more to cover (or uncover) than I thought. So armed with a plastic scraper, a rough sponge for detail work, and naturally wearing my favorite shoes so I would then get paint all over them, I set to work. Outside, by the way. Not sure about that “safe for indoor use” part.

I wish I had more to show you, but with Daylight Savings in full swing, my daylight was running out! I’ll let everyone know, though, that the pain thinner totally smells like orange dreamsicles, if the dreamsicles had been through a giant dose of crazy radiation or something. I’ll start on the drawers as soon as I have some spare time. Maybe I’ll even do them inside. If I die from chemical inhalation, you’ll be the first to know last to know because I won’t be able to post it here.

Ciao for now!

 

 

Edit: I wanted to amend this post to share the finished dresser! Will add the paint color once I dig up my sample can from wherever Soner stashed it…

I got drawer pulls from Home Depot, and I was unsure at first, but I think they work.

The full dresser needs a few touch ups that I couldn’t see at first because I was impatient and painted it at night, but overall I think it’s a win! Where before it was a blemish sitting in the corner of the room, I think it now adds a pop of color!

in which we are inundated with chairs.

As people who never used to have enough seating for everyone at our house, we are suddenly finding ourselves with too many chairs. And we can’t stop.

I think we have 4 desk chairs at last count, around 3-4 folding chairs, a lawn chair, and two lovely Chippendale chairs that are in need of refinishing. Regardless, when our neighbor came by with two old chairs that she needed to get rid of, we could not resist.

They’re a little tired, but they have good bones.

So I’ll be refinishing these – and maybe those Chippendales too while I’m at it.

new beginnings.

This is our new house.

We are advocates of downtown revitalization in Jacksonville, and we have always thought it was important to put our money where our mouths were. We rented in San Marco and began our search there, admittedly, but found that our money did not go very far, so after branching out to Riverside and still finding disappointment, we turned exclusively to Springfield.

This is a neighborhood that needs love. It has a rich history but also experienced a sharp decline a number of years ago. It was not a safe place for a while. Lately, though, there’s been a surge of investors and loving residents buying up these historic homes and restoring them. These folks love Springfield, and they love everyone who joins the neighborhood! We made lots of friends before even buying a home – just telling people we were looking in the area got us invitations to join in all sorts of neighborhood activities, from baseball games to potlucks.

That said, the home we bought, like many others, was a foreclosure that had seen better days. The home was in the middle of a renovation when the previous family lost it. It has a lot of upgrades, but it’s missing some basic things – interior trim, for example. It’s in good shape, but we have some work ahead of us. Luckily, it’s very much worth it. As you can see, it’s a stunning house.

This blog is going to be a documentation of our journey to bring this house into a fresh start. We hope our family and friends enjoy it!