YesterProjects: The Grandma Chair Revamp

Today's post is about a SUPER easy project i did a few years ago. I found this chair waiting to be trashed at my old office building and i snagged it up just as it was about to be taken. At first look, the chair was hideous:

But i really liked the lines, and i thought it'd be perfect as an occasional chair and as the chair for my sewing table. The first thing i had to do was try to take the cushion off...but that didn't work. I had no idea that these types of chairs were made with the cushions attached. That's like getting your ears pierced with permanent earrings, it really gives you nowhere else to go. So i settled for just ripping off the fabric, and then coating the chair with white spray paint.

While that dried, i found some fabric, formerly a curtain panel, in my stash that i thought would be appropriate and attached it with hot glue. I finished it off with some trim that was handed down to me from my great-grandmother's stash.

This is what i ended up with:

How do you like those wall colors? Should i have punched you in the face first to soften the blow?

Chris calls it my "grandma chair" and it currently sits in the guestroom/craft room, and i do use it as my sewing chair. And it works as I am, in fact, able to sit in it. Success!

YesterProjects: Dresser Revamp

This one dates back to January 2010, when we were snowed-in for an entire week. And now that i'm remembering - once we were able to use the roads, we just went and hung out at the mall. That's how bad our cabin fever was. 

Anyway, since we were trapped in the house, we decided to prep our impending daughter's room just a little bit. Enter this dresser: 

I don't know where this dresser originated/where my parents got it, but it first belonged to my little brother, then was handed down to my little sister, and then i took it with me to college.

Chris did the work for this one since i couldn't be around paint fumes. I was four months pregnant (ain't it always the excuse?) and this paint wasn't low VOC or whatever. I think it might have contained actual gasoline. He took it apart and lightly sanded it...

And then the priming happens. Because we've painted every room in the house at least once, we have our fair share of paint and primer on-hand, so there was no need to battle the treacherous roads.

And even though i couldn't paint, i COULD drill the holes for the new hardware, and i also lined the drawers with contact paper (not pictured) which took for.ev.er, so i wasn't completely lazy.

Here's the finished product:

Here are the Before&Afters right next to each other:

Suprisingly, we didn't keep that crap on top of the dresser. We instead topped it with a changing pad and a little diaper caddy:

So that worked for her nursery. Of course she ultimately ended up moving rooms and we bought her a brand new dresser on the cheap at Ikea that had drawers that wouldn't snap her little sausage fingers off. And then we bought a matching dresser in another color for our impending son, so this poor dresser is currently in our extremely feminine guest room/craft room, stuffed to the brim with fabric and craft supplies.

Whatever. It works.

Building the Deck.

This'll be short & sweet as i don't have any progress pictures because i was too busy being pregnant/devouring chickens and swallowing avocados whole while Chris was out there, by himself, building an entire deck out of scratch.

I helped level something off one time, but that's about it.

Anyway, short & sweet. Just Befores & Afters today.

The picture below is hardly a true Before, as Chris had already widened the stairs to the deck, and then we stained it. And that was our old dog, Holiday.

And here's the beautiful After. It's since been stained a little darker.

Too small for a good table. Also,very splintery and a little wobbly.

Widened and fresh! Even room enough for our firepit, which we put on four square stones when it's on the deck.

And here's looking down the stairs at the small patio we built (that was a team effort - i promise). Nice, right?

He did such a great job. And, just for proof that i was busy eating in no condition to help, this is the only progress picture there is:

I've really let myself go.

Now if i can only get rid of all mosquitos everywhere so i can convince Chris to spend any time out there at all without the firepit going...