The price is right: $FREE.00

My absolute favorite thing is to get a great find for my favorite price: FREE. As I've mentioned in the previous posts, I like to find things on Craigslist, Nextdoor.com, yard sales, or even driving around the village and spotting stuff that people put by the curb for anyone to take. 

Last summer I got a great stereo system with CD player, tape deck, component, and speakers. The speakers turned out to be way too big and the sound coming from them was scratchy. So I finally bought some bookshelf sized speaker from Amazon and they were the perfect. It took me one whole afternoon to set it up...drilling the holes in the shelves and snaking the wires through the back of them nearly killed me. And it makes such a mess with all the sawdust, etc. But the end result is fantastic. The speaker were only $60 and the sound is awesome. 

Scott spotted these old beach chairs in someone's front yard the other week and he thought they'd make a good project for me. He was right. Just a little spray paint and some sewing did the trick. I used the drop cloth canvas again. I don't know how long they'll stay in good shape as I had to cut the interior tubing to get the canvas on and they're only being held together with wooden dowels and duct tape! But they were FREE so I can't complain, even if they only last one season. 

BEFORE

AFTER

I spotted two wooden chairs about three blocks over the other day. I thought they'd be nice for the porch. All they needed was a little paint, they were very solid and the cane seats were in really good condition. At first I only took one, but on reflection I went back the next day to get the other one. 

Last week I saw that someone was giving away several linen lamp shades on Nextdoor.com. I've been needing a new shade for the lamp on the porch, I didn't need four, but I thought 'what the hell' I'll take the lot. They turned out to be really nice shades complete with linings, they couldn't have been cheap. I tried a couple on the lamp and decided on the this drum shade. The others are stored for now in the basement. 

Coffee table tribulations

 I had a love/hate relationship with my TV room coffee table. I loved the round marble top and how it was a nice graphic counterpoint to the squared off L-shaped dark gray couch. But it was too low. You couldn't put your feet up on it comfortably. 

So I Googled homemade coffee ideas and found one that looked pretty simple to construct. All I would need were some two-by-fours and some brackets. 

First I cut the wood to the sizes I needed, then sanded and treated them with tung oil. 

Then came the brackets. It was a little trickier than I thought but with a few suggestions from Scott (he's got a good construction mind, it's because of his background in visual design), it came together fine. 

All I had to do was position the top with some rubber tabs to hold it in place and boom, instant mid-century looking coffee table! AND it's the right height. 

An old sew and sew

 I've been on a hug sewing kick lately. Somehow I stumbled upon a tutorial on YouTube for making a cloth bucket hat. You just download the pdf pattern and follow the video instructions. The first one I made was denim. It turned out pretty nicely. The next thing I knew I had made FOUR MORE...and have plans for at least two more! The idea is great for using old clothes like shorts for the fabric. 

The next tutorial I happened upon was one for cloth coasters...again, I used denim from old jeans and leftover fabric from some caftans I made for Scott and myself...

Then I found a video for making a cloth shoulder bag. This time I used the canvas drop cloth fabric I've been using for the furniture slipcovers. I created the monogram with denim and cut out the letters using my favorite old font "BabyTeeth", a design by famed artist Milton Glaser. 

Give it some thyme

 I saw this cute idea in Martha Stewart Living magazine and thought it would work for our herb garden...little rock markers to delineate the various types of plants we've planted. Since I collect beach rocks all the time, I had plenty of specimens to work with. It turned out pretty nice, and useful to boot. 

Give it the boot

I saw a pair of nice Hunter rubber boots FOR FREE on Nextdoor.com the other week and thought they'd be perfect for Scott (they were his size). We went to pick them up at a nice refurbished ranch house out in The Springs. The lady left them on her doorstep for us. 

I then decided that what we needed was a boot rack that could hold the boots outside so we wouldn't traipse  all our gardening mud into the house.  I saw this inspiration pic online:

All I needed was a dowel and a little paint and I put my own version together. The dowels are a little crooked, it was hard drilling a perfectly straight hole with just my hand drill, but when the boots are in place you don't even notice it. We keep it right outside the sliding glass door in front of the outdoor shower and it works GREAT. 

Lamp light

I discovered a brand new wall sconce lamp in a box in the basement recently, a very nice but very heavy Restoration Hardware piece with a swing arm. I purchased it many years ago with the intent of putting it in the TV room. I decided against it, maybe because it was too big, and never returned it. I had the brainstorm that it would be perfect above the twin bed in the craft room as a great reading light. I love to spend quiet afternoons up there with a good book (and sometimes a nap!) The problem was how to mount it? I felt the thing was way too heavy for the sheetrock wall behind the headboard. Then I envisioned a wooden construction that would hold the lamp so I wouldn't need to harm the wall. 

Here was my initial inspiration drawing:

As you can see I'd add some trim around the top to give it more "za za zoo" and to ensure it worked with the headboard that had the same slatted wood look. The board on the bottom was solely for support, you wouldn't see it. 

The whole thing was easy enough to put together. I cut the trim with my miter box and glued and clamped it together. 

Metal brackets added to the bottom board secured it in place. With some dark stain to match the headboard the piece really came out nicely. Here are two pics with the light off...and on. I love it. 

Paint it Black

 It's been a LOOONG time since I've posted. Too many things occurred over the last 10 months or so for me to explain. Suffice it to say, 2020 was not a good year, in fact it was down right horrible. That said, 2021 has been better, not without it's setbacks as well, but on the whole better than last year. I was away from Sag Harbor for almost FIVE MONTHS, leaving Scott here alone to fend for himself. All thru the dark dismal days of winter and all the holidays. I don't know how he made it. One of the ways he occupied himself was by painting practically the entire first floor of the house! When I got back in March it was a whole new home. So different was it that I immediately wanted to change so many things. So many furnishings and decor items just didn't work with the new paint scheme and feeling of the place. One easy remedy was to paint a lot of the items. And going darker was the answer. It made the pieces feel so much more modern. 

The first was changing the oxblood coffee table to dark gray.

Next was the shelf in the dining room.

Then I brought the "Satan" chair up from the basement and gave it a new coat of black.

And the ashes bucket on the fireplace mantel.

The shades on the dining room chandelier went from off-white to black. 

This was just the start of all the projects I wanted to do, more on the rest in future posts...