Peacock Blue Twin Bed

A little bit of paint turns a ho-hum before...

Into a dramatic after!

Okay, not that dramatic.  Especially since I was way too busy last week to do anything but throw the frame into the front yard and snap a picture.  I'm also way too busy to properly maintain our yard - that's why it looks so depressing.  Although, to be fair, it was an unbearably hot summer and the grass only recently turned green again.  And that's my neighbor's crazy bush, not ours.  We call it "The Murder Bush" because it completely covers her front porch and if I was a nefarious murderer looking for an easy place to hide before leaping onto some unsuspecting person, that would be it.  We used to have one too, but they luckily removed it before we moved in.

Unfortunately, it left a large discoloration on the bricks.  You can see it directly behind the bed in this picture.  Anyone know how to get that off?  One day I'm going to add some curb appeal to our house and it would be nice if it didn't look so dingy.

Anyway, back to the bed.  I finished it a while back and everything was fairly straightforward except for my attempt at glazing.  It looked beautiful around the carving details, but when it came to large flat areas it just looked dirty.  I obviously wasn't doing something right.  Luckily, I only glazed the headboard, so I didn't have to repaint the entire bed.

I think it's super cute and wish I still had a girls' room so I could keep it.  I listed it for $125 on Craigslist and it just sat there.  Not a single e-mail.  Pretty discouraging.  I'm not used to things not selling right away, so I aggressively dropped the price to $75.  Not nearly the profit I was hoping for, but it must have been the right price because I suddenly had several buyers.  I love having back-ups, because anyone who has ever sold something on Craigslist knows about those annoying no-shows.

So here's the profit break-down:  I bought the bed off of Craigslist for $25.  I spent $25 (or $24.32 - something like that, after taxes) on a quart of Martha Stewart paint in Plumage and Minwax Wipe-on poly in Satin from Home Depot.  So, total investment, $50, for a $25 profit.  Not that great.  However, I had to buy the paint and poly anyway to finish another project, so my "glass half-full" brain likes to think of it as a $50 profit, which sounds so much better even if it's technically not true.

Virtual Craigslist Window Shopping: $300 or Less

I've taken a bit of a break from Craigslist the past few weeks.  It's a combination of stress of getting the little man in school (he already has a girlfriend, by the way - after the first day), stress of sending the boyfriend to Atlanta soon (without us - for 10 days - sucks, sucks, sucks), and the stress of having no money.  Oh yeah, and because I have several pieces that I'm supposed to have finished up and sold by now that are just hanging out around the house, but I just can't motivate myself to work on any of them.  I will though, promise.  Real soon.  Maybe.

Anyway, to give myself something to blog about besides school lunches (today's worked out much better, btw - and I learned that you can add 1/2 cup of steamed, pureed cauliflower to boxed mac & cheese without noticing it at all), I decided to check out the local Craigslist with an imaginary budget of $300 and see what I would buy.  In this fantasy I also have a place for these things once I bought them - not much on the buy/rehab/sell front these days.


$299

Love this super long (93 inches!) bench out of a railroad station.  Would look great in one of those large entry/hallways Texas McMansions all seem to have.


$55

It's hard to tell from the spectacular photo - but I'm pretty sure this is a square chinoiserie coffee table.  Great price, custom made, solid wood.  I'm obsessed with this style of coffee table.


$100/pair

The ad says they're chairs, but they look more like barstools.  Either way I'm loving them.


$50

Okay, there are a few fixer-uppers out there.  This could easily bring in a profit if you paint it.  Or even just relist it under the furniture section rather than the antique section.


$55/pair

These chairs are begging for dramatic, large scale fabric.  Maybe painted frames.


$75/pair

Small pendants to classy up your bedside area or around your bathroom mirror.  Do it with modern touches so it doesn't go all frou-frou.


$30

I love the lines on this desk chair - and they're practically giving it away.


$289

Get your Sputnik on.  I don't really know if this is that great of a price or not  - but it looks pretty.


$100/pair

They have a matched pair of these armchairs.  They'd look pretty cool in my living room.  They'd look pretty cool in another fabric down the line.  Love the arms.   Want to buy...  Must resist.


$100

I'm pretty sure someone with fabulous taste could make this chinoiserie couch a showstopper in their house.  I really like the fabric - just needs to be relocated to a modernized setting.  And lose the matching pillows.


$150

Love this apple green color - will do something similar in the future for sure.  (In San Antonio - not Austin)


$60/pair

If you haven't noticed, I love things in pairs.  Good price - paint 'em up, of course.


$150

A very interesting shape on this antique rocker.



$275

Such pretty detailing. 

$195

Too bad Kellie couldn't find these for this week's Design Star.  Poor girl - the judges say "Don't be so literal." So she tried not to be too literal and they were like "Give the clients exactly what they say they want."  And her handyman built the most dangerous looking platform bed of all time (which she designed, so blame goes both ways).  Luckily my favorites are still in it:  Kellie (nicest on air personality), Meg (most on-trend design taste) and Karl (probably the best designer).  All Mark does is put up a big art piece and fill the room with lots of wood - I have no idea how he's lasted this long.

Any items you'd like?  And what about Design Star - are you still watching?  Who are you rooting for?

Craigslist Coffee Table

So you know how I've been planning forever on making an ottoman for the living room?  Well, that went out the window when I spotted this coffee table on Craigslist last week.

Only $10!!

I'm convinced that the secret to finding good stuff on Craigslist for super cheap is to look for the worst ads.  "Faux bamboo" and "Hollywood Regency" are descriptions that are going to run the price up, because that means the seller knows a little something about what they're selling.  No, you want the ad with the blurry picture, the table taken apart and propped against a wall, and the copy "Coffee table.  $10.  Need gone ASAP"  That's how you score on Craigslist.

I didn't even bother asking questions (size, condition, etc) before I went to pick it up because I knew I could easily paint it white and resell it.  In fact, that was the plan (because I wanted an ottoman, remember?).  Before I left I even showed the boyfriend Elisa from What the Vita's transformation of a similar faux bamboo coffee table from blah to beautiful with a few coats of white paint.


Before



After

I don't know if anyone else does this when Craigslist shopping - but when I go pick up something fabulous for practically nothing, I almost always act like a bank robber.  I literally think that if I stay too long chit-chatting, there's a chance that the seller is going to either a.) put down the crack pipe, come to their senses and demand more money; or b.) I will succumb to the overwhelming urge to tell the seller "Hey, this is worth SO much more than you're selling it for.  In fact, I'm going to turn around and sell it for 10x this amount."  So I try to keep the exchanges nice and short - which is probably a good thing since we are talking about complete strangers who may or may not have recently smoked crack.

It's not in perfect condition - mostly just scuff marks and places where the finish has worn away.  Here's a close-up of the legs:


Love!

When I was staining the bedside tables, I used some stain to touch up the places where the finish had worn away, so it's barely noticeable now.  Which is good, because I'm kind of loving the distressed ebony finish.  I'm working on removing the white paint scuffs.  Depending on my success, I may or may not paint the table legs a metallic brass color like this:


Love the black and brass contrast.

When I brought the table home, I was sure the boyfriend would be on the "hate" side of the fence.  But I had him set it up inside just to see how it looked.  Did I mention that it's ginormous?  48 inches square!  As soon as the boyfriend set the first remote down on it, he decided it could stay, potential profits be damned.  I, however, wasn't quite so sure.

Firstly, it's a glass table and I have a five year old golfer at home.  There was a good chance it wouldn't last through the night.  Also, I was so set on the ottoman - I bought the perfect fabric ages ago and have been saving up pennies to buy a massive amount of foam.  Ottomans are much more "us" than delicate glass-topped faux bamboo coffee tables.  And it smelled of smoke.

Oh, man, did it stink.

Up until now I've had the great fortune of not buying stinky used furniture.  So, I wasn't sure what to do.  I mixed up a solution of 50% vinegar and 50% water and wiped it down a couple of times a day for a few days.  I also set out a bowl of vinegar underneath the table to "soak up" some more of the smell.  It sounds like it wouldn't work - but it did.  At first, the vinegar smell (lovely in its own right) seemed to be only masking the cingarette stench, but after a few days the table was smelling perfectly normal.  (And yes, I'm still regularly bending over and sniffing my coffee table - no pictures, thank you.)  So that's my tip of the day.  You can also dust the product with baking soda, but I figured that would be pretty messy.

So what to do with the ikat fabric that perfectly matches my color scheme?  I have an old rattan table and stools with a glass top that I (big surprise) bought off of Craigslist last year with the idea of painting a fun color.  Which has never happened. 

Obviously having a faux bamboo table and a rattan table in one space is a little overkill, so I took the 2 1/2 yards of fabric and gave it a test run as a table skirt (no cutting, sewing or ironing yet).

I like it, but I don't love it.  So I'm not sure.  What do you think?

Yet Another Project Idea

I almost bought this settee on Craigslist this weekend.

Almost.  We've needed extra seating at the dining room table for quite a while.  It's a rectangular, modern-style dining table with four leather Parsons chairs.  (Sorry, I don't have a pic - it is currently covered in construction paraphernalia - except for the one spot cleared off for my son to eat at.)  My mom (the bargain queen) scored the entire set for a steal several years back because the frosted glass top was unevenly frosted.  When she brought it home, I told her that if she ever got rid of it - I had first dibs.  So a couple of years ago, she brought it all of the way from Louisiana to Texas.  My parents are great like that.  Unfortunately, it makes me reluctant to get rid of the furniture they've given us.  In the case of the table - I think it is actually a good thing.  I'd love a round wood table surrounded by slipcovered chairs - but our modern, semi-transparent table takes up less visual space in a room that lacks actual space.  So it'll stick around.

Anyway - we're two chairs short on the odd occasions when we have the entire family at one time - and for some reason no one likes sitting in our substitute chairs (a folding metal chair and a rocking chair that's about 6 inches too low).

I've been drawn to the idea of building a bench.  At first I was going to buy 2 larger chairs for the ends of the table - which I think would be a good solution - but I do like the idea of having a bench that could potentially sit 3 people (well, kids)  if we had the novel idea of having Grandma over for dinner.  I was thinking of a backless version, but then I saw Jenny's gorgeous Chiang Mai settee in her dining space on Little Green Notebook and fell in love.

I love the way a settee paired with a dining table looks both elegant and relaxed.

There's a great post on the trend here.  That's where I found these pictures.

So I've been on the lookout for a settee I could use.  Preferably one like this

or this

Only instead of the $250 that they wanted - something around the $50 mark.

So I thought my Craigslist find was pretty good.  I thought it resembled Jenny's settee from the inspiration pretty closely.  The fabric had a few tears, but it was laminated fabric so I could wipe it down easily until we could recover.  Only $30.  I was happy.  I thought it was a good deal.  Luckily, I decided to take a few hours to think about it (since I am, after all, not supposed to be making ANY Craigslist purchases right now, much less impulsive ones).

And I'm glad I did.  The measurements were a pretty tight fit for the dining table.  And you see those arms - that means you would have to move the settee to get out.  A simple solution would be to put casters on - but since this spot would be geared mostly for the younger eaters - having wheels on it seemed like asking for trouble.

So I didn't buy it.

I did, however, decide to look around a little bit more.  I noticed that the seller had listed his item as a "love seat."  One of the biggest pieces of advice I can share about Craigslist shopping (or Ebay shopping as well), is not to rely on one key phrase when you are searching for a particular item.  I had previously been looking under "settee", "bench" and "loveseat".  I think I had even tried "small couch" at one point.  But I had never tried "love seat." Both ways are correct (according to dictionary.com), but they get very different results on a Craigslist search.  So I tried "love seat."  And found this beauty.

Unfortunately, it comes with a pretty hefty price tag.  $300 to be exact.  And that's after the seller reduced it from $400.  So, it won't be coming home with me anytime soon.

But I did save all of the pictures and have decided that this will be a building project.  It'll be on the backburner for a long time - I can guarantee that.  But I think it won't be too difficult to build and I think the modern design will look gorgeous with the table.  Notice how the wings leave plenty of sliding room for exiting?  And I can pick whatever fabric I like (something pretty with lots of stain repellent).  I'm really looking forward to this one.

Craigslist Addicts - The First Step...

I love Craigslist.

LOVE

Want to write Craigslist-themed sonnets...  Draw little hearts in my notebook margins with CL in the middle...

And some days I feel like Craigslist really loves me back.  (What do you mean, it's all in my head?)

Now, I am a girl with no room in her house to store a single extra piece of furniture.  In fact - I am trying to get rid of several pieces already in it.  I am a girl who has an ongoing projects list that numbers into the hundreds (at least - I kind of run out of enthusiasm for making a projects list when it gets several pages long). 

I might also be a girl who bought two matching child-size wingback chairs for $10 a pop with the goal of re-upholstering them, and then got them home to realize she has no idea how to do that.  I might be a girl who has promised her boyfriend on multiple occasions (including the last time when the pine dresser came home) that this was it - I would not buy anything else off of Craigslist for a while.  I might have even sworn an oath or crossed my heart.  (Both? And you're sure my fingers weren't crossed? What was I thinking?)

So I am obviously not a girl who should spend valuable time perusing the "Furniture by Owner" section of Craigslist (specifically the $1-$100 group - because I live on a budget even in my dreams).  I am obviously not a girl who repeatedly finds complete steals and tries to rationalize breaking my word (to the love of my life) for used furniture.  I am not that girl.  I am not that girl.

Try and be strong, Kai.

I'm not sure why I bother looking on Craigslist when I'm not in the market.  Most days I don't even have a way to get a piece home (one car family - and it's a small car).  And I always find something.  It's like purposefully falling in love with a gay guy (unless you are a gay guy - then it would be like falling in love with a straight guy) - hearts will be broken.

So I thought, maybe I can share them on the blog? Virtual window shopping is fun from time to time now, isn't it?  And hopefully it will help me resist the urge to give the owners of these diamonds-in-the-rough a call.  Because if there's one thing I've learned from Craigslist is that every day will bring you a new deal.

After reading this post by Maggie Rose I have been dying to get my hands on an oak pedestal base dining table and take it from blah to gorgeous.  Wouldn't this do the trick?

Only $35.  Are they serious?  These are the days when I dream of buying a truck.  Actually, I would want a table with a leaf in it so we could sit the entire fam on occasion.  But it would also look totally beautiful painted white, right?  Lovely piece.

Next we have these office chairs that have sat on Craigslist for weeks.  The poor seller has repeatedly reduced the price and still no bites?  I think they're totally Pottery Barn.

$5 a pop.  This one is really hard to resist.  I don't love my office chair now - and they actually kind of match the wood tone of our desk.  But then I would want to buy 2, because I have plans of eventually changing the random storage hall by our master bedroom into an office space with two desk places.  And $10...  Seriously, I need rehab.

These chairs:

I die!  You would think that I really love wingback chairs, but I actually don't care for them much.  My scavenger boyfriend once brought home 2 wingback chairs when we lived at our old house and I sold them super cheap at a garage sale just to get them out of my house.  I do like the  new modern ones with straighter lines.  I usually hate the Queen Anne (?) style legs like these chairs have.  But the exaggerated curve on the arms just does it.  LOVE!  The kicker - $25 for the pair!  Of course they need re-upholstering - but these babies are beautiful!

And last of all, this one really hurt

I've been in the market for a china cabinet since we moved into this house.  My current china cabinet is from Ikea and it is too small - both for the place and the amount of dishes I have in there.  The seller originally priced it at $60 (a steal!) and then reduced it to $35. 

I actually tried to talk Chris (the boyfriend) into letting me have this one.  He's lucky that it was so big that I needed his help moving it - or it might have been a "he'll find out when I get home" type of purchase.  For a moment, I almost had him convinced.  I talked about how trendy it is now to paint these white on the outside and have a pop of color on the inside.  I could easily sell it for $200 when I finished. 

"If I sold it." 

Nail in the coffin. 

For a second he was leaning my way and then I goofed by admitting that I wanted to keep it.  Oh well, it was probably too tall for my house anyway.  And how the heck was it going to fit in the back of our Mazda Protege?