Quick DIY: Lap tables.

About five years ago, when we were still in college, P showed up at my newly moved into apartment with a gift. He picked up three of these small tables/stools from Target for my roomie and I to use as a flexible coffee table. They were great. You could pull one up to eat off of on taco/Grey's anatomy night, or they provided additional seating when the living room was packed and they looked all nice in the rare event that the room was cleaned and they were all nicely lined up next to each other.
They followed us up to Boston and have been serving us well for the past three years. But. They've seen better days. And I really want a nice long low coffee table that I know exists out there somewhere. So I decided that these should be re-purposed. Don't you hate how your lap practically catches fire when you are sitting in bed and working on the computer? I do.

So after seeing something similar somewhere I suggested we lop the legs off of these little tables and make them into lap tables.
Ok, the price sticker is still on there. Class all the way.

P graciously cut them down on his super cool table saw that I'm mildly afraid of. It's loud. We put some painters tape on the cut line the minimize splintering of the plywood.

And I was left with these cute little things. I love them, but they maybe don't quite so comfortably fit over P's legs. Whoops. I mean, they work, it's just a bit of a squeeze. :) I'm considering painting them, but just gave them a good cleaning for now. And removed those dumb price stickers.

Done!

Ramblings: Dresser Edition

Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this posting once a month thing. Ha. Ok, so I'm way behind, but here we go. I had been whining to P about how I needed more storage. Now. No, I can't wait until we one day install a closet. Now. And then I found this little IKEA hack. Because of this little IKEA hack. And I was all...well, now I wanna do that too. But P wasn't buying it. So instead I hunted around for two small matching vintage dressers to paint a fun color. Maybe something like this...

Image from Little Green Notebook
But I couldn't find anything that we both liked and that was within our budget. So I got impatient and grumpy (two of my best features) and I mentioned this again. And again, and again, you get the point. I wore P down until he gave in. Nice, right? I'm a lovely person.
So after he gave in, we picked up two of these little beauties. You may remember this picture from my last post...ONE MONTH AGO. Anyway.

So I pretty much followed the directions on Kate and Lindsay's posts and this is what I came up with...

I used Minwax dark walnut stain, which went way darker than it looks on the can. I may have had a mini freakout causing a session of trying to strip the stain from one. I do not recommend this. It not only did not work, but it kind of blurred one of the dressers if that makes sense. But after a couple of months living with them I'm kind of liking the dark now. So all is well. Oh, and we went with simple brass knobs from the HD for a more simple look. They really are great little dressers for by the bed for keeping your books, magazines, candy, whatever you keep by the bed...I don't know your life. Look at that sad little orchid. Pathetic.

Soooo, fast forward a month. one day my neighbor puts this massive solid wood dresser on the sidewalk. The hoarder in me immediately thinks, hmmm, I wonder if he's throwing that away. Imagine my delight when P mentions the dresser. I'm all "oh, you noticed the dresser too, does that mean I can have it?!". My mind works weird ways like that. Luckily he didn't hate the dresser and said to see if it got moved to the curb the next morning for trash day. So the next morning I trotted to the window and peered out. Hm. It was still pushed up against his house. Weird. The garbage men came, then left without the dresser. The recycling man came and took the metal knobs...but left the dresser! What was going on here? Ok, so I force myself to get dressed and go to work and we bump into neighbor man (dresser owner) on the way out. He is standing there, puzzled, wondering where his knobs went and mumbling something about how "the guy" won't want it without the knobs. Boo. Obviously this dresser had a new home. So I mentioned the recycling guy knob thief and went on my way. Don't worry, he chased down the recycling guy and got his knobs back. Weird. Anyway, so the next day the dresser hasn't moved. And the next and the next and on and on. A whole week later...I kid you not that dresser is just hanging out...like city lawn furniture.

This is just a long drawn out story to tell you that I finally saw my neighbor again (he disappears for days at a time) and I finally said "ummmm, dude, is that guy not coming for that dresser". And he was all "yeah, he never showed up, you want it". And I was all "hellz yeah, I love free furniture". I got home from work that night and P had drug it inside for me right before a big rainstorm. Yay.

This thing is a beast. And it needs a paint job.

Seriously, ewww.

I've sanded it, but haven't gotten to the paint part. We are considering purple. Yes. Purple!

One Month in Photos.

Backtracking.

Candlepin.

Inexpensive Furniture.

Mr. Lizard. One of many.

Favorite place in the world.

Door reconstruction.

Tiling. Still.

Brimfield.

Hoping next month is just as much fun...maybe with a smidge more house work thrown in. :)

Brimfield

So I don't have any pictures from the actual event (forgot the camera in the car), but these are some of our finds from Brimfield Antique Market a couple of weeks ago. It was the craziest (in a good way) thing I have ever seen. Love. Love. Love. The market occurs three times every year and runs from a Tuesday through Sunday. There are several "fields" and each has its own schedule and days that it is open. So this was the first one of the year and we decided to go on Sunday just to check things out and then decide if we wanted to go back to the next one, which is in July.

We woke up bright and early (6:00) that morning. Yikes! I took a picture of us before we left home and...well....lets just say it is scary, so you don't get to see it. Anyway, we drove the hour out to western Massachusetts and parked in the first lot. We paid to park. Tip number 1: most of the lots don't charge on Sunday, so just drive to one that is free. We are silly. We spent the remainder of a beautiful day scoping the place out. It was huge! We didn't even make it to all of it. So I came home with an old typsetter's tray and a mirror. I am going to use the tray to keep all of my jewelry in my (not yet found/purchased) vanity and the mirror is for our downstairs bathroom. The plan has been to get a vintage mirror for that bathroom for a while now...but once we got it home I think P had some regrets. I still like it! And at the cheapo price we got it for...I double like it! :)

There were a few more pieces that I soooooo could have brought home, but I think I will hold out for the next trip. I think we are going to get a truck with a coworker and his wife and be true early bird flea market peeps next time! ooooooo, I'm already excited!

Eames. Fire Bucket. Back Yard.

Check out the new back yard! Ok, so, it's just temporary, but it is bearable. We tore down the gross patched together "deck" and put in new stairs. We covered the sweet dirt yard with pea gravel and pavers for better grilling and less dirty puppy feet.

Sitting in the middle of the yard is our most awesome recent Craigslist find. Eames office chairs! Ok, I know there is just one in the picture, the other one is in the house! They need a little bit of repair, but are going to look so great in our upstairs office one day when it is finished.

Our other super cool Craigslist find can be seen on the right side of the pic. What is that? A planter? No....it's a "fire bucket". Yeah, I know, "those aren't allowed in the city". Especially after that super intelligent person sprayed lighter fluid into one in the South End and caught a small child on fire. How that kind of person gets to live in the South End and not me...I just don't know. Anyway...fire bucket. Supposedly if the pit is for cooking, then it is somehow ok. So you can also call this our smores pit! I am not sure yet how we will set it up or when we will use it, but I can not wait.

Oh, and can you see my flowers in the background. Aren't they pretty? Yeah, I think so too.