Painted Thonet Stool, I Did It!

Anybody remember this post about my Thonet stool from last year?  Yeah, me either.  Of course, if I consider that I first attempted to refinish it in 2002 or 2003, putting it off for another 17 months doesn't seem so terrible. It is all a matter of (distorted) perception, I guess.

Aside for the terrible refinishing job I did, I also used (or abused) the stool as a plant stand.  The pot leaked and hence the cracks.  Normal blogging procedure would be to now show a series of pictures showing the step-by-step DIY.  I am going to break the tradition, mostly because I neglected to take pictures.  I did Instragram a photo showing the first coat of color going on.  My process was simply to agonize for weeks about color choice, decide on black, fill the cracks (standard wood filler), lightly sand the surface, spray a coat of primer and finally spray several coats satin paint.  When I first went to buy the supplies I was positive one can of spray paint would be more that enough, but I ended up using almost three cans.  Seems excessive, but most of the paint was wasted when I sprayed the legs.   That and I was obsessed with getting the finish as close to perfect as I could.

I am beyond happy with the results.  Notice the yellow vase?  That is my trade off for my paint choice.  Black is the new black, you know.

A Game of (Falling) Dominoes

That pretty much sums up how the work behind this post seemed like to me and it all started here.

We bought this bread box for our apartment in Brooklyn with it's hole in the wall kitchen.  It worked well there and in the apartment we had before we moved into our house.  Here it was just a big space hog and it took me almost 3 years to come to terms with that and another 5 months to do something about it.  Let the dominoes fall.

I knew I wanted to move the bread into the drawer under the stove, but before I could do that I had to move part of what was in there. Of course I neglected to take a before shot, but it wasn't that exciting. Just picture vitamins and ibuprofen where the bread is now.

Keep them falling.

Said vitamins moved here and the baking condiments that were in this spot moved to the cabinet with the spices.

There they are on the top shelf.  Luckily the spot was empty and nothing had to be moved someplace else. Which brings me back to the spot where the bread box use to be.

We have already come to appreciate the extra square inches of counter space. Plus, I finally got hang up my utensil rod.  Game over (for now).

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

- William Morris

Please visit Jules at Pancakes & French Fries for a lot more William Morris inspiration.

Almost

I am almost there or at least I feel a lot closer to being done than I did last week.  Which is funny because there is less than one (working) hour between the two.  In the previous weeks I spent hours sifting through Lego, Playmobil and the like and I felt nothing but overwhelmed and under accomplished. This week I moved some furniture around and I finally feel like I am getting somewhere.

This is pretty much how this side of Sam's room has looked since last August.  When Sam started school I got it in my head that he needed a desk and chair to do his homework (he does it at the dining table).   We bought everything, got it home, put it together and just kind of stuck it on this wall, which had previously had looked like this.  The EXPEDIT moved over to the wall on the left and it all ended up looking kind of indifferent, or better said "Meh."

The circles are off of the wall and the EXPEDIT is back.  Now all you have to do is imagine a world map above the desk.  It was hanging yesterday, but it fell down overnight.  That is what I get for keeping it rolled up for the past year and a half.    I plan on getting a chair or bean bag to put on the now empty wall.  Sam loves it and is not missing any of the things I purged over the past weeks.    I plan on doing another quick purge in the next weeks and there a still some things I need to hang, but I am almost there.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

- William Morris 

 

Please visit Jules at Pancakes and French Fries for a lot more William Morris inspiration.

More of Less - The Entry Closet

The entry closet should have been an easy (and quick) project for my next William Morris post.   Turns out it took me a little longer than I anticipated and I ended up spending the last few weeks in a sort of photo and memorabilia haze. 

Here is the culprit.  Looks innocent enough, right? 

Even with the doors open it isn't too bad, but kind of frustrating  because last January I posted about that top drawer.  It was kind of the beginning of my quest to a more organized home.  Here is the proof that I am still struggling with it a year later.

No use lamenting though, so back to the task at hand.  I followed usual purging protocol and started pulling everything out,  Yes, those are three lint rollers.  One for each of us? I also dug out three umbrellas, quite an assortment of mints, gum, tissues, charging cables etc.   The decision of what to do with this stuff came pretty easy.   Trash, relocate, keep here and I was done in under 30 minutes.

The real work started on the other side and it was all hidden in those photo boxes and art files you see on the shelves.  Instead of just pulling them out and putting them back when I was done (like I have been doing), I opened them to purge the contents. Pictures and keepsakes covering a span of over twenty-five years all "organized" into boxes.

 I sorted and then I sorted some more.  With each pass I became more ruthless.  No pictures were safe, not even wedding pictures.

I didn't like them, didn't care to keep them;  they ended up in the recycling container.  Thank goodness for the digital age is all I have to say.

 At first glance, the difference isn't huge.

But look at the empty hangers!  Now guests can actually hang up their coats instead throwing them on the stairs.  I also know that things are looking better in those boxes and drawers.

I had this container in another part of the house and think it will be good for the umbrellas.  It is also housing the lint rollers for now.  I will definitely weed down to one and may end up getting rid of that too.  During my purge I found a clothes brush that I brought from my grandmother's house (you can see it in the top right of this picture).  If it works well, the rollers are history.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

- William Morris

Those Little Things (That Nag)

Sometimes it is those little things that just never get done. You know, those things that don't deem important enough to be put on a to-do list.  These are the things that end up nagging me tenfold the amount of time it would actually take to just get them done.  Enter the hand towels in our guest bathroom.

Like the towels, the towel loop not so much.   When a loop came off of one of the towels I knew I would have to do something, eventually.

Eventually came a few months later when I found this ribbon while Christmas shopping.  The picture above almost makes it look like I know what I am doing, but I don't really. 

I winged it and am hoping the ribbon holds the strains a seven year old will undoubtedly put on it.  This is going to be one of the things that I will add to my to-do list just to have the self satisfaction of crossing it off again.

Speaking of lists, I have been working on a major one.  Jules from Pancakes & French Fries is continuing The William Morris Project with a post every Thursday and a link up.  She created an awesome list describing her intentions for each room with all the things she would like to accomplish.  A list broken down by room is exactly what I need to keep me focused.  I will be joining her Thursdays with something that I have accomplished.  Most of the time it will fit under the header of my (slightly withered) More of Less series, but sometimes it will be just be something that I needed wanted to get done for our home (like today).  So, here goes.

Replace loop on guest towels

I am still tweaking my list and will be posting it sometime in the next week.  Today I plan to spend a good part of the day over in the comment section at Jules and visiting all the blogs that have linked up.  Should make for an inspiring day.  Thanks Jules!

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

- William Morris

More of Less

It has been very rainy here in Germany, so I had to regroup my to-do list and am now working on some projects I had thought to do in the Fall and Winter.  Last November I started to organize my spice cabinet.  Notice the word November (wet and grey).  It is now July (also wet and grey).  OK, I am now moving on. I still have a five tickets for the outdoor pool.  Moving on. At the BBQ we had this weekend guests huddled around the grills. Really moving on. Now. 

First thing I did was buy more jars during my trip to IKEA.  I had originally thought to buy the DROPPAR jars, but when I saw the ones from the 365+ IHÄRDIG series it was container love at first sight.  After a little rethinking about which spices would go in what jars I got out my glass marker  and got to work. Labeling was a step that I skipped last go around and I came to find it is really hard to tell the difference between curcuma, curry and masala once they are in the jars.

 

Much better.

I got rid of the box the salt comes in and am now storing it in this canning jar.  The opening was the perfect size to use during cooking.   Then I just added an unnecessary label and I was happy.

More of Less

And I am back down in the basement.  We have had a lot of rain in the past few days, so I tried to put my time to good use with some organizing projects.  A quick trip to IKEA and I was able dig in.

As sad as it is, the above picture is a good representation of what our basement looks like.  You might remember this post from last year and it is even sadder to say that there hasn't been much lasting progress.  "Lasting" is the key word here.  I am starting to think that cleaning the basement is like going on a diet.  You loose a few pounds, but you gain it all back plus you add a few.  Until I am sure though I will continue to buy stuff to make the stuff I have look nicer.

On that note, while at IKEA I picked up two (should have gotten three) SORTERA flip top boxes,  so I could rid of the plastic bag storage for the bottle recycling.  A definite improvement in the aesthetic department and I hope it is equally functional.

Thonet Stool

I have had this Thonet stool for close to, well for a long time.   The finish wasn't really in the best  condition and a few years ago I decided to stain it.  Dark brown.   I sanded it, applied the stain and it came out looking like this.

A little mottled, yes?  It is photogenic though and looks a lot better in this picture than it actually is. Probably the good bones. 

Now it is time to take up the project again.  This time around I plan to paint it and most importantly finish the job (notice the bottom ring).   The big question now is color.  I have been thinking black, off white, yellow, red and have even considered hot pink (an idea I got from Anna's post).  At the moment yellow is a strong contender, but the field is still wide open.  I am thinking I should use spray paint rather than whip out the old brush.  Any experience?

More of Less

So last week wasn't a very productive blog week for me.  I did do a lot of blog reading and I also spent more time at Pinterest than I care to reveal, but posting not so much.  Are you pinning yet? When I first read about it I knew that it would be dangerous, so I resisted.  A while back Tesca did a post about it and I have been hooked ever since.  It is a huge time suck and very dangerous territory, but lots of fun.   If you want to join let me know and I can send you an invite.  Don't say I didn't warn you though. :)

So now back to business.  It is Tuesday, the day for "More of Less" and we are back in the kitchen.  This drawer clearly needs help.

 

It is really suppose to be a baking drawer, but over the last two years other items have found there way in.  The popsicle molds are moving on out (glad that they caught my eye though because, duh, it is Summer now) and the Christmas cookie cutters don't really need to take up valuable real estate in the kitchen either.

They have been moved into the cookie tins and stored in the basement pantry (a site of future More of Less posts).  By the way, the heart laying next to the tin is one of my favorite cookie cutters.  The little notch on the side is to hang the finished cookie on the side of a coffee cup or glass of milk.

The drawer looks so much better now and I was even able to add a few items:  handheld mixer, mixing bowl, a Pyrex baking dish and a quiche dish.
Check or rather ☑.

More of Less

As promised last week, for this week's edition of More of Less a look at the new cabinet  in our master bathroom.  Took us two years to realize it, but it was worth the wait.   Thinking back I don't believe that I would have ever come up with this design back when we planning everything else for the house.  My mind was so full of other stuff and I definitely think that it is a good idea to live in a house a while before finishing everything.

The cabinet and shelves above are veneered in Walnut to match unit that holds the sink.  The square door that you see is for the laundry chute that goes to the utility room.  In all of the excitement of the having the cabinet installed I totally forgot to take a before picture.  It was basically just a little corner with a badly installed ugly metal door.

The new cabinet only has a fraction of the storage capabilities of our old cabinet, but like I said last week we really didn't need that much in the bathroom anyway.  Another plus point for the small cabinet (depth) is that I can actually see what I have in there with one glance.  No, more fishing at the back of the cabinet with one arm for this chick.

The best part of the cabinet is the storage for the magazines and the toilet paper.  The stacks of magazines always bugged me and who wants to find that there is no toilet paper when, ehhh, it is too late.  I took a few measurements of the magazines that we frequent and of a roll of toilet paper and the bottom part of the unit was planned.  The rest of the unit is the magic of our carpenter

More of Less

I may not have called it More of Less Mondays or Monday's More of Less, but the plan was to have  More of Less post every Monday.  Turns out that just doesn't work for my schedule .  So, I am moving them to Tuesday (for now).  

Two weeks ago our carpenter delivered and installed a custom (mini) cabinet for our bathroom.  Which meant I needed to clear out the "temporary" cabinet we had been using for the past two years.

 

I will never cease to be amazed on how much stuff can be crammed into a cabinet.  There was lots of stuff and most of it we really did not need: duplicates, half empty bottles of products that did not live up to the marketing promise, expired products and so on.

 

 

You can see it was not really pretty on the outside and worse inside.  As always, when something new is brought in it brings about changes (work) in another part of the house.

 

 

I decided to move the cabinet into our utility room to store cleaning supplies.  They use to be in containers on the floor.  For some reason I forgot to take before pictures.  My guess is that it was probably something deep within me that did not want to share what it looked like.

In the next few months I plan on adding a print and more importantly hiding those cables. I would love to do something like this, but we have a lot of mechanical equipment (for solar water heating and rain cistern, meters, etc.) in this room so I think that keeping this side as simple as possible it the best way to go.  It will never be pretty, but anything should be an improvement.  Maybe I will even begin to like doing laundry, not likely though.

As you can see I have a seemingly lifetime supply of cleaning rags.  First off, my husband bought a lot of them from a bulk supplier on e-bay and then I am sucker from trying new stuff.  Doesn't really fit the More of Less theme, but I am still in the process of getting there.

Next week I will show you our new cabinet in the bathroom.  Yes, this is a cliffhanger ending.  :)

More of Less

It's Monday (just in case you haven't noticed) and that means time for another installment of "More of Less". To change things up a bit I decided to go to another room this week - the future guest room, maybe office for me.  When I took the picture of the painting that I have from my Grandmother last week I took a look in the drawer where I keep most of my gift wrap supplies and found this:

Not very inspiring is it, but a perfect candidate for my little column.  Out with all the saved ribbon and gift bags from gifts we received.  Why was I keeping it all if I didn't like it and had no intention on re-using it?  I don't really have a good answer for that, but it is gone now...

and I am not letting it back in. 

Next week there will no column on Monday as we are going on vacation (last chance for an off-season, whenever we want vacation before Sam starts the 1st grade in August), so the next installment is planned for Tuesday, April 19th.  Happy Monday!

More of Less

The past week certainly flew by and here it is time for my second go at More of Less.  I decided to stick with the kitchen for this week because this is another drawer that has been bothering me for some time.

Kind of case and point, don't you think? I have always intended this drawer to be a junk drawer of sorts, but junk meaning to hold a myriad of things and not looking like this.

 Here is what I pulled out of the drawer and what I did with it all:

17 Pens  - keeping three and the remaining are going to the office (after checking if they work)
10 Markers - keeping three and the remaining going to the basement or office
1 Broken paint brush - trash
2 Old cellphones - to be donated
1 Box of tacks - to the basement
1 Pair of garden shears - to stay
1 Bottle of bubbles - to the basement
1 Roll of plastics bags - to the correct drawer
1 Calculator  - to stay
4 Mini water soakers (confiscated last year after I was soaked) - to outdoor summer toys
1 Candle - to candle drawer
1 Receipt - to warranty stuff
1 Orchid care instruction tag - trash
1 Fruit fly trap - to stay
1 Box of assorted stuff for our coffee machine - to stay
1 Set of instructions for an electrical timer - to be attached to timer, once I find it
1 Bag of sparklers - to holiday box
1 Bag and container of mini amarettini cookies - to the sweet shelf

 

I still need to look around the house to see if I can find a drawer insert that will fit.  If not, I have something else to add to my IKEA shopping list.  Happy Monday everyone!

 

More of Less.

Hi!  How was your weekend?  Despite the gray in gray weather mine was good.  In fact, this type of weather is perfect for cleaning and organizing. Who wants to be indoors doing that during a beautiful spring or summer day? Not me.  So, continuing with my search for a more organized home I went through several boxes of correspondence. Some dating back to my junior year in high school. Yes, high school and yes I keep paper. 

I couldn't get rid of everything, but I did go from these (very hideous boxes, although the two on the right might be referred to as vintage IKEA).

I ended up with one not so vintage IKEA KASSETT box.  Emma is looking very, well very Emma.  I am in the mood to do some more organizing so I will definitely be taking advantage of that this week.

Guest Bathroom

We have lived in our house just two weeks short of two years and there are still some things left to complete both in the house and out in the garden.  That doesn't stop me from reworking some things that were considered done.  In this case, it was just adding a shelf in the guest bathroom.

Before

After

I just had our carpenter move the panel hiding the u-bend further back and add a shelf in front.  It is just a small change, but it has makes me happy.