Yarn?

I haz some.

Hopefully, one day, it will look like this.  You know, right after about 14 other projects.  Or concurrently, because I seem to like to spread myself thin.

It has begun...

I decided to face this new year head on and dive right into a project that is way above my head. It looks pretty bad.....but hey, surgery would look a lot like murder if you stopped halfway through, right?

I'm about 85% of the way through the dis-assembly stage.  I still need to take apart the pieces on the foot of the recliner, and then I need to rip the seams out of all the skirt pieces and the seat cushion.  Most of the tutorials and books I've been referring to are for standard wingback chairs....that don't recline.  And therefore don't really come apart.  At the beginning, I did not realize how much the moving parts were going to impact my method.  I had to completely remove both the foot (as I'm calling it, no idea what it is actually called!) AND the chair back itself.  I started out trying to keep it intact, but I got far fewer owies on my hands when I took parts off rather than wedging my hands in with all the metal and raw wood edges.  I've taken roughly one zillion (actual count is more like 200, but still) photos of my progress, along with copious notes about the order in which pieces were removed, and numbered and up-arrow labeled all pieces.

Next task after dis-assembly is complete - cutting the new pieces.  That should be done in, oh, a year.

Resolve

I don't usually go in for New Year's resolutions.  I mean, no one ever keeps them, so what's the point, right?  But for whatever reason, I'm considering making some this year.  I haven't finalized my list...but here are some things I'm considering:

• daily gratitude journal - I'm not a good journaler, but I'm so forgetful!  I think if I can just jot a line or two, I'm more likely to DO it, and it would be nice to look back at and remember how blessed I really am.
• exercise.  Blech.  You can see if you look at my fitness attempt page (but you probably shouldn't because it's PATHETIC!) that I am not so good at this.  Part of my problem is that I don't actually have weight to lose (I know, I know, woe is me) so it's hard for me to actually see results.  I DO want to tone up though....I have virtually no muscle definition.  I'm basically skinny-fat which isn't really that healthy.  I wonder if there is some sort of fine or punishment I can impose on myself, or a way I can motivate myself to actually do the work??
• dishes.  NO MORE GOING TO BED WITH DIRTY DISHES IN THE SINK!!  This is a huge pet peeve of mine...and I do it to myself!  We don't have a dishwasher, so it's a bit of an additional challenge for me than for most people, but it's a really bad habit.  Must.  Change.
• drinking.  Now before you get the wrong idea, I don't have a drinking problem.  Sure, I may overindulge when faced with an open bar....but I digress.  I'm talking about the nightly glass of wine, and it's half money related.  A bottle or two a week isn't much, but it adds up!  Do I NEED that glass every night?  Do I need it without dinner?  Do I need it when no one else is around?  Nope.  I'm going to try to go for a glass of water instead, and limit my imbibing for social events, or a purposeful drink at the dinner table with my husband.

I may edit or add to this list...I may or may not track them publicly...I may throw in the towel by mid-January.  :)

cute or weird?

Maybe it's because I'm freakin freezing all the time lately, but I have knitting and warm and soft textures on the brain.  I posed this question to my husband the other day - would one of these be cute or weird?

And just so we're all on the same page people - I'm talking about the pouf, not the kid!

He responded that he thought it was kind of weird.  To this, I sent about 4,000 images showing him why he is wrong.

I took a leap and found a great deal (well, hopefully great - I'll let you know my source once I get my order to ensure that it's good quality) on yarn....so I ordered it.  Yep, I'm going to attempt to DIY.  Because it's not like I don't already have eleventy-five other projects going on at the moment.  Oh wait, yes I do.  Well, maybe I'll make a pouf.  Maybe I'll make a mess.  And yes, I'm a little afraid I'll end up like this:

So, what's your vote?  Cute, or weird?

(I did my best to link to all my photo sources, but because I collected most of them all at once to photobomb my husband, I didn't do a great job with that.  If you find a source that I didn't link to, let me know and I'll be happy to add it!)

Desk Chair Restored

Several weeks ago, I got this great vintage banker's chair off Craigslist.  I was pretty excited since versions of the same chair go for about $400 at Pottery Barn.

 

Yeah, NOT in my price range!   We're pretty lucky in the midwest if you're in the market for this sort of thing, because there used to be a pretty large chair manufacturer in Wisconsin, so there really are a lot of this style chair for resale.

 

 I posed the question of whether I should stain it dark or paint it white, as the finish was leaving a little to be desired.  Then the very awesome Sara of the fun blog Russet Street Reno suggested trying out some Howard's Restor-A-Finish and Feed-N-Wax and seeing if it would bring back enough of the original luster to keep the chair au naturale.  Since this sounded muuuuuch easier than my other options AND gave me the opportunity to meet a blog friend in real life, I was in!  

 

I'm so glad I did!  This system was SO. EASY!  I was concerned that it was going to be a messy application like traditional wood stain, forcing us to hang out in my sort of gross and disorganized basement.  Much to my surprise and relief, while it goes on the cloth looking like it's going to be messy like stain, once you rub it on the wood, almost nothing comes off again.  Since we were both working on different parts of the chair, I would find myself putting my hand on an area that was wet....but nothing came off on my skin or clothing.  Huge bonus if your materials tend to get more on your clothes than on your project like mine do. 

We rubbed on one coat of the Restor-A-Finish, then hung out and drank some....ok FINE, a bottle of wine and chatted about tons of stuff and our mutual love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which basically makes Sara my new best friend.  Then we put on a second coat, and wiped off the excess.  I did a terrible job documenting the process since it went so fast, but I did get one shot of the back of the chair in progress.

The slats on the right are untouched, while the slats on the left have just one coat of Restore-A-Finish.  I thought the difference was pretty incredible!  I didn't have quite as amazing results on some of the areas where more of the original finish was rubbed off, like the arms.  However, since I was looking at this more like a unique antique rather than a pristine recreation, I'm fine with character giving imperfections.

After the application of the finish, we rubbed on some of the delicious smelling Feed-N-Wax.  The chair really started to shine at this point.  Sara was sweet enough to leave some of this with me so I can apply a refresher if the wood ever starts to look dull.  

 

Differences in lighting aside, I think the finish looks 1,000x better than it did before.  Like I said, it's not perfect...but that wasn't the look I was going for.  I just need to get my hands on a chair pad, and this project is done!  Thanks again to Sara for helping me out!