Thrifty!

November 30th, 2010

The holidays tend to put a bit of a damper on the old thrifting route – meaning, not as much is getting donated and the stores are filled to the brim with terrible holiday schlock. Ugh. I know its a terribly unpopular thing to say, but I can’t wait till the holiday season is over. I dread this time of year.

The rounds have produced little in the way of big finds, but I continue to grab small bits and pieces here and there. Small additions mean its time to vignette the crap the house and this weekend I focused on the pipe shelves, which frankly, have been needing a bit of a once over.

My favorite small find recently has been this tiny hand carved elephant. He’s super light and beat up, but I love the chunky ham fisted carving.

This couple of blue and brown ceramic vessels hail all the way from vintage Japan. They moved across both time and space to be discarded at two different thrift stores. Good thing they ran into my greedy claws and could be reunited. The big one has a great cork lid and the little bud vase is simple and swooshy.

It’s hard to tell, but the left is a hand turned walnut bowl that is super thick and gorgeous on the inside. Of course I included the blandest, least informative photo possible…because I’m a failure. What? Its a wood bowl. Its not that exciting. Otherwise, the bowl on the right elicited a pretty sardonic response from The Boy, “It’s ceramic and wicker? Great.”

Doggy mail holder and giant wooden paperclip to hold all my important office bizzness. The cashier at Salvation Army asked me what that dog is and I said it was a vintage pacifier and they don’t make them like they used to.

Full of lead.

Ba-dum-cha (thats a drum sound).

In other random thoughts, I’ve been considering selling off the shelving unit. I know! Madness! I just have these all these other nagging ideas I’d love to try out and I’ve been less and less enthused with the design. I know, I’m the wackness. Imagine living with me. Its wicker and ceramics and moving things around 24/7.

Thunder Foot

November 26th, 2010

Bowie, aka Thunder foot, aka Rufus, aka Muffin Butt, aka Old Man Butt, aka Puppy, aka “you dick!” is almost 12 weeks old. Ah, what a little puppy terror.

He enjoys dragging around dirty socks, pooping under the sofa, terrorizing Iggy by biting his butt hole, leaping off stuff fearlessly, chewing on the glass table, licking his naughty bits, running over to the neighbors house in search of his bio-mom, snuggling on top of your head, carrying his food into the den to eat it, ignoring the word NO and mewling constantly.

Pretty much he is a typical insane-o puppy.

Look at his old man butt. He is irresistible!

Hope you enjoyed your holiday, USA folks. I’m stuffed full of pie and taking a little respite to enjoy some puppy snuggling related action.

Fence Bench

November 24th, 2010

When we disassembled the side yard fence there were a bunch of rotten 4×4″ posts left over. I’ve been considering building a small bench for the master bedroom for some time and when presented with the wood leftovers, thoughts of a very cheap but super chunky piece of furniture danced in my noggin. Paired with a pair of left over Eames LTR bases (salvaged from our old beat up surfboard table) this little reclaimed wood bench was pretty easy to assemble.

Here’s how:

Materials:

4 – Reclaimed wood fence posts
2 – Eames LTR bases (I salvaged mine off a broken Eames elliptical table)
4 – 12″ metal straps
Bunch of Screws
Teak Oil (or Danish Oil)
Sander

First, we cut off the rotten ends of the fence posts which left us with a usable length of 56″.

Then, I inset the bases 6″ from the end.

The straps were placed evenly around the bases and screwed into the wood.

To finish up construction, the the bases were then screwed into place.

Boom. Done.

Almost…

I gave the wood a quick sanding to remove any residual gunk, dirt or splinters.

After the dust was cleaned off, I rubbed the wood down with a few coats of teak oil (I had it laying around) to seal and protect the wood. Then done!

The treated wood darkens up a lot with the oil.