The 10 Year Chair

It took close to ten years but I finally finished upholstering my aunt's old rocking chair. She gave it to me to reupholster pre-kids, even pre-marriage. It survived being broke and shoddily glued back together by bear. I was also able to finish this up with the help of a pneumatic staple gun, which is my sweet new toy from bear. 

After painting I added webbing to the seat. 

Then I added denim to cover the webbing. 

After foam and batting. 

With the fabric. Check out scrambles back there. 

The final product! 

Conquering my fear of the sewing machine

I am afraid of my sewing machine. Really it's because I have no idea how to work the thing. It seems like it should be easy but something always goes wrong. I should be able to work this thing. I can crochet, knit, and upholster so I should be able to sew. 

I needed cording and a pillow for my almost 10 year rocking chair project, and since I am working up to reupholster my antique sofa I need some sewing skills under my belt. I got it out this weekend and with the help of YouTube and Google I was able to fashion some decent cording. Tonight I finished the pillow and it came out so cute! There are mistakes that are killing my perfectionist side, but it looks good for my first attempt. I should have made it bigger but I think it will look cute with the kids chair. 

Not too shabby! 

Dining Table Redo - Day 1

So we are redoing dining table 1. Today is day one. I have a feeling this might take awhile. Nothing I do is really fast. 

Bear started by prying off the water damaged veneer from the top. There was a pretty large patch that was damaged. 

Bear scraping off loose veneer. 

The plan was to fill the uneven space with wood filler. We had a huge tub. Problem was it was partially dry. 

Check out that crumbly dry wood filler. 

We scrapped the wood filler idea and decided to get a small piece of veneer to patch it. Hd surely sells veneer right? Wrong. No veneer. So we moved to plan c. Bondo. We found a half can in the sale section and decided to give it a try. 

We mixed a small amount and it seemed to work ok. So we mix more. In the same container. This turned into a crazy lumpy mess and a half can is nowhere near enough. So tomorrow we will sand that down and get more bondo and hopefully be ready for a coat of primer. 

Table at the end of day 1. 

Front Porch Finally Finished

It only took three years. Baby bear was still a baby! Bear decided he was going to build a porch despite us having a newborn. I wasn't too pleased but nothing was gonna stop him. In hindsight things are easier when babies are younger and I am glad we did it. 

Fast forward three years and we finally hung a new front door. This weekend we completed the project with a new light, mailbox, and house numbers. Things went much faster and it only took one hour. 

We think it looks great!

Now for this dining table redo. 

Kbear's Expanding Table Emporium

I was looking for a pedistal or trestle dining table so I could add a bench for more seating. Our old ikea table had draw leaves and I loved them but I hated the legs on the end. It really limited the number of chairs you could fit around it. We wanted to stay with a square table and I didn't want to spend $1000. This left me scouring cl for a very specific kind of table. I had been finding tables but I must cl wrong or something because I got zero replies. 

Finally someone replied to me! The table wasn't perfect but the size was right. With some paint and stain I could make it work. I promptly sold our ikea table (aka gave it to my sister-in-law). 

This happened on Thursday. The next Monday I was perusing cl for patio chairs and came across an almost identical table with a crummier top but an awesome base. I emailed about it figuring I would get no response but I got a response and am now the proud owner of not one but two expanding trestle base tables, and 4 antique chairs in pretty poor shape. 

Upping my project count to maybe 10? 

I don't think our kitchen can hold two tables. 

Scrambles and butters for the photobomb. 

Hanging a door - harder than you think

We hated our front door. It was a cheap, metal 6-panel door that was dented. The knob always got stuck and the thing never closed right. When the door we wanted at the hd went on sale we bought it and figured we could just install ourselves. How hard could hanging a pre-hung door be? Well, turns out it's not as easy as taking one out and sliding another in.

First we had to figure out how to get the current one out. 

Notice Bman is helping with his hammer. 

It really wasn't too hard once we figured out that the easy way was to take the door off and then pull the frame inward. 

We went to put the new door in and of course the opening wasn't wide enough. The old owners made some weird rig to make the opening smaller for the awesome cheap door they hung. Once we took that off we were all set. We slid the door in, made sure it was straight and plumb, and nailed it in. Success! Until, we went to shut the door. Apparently being plumb isn't enough to close a door. The floor wasn't perfectly level, something that slipped our minds in the 100 degree heat. So we had to cut out the nails, relevel the door, and 4.5 hours after we started the door was in. 

All we had left was to hang the knob and cover all our mistakes with trim and caulk. We were happy to just have a door with a handle that shut. It took the rest of the next day to do the trim and repair all our mistakes (we made a lot more mistakes I won't even go into). The house is still messy but I will call project new-door done. 

One more project off the list, but I now added three more because I want to get a new light, revamp the mailbox, and make a painted plexiglass address plaque for the front. 

From the inside. Ignore the mess. 

From the outside.