Green are the hills of Ireland...

...and green they will always stay....along with a dresser I just painted, lol.

We have a dresser that has migrated around the house without a real purpose until recently. I decided to move it into the living room and use it to hold all of our dog stuff, but I felt a little weird about a dresser in the living room. It was kind of a black hole because the area we placed it doesn't have a lot of light, but it also still felt like Scott's old bedroom furniture (which it totally is, in case you were wondering).

It's such an awkward corner, too, that I felt something bright could really stand alone there. To the left in the photo above is our door to the backyard and to the right are our french doors into the kitchen, so most of the time, this area is just next to a main walkway.

I actually had wanted to paint a piece of furniture green for a while, but couldn't figure out which one till this little project came up. Green is my favorite color and always reminds me of both my birthstone (emerald) and my heritage (Irish), so having the hue greet me every day seemed like a logial step.

Before taking the leap, though, I went online and researched the color to see if perhaps others had tried a bright green and it had ended up more like Slimer than Éire.

Thankfully, the results were exactly what I wanted to find. They were not only gorgeous, but they really helped set off the area of the room where they stood.

In what can be described as possibly my most haphazard color choosing experience ever, I literally walked up to the color samples in Home Depot, grabbed one that I really liked, and got a sample pot of it. I figured that even if I went a shade light or dark, it was okay because the intensity would still be there.

This is an after shot. Hopefully your sample pot won't be already covered with the color. Also, don't
 buy poly that is smooshed. That's what happens when you use a hammer to close it instead of a mallet!

My tools for this job were a small foam roller, my cutting in brush, and a foam brush. I had the polyurethane already from when I redid the coffee table, so I just added the green affectionately called 'Mown Yard' into the arsenal and hauled the dresser into the garage.

I took the same steps as I did when I refurbished his matching little brother for the guest room. Honestly, though, prep is pretty universal, so you can always follow these rules for any job. Just skip the ones that don't apply:

1. Take out drawers
2. Take out any glass that you can. If it can't be removed, use painters tape over it.
3. Take off any hardware that you can
4. Set up in a well ventilated area
5. Use a hand sander for more control. Sand the entire piece. If the piece is covered in a large amount of layers, use a deglosser.

Thankfully, I was able to use use my hand sander.

6.Wipe down to remove any dust that has clung to the surface.
7. Spray/brush on your primer. I ended up using spray primer (white), but it's not necessary. I just find it works quicker and I always seem to have it around. As always when using spray paint, make sure to not stay in one place for too long and to keep your hand moving at all times to avoid drips.
8. Allow primer to dry, then apply first coat of your main color. I actually like to start with a brush and get into the smaller areas that you can't reach with the roller. That way, when the roller gets near the brush strokes, it textures them, helping it all blend together. This is how you can get a more professional, seamless look, especially on larger pieces of furniture.
9. Reapply coats as needed. I find that I can pretty easily get two coats (and that's it) out of one sample, so keep that in mind while purchasing. Just make sure to look at it from all angles so you don't miss spots.
10. Allow to dry overnight, then apply the poly with a regular foam brush evenly over the whole surface. Wait 5 minutes, then return and take care of any drips that you might have missed earlier.
11. Allow THAT to dry overnight and reassemble the pieces from steps 1-3.

12. Stand back and admire your finished product.

I know that 12 steps seems like a lot on paper (on web? on internet? whatever), but honestly, it doesn't take very long at all. I'm a pretty impatient person when it comes to paint, so the fact that I can do it definitely means that you can. Redoing furniture is truly one of those small, cost effective tweaks that you can perform to really make your house like home. This was so cost effective, in fact, that I even reused the old handles because I liked their look with the green!

It's so nice having something really pop in that corner now. I love the fact that people might eye it as they walk by. The best part is that no one has to look at our leashes and pet supplies anymore (because they were originally in clear drawers in the dining room...yeesh!). It just really makes you forget that inside there lies some ear cleaner and puppy nail clippers.

So what do you think? Is part of your Spring cleaning going to involve cleaning up some of your old furniture? Let me know in the comments!

We DID Start the Fire

Scott and I are big fans of fire. We like fireplaces, camp fires, fire pits, and even candles (responsibly, of course). In fact, we can't even say the word without getting this song stuck in our head from one of our favorite movies, Hot Fuzz.

It's true.

It was a natural thought, then, that we would have a fire pit in our backyard. When we were in our apartment, we would dream of being able to sit outside with friends around a fire, have a glass of wine, eat s'mores, and just chat for hours.

We had been throwing ideas around for a while as to how we wanted to go about making our pit-dreams come true since we moved in last year. Our priority at the time was trimming back some of the foliage that had taken over and getting rid of the raised beds that populated the yard.

Since we were able to clear out that riffraff last Summer and Fall, though, we were left with the yard as an open canvas for a fire-friendly layout.

We knew that we wanted it to be fire-safe and easy on our pocketbook, so we decided not to use pavers. First, we started with the actual flame-holding pit itself. Our friends had one that they didn't want that needed some clean up, so two days, a wire brush, and some heat-paint later, we had a like-slightly-used fire ring.

I then roughly marked where I thought a good spot for the seating area would be and we started digging in. I followed this up by taking a stick, sticking it in the ground, putting a length of twine around it and attaching a spray paint can (green) to the other side of the string. Then I just walked the length of the string to make a perfect circle for us to cut out of our tiny hillside. It ended up being exactly 12 ft in diameter, which was both cool and unintended.

This is when we wish we could teach the girls to dig for us because it was pretty labor intensive. Instead, Leels wanted to be behind the camera and Sam Sam was playing Rambo puppy across the way.

We were about halfway through doing the initial digging when we received 4 inches of snow overnight. I went to sleep after shoveling dirt in a t-shirt and jeans and woke up to the hole completely filled in with snow. Ugh. The cold-to-warm weather shifts also meant that our wheel barrow tire would pop the next time we used it, right in the middle of trying to finish the job. We would instead just shovel the dirt into the nearby 'flower bed' since there wasn't any real landscaping there anyway. Not permanent, but it worked for the time being.

Thankfully because we live in Kentucky, it was all melted three days later and we were able to continue clearing away the dirt in 60 degree weather. Oh Kentucky Weather, you foul and unpredictable mistress.

Scott and I were actually up till 9 pm one night with our camping headlamps on to finish all of the digging as quick as we could last Friday. Scott brought up more than once how our neighbors probably thought we were up to no good, and it was pretty amusing shoveling a hole in what felt like the middle of the night.The end goal was that when we approached the pit the next day, it was already looking much more inviting... in a muddy, dirt covered way.

It's a pretty deep pit, but we had to dig away so much for two reasons. The first is that we wanted to use river pebbles instead of pavers for our seating. Not only was this cost effective, but it was flexible and would look nice with whatever type of seating we decide to build/put there. Next, we have a slight hill to our backyard and we needed to make the area level so that it was both fire-friendly and more comfortable to sit in. Though the left side of the image above is on level with the house, the right side is almost 14 inches deep.

We managed to use our level and a couple of shovels to level everything out by skimming at the top of the shifted dirt.

Next we decided to use wood that we already had to create a retaining wall. Without one, the Hubs and I knew that the first good rainfall would mudslide the whole wall of dirt back into the seating area. We cut up a piece of pressure treated wood that had been used to make the old raised beds from the yard and staked it into the ground to see if it looked good and would do the job. It did both with flying colors.

So I ended up in the garage cutting 'stakes' out of the old planks while Scott hammered them into the ground. Most of them were cut to 16 inches at the tip of the stake, so they were pretty long. This meant that they wouldn't move around or come loose once they were installed.

Scott then hammered them in and made them level with the ground behind them to decrease the likeliness of someone tripping over them while walking in the yard. Sometimes we would get all but one inch of the stake in place and then it just wouldn't move. There are a lot of large rocks underground here, so this was not our first run in with a blockage for this project. We would just make sure they were in securely and then use the sawzall to cut off the top to make it even.

In a couple of hours, we were looking pretty good.

Scott also went ahead and set up the base for the fire pit in smaller gravel in the center so that we could work around it. I followed this up by laying out the landscape fabric and cutting it to size for the space. This included cutting a big hole around the fire pit because we didn't want to have the fabric close to the flame. I then covered the hole around the fire pit with the small gravel.

We had barely enough to cover, but it worked out. Sometimes landscaping fabric isn't worth using because the weeds will just grow through it anyway. On this job, we decided that it would keep the ground from turning to mud in the rain and swallowing all of our river pebbles. Essentially, the fabric is a big anti-pebble sinking device.

I then started pouring in the larger stones. We ended up with close to 20 bags of pebbles in the end, but were still very strategic as to where we initially dumped them. Specifically, we wanted to make sure we covered the fabric seams first (to help hold it down), then we started nearest the fire pit and worked our way out.

It eventually had enough pebbles that we were able to take a garden rake and spread them around. We were later able to scavenge even more pebbles from our friends who are trying to (ironically) get them OUT of their yard, so that added about 5 more bags to the mix. This was accompanied by back-filling the retaining wall with dirt to eliminate the gap and shore up the stakes.

For the time being, this is all we're doing. We have already been able to enjoy it two or three times. There will be another update with the other things we are hoping to do as well as the tweaks we have accomplished, but honestly, I just don't have pictures of that yet. I know you guys like the pictures (Speaking of, none of the colors of the images in this post match because the weather and the sun were all over the place last weekend! Sorry!). I have actually painted the tops of the retaining planks a fun color as well as trimming the landscape fabric back so that it's invisible. We are hoping to have a hammock stand set set up behind the fire pit soon, too, which will really make it relaxing. The plank walkway will also eventually be continued out to meet up with the side of the pit (notice the green spray painted lines on the right).

First, though, we need some nice weather to come and let us enjoy our new outdoor space. Come on 70 degree weather, we know you're out there somewhere! Hope everyone is looking forward to Spring as much as we are!!!

Czechs Mix

I know that lately I've been doing a lot of things to the outsides of furniture, but this post is about just the opposite. It all started when Mom came to stay last October and we were trying to find something that guests can put their suitcases on for the guest room. We knew that it needed to fit in a little nook by the door, so we took our measurements and kept our eyes open.

We ended up at the Peddlers Mall, which is on New Circle here in Lexington.

Neither of us had ever been, but places that sell used, antique, or just odd furniture are really fun, so we gave it a try. What we didn't account for how just how huge this place was. It is massive. It's the TARDIS of secondhand. The front looks like an old storage facility, but the building has so many added on spaces off the back that it feels like you are walking for miles and miles by time you make it through it. Did I mention that it's two stories?

The photo is from an adorable blog called The Ringers where they talk you through their experience there. If you really want to get a sense for the place, it's a great read.

They really do sell everything there. Furniture, clothing, Justin Beiber beach towels (ugh), but there are also hidden treasures if you're willing to take your time and go through some of the more interesting booths. That's how we found a whole stack of old military trunks. These things were big. We're talking 47Lx22Wx15D. They were made of wood that had seen better days and hadn't been cleaned out, but each one only cost $20. We had found our solution!

It inspired images like this to run through our minds.

I figured I would give it a nice coat of a fun paint color and it would be good as new, so we loaded it up and dragged it into the house. First we put it where it would eventually end up so that we could see how it fit.

It was a little wide, but not by enough to be too much of an issue. This was followed by the next task: cleaning it out. There was a lot of old paper held in my rusty staples and some broken glass in there.

I pulled out all of the staples I could, hammered in the ones that I couldn't, then took out the paper and trashed it. Finally, I took the little vacuum and ran it through the entire inside so that I could get all the glass out without using my hands. One cool thing I found was a manifest for the items that were in it. We are thinking that the language is Czech, but we aren't completely sure. Maybe Russian? How cool is that?

 

We had picked out a fun fabric for the inside that we would use to line the bottom. This would allow Scott and I to store blankets and other cloth items in it without getting hung up on rough edges. Like many things, though, this project was put off while we finished the other plethora of things we had going on in the house. During that shuffle, we decided that we actually didn't want it in the guest room because we liked using it in the living room as blanket storage much better.

I had taken my mouse sander to it to get off the paint that was chipping, but in doing so, I found that I really liked the distressed look. Rather than painting it, I ended up just cleaning it up a bit and leaving it in it's 'original' state. Mom finished the interior liner and I was able to put it in, too.

She essentially made a box out of fabric that would sit inside of the trunk. It fit really well, so it was really easy to 'install'. I just used my staple gun and stapled along the edges at the top. I would have cared more about people seeing the staples, but the chevron pattern is busy enough to distract from them.

Ignoring how lumpy our blankets look, you can see just how much this thing holds. The best part is we can close it and not have to see all of our non-matching, lumpy blankets all the time. Yay for covering eye sores!

There is even enough space for us to store pillows we aren't currently using or that we use as extras for the room. The trunk is the perfect height, so they don't get smooshed.

I think the only thing I might want to do to it down the line is either clean up it's current hardware or add some new cleaner looking hardware and maybe stain the areas of exposed wood a darker color. I just think it'll make the weathered look appear more on purpose and finished. Short legs are also a possibility, but those will depend on how it does through some use. Otherwise, this project is done! It's nice to have things be simple every once in a while.

Happy Ash Wednesday everyone!