2016 Projects Review

It always helps me see what I have accomplished when I go back and review the projects that I got completed in the past year. There are many gaps in my blogging story each year because I do so many projects that I don’t consider “blog worthy.” I rarely publish any of my Christmas decor because I have some paid decorating jobs which I do first and by the time I get my own home decorated the blogosphere has been overdone with Christmas photos out the wazoo! One project that has not yet made an apearance on the blog was a fixer upper home that my son and daughter in law purchased this past fall that our family and my daughter in law’s family spent many hours making cosmetic improvements on. You can click on any of the green highlighted text to go directly to the post about the photos.

My biggest project this year was updating my dining room for the One Room Challenge last spring.

 You can read about that project by clicking here. That post also has links to previous posts with all of the details.

I gave the screened porch at our summer cottage a much needed update. You can read about that by clicking here.

My son got married in May and I completed a couple of projects for the wedding.

I made this mason jar chandelier for the reception tent. You can get the details here.

I also made these lazy Susans for the rehearsal dinner tables. You can see those here.

I refurbished this chair for my mother.

Even though it has a plant in it in this photo, I completed this beverage stand as a Home Depot DIH workshop project. Unfortunately it was not a positive experience. My hope is that my local Home Depot will work to improve these workshops.

This copycat tea kettle was a quick and easy project.

Of course my year also included plenty of travel, most undocumented on the blog. I did blog about our trip to Arkansas to visit Allen Smith’s Garden Home at Moss Mountain Farm.

I can’t tell you how many homes I have toured but this is one of the few that I could move into today and not change a thing! There is so much to see in that post!

The gardens were the icing on the cake. I did 4 posts on them so you can start with this one and follow them through here, here, and here.

Wow! That was a busy year! I’m linking to the Top Projects Link at Southern Hospitality. Click over to see lots of inspiration!

New Life for Another Old Chair

This post contains affiliate links. By purchasing through the links I make a small commission at no extra charge to you.

I love giving new life to something old. I just reupholstered this old chair for my mother to use in her bathroom.

I love a cute pagoda and I love the fabric that I used on the back of this chair. I chose to use a solid textured blue fabric for the seat. Let’s take a look at what it looked like before.

I found this chair in a second hand store for $35. That’s a little more than I usually pay for a single chair but it was in very sturdy condition and I knew it was perfect for my mom’s room.

There is a reason why upholsterers charge so much money. It is because it takes a long time to remove all of those darn staples!! I used this staple remover to speed things along. It really is a great tool to have. I’m thinking that if you are taking something to be reupholstered if you took the time to remove the staples first it should be much less pricey since taking the old stuff off is the most time consuming part of the project. You can get this one  from Amazon for about $10 and it is worth every dime! It is eligible for Amazon Prime shipping.

It was hard to get a good picture of the bottom of the chair but I removed the cover from the bottom to work on the springs that had come untied and were bulging out the bottom.

This looks a little better after I retied the springs. I didn’t do anything to the finish of the wood since I like its aged character.

I kept all of the original stuffing including the old springs and horse hair. After a little work and vacuuming up all of the dirt and dust it was ready for the new fabric. I don’t have a picture but I ALWAYS use this pneumatic stapler, also eligible for Amazon Prime and well worth the $30. I have tried many times to use a heavy duty hand stapler and I can never get the staples all the way into the heavy wood frames. I use the stapler with this pancake compressor and I have been very happy with the results I get. All of those tools can be purchased for about $100 total so if you use them one time they are paid for!

Once all of the preparation was done, putting the new fabric on was very quick. Gluing the trim around the edges to cover the staples was a little time consuming and tricky.

The fabric is Ming Pagoda by P Kaufmann in the Zephyr color. The solid blue fabric was picked up on a remnant table so I don’t have the name of it. I already had the gimp trim left from another project.

I love the way it turned out.

If you are interested in seeing some of my other chair rescues click on any of the photos below to see the post related to that chair.

 

 

Thanks for reading and a BIG thank you to those who take time to leave a comment!

I’m linking to Metamorphosis Monday, to Wow Us Wednesday, to Grace at Home, to Thoughts of Home On Thursday, to Before and After Wednesday, and to Anything Blue Friday. Be sure to click the link for lots of inspiration.

How to Customize an Old Refrigerator

When we built our summer cottage six years ago a friend gave us this refrigerator for our basement. You can click here to see how I reversed the opening of the door. While my first preference was a stainless refrigerator, I couldn’t see spending money when we had a working refrigerator so I have been pining over how to update it. I finally decided to add wood panels to help it blend in with the cabinetry.

I purchased two sheets of 1/4” plywood and used some scraps to cut the panels and trim.

I used a carpenter’s square to mark the cutting lines for my panels after I had carefully measured each side. I also cut strips of wood to cover the outside edges of the doors so I cut the front panels big enough to include covering the sides of the doors. To make that clear, I added 1/2” to the width of the panel for the front of the door to cover the 1/4” panels on the sides of the door and I added 1/4” to the height of the door panel to cover the panel at the top edge. I didn’t cut a panel for the bottom of the door since it will never be seen. I used the Kreg Rip Cut tool for cutting the panels.

The Kreg Rip Cut is an attachment for a circular saw which helps make straight long cuts that would otherwise require a table saw. I can’t say enough about how much I loved using this tool!

The photo above is just for demonstration purposes. The saw is not operating as I would NEVER operate a circular saw with one hand. Safe operation requires TWO hands on the saw at all times. Material should be clamped in place so that you can keep both hands on the saw at ALL times. (My brother lost his thumb holding material with one hand and making a quick cut with the other!)

This photo is a better view of operation of the Rip Cut.

After cutting the panels and trim strips, I used wood glue and clamps to attach the trim to the edges of the panels giving the look of Shaker cabinet panels. You can see in the photo above that the strip to the right is lighter in color than the other strips. It was cut from a different piece of wood. If you were staining this project you would not want to use this because it would look different on the finished project. Since I was painting the wood, it didn’t matter that it was a different color.

After the trim was dry, I applied a generous amount of construction adhesive to the back of the panel.

This panel is ready to stick to the side of the refrigerator.

Because the panel is so tall, I used 4’ furniture clamps at the top and bottom and straps around the middle to hold the panel in place until the adhesive dried.

I repeated that process for all sides of the refrigerator.

Now it is ready for the paint finish. If you look closely at the photo above, you can see the panels on the sides of the doors that I was referring to earlier.

I started with my base coat of white paint.

Then I added my glaze coat of stain. I always use Minwax dark walnut. I apply a quick coat then wipe it off.

I didn’t want to use the same old handles so I had to look high and low to find something that I could use. I found these old pulls at Round Top for $5 each. The challenge was finding pulls that were screwed on from the outside. These fit the bill and worked very nicely. Now, let’s take a look at the before and after.

I like the after much better even though the photos don’t do it justice. If I open the curtains in that room while taking photos the sunlight and glare is overwhelming and if I leave them closed everything looks dark and gloomy. I would rather work on projects than learn how to take good photos!

I hope you have had a great January! I can’t believe it’s almost over!

I’ll be linking to Wow us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style and to Grace At Home at Imparting Grace.

FYI- I recently read a blog post regarding giving more information and not assuming that our readers know all of the ins and outs of our blog so here goes. If you click on any text that is in a different color on this page you will be taken to another page or “link” with more information on the given topic!