The kind of advice that I like:

Less Than Perfect Life of Bliss

"....when you can buy a decent piece of furniture for roughly the same price as a Venti cup of Starbucks, buy it."

I like the way this blogger thinks. 

"It's advice like this that financial advisors tell you to run from," she says. 

It's advice like this that fills my little house to the brim with great, thrifty furniture finds. 

Arranged for a Christmas party

Yes, I realize it's been weeks since I've put up a post. Now that Christmas and deadlines are done, I'm able to take a deep breath and maybe actually get back to my blog more consistently and update you on some goings-on.

First of all, on Dec. 16 we had a Christmas party here at the house, with 21 people in attendance. I rearranged the furniture in the front room to make as much open floor space as possible, and set out as many chairs as I could to accomodate everybody. It helped that we didn't have the wood stove going, so up to eight people could sit in that area.

Sorry for the poor photo quality, but all I had time for was two quick photos when everyone was here. I made pineapple chili, while Bob brought his chili and Jamie brought soup. I also made a cracker dip and a veggie/chip dip, and everyone else filled in with more snacks and desserts.

I only had five hours after leaving work early to get ready for the party, which started around 6:30, so I didn't have the chance to take photos before, but these are 'morning after' photos of how I arranged everything.

We had moved the loveseat against the wall for Thanksgiving - something I'd resisted doing since it makes the corner with the bookcase funny, but Scott has always wanted it that way, and I do have to admit that the space is more inviting. I still don't like the corner, but I can live with it.

And look at the cute kid who's hanging out. :-)

The other side of the front room, where Melissa and I moved the bench under the window - also a change that works a lot better than what I had before.

Originally the Christmas tree was pulled out, and the corner was empty. For the party, Scott and I moved it, and that's where it's stayed. It really has made more space in the front room, and I think I'll leave the table pushed up under the window, as Scott likes the extra floor space in the front room, and we can just pull it out when we have company and need the extra seating.

Both of these tables were full of food for the party. And our Christmas tree actually looks good in these photos. :-) It really has a lot of flaws, but it has character.

We put drinks on the desk, and people sat around the pedestal table.

So there you have it. Although I probably didn't actually have time to host a Christmas party here, it was fun and I think a good time was had by all. I think now we'll wait a while for company after having Thanksgiving and then this party here. :-)

Baby Update: 37 weeks

Well, here we are, three weeks from the designated D-day! I thought this would be an appropriate time to get around to posting these baby room photos that I took even before our trip to Iowa in July... I apologize for the low photos quality... I just took them quick so that I'd have something to show people in Iowa, to give an idea of how the room was shaping up.

The above photo was taken from the door to Scott's and my room. There are two finished rooms in the basement, plus a full bath, and they will be the sleeping quarters for all three of us.

This photo is from the corner with the window, and the door to Scott's and my room is on the left, and the door to the bathroom is on the right. Behind the open door is a closet.

Here's my crib project, with the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. I'm really happy with how the color turned out, as pink as it looks in the can, and the light and dark wax turned out well, except it still remains a little tacky... not really sticky, but not really smooth. I'm curious to see how it wears over time.

I lined the drawer beneath the mattress with kitchen liner - not the sticky kind. I was glad to find something I could just cut to size and lay in there, without having the permanance of contact paper.

This little toddler chair came from my mom, along with an even tinier chair to match. The tiny chair I now use for a little cowboy teddy bear on the bookshelf.

There's the tiny chair, when it was in the corner, next to the saddle from Uncle Bob.

I'm really happy with the dresser stain project. Last night I finally purchased the drawer pulls for it and for the armoire - I've been waiting three weeks for them to go 50 percent at Hobby Lobby. Have you looked at Hobby Lobby's drawer pulls lately? They have a great selection of all types.

This is the box my little Western hankies came in. The box itself is pretty adorable. :-)

And here are just a few of the hankies... I haven't done anything with them yet. Still debating all my options...

The dresser and armoire also got lining for their drawers - this time a blue pattern.

I've been collecting enamelware for the room, to use for storage, decoration, etc. Little did I know these enamelware canisters I bought in Pendleton last September would fit in so well!! Or what I'd end up using them for. :-) The lovely C} wood piece is a gift from Emily in Missouri - she made it and stained it for me, and I love it.

This is my old camp coffee pot... It was a cheapy from Walmart, and the little 'glass' knob on top of the lid melted one morning as the coffee was simmering, so I removed the lid, kept the pretty red pot, and will use it for something, if only decoration.

My mom has done a great job collecting things for the baby room - these books are just another small part of the things she's found for Baby Martinez. They're all Western cowboy books, so they fit perfectly with the theme.

This is the view from the baby room window...

So that's what the baby room looked like in mid-July. Since returning from the Iowa trip I've worked on putting away baby gifts from the Iowa baby shower and have washed and put away most of the clothes in the dresser and armoire. More pictures to come, as soon as I get the room to a more put-back-together state. Right now I'm working on a slipcover for the rocker, and after that will come curtains. Those pink sheers just have to go soon. I'm tired of looking at them in pictures!

Chalk Paint: Taking the plunge

Well, I did it - I took the plunge today and ordered some of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint to try on my crib project.

Why spend the money on the chalk paint? Because I really wasn't looking forward to sanding down each individual crib slat, and with chalk paint there is said to be no sanding or priming necessary! And, I haven't spent much of my baby things/baby room nest egg, so that's how I justified the price tag, which is steep.

The color I ordered is Emperor's Silk. Yes, it looks somewhat florescent in this paint can, which is the image on the site I ordered from, but I'm confident that once I get it and once it's dry it won't be so pink. :-)

Also, another trick to adapt and manipulate the colors of chalk paint is through wax.

Every coat of chalk paint should be sealed with wax, according to all the instructions I can find, to protect it and bring out a nice sheen, if that's what you want and you choose to buff it.

The owners of Shades of Amber, which is based on Colorado Springs, kindly gave me a call after I placed my order to clarify some order details, and to make sure that I knew every coat of chalk paint has to be first sealed with clear wax, and then dark wax added, if desired. I did not know that, and had not come across that in my research, so I was glad they called. I changed my order from dark to clear wax, and he said he's go ahead and send along a sample of the dark for me to try, which I appreciated.

So, the paint and wax should arrive on Saturday, just in time for my DIY weekend list! I just have Saturday this weekend, as we plan on going to brand at Kaycee on Sunday, but hopefully I can at least get a start on it.

Visit Shades of Amber's blog to see a few samples of what chalk paint can do, and view Miss Mustard Seed's post about the finer points of using wax on furniture.

Project: The Baby's Armoire

It's been a while since I've purchased a new piece of furniture, so I was pretty excited when I received a call back on a Craigslist posting from the lady who had this armoire listed for sale. We made arrangements to meet up at 1 p.m. last Saturday, and I sure am glad I asked Scott to go along to her place on the west side of town, because I don't think the lady and I could have gotten this handled by ourselves. It's a pretty good example of a solid piece of craftsmanship.

When I first saw this listed, my first thought was, "Look at all that storage! I bet I could fit almost all the baby clothes and supplies in there." I was happy to see that this armoire had the original shelving and drawers in it, and hadn't been shamelessly retrofitted to a tv cabinet, like so many have been.

While the exterior is a little rough, with some dents and scratches, the interior finish is still in really good shape. I think what I'll do is paint the outside, but leave the inside as-is. A change in hardware will also be on the project list.

For now it's sitting in the garage, because Scott let me know in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't carry it back up the basement steps for its paint job. So there it waits, until it comes up on my list of weekend projects, and until I decide what paint color I want to put on it.

I don't think either of us is looking forward to the struggle of getting it downstairs, but I think once it's painted and in the baby room it will be more than worth the trouble. Hooray for my first successful Craigslist purchase, which I even scored for $20 less than she was asking - $80 was the final price for this classic piece of furniture that we'll be able to use in our house for years and years. I offered her $75, but was really glad when she said $80, because I had only brought $20 bills. :-)

Out with the old: the first step to a baby room

This weekend I stuck around the house and got a lot done, including a good start on my next sewing project, raking the yard - it was a gorgeous spring weekend, and spending lots of time in the basement yesterday, with the goal of getting all the non-baby furniture out of the baby room.

Once all of our dressers were moved out into our bedroom, which included taking apart and moving the bed to the opposite end of the room, and moving all the hat boxes, boots and other odds and ends that accumulate, I was able to vacuum and deep clean before unrolling my new baby room rug.

I ordered it from the company Dash & Albert, who I found through the nursery inspiration blog LayBabyLay. Now that I know who Dash & Albert is, I am seeing their rugs more frequently, and most recently in my new Martha Stewart magazine.

I love the stripes, and I love the colors. It's appropriate for my nursery theme that they named it "Ranch Stripe." From the rug I'll draw the patterns and colors for the rest of the room, including a definite new window treatment. It's high time the pink/red sheers disappear, as I've just been ignoring them until now. The gold chair and ottoman are a find at Odds and Ends when they were still good, and I've had plans for a couple years now to make a slipcover for them, and I've even had the fabric that I wanted to use, but it didn't go with anything else in my house. Now I will be able to use it, because the powder blue and white pattered upholstery will coordinate perfectly with the rug.

So I feel like we made a big step forward over the weekend in preparing for the baby, because diving in and getting all those dressers moved and the bed rearranged was a big task. Thanks to Scott for patiently helping me. :-)

I'll take some pictures of the new bedroom arrangement once it's to a point where it's a little more finished... I didn't get to finish up the details yesterday because we ended up going to dinner with Uncle Sonny and Aunt Carole from Kaycee and cousin Griff, whose birthday is today. Finishing the details includes hanging some new shelves and a shelving unit on one of the open walls for our boot/hat storage, which we desperately need. I've come to realize we can never have too many shelves or hooks in our house. I also want to hang some of our yet-unused art in the bedroom space, some of which we received as wedding gifts.

Cheap entertainment: moving furniture

For our Superbowl party over the weekend we rearranged the upstairs furniture to make more seating in our tv area. That means a crowded tv area, but a spacious front room now. Foxy likes the open floor space where she can play with her rawhide chews.

Actually both of the girls like the space for wrestling. I've put several rugs down by the door for snowy/wet/muddy boot traffic. Before we didn't really have anyplace to go with our shoes.

I kind of like how open the space is... but I also like the loveseat, and for right now the only space it can go is the front room.

This is my eight-dollar desk that I found at Salvation Army. I have yet to make it what I want - I'm planning at least a paint job and new drawer pulls, but at least it's not in the garage anymore.

Here's the big front window minus the sheer burgundy panels that I took down and disposed of yesterday. I can't wait to take the wood scallops down and see what a difference it makes for the summer sunrises in a couple months. Ok three months. Ok maybe five. The tablecloth is one my sister brought back from South America, and I love it with all its colors, which you can't see too well in the photo. You also can't see it too well in the photo, but the chair at the foot of the table is red. I really like them red.

So as nice as the front room looks, here's the tv space with the loveseat. :-) Scott says, 'Can we leave this here for a while?' He asked because the loveseat is the most comfy thing we own, and it really is too bad it doesn't fit with the tv area. The limits of our square footage mean I have to get creative.

Lucy thinks the loveseat is ok in that space.

These are the horseshoe hooks that I mounted on either side of the bathroom door. As you can see, the other two I hung over the weekend already look full.

And this is the coatrack that I hung on the right side of the hallway, and it kind of extends to the over-the-door rack of the spare room. It was plumb full of jackets, vests, caps, insulated pants and whatnot, but I had cleared it off so our company would have a place to hang their coats.

And here are my new shelves above the refrigerator, which I also love. It's a great use of that space for my lesser used dishes, which ends up being mostly goblets. The blue-stemmed goblets that my mom gave me some time ago can finally see the light of day. :-)

The kitchen isn't much changed from the usual, except I did get some new rugs at Ross last weekend. I've found myself using the bowl set that friend Holly gave me for Christmas quite frequently - that's the biggest one of the set on the counter.

Foxy likes the new rug.

My new Martha Stewart magazine came today, and I had to tear myself away to go back to work at the office the rest of the afternoon. It's full of summery and gardening ideas, and that's a welcome thought, considering we're sitting here under a pile of snow that has dumped on us in the span of a few hours this evening. It's spring snowstorm season in Wyoming.

To the previous owners of Odds and Ends..

I miss you.

For several years now the thrift store Odds and Ends here in Casper, on the corner of 12th and Beverly, has been my guilty pleasure, my relaxing lunch break, my curious stop after work or on slow Saturdays. It was a store full of quality used furniture at great prices - the kind of prices that make you say, "Yes, I like that enough to spend XX dollars. It's definitely worth that."

It was the store that contributed to overcrowding in my apartment, and the store where I found several key pieces of furniture for my new house last spring. I loved making good finds at Odds and Ends, and most of my current furniture has come from there. More than once did I stop by in my car last summer, only to return after work with my truck to pick up my purchase and bring something new home.

But those days are over.

Sadly, the store sold last summer. It stayed the same for a little while after the sale, as the old owners stayed on to break in the new ones. I thought maybe things would go smoothly, and hoped that the new owners would have the same vision and understanding for thrifting and used furniture that the old ones clearly did. It's now clear to me that I should have bought the shop!

All this has been brought on by my visit yesterday, while heading to the house from Hobby Lobby on lunch break. I had stopped in several weeks ago, and was disappointed to find that some piece of crap fake poinsettia had a price tag of five dollars on it. In any self-respecting thrift store, it would have been 50 cents. That was an indication of the direction the store has chosen to take.

So yesterday I walked through the door once again, thinking maybe that was a fluke, or that maybe they'd seen how wrong they were going with the business. My first impressions now upon walking in is that it's gotten white trashy, and the new owners seem to be going for quantity over quality. The front room is much more crowded now than it used to be, and it's hard to get around and see everything. I noticed their upholstered chairs are way overpriced. A decent chair that would suit a living room used to go for $80, and most of the prices I saw yesterday were pushing $250. Really. Who shops at a thrift store because they're looking to spend that kind of money. I could go to Furniture Row and get a brand new piece for not much more than that.

I don't think the new owners have the knack for finding the classic old pieces of furniture, either. It seems like they're just filling the store with whatever comes their way. There were a couple dressers that interested me, but at $150+, I didn't even consider purchasing them.

Add to all this - the new owners, or whoever it is that's working in there now - are not friendly. It used to be that, upon walking in, a customer was warmly greeted by whoever was working the counter. Now it's got the Walmart effect, where they pretend you don't exist.

So anyway, that's my sad tale. I no longer have a favorite thrift store in Casper. There are many others, but none of them are as consistent as Odds and Ends used to be. The others either have a bunch of cheap junk, with the occasional score, or overpriced furniture, with the occasional, "Well, I guess I could pay that much for that."

Sad times! But my spending money is much more intact now that I'm not tempted by furniture, so I guess that's one good point.

as promised (a day late)

sorry, i got busy filling a hole in our special county fair section in the paper yesterday afternoon, and didn't get to post these photos. but this is my newest find from the greatest store in casper - odds and ends:

scott went with me to pick it up, and all along he said 'this better fit down into the basement.' there are three pinch points heading into my basement: from the kitchen getting around the cupboards and down into the stairwell, around the corner in the stairwell, and then through the narrow door into the finished area. but, thankfully, my new mini loveseat made it through all three - the first was a little tight, ok a lot tight.

$50 price tag! i stopped by the store wednesday, and saw it there, and saw the price, but walked away. and then thought about it that evening, and the next morning, so i stopped by on thursday, deciding if it was still there i would get it. my plan is to paint the wood a coordinating color with whatever fabric i decide to put on it. recovering might be a challenge, as the cushions are attached. i'll have to find some tutorials, and maybe use a fabric that's not too expensive in case the first attempt is a flop.

but i couldn't resist getting it for the sitting area i'll set up in the master bedroom downstairs. it will contribute to a perfect cozy corner.

and link likes it too.

speaking of my cats.

at 1 a.m. i missed a phone call from a person telling me my cat was in their house.

:-P

turns out it was lexus, and she'd wandered through an open door. i got her back this morning before i came to work. apparently she packed her kitty bags and decided to find a new home.