the hutch wasn't meant to be....

i really wanted that hutch...

however, shannon called me on friday and excitedly told me

"mom, i found the perfect piece of furniture for you"!!!!

she had gone to a flea market that she has been trying to get me to go to for a couple of months.

of course, i was at work and wasn't getting out for a few hours.

so she sent me an iphone picture of it.....

it was a cruddy picture but good enough that i knew that it was exactly what i been looking for.

a wonderful jacobean buffet.  

i finished up at work as fast as i could, snuck out and headed home.

 i stole borrowed my neighbor's minivan and headed out to the flea market and found it hiding under a bunch of junk.

i paid the man, had them load it into the van (thank you, laura) and brought that bad boy home...

here is what she looked like when i got her into my garage new furniture reworking space.

i love her curves

 her detail

 and her knobs and pulls

i sanded the top and filled some of the defects with wood filler. 

now i fully intended to sand and paint this project myself. 

don had just rolled his eyes when i asked him to help me take it out of the van.

however, 

saturdays in the fall in michigan mean university of michigan football games.

don is a michigan man.  

he graduated from u of m.

he loves football..

but he cannot watch a michigan football game.....

it's a long story.  but that will be the subject of a future post...

so he started sanding...(because it keeps him busy and diverts his attention from football)

please ignore the beer in the corner.  i use it for cooking....really!!

beer and buttocks, or michigan football...hmmmmm

i chose michigan football.  so while he sanded, i kept an eye on the game....(we won)

and i picked out a beautiful shade of turquoise, a lovely robin's egg green

and he got busy painting.....

the games last 3 hours, so when the game was done, so was don...

and he paints with one of those cheapo paint brushes that are like 2 for a dollar. 

now all i have to do is layer a nice gray or espresso glaze on it so all of her 

lovely details shine through.

and i left the best part for last...

oh no, it wasn't 35.00

it was 20% off of 35.00

$28.00.

here is the final paint job.  i love the color.   i just need to decide on the glaze now....

i painted the hardware with a oil-rubbed bronze spray.  i love it...

we touched up the missing paint on the back right leg...
and i turned the drawer pull on the top left side.

i will post the final pictures later.....


linking up at
http://creatingahouseofgrace.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-have-been-busy-and-twice-owned-party.html
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/2010/10/nifty-thrifty-tuesdays-no35.html
http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2010/10/fireplace-for-my-dream-library-welcome.html
http://www.perfectlyimperfectblog.com/and http://www.inthefunlane.com/2010/09/fresh-coat-friday_24.html
and http://www.storiesofahouse.com/2010/09/project-diaries-volume-1.html
http://www.bluecricketdesign.net/2010/09/show-and-tell-get-your-link-on.html
here too...http://www.domestically-speaking.com/2010/09/39th-power-of-paint-party.html
http://primitiveandproper.blogspot.com/2010/10/piece-of-work-wednesday-link-party.html
http://decormamma.blogspot.com/2010/11/frugalicious-friday-giveawayjunk.html



edited to add....
i have had some friends ask what kind and color of paint i used for this project....
i used behr premium plus paint in a satin finish.  when i sent hubby to home depot to get the paint with the swatch, he left the swatch at the store so i don't know the exact color.  it is very similar to the
martha stewart living tidewater msl 121
paint swatch, though...
for the glazing i used ralph lauren glaze from home depot and just mixed black acrylic paint from hobby lobby until i got the gray that i liked.

the glazing results are
here:
http://camerasandchaos.blogspot.com/2010/10/finishing-touch.html

and you can see the final result
here:
http://camerasandchaos.blogspot.com/2010/10/final-result.html

okay, i want this really, really bad.....

this is a listing on craigslist that i have been watching for a month now.

We have a nice, old hutch that we are unable to lug across country. It is 69 inches Tall, Three Ft. long by 19.5 inch wide. It is good for storing dishes or anything. It could use a new paint job to really make it shine. However, it must sell. If your interested please contact me via e-mail. We will only deal with person to person sales and will only accept cash... sorry for any inconvenience.

• Location: Grand Blanc
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

i emailed the seller yesterday and the woman selling it lives right around the corner from me.

literally.

less than a mile away...

i think that painted up and distressed, it would be amazing...AMAZING!!!

i'm thinking a nice cream with a pale robin's egg blue inside the hutch.  

you want to take a guess at the price???

$30.00...thirty dollars!!  three-oh.

why isn't it in my house right now???

because i have no walls in my house.  i literally have no spot to put it except for a little area in my kitchen.  so i am really wavering about it. i don't have a lot of furniture in my house, i just don't have wall space.  our house is almost 2000 sq ft but it is a two story so there is just under 1000 sq feet on each floor.  my great room does not have a complete wall in the room.  there is an entrance on two walls, a fireplace on another and a bank of windows on the other.  the room next to it has the only full wall in the downstairs living area and my lovely blue sofa 

takes up that wall...

well, after lots of going back and forth with myself, i emailed her tonite and if it is still available i will be going to look at it on friday.....i'll let you know what happens!

the cider mill.....

last sunday, we made our annual pilgrimage to our local cider mill.  for us it is a tradition i don't think we have missed in all the years we have been married.  we love fall...the beautiful color of the trees, the smell of leaves burning and and the cool, earthy smell of the crisp clean air.
the epitome of fall...cider, donuts, apple picking and pumpkins...
and speaking of pumpkins,  i love these
(click on any picture to enlarge it)

i think we need to get some seeds to grow these types of pumpkins next year
because...
this is the one i wanted

but at 39 cents a pound, this one was about $12.  so that one didn't come home with me.
this one did....

the warty one in the front right corner.....
i didn't take a good picture of it because i really, really wanted the one behind it.
ah well,  it was probably a good thing because we used that extra money to pay for
these...

$7 a dozen......

he thought they were worth it

but seriously...
$7 dollars a dozen!!!!
cider was $8 dollars a gallon..
so we drank water.  that i brought.
the kettle corn this year was $5 dollars for a small bag and

those bags were really small.
going to the cider mill every year means that we get to pick apples too!!
but we were a little shocked at the price per bushel this year
$32 dollars....   =:-O
so we only picked half a bushel.
we still had fun after we recovered from the shock of the high prices.
shannon, jason and the girls met us there.
shannon wanted to get some family pictures taken so that's what we did too!!

the cider mill had a fun play park for the kids.
there is a zip line

i see london. i see france....

and the coolest slide made out of sewer tubing

so, all in all, we had a really great time and for once around these parts, had some decent weather.
the weekends have not been the best.  as usual in michigan, we went from summer to autumn in about 2 days.  the temps have been about 25-30 degrees cooler than they were two weeks ago.  while we needed rain desperately, we don't want it on the weekends which is when we usually get it.  every weekend.
we have a few more fun weekend adventures planned over the next few weeks...i'm hoping the weather holds out for us.....

but i'm not holding my breath.   :)

ok, so remember?.....

when the birds ate our patio chairs.  i posted about that 

here

so we got some new cushions for the chairs and they looked great...

but then our $5 garage sale replacement patio umbrella broke and i posted about that here

here 

well, don fixed the umbrella again and it all looked pretty again,

until last week...

when someone (and i'm not naming any names this time either  cough, coughdoncough) left the umbrella in the up position 

again... 

and we had a pretty nasty windy storm...well you can guess what happened, can't you?

wrong!!!  we still have the umbrella...however,

it performed like a sail and sent our table flying into the corner of the stairs to the doorwall and 

now our table is topless!!!

sigh!!!

and it was really pretty glass, a pale aqua with leaves imprinted into it and a built-in lazy susan

i guess we will just cut a big old piece of ugly plywood and slap that on top of the frame. 

hey, it will probably make the umbrella look good!!!