transforming our vintage pantry shelves

On a girls-only trip with my friend Ruth, we stopped at Baja Ranch, a quaint antique store in Clements, CA. After looking & enjoying the eye-candy inside,I asked the owner if he just happened to have any old shelving? I said I wanted something that looked like it was from an old mercantile store. He told me there was some really rough old hardware store cabinets outside under a tarp, would I like to see them? Would I?! Heck yeah!
Under a tarp soaked with dirt & rainwater were two really filthy, grimy, old shelves. But they had potential, I just knew it! So, I bought 'em for a song, loaded them in the truck & called Hubs on the way home. I told him, I had either had just bought the beginnings of our new walk-in pantry OR or some funky old shelves to add to his garage... his decision.
Arriving home, Hubs unloaded the two units & walked around them with a big smile on his face. Yep, I had scored! They would be pantry shelves.
We scrubbed the shelves many times with orange oil soap & under all that grime were very wonderful old wood shelves with great patina. Hubs built the tall open shelves to fit on top of each unit then he painted them with Ralph Lauren's, Tent Green paint, a spot-on match to the original old paint finish. We painted, shabbied and then oiled them.
We built a butlers pantry off our kitchen just to fit them...we just love them!



We are linking with Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage.
Be sure & stop by to see all the other transformations!

Feed Sack Pillow

The last time we were lucky enough to go to the Rose Bowl Flea Market, we picked up a vintage European feed sack with great nubby texture & a wonderful double red stripe. The perfect item to re-purpose, re-use & re-cycle!
We have two leather chairs in our great room that are so comfy, but we always wanted to add a small lumber pillow to each.
Tonight we did!




We are kinking up with the following great parties!
Trash to Treasure @ Reinvented
Get your Craft on @ Today's Creative Blog
Second time Around @ A Picture is Worth a 1000Words
The Knock Off Knock Out @ Its So Very Sheri
Be sure and check them all out!!!

Vignettes

Funky Junk Interiors is having a a "Saturday nite special" featuring... vignettes!
We love funky & we love junk, so our vignettes will fit right into this par-tay!

We would love to show you three of our current favorites.
This first vignette is on top of an old machinist cabinet that is just shabby perfection to us.
We stacked some antique wood boxes, Hubs collects, an old surveyors transom (click HERE to see what we did with the legs to this transom). The birdhouse was someones trash, I rescued & our favorite duck decoy that Hubs has had for over 25 years.
The best part of this fall vignette is the picture of our grand kids in their bumblebee costumes! They were so little then & just TOO sweet!



Our buffet has 100 year old French shutters as the backdrop, a vintage silver tray & our favorite Thanksgiving covered dish from our dear friend Betty! Buffet lamps flank our Fall wreath, some bits of bling & our Big letter "B" finish this area off.


Our last vignette is on top of our hutch. I found the hat boxes at TJ Maxx for a buck. The chippy, old red basket was a flea market FIND! We filled it with fall foliage and twig pumpkins. The tall apothecary jar contains shiny fall garland I found at a tag sale.Thanks so much for stopping by!
Be sure and visit Funky Junk Interiors to see a lot of fun vignettes!

A little black bench

We had this Heywood Wakefield bench in our barn for over 5 years. I loved the style, but the maple finish...not.so.much!
A wall in our great room was really needing a nice place to rest. A place to display our favorite antique quilt, a gift from our favorite Aunt Joane.
We decided to paint the bench, GASP! Yep we painted a Heywood Wakefield bench! We did not change anything structurally, just the finish. So, if down the line someone LOVES a maple finish, it can be restored.













In the meantime, we LOVE the black bench!
What's your opinion?
We'd really like for you to see our drop cloth dining room chair covers,
here, our other Heywood Wakefield make-over, here. or our very cool tripod lamp retro-fit, here.
We are participating in Creative Cats Friday, @ poppies at play
Be sure and visit this site to see other creative cats!
Thanks so much for visiting!

Surveyors Transom retro-fit

Monday 10/26/09 update
I am so very proud of my Hubs vision and talents, please allow me to brag a bit more!
This post was originally shared last week on Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage, but I decided to link this fabulous make-over out in the blog world a little further.
I am linking this post with, Between Naps on the Porch @ Metamorphosis Monday
AND
with Kimba @ A Saft Place to Land, DIY Day.
Both of them are favorites of mine,lots of eye-candy & great ideas, but I was always lurking, never linking.
Well... today I link!
ENJOY!


My Hubs is the BEST!!
I mentioned to him this morning that I really wanted something new and fun to share on Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage. We recently returned to blogging and have participated in a couple of fun parties at, The Inspired Room & Flea Market Style. (see our posts here & here) We have had such a good time working on our projects plus we found we work better with a deadline! (duh)
We had church responsibilities that took up most of the day, but on our way back from Fresno, Hubs pulled into Lowes & bought a $10 lamp kit.A few years ago, Hubs Father-in-law, gifted him with an awesome vintage surveyors transom. We used the patina filled wood case & the actual transom in a vignette on top of our armoire in the great room. So, that left the warm-wood tripod legs available for this project.
When we got home, Hubs spent 10 minutes putting the lamp kit together and then 20 minutes in our barn searching through our salvage and flea market finds for the perfect lamp shade.
He scored when he found a 1950's Haeger pottery lamp with the perfect shade!
Have you seen how much these lamps cost at Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware?
We now have a fabulous lamp for a $10 lamp kit, a shade off of a $15 estate sale lamp & the memory of a thoughtful gift from a lovely man!
We love it!
What do you think?

Flea Market Kitchen

We saw a show & tell party on the blog, Flea Market Style, & decided to join in! Flea Market & salvage is our style of choice!
Every room of our re-modeled farmhouse has been built, retrofitted or embellished with flea market & salvage finds. No room more than our "unfit" kitchen. We had no desire or budget for custom cabinets, so Hubs built my fabulous kitchen with a mix of "finds". He scoured, flea markets, tag sales, salvage yards & even traded with friends who had found fabulous stuff.
The "unfit" kitchen-look, isn't for everyone, but it suits us to "T" & I. LOVE. IT!




The cabinets are all flea market finds. Some we painted, others we waxed or shabbied.
The butcher-block counter-tops are old bowling alley floors a friend found at the Alameda Antique Faire & she bought all they had. She ended up with more than she needed, so we traded her for the rest. We still have enough for a gigantic island Hubs is building and still had leftovers to sell to another friend for her kitchen island! It is a find that keeps on giving!
The copper farm sink was an eBay find and the legs were from the Turlock, Ca. Tuesday flea market. I loved them, so Hubs built them into a cabinet to hold our sink.
Even our windows, were bought from Urban Ore Salvage in Berkeley, Ca. They are Marvin Master Casement dual-paned windows, pulled out of an upper end home in the Napa Valley after 8 months of use, when they discovered the builder had used the incorrect stucco molding when installing them. The insurance company donated them to Urban Ore, and we were the lucky people to be there the day they came in! SCORE! We bought enough to use in our whole house re-model.
The shabby blue-grey tool caddy was a find at a local sale. I love its patina & use it all over the house for different seasons.
The floors are 100 year old Douglas Fir beams, that have been re-milled into tongue & groove flooring. We purchased them from Marc at Crossroads Lumber, in North Fork, Ca. The eye-candy up there is phenomenal, for those who love old wood!
Thanks to Flea Market Style and their fabulous Blog, for letting us join in on their party!
Be sure to check the link to see other flea marketeers!

ho-hum no longer!

We have had this Heywood-Wakefield buffet in our great room for a couple of years. It is beautifully constructed and we like the style, just NOT the maple finish.
We really love primitive painted furniture, so we knew we wanted to paint this. But, not having a vision for the rest of the corner, we procrastinated painting the buffet.
Then last year for my birthday, the Hubs gave me a pair of antique French shutters, (to read the shutter story, go here) and our vision came together. Still we procrastinated.
Then we read that Melissa at The Inspired Room was having a procrastinators party. It's a challenge for all procrastinators to pick a project, commit to finishing it and then posting the results on a procrastinators party she is having on her Blog.
We are thrilled that we decided to join in!
BEFORE...

AFTER...
We removed all the hardware and gave the buffet a really good sanding, then cleaned all surfaces with a tack cloth.
We painted on a good coat of Valspars (Lowes) Relaxed Navy, in interior satin, let the paint dry and then sanded with a sanding block.
We really like the primitive, well worn look, so we did a lot of sanding.
After, we re-cleaned with a tack cloth & then applied a great paste wax product with fine-grit steel wool, buffing the wax in a circular motion.
After the wax dried, we buffed the surface with a clean dry cloth.
We changed the lamp shades from red to black, added some favorite fall items and a wreath. Then.we.were.happy!

Melissa, thanks so much for the challenge and the party to show off our results!
Be sure and check out all the other procrastinators who have linked up on Melissa's blog. They are awesome!

Ah-h-h Fall!

I do love the colder weather, the crisp morning air as I deliver the Grandchildren to school each morning. They love to see their breath in the air! I refuse to believe that the temperatures will be warming up this weekend because... we were ready to start a little fall decorating in the house!

painter drop cloths = dining chair slipcovers

We took...
1-Home Depot large drop cloth @19.95,
5-spools of upholstery thread @1.94 ea.,
1-old sheet for the pattern, free,
6-down pillow inserts for seats @ 5.99 ea.,
brown grosgrain ribbon for ties @4.40,
& with lots of measuring & sewing, together we created new slipcovers for our dining room chairs.
Considering that neither of us had ever tried something like this before, we are thrilled with our results!

We were so exited that we are slip-covering
two club chairs in our bedroom.
One is finished, the other is on the cutting table.
Results soon!

and in this corner... primitive French shutters

We are trying really hard to make our Tuesday 10/20 deadline! We signed up for the procrastinators party at The Inspired Room. We agreed to complete a project we had been procrastinating. We have a ho-hum corner with a buffet we just knew we could make into something special. So, we have been busy.
Now to anchor our newly updated corner, we are starting with a pair of French shutters that the Hubs bought for my birthday last year. We found them at our favorite architectural salvage place, Ohmega Salvage, in Berkeley, Ca. I spied them in one of their outdoor storage containers & rushed to find Hubs. We both love primitives, so we agreed, they. were. fabulous. They were more money than we normally pay for salvaged items, but felt better when they said that they were 100+ years old and really did come from France.
They will be the anchor to a fun new corner in our great room.

Please come back for a visit!
We will be posting the whole make-over on Tuesday!

ho-hum needs a make-over!

I have been the all-time great procrastinator with all things bloggy. So it is only right that I come back to the blog-o-sphere by participating in a Procrastinator's Party.
The Inspired Room has the best party going! It's to give a little shove to all of us out there with unfinished projects, to procrastinate no more!
So, I am back and we are going to make-over a Heywood Wakefield buffet in our great room that is just plain ho-hum. By October 20th I hope this little corner really sings! Stay tuned!



Be sure and check out the other procrastinators at, The Inspired Room.