a walk in the woods.....

we had a small snowfall friday night into saturday and we decided to take advantage of how pretty everything looked.  there are some woods behind our house, much of which is pretty dense, but there are areas that are more open.  we decided to explore them on saturday.  it was cloudy but the temp was pretty moderate and we were actually pretty warm....

here is some of the beauty we saw....

we decided to bring the dog who, if he wasn't on his leash, would have been deep into the woods following the deer and rabbit tracks we saw all over the place.  he couldn't help burying his head completely into the snow in some places.....

hence, the snow on his nose

i even got into the picture, which is rare, because don has absolutely no idea how to use my camera. even when i set it up for him the pictures usually don't turn out but this one turned out pretty good.

don got into a fight with a picker bush.......the picker bush won....

and it just couldn't let the fight go, it had to follow him out of the woods....

later that day, we went to the annual frankenmuth snowfest with our friends.   i'll post about that in a couple of days....

have a great monday!!!

goodwill hexagon end table....

i found this table at the goodwill store for $5.00.  five bucks!!

what a deal, huh?

i guess this is why......

eeewwwww!!!

i think it was grease, it didn't smell like mold it smelled like gasoline/kerosene...

i don't know what it was, but i don't think it was mold.....but i bleached it anyway!!!

the veneer was completely peeling away on the top of the piece..

it was a hot mess...

but...

it had some really pretty side panels

i loved the carved flower design. and i knew i could make this piece shine.

i really liked the hardware but one of the door knobs was missing  :(

 i scraped the veneer off of the top with my big barbecue spatula

because i don't have any special tools for scraping veneer off of the top of a side table....

it worked great but under the top was plywood.  

 i sanded the whole thing down and filled it with some wood filler and sanded it again.  i gave it two coats of kilz primer before painting it 

 a soft creamy color.

 i love how the paint brought out the detail of the pretty flower carving in the panels.

after painting it, i glazed it with a gray glaze.....

but i hated it.... 

so i repainted it

and ever so gently distressed it...

 and painted the hinges with an oil rubbed bronze spray paint.

 now i just need to find some killer knobs for the door.  i'll be hitting the hobby lobby when they have their knobs half price..

and i'll post a final picture when i find them.

ten on tuesday....

after reading suzanne's blog i was inspired to post ten random pictures every tuesday. 

sometimes the worst pictures are the best pictures....

happy saturday!!!!

goodwill hunting.....

i scored this chair at the goodwill last fall for $4.99.  it reminded me of a kings throne 

(i don't know why, it just did)

it had a pleather dark green seat cover that was ripped 

and some structural issues.

but it had some really nice lines and some cool detailing on the back.

i sanded it down and filled the defects.  the hubster primed it with kilz spray paint...

and then sprayed it rustoleum aqua.

it was a little bright so i brought it down with a light coat of sepia glaze
made by mixing ralph lauren glaze with some brown acrylic paint. 

i found some fabric in the clearance bin at joann's fabric and recovered the seat.  when i removed the ugly green pleather cover, the padding was in good shape.  i threw it into the washer and ran it through a hand wash cycle and air dried it.

the glazing gave it a very subtle color that toned down the aqua really well.

i love the way it turned out.  and for five dollars,
what a bargain....

have a happy wednesday!!

ten on tuesday....

after reading suzanne's blog i was inspired to post ten random pictures every tuesday.  

these will just be random pictures, so here goes...

stay tuned next tuesday for the next installment of ten on tuesday