The Laundry Lady

Only my good friend, Mrs Mama, can make doing laundry look so good.


I'm having a serious internal battle with myself about posting these photos. But, remember I also posted photos of me in my clown costume.

So, I guess it's okay to step back from my martyrdom and post a few gratuitous photos.

Right? Hold on a sec....I need to go drink some Pepto and think about that question.



Yes. I swear. Everyday, I wear a skirt and heels and hang pretty quilts on my clothes line and I have a person taking photos of it and I post them on my blog for the whole world to see.


What? You don't? Why? Because it's not normal? What? I'm a weirdo? Where's that pepto?




I swear, this is the prettiest my laundry has ever looked and that's the best I've ever looked doing laundry.......uh, no, I mean I look like that ALL THE TIME!

woman wearing clown costume weaves a chair seat

Yes, I fixed my dining room chairs. But, only two of them. Because my hands are withered and sore after doing these two, and I used enough fabric to circle the globe....twice. I swear.


This one turned out to look a lot like my college dorm room. I had a peach comforter and I used light green floral to accent everything. Gag. Some of the fabric is at least twenty years old and came from the now extinct TG&Y. All this chair is missing is a duck with a bow around its neck stenciled along the arm.




I did this one second and thought about the colors a bit more before starting. Unfortunately, I ended with that gingham print which ends up being the dominant pattern. I do like this one more, but lets just say this was an experiment.

All the knots that tie the fabric strips together are on the bottom. That was the hardest part, retying the fabric so the knots wouldn't be on the top or sides.



I still need to tuck in a few on this chair, but my hands are too mangled at the moment.


Not a bad fix for a while. When and if and when and if and when I can spend some extra cash on the actual cane, I think I'll re-do them. Or I'll wait another 25 years until these fall apart and then I'll sell them as vintage antiques. Har har.


Now, let's talk about what I was wearing while doing this little project.

Remember,

-it was snowing
-it was a Saturday
-I have a very meager and pathetic wardrobe
-I wanted to feel vintage, like the fabric I was using...

Ready?

Brace yourself.










Yes, this is me. In capri pajama pants OVER, mind you I said, OVER a pair of long johns. Add some striped grey and pink wool socks and top it off with an ancient LA Gear sweat shirt that my elderly neighbor found in her house and thought one of my kids would like it. Please don't tell her it's one of my favorite things....she really thought my kids would like it.



Ellen helped me. The weaving is easy, the keeping the fabric tight is hard....on the hands.



I thought this chair would be a pretty blue and brown and white. I had gobs and gobs of fabric and thought I'd finish the chair with those colors.


Uh, nope. I had to break into the peaches and pinks and greens before I finally had enough fabric to finish the darn thing. That is why I have a lot less fabric stored in my fabric box.


You could do this with really cheap polyester sheets. I know this, because I also used some really cheap polyester sheets in the project. The longer the fabric the better so there are less knots to tie.

Can you see why my back is sore? I found the direction on how to weave the seat with fiber rush on line (that's what was originally on the chairs) and I decided I could probably do it with fabric just as well. So I did.

The End

Guess what I did?

Wanna guess what I did yesterday?

Here's some clues...

1. My hands are aching.

2. My back is sore.

3. It was snowing, raining and really cold outside yesterday. (That's for all you crazy people that are going to guess I was gardening).

4. It has something to do with repairing something that was broken.

5. I spent no money.

6. Think about the room that I talk about the most in my home.

7. I have a lot less of something stored in a box....a lot less.

8. My hands, did I mention how sore they are?

9. Calico Corner, TG&Y, Wal-Bart, Gibsons and JoAnns all played a part in my activity.

10. Who grew up with a TG&Y store? We called it Toys, Guns and Yo-Yos.

Do you know? Huh? Can you guess?

Pictures and the full story at ten.

There is a Benjamin Moore store in my barn.

First of all, I want to thank all of you for giving me some great ideas for the dining room chairs.

Paint.

Don't paint.

Paint pastels.

Paint black.

Distress.

DO NOT PAINT!

Cushions, lots and lots of cushions.

Belts.

Quilts.

My favorite was to use duct tape. I would totally do that. And I still might.

But, I really want to thank the two or three people that said I would NOT get this project done. Because nothing motivates me more than when a person says I CAN'T do something......unless I really don't want to do it, then I'm all yeah, not gonna do it.

Clay and I both thought painting the bench was the only way to go. Since we're still being the cheapest people on the planet I didn't want to go buy any paint when there are billions of gallons of Benjamin Moore paint in our barn left from the previous owners. I'm serious, billions, okay maybe it's more like twenty..............million.

Since yesterday the temperature got up to a balmy 70 degrees I decided to go out to the barn and search for a red to use on the bench.

After rummaging through cobweb coated cans and prying them open I found a rusty red and a maroon and decided to put my college color class to good use and mix my own paint. I KNOW! I am so amazing. Amazingly cheap.

So, for zero American dollars I give you the bench.



And I don't like it. I think the color is okay, but it's too dark against the wood floor and the table. It just says blah to me.
See? Blah. So, now I'm going to look at it and think some more. Maybe I'll try a yellow/green....if I can mix my own, which I think I can-can mix my own paint-paint, diddy-diddy bop-bop, diddy-diddy hop-hop.

Oh, sorry, had to break into a little hip hop action there. Nothing makes my children roll their eyes more than when I break into song. A day without singing is a sad day. Especially a day without some opera. Try it. You'll like it. Just sing whatever you are saying. Especially when you're kids' friends come over to play. SING IT!

Now, back to the bench.

What if I paint the yellow/green over this red and then distress it? Huh? What say you?

Oh, and stop telling me to do cushions, because have you seen my children eat? If you have, then you will understand why we can't have fabric on the seats. I'd be posting about how awful the cushions look and then you would be saying....paint the cushions!!!!

I've found the fiber rush to repair the seats online. I think I can do four chairs for around $25 and that's not too bad, right?

I probably won't be painting the table or the chairs. My reasoning is Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Independence Day.

What? April, please 'splain dis crazy cockamammee nonsense.

You see, I like to decorate my dining room for all those holidays and if I have my table and chairs painted all different pastels then it would look great for Easter, but come Thanksgiving I would want to barf all over the chairs to try to get the pale blue to look good with the pumpkins and maple leaves. That makes sense, right?

Also, I still haven't painted my daughter's furniture, which was my childhood furniture. I've been meaning to do it for 15 years now. So, really, the chances that I will actually paint all the chairs and the table. Har har hahahahaha!

Now, we'll see if I get this done. Go ahead and tell me I won't do it. I dare you. Actually, could you just say a lot of mean things about how I won't get Ellen's furniture painted and how that will make her resent me when she becomes a mother and she'll never let me visit my grandchildren because she had to grow up with with her mother's hand-me down crappy furniture and what kind of a mother treats her only daughter with such neglect?

Yeah, yeah, say all that and let's see if that gets me motivated to paint her furniture. I'm thinking, naaaah.

Momma needs a project.

Wanna look at some of my fantastic photography? Okay! Here we go.....

This is the bench that sat on my porch that my cats used as a litter box. I bought this in an unfinished furniture store back in Missouri. It's a very poorly constructed piece of doo-doo that we have had to nail back together, but it works. You can't tell from this picture, but I pickled it to match my hutch. Basically it looks like a cheap pine bench. Um, because it is a cheap pine bench.

This is the little rug that sits by the door which is by the cheap pine bench. Take in the colors, we'll come back to it. What do you mean you can't see the colors. You got somethin' to say 'bout my photography? Sigh... moving on.



Bench. Rug. Wall color. Table legs. Got it all? Process it, there is a big decision coming up.


This is one of my dining room chairs. What do you think? It's got that rustic look right? One of our friends sat in this chair and watched a movie. How uncomfortable do you think he was? What kind of a host lets their company sit in this chair while she sits in the cushiony chair with her feet propped up? That would be me. The really funny thing is, that he thought he broke the chair. I didn't tell him it was already like that, I was hoping he'd offer to fix it.....after all he was sitting in it and it's broken. Right?

This is another dining room chair. I think my chairs are on their last leg, uh, except their legs are fine, so I guess they are on their last seats. Time to do something.


I also have this chair. It doesn't match the others, but I like it. I can't imagine trying to repair this one.

Okay, so now I need your help because look at this mess. Goodness.

1. Should I paint or stain the bench?
2. What color? Go back to the rug/wall/table reference.
3. Should I repair the seats with the same weave and color or go all crazy and paint the chairs seven different colors and then prop them up on stilts?
4. Rechelle, I really want to know how you would handle this.
5. Who uses broken furniture in their house all the time?
6. Who thinks I'll get this done before I die?

When I finish a project....

the world will stop spinning and we will all float up into the air and fly around like little birdies.

Last night Clay told me I am the Tasmanian Devil at starting projects. He imitated me hammering out walls, slapping up paint, ripping up carpet all accompanied by snarls and gurgles.

I was so not listening to his jabbering. I was calmly trying to explain that I was going to take the sawsall, that has been adorning the dining room buffet for the past week nestled between marble eggs and pastel decorations, to the rotted wood in the wall to get the wall project FINISHED!

Clay went on to explain that in my hand the sawsall would become a weapon of mass destruction. He knows if I get that tool in my hand I won't be able to stop cutting.

So, he might be right.

I am the starter.

He is the finisher.

I told him that his comparing me to the Tasmanian Devil was funny, but pissing me off. Because, I just want that rotten wood out of the wall and that tool is sitting right there and couldn't he just pick the dadgum thing up, plug it in, and start hacking away?

No. He can't. He has to draw detailed diagrams, purchase tools and supplies that aren't needed, but mostly, he needs to contemplate. For days or months and at times it has been years. The man likes to think about his projects. Or should I say, my projects. After all, if I wouldn't have started pulling down wallpaper the moment I walked in the door of this house, well, we wouldn't have the gaping wound in the wall in the first place. Now would we?

Okay, I won't use the dadblam sawsall. But, I might go get a wood chisel out of the barn and see how much of the rotten wood I can dig out with that, so there!

One day, I painted my kitchen and couldn't stop blogging about it.

Before, the kitchen was full of fruit and I don't mean the edible kind.
Now, it's full of light and if I painted a pink stripe around the room, by golly, it would look like an Easter egg. Ahem, please take note, my kitchen is clean.
I had about two minutes 53 seconds of clean kitchen and then my children entered the room.
Now, what about the dining room? Do you think the can of Bondo and the scrapers and putty knife and drywall compound will get in the way when I'm putting Easter dinner on the buffet?

I'm officially declaring a state of ignorance. In my eyes this is a beautifully painted dining room with no gaping wound in the wall.

Hey, I've got an idea! Come back tomorrow and I'll show you some pictures of my newly painted kitchen.

No more cherries, thank you very much.

Goodbye cherries, you were sweet and juicy, but you just didn't say Old Farmhouse to me. So...away you go.
Are these pictures blurry? I think they are, but it's hard to take good pictures when you have chicken-claw hand from holding a paint brush for eight hours.

Next up, get rid of the strange crisscross tile back splash. Did I hear someone ask about the dining room walls? What dining room? Huh?

Who wants to pick some cherries?

Well, how about I paint over them in a moment of madness starting after dinner and proceeding into the next morning?This photo may or may not have been taken at 3am, I can't really remember, where's my coffee?
My Dad is here and when he saw me start slopping out the paint without taping or putting down drop cloths he bit his tongue and tried not to have a heart attack.
I'm a very good painter.....most of the spills go directly on me and my clothes, these jeans didn't have paint on them before dinner.
I woke up this morning to see this. Good Lord. When will the clean-up crew be here? What? They were never called?! I have to clean it up? No, no, no my contract clearly states.....demolition only.
Fine, I'll clean it up. This is going to require a lot of coffee......where's my coffee cup?

The Wall Journal

We worked on the dining room wall again today, but only after I started ripping wallpaper off in the kitchen. More than one of my children said to me, "Uh, don't you think you should finish the other walls before you start in here?" Kids, they think they're so smart.

Anyhoody-woo, after I finished...let me say that again, a lil' bit louder now, AFTER I FINISHED taking the wallpaper border off in the kitchen, I went to work in the dining room. I spackled, taped, sanded, spackled, sanded, scraped, sanded and sanded. I stood on a stool while I was working and my husband took every opportunity he could to walk by me and honk my tush. His downfall was when he decided he'd poke me in the rear with a toothpick. I had a metal scraper in my hand and my reaction was to scream and whack him and hard as I could with the sharp edge of the scraper. He was very sorry, but laughed through his pain. Dummy.

I would have kept working on the wall, but Ike decided to puke over the side of his bunk onto his brother's bed and all over the floor. After we got his bed and him cleaned up, he repeated the whole scene. Fun times! So, I started the mountain of pukey laundry and went to bed. Then, Levi started to cough and cough and cough and cough....repeat every twenty minutes. So, at 1:27am Clay decided to go to the store to get him some cough medicine. That Clay, he might be a gigantic nuisance to live with, but he's an awfully good daddy and he wants to mentioned as often as possible in my posts, so that his number of posts is at least second on my side bar. And he made me that new header up there.

This morning is the first day of our spring break. It's raining, Seth started puking and the dining room walls are looking at me with desperation. Poor Seth finally invited a friend over to play after we've been here for six months, and he woke up puking. Darn it. Anywady-hay, I sure hope this isn't a picture of what our spring break is going to be.

Dining Room in progress. Did I mention I have company coming tomorrow?

Little Mr. Pukeomatic.

This is the area in the kitchen that had the wallpaper border. This picture is before we moved in. That's why everything looks nice and tidy.



And this is a picture after I took down the border. I cluttered up the counter so you all don't think I'm as perfect as I am, I mean ya' know? This blog is all about making you feel better about yourself via my downfalls. That big lump of stuff in the plastic bag is my leftover Clay, um, I mean clay from pottery. I think it looks real nice as the center piece on the counter. Don't you?

Extreme Makeover Wall Edition

How much wood..

could a termite eat...

if a termite could eat wood?

Uh, termites do eat wood. And the answer is: A WHOLE FREAKIN' LOT!

That look on Clay's face says it all. What? How? When? What are we going to do? How are we going to fix it? When will this project end?

I've been waiting for a contractor to 'stop by this week' for about five months now. So we took the repair in our own hands, which is what we usually do. But, now we are at the point where Clay is telling me all the expensive new tools he's going to have to purchase to do the job and I'm saying, "But, but, but....".

From past experience I know that this phase of the renovation will last at least four months. So we have some time to look at that gaping hole in the wall and decide how the heckle-jo-jeckle we're going to replace the ridge beam that was used for the termites last dinner party.

More Dining Room Wall

Before I could shut off the camera on this episode of Extreme Makeover Wall Edition, Ike starts reprimanding me for disobeying Clay. Classic.

Auction News with a Contest if you Choose

Last Saturday I went to an auction in Ottawa, Kansas.

Look at the art deco movie theatre located on the main drag. Cool, huh?

Here's City Hall. It's beautiful. I may have caused a bit of alarm when I reached my camera out the window while I was driving to take this photo. The car next to me slammed on their brakes.....sorry, maybe I need a bumper sticker that says, "CAUTION BLOGGER AT WORK.....FREQUENTLY SNAPS PHOTOS WITH NO WARNING"

Now for the goods.

Basket full of other baskets... $2.50 I'm going to line the basket with linen and use it as a laundry hamper.

Crock....$15.00 I'm a sucker for old crocks. I think it has something to do with my pottery fetish, what a crock.
Sled....$12.50 All farm houses need an old red sled on the porch, don't they? Yes.
Rug......$30.00 This is the item I went to auction in hopes of bringing home. I was not going to lose the bid, and I didn't. Did I pay too much? Maybe, but it has all the right colors and I really liked it, so there.

Chaffing dish......$ ?????

Wanna guess? Should I have my first contest ever? Yes? I, uh, don't have a prize, but um, uh, how would, um, one of my pieces of pottery do? They're not all bad...really. They make great coin holders and pencil cups and jewelry storage and dust magnets and space clutter and, and, and, well that's about it.

So, guess if you want to, but don't feel you have to, it's not a big deal, just do what makes you feel comfortable. Gah, have I ever told you how uncomfortable I am asking for comments? It's the same way I feel about asking people to help me....it makes me feel...bad, icky and in general not good. Yes, I have a problem.

So, if you want to, take a guess, but you don't have to, it won't hurt my feelings, peace and love and rainbows and daisies. The first person to guess correctly wins. I'll post pictures of the pottery that you may choose from, dust out your curio cabinets and make a space for an April original.

Oh, and the dates on the photos saying they were taken in 2005, well, you know, I'm a bit slow when it comes to programming electronics.