Cedar Planters into Outdoor Stools

Hey Ya'll!

I did this project last year before I even started blogging. I saw them as I was backing out of my driveway yesterday and thought "I should share those!".

There are no before pictures, but we've all seen cedar planters, right? Just a basic box with a hole on top to set the plant. Well now imagine massive cobwebs and dirt all over them. But I got them for $1 each, so I couldn't complain.

I gave them a good cleaning and painted them black with a few good coats of poly because they would be outside.

I then hopped over to Home Depot to get some wood. My handy father-in-law (Hi Bill!) cut 2 matching boards to serve as seats. He cut them about 1/2 inch smaller on each side. I covered them with batting and outdoor fabric, and now we have some more seating options when we have outdoor playdates!

You can probably see a little dirt on the bottom. I cleaned them up as well as I could, but they've been outside nearly 1 year. They're nothing fancy, but a nice change of pace from the plastic chairs we had before.





Best of all, the fabric can be changed when I'm tired of it!

~Allison

Sharing at these parties!

Union Jack Chair

First, thank you to everyone who left comments with their opinions on this chair I posted about yesterday. It helped me realize I didn't like any of the options enough to change it. One comment in particular pointed out something that I didn't even realize: there's a lot of caning and it needs a pillow on the back to break up the caning.

Jaime pointed this out to me and she was so right! So I decided to head to Home Goods this morning to look for a pillow to inspire me, and then I'd decide on fabric. Does Home Goods ever let me down? Nope!

I picked up this pillow and I already had the perfect, understated fabric to go with it. Best of all, whoever buys this chair, can use this pillow or completely change the decor by changing the pillow. Love it!







You might not love it, but you have to admit it's better than the fabric I had on it yesterday! Gaudy vs Glam...sometimes it's a fine line! ;)

~Allison

Linking here





http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/

Help Me Choose

I found this chair in all of it's orange velvety glory at GW a few weeks ago. $3. 87! THREE dollars and 87 cents. Amazing. Sturdy with perfect caning.


Now, I am not a sewer. I could sew a straight line if my life depended on it, but that's where my skills end. So I was pretty stuck on the cushions. I hemmed and hawed for a few weeks until I tried to take the chair apart, and it turns out I could just recover the seat board and get rid of the cushions all together! Done and done!






I really like it...but I'm not 100% sold on the fabric. I have these other options too (poor lighting...sorry!)...what do you think?


Help a sister out?

~Allison

Weekly Parties

Blue-Gray Chest

I've been wanting to do a piece like this for awhile, but didn't have the right item. But that changed last week when I found this for $20 at Savers!



Because of it's unique size, it could be so many things...a large night stand, a child's chest of drawers, a chest for storage in an entryway.

I used the paint that I put on this bench. An oops color that I thought was blue (because of the bench), but on this piece, it looks more gray. Either way, I love the end result!



Love the bowed front!





This seemed like an easy piece at first. The body was cake...but the hardware nearly gave me a stroke. I've seen painted hardware all over blogland. I primed, painted and poly'd. But each time I tried to reattatch the hardware, I had to use a plyers to hold the plates on because the screws didn't want to go in all the way. Well, you know what happened...the plyers took the paint off. A vicious cycle. I finally found some shorter screws that worked well! I'm glad, because I really wanted this look!

~Allison


Linking here



























http://thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/