A Painted Chair

In regards to furniture, I'm from the school of "if it came from a tree, let it be", meaning that I do not paint my wooden furniture. However, it seems that painted wood pieces have become very popular and I'm kind of liking how it looks so I've revised my thought. If I have wooden furniture that is not in great condition, I will consider painting it.

I had a chair from my great great (!) grandmother and the wood was not in the most attractive condition, seeing as how the chair is at least 100 years old. However, I was determined to use it somewhere in our house. So after moving it from room to room and not being quite satisfied with where it sat, I decided to freshen it up with some paint. Here is the chair before:

And after Stuart sanded it (so that the paint would adhere):

We are in the process of painting our other guest bedroom a light gray. Before choosing the paint color, we brought home several small sample containers. One of the samples was from the same paint card as the color we chose, but a shade darker. I decided to use the extra sample paint for the chair, so that the grays would work together. I painted the chair caning a high gloss white to match the molding. I coated the chair twice and after it dried, used a medium grade sandpaper to do some light distressing. Afterall, it just wouldn't fit in our house if it didn't look a little old. I really love how it turned out and will definitely be painting some more pieces!

Right now the chair holds a plant in the guest bedroom (see sneak peak of new bedroom color in background--the grays look the same in the picture because of the flash, but the chair is slightly darker than the wall color).

What do you think? To paint or not to paint the wooden furniture?

Easter's On Its Way

I finally feel like I can say that with some confidence! Warm weather is here and Easter is just around the corner, so we've done a little holiday decorating to get ready for the bunny. I always loved Easter as a child, and not because of the bunny--my parents broke the news to me at age 6 that there was not actually a friendly, oversized rabbit who delivered treats to children. I'm glad they didn't fess up about Santa, but kind of wished they had told me before 4th grade that he wasn't real. I think I was the last to know, and I only found out because my dad accidentally left a signed receipt in a gift box. Anyways, here's what we've got going on around the house.

This Pottery Barn wreath adorns the door that you enter in from the driveway (don't fret, we will replace that door some day).

And this is the table in our foyer. What's Easter without a few ceramic bunnies and fresh flowers?

And I have to zoom in on this precious wedding gift we received while mentioning the entry table--so special (Aly Bolin, show Tiny!)!

And this is a sweet little bunny that my mom gave me a few years back. This year he is a door stop, but some years he sits on the kitchen table.

And sometimes there is a sweet wooden bowl with eggs and moss as our centerpiece.

But this year, I created an Easter tree for our centerpiece. We had an Easter tree each year when I was growing up with tiny wooden ornaments of carrots, chicks, and bunnies. I couldn't find any ornaments this year, so I made these egg ornaments with eggs that I already had and a little hot glue and raffia. I bought the moss, some foam, and the flower pot at Wal-Mart for about $5. The "tree" was free, of course! And I already had white spray paint from another project. A very inexpensive centerpiece!

These salt and pepper shakers are from the Pottery Barn outlet.

I bought these placemats this past weekend at Crate and Barrel with some leftover wedding credit--our table was bare for quite some time before now! And the napkins are, surprise, from Pottery Barn (again, wedding credit!).

So that is all of our Easter decor. We are actually going to be in Houston for the holiday visiting my parents--the "bunny" still comes to visit, despite my unbelief of 18 years!

Friday Finds and Hallway Updates

Thank goodness it's Friday and thank goodness the sun has found her way back! Our office closes at 1 on Fridays (best job ever?) so I decided to swing by Habitat to see if there was anything new. And look what I found:

Once again it was 50% off (I don't think our Habitat is ever full price) so I got 6 yards of fabric (3 of each kind) for $9 (regulary priced at $3/yard). I swear one of the fabric bolts in the bin said it was from Ballard--can't beat fabric finds at Habitat. And I thought my husband would enjoy the little fish prints. We are currently working on painting our office/other guest room so they may end up in there!

Fabric close up--I'm thinking this may be pillow material in the living room once we get our new furniture.

And I have no clue what I'll do with this one--I just love it so and couldn't pass it up for $4.50!

In other news, we've had some updates in the hallway since this last post. We were going to wait until the walls were painted to start hanging anything in the hallway, but at the rate we are going that could be a while. So we hung 2 framed prints from where Stuart and I went to college (Go PC!) in the hallway. One over the chest:

And the other in the hallway. This picture is taken with my back to our bedroom door facing the stairs--the chest is located in the small nook on the right at the end of the hallway.

And just because it is my blog and I can:

We really love PC -- can you tell?

Happy weekend!