i think most of you know by now that we spent the last year in the bahamas, and recently moved to Georgia. the first thing people say when they hear we lived in the bahamas is "why on earth did you move?" -- everyone pictures tiki huts, drinks with umbrellas and a beautiful resort. while we had an amazing beach, there were alot of things we didn't have. while things are still fresh in my mind, i wanted to jot down...
a few things i miss about living in the bahamas:
1. the BEACH! (i know, duh) :)
2. the simplicity of life
3. our golf cart -- and no traffic whatsoever!
4. nightly walks around the block with my man
5. letting our puppy go swimming in the ocean
a few things i don't miss about living in the bahamas:
1. our teeny tiny grocery store
2. not having a kitchen!
3. our 400 sq ft room
4. spotty/unreliable internet
5. drama!
it sure was an interesting year. we learned a lot, we swam a lot, we snorkeled a lot, and i got an awesome tan! ;) we enjoyed the simplicity of life, but there were definitely things we missed. now the goal is trying to hang on to some of that simplicity while also enjoying things that we didn't get to have (like more than 1 room) :)
the last 6 years have been full of so many adventures, and i hope to begin posting a few of the lessons we've learned along the way on here. so stay tuned :)
Monday, April 29, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
a chair here, a chair there
one of the other DIY projects i was able to do last week was to recover some chairs!
my sweet grandma emailed me last week and told me that her friend was having a garage sale, and she got to have a sneak peek of the goods before the sale :) she found 2 wood dining room chairs, and she knew that i was on the hunt for chairs to go with our newly acquired table, and wanted to know if i was interested in them!
her friend texted me a picture of the chairs, and when she told me we could get both for only $15 i said "yes!" it was so sweet of her to think of me and to find me such a great deal! we found out the chairs belonged to her friends family member who barely ever used them!
the chair: (before)
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the only real thing i didn't like about them was the seat cover, but thankfully that's a fairly easy fix. i say fairly because if you know me at all, you know that NOTHING is ever easy for me. i could write another entire post on that, but for now i'll just say even covering the chairs wasn't quite as easy as it should have been ;)
i found fabric that i liked at joann's that had fun teal flowers on them that go with our dishes and the dining room paint color that i picked (teal valspar paint called "gone fishing").
the fabric:
.JPG)
usually you are supposed to be able to just unscrew the legs of the chair, pull off the cushion part and recover it with fabric. well these chairs were not put together in the usual way and there was no easy way to pull the cushion off, so i had to recover it still attached. it took a little figuring out to get it just right, but with a staple gun, some safety goggles and my mom's help, i was able to recover both chairs in a little over an hour! i love how they turned out.
always be safe when you're working with tools: ;)
.jpeg)
the finished product!
.jpeg)
all in all, the table was $35, the chairs were $15, and the materials to redo them both were about $50. not bad! i always love scoring a good deal and it was fun to make them look the way i wanted them to look. :) i'll be sure to post more pictures of projects as they come along!
my sweet grandma emailed me last week and told me that her friend was having a garage sale, and she got to have a sneak peek of the goods before the sale :) she found 2 wood dining room chairs, and she knew that i was on the hunt for chairs to go with our newly acquired table, and wanted to know if i was interested in them!
her friend texted me a picture of the chairs, and when she told me we could get both for only $15 i said "yes!" it was so sweet of her to think of me and to find me such a great deal! we found out the chairs belonged to her friends family member who barely ever used them!
the chair: (before)
.JPG)
the only real thing i didn't like about them was the seat cover, but thankfully that's a fairly easy fix. i say fairly because if you know me at all, you know that NOTHING is ever easy for me. i could write another entire post on that, but for now i'll just say even covering the chairs wasn't quite as easy as it should have been ;)
i found fabric that i liked at joann's that had fun teal flowers on them that go with our dishes and the dining room paint color that i picked (teal valspar paint called "gone fishing").
the fabric:
.JPG)
usually you are supposed to be able to just unscrew the legs of the chair, pull off the cushion part and recover it with fabric. well these chairs were not put together in the usual way and there was no easy way to pull the cushion off, so i had to recover it still attached. it took a little figuring out to get it just right, but with a staple gun, some safety goggles and my mom's help, i was able to recover both chairs in a little over an hour! i love how they turned out.
always be safe when you're working with tools: ;)
.jpeg)
the finished product!
.jpeg)
all in all, the table was $35, the chairs were $15, and the materials to redo them both were about $50. not bad! i always love scoring a good deal and it was fun to make them look the way i wanted them to look. :) i'll be sure to post more pictures of projects as they come along!
getting my DIY on...
anyone who knows me knows that i love to be crafty. after a year of living in a teeny tiny little room with not many chances to be crafty, i was itching to get my hands on a new project when we moved back to the US of A. :)
while we lived in the bahamas and i had downtime, i perused many home improvement, DIY blogs. 2 of my favorites are bower power (katie is actually an acquaintance of mine) and younghouselove (gotta love john and sherry!) i actually got the younghouselove book for christmas and it's great - you should check it out if you haven't already (click HERE)
all that to say, when ben and i moved back, i was itching to DIY something of my own. :)
in our new apartment, we have a dining room, but we had no table and no chairs. we started shopping around but didn't find anything we really loved (or if we did it was way out of our budget). one day we went into habitat for humanity re-store and wandered around, and stumbled upon this round table with 2 leaves for only 35 bucks! i looked up at my hubby and said "please! can this be my DIY project??" :) he reminded me how much work was going to go into it, but agreed and we left the store with the table in pieces in the back of our crv!
table in the store:
.jpeg)
my idea was to stain it a deeper brown color. even though i've never done something quite like this before, i looked up a few tutorials online (including a very helpful one from younghouselove), went to lowes to get my supplies, and started on one of the leaves for a trial run :) as soon as i began sanding, i realized that it was actually veneer! which made things a bit more tricky as you have to be very careful not to sand through the veneer. i sanded as much as i felt comfortable sanding, and did my first layer of stain. after various tries over about a weeks time, the stain just wasn't cutting it.
supplies:
.jpeg)
sanding:
.jpeg)
wiping off the stain:
.jpeg)
a little hard to see, but the stain just didn't soak in right:
.jpeg)
i was afraid to sand it further and ruin the veneer, and after hearing from a friend's husband who had looked at the pictures that i probably shouldn't keep trying to stain it, i decided to go the paint route instead.
i headed back to lowes (i think i went 3 times in 4 days!) :) and the very helpful paint department loaded me up with tinted primer and dark brown paint.
2 layers of primer (zinsser bullseye 1-2-3! it's amazing, covered everything so well!), 2 layers of paint (valspar signature primer+paint = low voc and great coverage as well) and then 2 layers of poly on top to protect it (minswax polycrylic).
primed:
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
painted:
.jpeg)
after the poly, i let it cure for 2 full days before moving it to our apartment and setting it up! i did all of this while ben was away on a business trip and had it all ready in our apartment to surprise him! :)
all set up!
.jpeg)
even though it didn't turn out quite like i was hoping, i learned a ton and had fun with it! definitely am eager to keep trying DIY things! in fact, my next post will be about another DIY project i tackled while ben was away! stay tuned!
while we lived in the bahamas and i had downtime, i perused many home improvement, DIY blogs. 2 of my favorites are bower power (katie is actually an acquaintance of mine) and younghouselove (gotta love john and sherry!) i actually got the younghouselove book for christmas and it's great - you should check it out if you haven't already (click HERE)
all that to say, when ben and i moved back, i was itching to DIY something of my own. :)
in our new apartment, we have a dining room, but we had no table and no chairs. we started shopping around but didn't find anything we really loved (or if we did it was way out of our budget). one day we went into habitat for humanity re-store and wandered around, and stumbled upon this round table with 2 leaves for only 35 bucks! i looked up at my hubby and said "please! can this be my DIY project??" :) he reminded me how much work was going to go into it, but agreed and we left the store with the table in pieces in the back of our crv!
table in the store:
.jpeg)
my idea was to stain it a deeper brown color. even though i've never done something quite like this before, i looked up a few tutorials online (including a very helpful one from younghouselove), went to lowes to get my supplies, and started on one of the leaves for a trial run :) as soon as i began sanding, i realized that it was actually veneer! which made things a bit more tricky as you have to be very careful not to sand through the veneer. i sanded as much as i felt comfortable sanding, and did my first layer of stain. after various tries over about a weeks time, the stain just wasn't cutting it.
supplies:
.jpeg)
sanding:
.jpeg)
wiping off the stain:
.jpeg)
a little hard to see, but the stain just didn't soak in right:
.jpeg)
i was afraid to sand it further and ruin the veneer, and after hearing from a friend's husband who had looked at the pictures that i probably shouldn't keep trying to stain it, i decided to go the paint route instead.
i headed back to lowes (i think i went 3 times in 4 days!) :) and the very helpful paint department loaded me up with tinted primer and dark brown paint.
2 layers of primer (zinsser bullseye 1-2-3! it's amazing, covered everything so well!), 2 layers of paint (valspar signature primer+paint = low voc and great coverage as well) and then 2 layers of poly on top to protect it (minswax polycrylic).
primed:
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
painted:
.jpeg)
after the poly, i let it cure for 2 full days before moving it to our apartment and setting it up! i did all of this while ben was away on a business trip and had it all ready in our apartment to surprise him! :)
all set up!
.jpeg)
even though it didn't turn out quite like i was hoping, i learned a ton and had fun with it! definitely am eager to keep trying DIY things! in fact, my next post will be about another DIY project i tackled while ben was away! stay tuned!
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