Life Be Life'ing

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Antique Victorian Oak Eastlake Spoon Carved Vanity Dresser Chest

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This piece?  SWOON!  1800s.  Astonishing.  Look at the finish before I started working on it!  

How amazing is that transformation????????  I only used Howard's Wax-N-Feed once I'd done the repairs and sanded out the insides of the drawers, followed with a quick dry rub of stain.   I used Brasso on the drawer pulls and man...it is soooooooo gorgeous to me!  LOVE.IT!!!!!

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Cavalier Cedar Chest - FINISHED!

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Remember that cedar chest I bought and bragged about HERE?  

Well, I finally got around to it.  I was scared because it's so awesome and I didn't want to screw it up.  I found out about these AMAZING products and, with some 0000 steel wool and a whole lot of elbow grease after the repairs were done, it looks amazing.  

I tell you what...of all the crap I know how to do and do pretty well, this has got to be my favorite thing to do.  It is just so soothing to put on an audiobook and have at it!

Speaking of audiobooks, have you added the Overdrive app to your phone yet and synced it with your library card?  I'm telling you...it's the best thing ever.  That and Hoopla.  LOVE.THEM!

Oh yeah...the products I used?  

1.  Howard Restore-A-Finish, Cherry:  I applied this with the steel wool.  I just REALLY got into it and it worked so well! 

2.  Howard Wax-N-Feed:  This product is my new favorite thing in the EN.TIRE.WORLD!  All of my stuff will be waxed and fed by this stuff from now on at least once a year!  This stuff is amazing!   

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Create a Mirror Gallery with $30 Worth of Vintage Mirrors

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I've wanted to do a mirror gallery for a while now.  I considered doing it along the stairs but didn't have all the mirrors I needed when I was ready to do the gallery along the stairs so I used the typical pictures in frames there.

But I still wanted a mirror gallery and decided it would be awesome in my woman cave, which is coming along quite nicely and is the perfect place to read and surf when the other human in our home watches all things sports related.  LOL!

So I've been buying cool and interesting mirrors whenever I saw them.  This entire lot cost me about $30.  

Some needed more fixing than most but most just needed to be painted, details highlighted and then distressed using Annie Sloan Dark Wax.  The large one had a big chunk out of it and it was almost broken in two at the top so I had to glue it and then use some Lightweight Filler to fix the big missing chunk.  I used antique gold paint and dark wax and made the "new chunk" look like the rest of the frame.  GO ME!  That was really cool.  I find that I'm really enjoying fixing stuff that other people wouldn't even try to fix.  Tomorrow I'm fixing a broken leg spindle on a cane seat chair...but hey...another post.  

MOVING ON!

I put some Mod Podge in matte over the paper to give it a more finished look since the paper was faded.  I considered replacing the paper with something else but I liked how it was faded in some spots.

I decided to paint two of the mirrors white which made no sense to anyone but me.  Hell...didn't even make sense to me at the time but I wanted to do it so yeah...that's what I did.

Then...I played around with placement on the floor until I had it like I liked it.  

When I was ready to hang them, I measured from end to end and put the measuring tape down in front of the sofa at the measurement.  Then...I hung the big one first and next...the bottom right one.  I filled out the far right column first and then the middle and worked the rest in.  I only made one change from the layout that Dr. Punkin approved.  Don't tell her I said that though.  She'll get the big head.

So yeah...for $30, I got a pretty cool mirror gallery.  This room is coming along nicely.  Just need to frame some art that I plan on hanging in here and decide on window treatments.  I want another chair or two but only if I can find the exact chairs I want.  I'm crazy about these chairs:

That chair is SO.SICK!  I need two of them.  PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE UNIVERSE LET ME ROLL UP ON TWO THAT I CAN REUPHOLSTER TO PERFECTION!

Okay, okay...oh...wait...that's it.  LOL!  

Yall like my mirrors?  Do the white ones throw you off?

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How to fix chipped wood or veneer.

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If you have nice pieces at your home with chips or broken veneer, you'll be surprised at how easy these things are to fix.  I've always wanted a porch rocker from Cracker Barrel but have never pulled the trigger.  I was at a consignment store and saw one and well...I had to have it. Solid wood?  Check.  And you know how I feel about solid wood.  HOOOOOOOOOTY HOOOOOOO!

I got a really good deal on it because one of the rockers had a chipped end and needed some fixing so hey...I can fix stuff.  LOL!

This stuff is pretty cool in that it brought me back to my childhood when I mixed it up.  It smelled exactly like the stuff my daddy used to use to fix our boat and, I guess that's exactly what it was.  Lightweight Body Filler.  Has that ever happened to you?  A smell takes you back?  It is a weird and cool experience huh?

If you're using this, you'll need one thing for sure, Bondo spreaders.  These are the only things which the hardened body filler won't stick to permanently.  Whatever you mix it with and on/in will be ruined forever so yeah...whip out a paper plate or bowl and a plastic spoon.

After mixing it up, glob it on whatever you're fixing pretty good and then use the spreader to smooth it evenly.  It will dry pretty quickly so please make sure you work fast.  Once it's dry...SAND IT SMOOTH.

Then...well...paint it and make it purdy.  You like purdy don'tcha?  Yeah...you do.  I painted the rocker in Annie Sloan English Yellow with a bit of a stenciled detail in Annie Sloan Pure White.  Yes.  It makes me happy.  :)

Now that I have a rocker...maybe I'll take up knitting.  LOL!  

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Refinished and Painted Vintage Windsor Wood Arm Chair

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This might be my favorite piece yet.  It is so solid and fun now that it has been restored to awesomesauceness.  Yup.  That's a word.  Look it up.  Didn't find it?  Oh...my bad.  :)

This lil dude was busted and disgusted.  The bottom was broken and there was a ton of just...GRIMEY GRIME on the arms.  Dried on grimey grime.  Just gross.  But...as we've covered before...solid wood can be sanded and cleaned up so well so I repaired it with wood glue, contact cement and wood filler and then got out my palm sander to remove all the grime off it.

Then I painted it but it was just regular and I wanted it to be fun.  This will probably end up in the kids' guest room once I find the perfect size desk so, of course, I wanted it to be neat and indestructible too.  LOL!  I used some of my stencils and did a rustic French numbering stencil on the seat using chalkboard paint but it looked too "new" and I didn't like it.  To combat this I mixed one part paint to two parts water in a wide mouth jug and shook it up really well and then applied to the seat wiping it off almost immediately with blue shop towels for a white washed look.

The feet on it were rusted and non-removable so I taped the legs up and hit them with some gold paint.  To finish it, I sprayed it down well with Minwax polycrylic three times.  Should be good to go.

And now it's so cute...I might not want a kid sitting in it.  Indestructible or not.  So there.  LOL!