This spring has been all about changing colors. It sort of started when I decided to recover all the red cushions on my deck. The deck itself is redwood colored now and having red cushions on it was redundant. Plus, I like blue better.
So I bought some gorgeous blue outdoor fabric and recovered my chairs. Then, of course, we fell into our new dining set, which had to be spray painted. It looks fabulous in black. If people knew how easy it is to refurbish old furniture, even deck furniture, no one would ever buy new. Of course, that would be bad since eventually, we all need new stuff. I did buy new cushions for the dining set. They’re blue. We also bought a new umbrella because the yellow one didn’t look as good with the blue seats. The new umbrella is blue, too.
Last week, I bought a sleeveless shirt at Sam’s club. It’s rayon but looks like a denim blue. I really liked the fabric and cut of it. It only came in a few colors though and I didn’t love them. But I really like the shirt. So…I bought another one in blue and two in white. Then I bought some dye. Now I have one in navy, one in aquamarine and one in pink. Again, if people only knew how easy it is to dye clothes, they’d do it a lot more often. I also like to switch out buttons, cut off sleeves and add trim.
For the last couple of years, I haven’t been able to escape one of the most horrible fashion trends of my adult life: sleeve tabs. You know: the sleeve rolls up and there’s a tab with a button on it to keep the thing rolled up. Too much damn crap going on for a sleeve! I have at least six shirts that have that annoying detail. On nearly all of them, I chopped the sleeves off above the tab. Having a bunch of shirts with three quarter length sleeves was boring so I bought trims for each of them and now they all have fringe, lace etc. on the cut off sleeves.
I was in a department store in May and found an entire section of women’s clothes with funky trims on the hems, necklines and sleeves. Huh. Turns out, I’m a taste maker.
Now that’s a scary thought.
Back to spray paint: I finished the wicker chair I got at Value Village for $10.00. It took three cans of espresso spray paint to cover it but it looks like a brand new piece of furniture. I finally found a cushion that fits it and looks great, at Tuesday Morning. It cost a third of what it would have anywhere else.
Yesterday, I dropped off a bunch of stuff at Value Village and on a whim, decided to go in and see if they had any book cases. I need a big one. They didn’t. But they did have an absolutely fantastic antique rocker. It’s small; ladies’ sized. It has a needlepoint back and seat. The price was highway robbery so I snapped it up for the shop. Someone is going to get a wonderful project out of it. There was also a large, unfinished dresser. It was missing a few knobs but it was a good, quality dresser. Much better than the one Josie’s been using her whole life, which was Katie’s before her and Tyler’s for a year or so before her. We bought it decades ago. It was the cheapest, unfinished thing we could find to put the kids’ clothes in. It’s been white with different colors in the grooves of the drawers, pink with roses painted on the knobs, and purple and now it’s dark brown with painted ceramic knobs. It looks good but it’s still a very low quality piece with drawers that stick.
I couldn’t buy the dresser on the spot but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I could paint it, get new knobs; it would be spectacular! For what they were asking for it, I could donate the crappy brown dresser and take the write off. A big upgrade for the price of some new knobs. Most importantly, I could make it into something beautiful.
So I went back today but of course, it was gone.
I did find another wicker chair. Not as big as the other but small, elegant and in good shape.
I just finished spraying it the same color as the first one. I already have a cushion that fits it perfectly. It will make an excellent extra chair on the porch.
God, I love recycling.