Dresser Love - Status Complete

... Or cotton candy meets grunge.

The LP's dresser was completed (mostly, I still want to rub antique medium over the pink to age it a bit more) yesterday and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I promise it's not nearly as 'Barbie' in person, I think the flash makes the pink more vibrant or something. I'm thinking of putting some pink on one of the 'knobs' on the mirror cradle to pull the pink up, but we'll see. I also have to paste wax it, but you get the idea.

Before:

After (The original 'Dresser Love' is the inbetween):

The drawers are pink inside as well and will have pink toile paper podged to the bottoms, because, you know, everyone invests time looking in the bottom of their drawers, especially 2.5 year olds and 4 year olds...

Pretty Scary...

... or don't do projects in front of a mirror...

I have to do the vast majority of my 'projects' outside because we share our basement with the landpeople and are relegated to one room for laundry and storage. This wouldn't be a problem aside from the fact that A) Our laundry abode doesn't afford us any windows for ventilation and B) Mr. Pretties doesn't so much love having pink spray paint on his work uniform... so mostly I go outside. This morning Mr. Pretties helped me haul out the LP's big dresser, a little dresser, and my washstand that weighs more than both combined, I swear! I was ready for some work during naptime!

As you may remember, the LP's dresser has a swing mirror on top. I decided not to remove the mirror because it's a pain to put back together. I got the pink drawers all distressed and put back in and started working on the little dresser beside it. here I am all sanding away right, into it when I think I hear something, maybe someone coming up behind me. I'm a paranoid person by nature (Mr. Pretties can attest, he never comes up behind me because I scream like a banshee every. freaking. time.), which is made worse when I can't hear what's going on (believe it or not, a sander does not allow for good audio control...) around me. So I turn around to see if maybe the landpeople have made their way into the backyard when my gaze is met by the most ungodly looking girl with wild greying hair, pasty looking face and horrified eyes. Needless to say an accident of bathroomical proportions nearly took place.

Until, that is, I realized that the frightful girl I was having heart palpitations about was actually my reflection. My reflection in which both my hair and my face are covered in white crap from sanding. I'm such a huge dork it's unreal. If that weren't bad enough, five minutes later I did the exact same thing again...

What's the old saying?

"Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me"?

What does that say for me? Shame on me squared because I'm scared of my own reflection!?

I think I've finally reached the toxic level of breathing in lead paint particles...

Can You Hold?

... Or my furniture fetish (ie. sickness) has reached a new level...

Mr. Pretties usually phones home on his lunch to see how everyone's doing, and, obviously, because the tremendous pain of being apart from me for more eight hours at a time is far too much for one human to bare. Clearly. You might not want to cross reference that with Mr. Pretties though, you know, because he gets embarrassed about stuff like that. Or something. Anyways... so as I'm hosting an intriguing discussion of what kinds of diapers I've changed this afternoon, who threw what in the aquarium, and whether or not I think Wilma might not be feeling well since she's been boycotting the bed all day (yeah, there might be something deathly wrong with your cat if it decides not to nap for the entire day...) I spied these sweet little things:

MmmHmm... those are in fact pink antique spindles/balusters. For $5. Seriously? What a steal! So in the middle of my self diagnoses of Wilma's imaginary ailments our conversation (or non-versation as it were) took the following turn:

Jenn: What would you say if I told you I was going to buy pink spindles?'

Mr. Pretties: Pink what?

Jenn: Pink spindles, you know, like when you have a railing and then you have the up and down things (Mr. Pretties requires these kinds of in depth descriptions)?

Mr. Pretties: Uh huh...

Jenn: Yeah those are spindles, someone on Kijiji is selling four of them for $5! AND they're.... pink!!

Mr. Pretties: Pink spindles? No railing? Maybe a table top?

Jenn: No... just spindles...

Mr. Pretties: Why would you want to buy just the spindles?!

Jenn: Umm... because they're pink?

Mr. Pretties: So?

Jenn: They're super cute... and pink!

Mr. Pretties: But what would you do with them?!

Jenn: I don't know... who cares, they're pink...

Mr. Pretties: You would buy them even though you don't know what to do with them?

Jenn: MmmHmm... I'm sure I'd find a use for them sooner or later, maybe for now I could just stand them up in the corner and appreciate their pinkness?

Mr. Pretties: Uhh... can you hold for a second?

Jenn: Sure... why?

Mr. Pretties: I need to make a phone call... do you have the number there for the FUNNY FARM?! Seriously?! Pink spindles?! You're making me sick I have to hang up now... I'll see you when I get home *over exaggerated sigh* pink spindles...

Jenn: Well let's just check Ebay here... Ahh yes... spindles $73.26 shabby baluster pink set of four $34.98 o---

Mr. Pretties: Ohhhh... you didn't say you were going to buy them to sell them! Okay I get it now!

Jenn: Sell them?! I'm not going to sell them!!! Are you crazy?!

Mr. Pretties: Bye...

Obviously by 'I don't know what I'd do with them' I meant 'I don't know what I'd do with them because there are so many options to choose from!' Seriously. They could be table legs, they could be cut down for those cute baluster candle holders, but I adore the point ends, so that wouldn't work. A window table? Yes! An old window table, those can be the legs, that would be fab! There we go, got it all figured out ;)

I guess lusting after pink spindles is a little far fetched, but that's me, take me as I am. Or something...

Glorious Aberfoyle Season...

... Or has anyone seen Mr. Pretties?

Sunday kicked off my very favorite time of year, it's what I like to call 'Aberfoyle Season'. The weather man predicted a lovely balmy day of 26 degrees of sunshine and a beautiful blue cloudless sky for Sunday. What arrived however was a chilly 13 degrees of grey grisly clouds, and cold misting rain. Jerk. But rain or shine I was going, even if it meant I was fondling Duncan Phyfe's while holding a blue and pink polk-a-dot umbrella ;) As it happened it wasn't 'misting' quite enough for that to be necessary.

Although it was a quieter day (most opening days are, people forget that Aberfoyle opens that weekend, because, you know, they have lives or something. For shame...) and due to the weather the majority of the visiting vendors cancelled their spots, so the visiting section was a little worse for the wear. However there seemed to have been new permanent vendors with some fabulous stuff and the prices were amazing! I brought my camera with me with the thought of taking pictures to both discuss with my Aberfoyle buddy as well as to post here, but I brought out my camera and people started to stare, followed by me feeling like a huge dork... so I slowly put my camera back in my bag, people started turning back around and I went on my way. Next time, I promise.

As much as I enjoy Kijiji I hate having to route through the mounds of tacky floral couches, lease-to-own livingroom sets, and Grandma's old kitchen table from 1970 with the co-ordinating teal sparkly chairs to get to the real goodies. Aberfoyle is like a Brita filter in that it keeps out all the crap and gets right to the treasures. I could spend all day mauling everyone's items (get your head out of that gutter, you know what I mean!!), sniffy drawers, and asking Mr. Pretties why he doesn't make more money... kidding... sort of... anyways... it's great because it's not like the low end flea markets where you see the same things 50 times at different booths, everyone has something wonderful and unique to offer, and it's not like the high end antique shops that have wonderful tradition items that you'd have to sell your soul and that of all of your offspring in order to afford one of their pieces (this by no means means that all antique shops are like this) because the prices are reasonable, and if they're not they're always open for bartering! The prices entice me because you get the rush of a good deal on an awesome piece, but you also pay enough that it's still important to you and means something. Does that even make sense? That might just be me actually... Hmm...

I generally am not a big purchaser (I purchase regularly, just not bug purchaes, or a lot of little ones at the same time) at Aberfoyle (This is where Mr. Pretties income comes in... kidding.) but when I do purchase something it's because it's something that catches me the right way, *insert animal shelter analogy here - it's just like that puppy with the sad eyes that you can't leave behind* and it must come home with me because we have a 'connection'. I don't know if I've ever shared this theory with anyone other than Mr. Pretties, and this'll sound out there, but I always wonder when this happens if it's because maybe in another life I owned this item, or one like it and my subconscious remembers and makes this connection. Weird, I know.

This week it was an old spice cupboard that is crap condition, smells like a smelly green walnut from a barn, and a door that has swelled indefinitely open (unless I plane the side) and opens with a skeleton key I don't have. A real winner, eh?

What I see though is a terribly characteristic piece covered in wonderful naturally chipped and crackled paint, with fab moulding on the top, a key hole in the door, and a great hand written note inside the door about how many pounds each pot/pail/bowl in this farmer wife's home holds, and how much sugar to add to the pail of cherries :) It reminds me of the cupboard from the book 'Indian in The Cupboard' which has stuck with me so maybe that's why I had to pluck this up out of the rain and bring it home to shed it's leady paint everywhere ;) No idea what I'm going to do with it, but I'll do something. I have another small old cupboard that's quirky and I just love it!

Next Saturday (the 2nd) from 7-4 Aberfoyle is having their first Spring Special with loads of visiting vendors, vendors from out of town, and general fabulousness, as well as the open market 8-5 Sunday. It's an Aberfoyle weekend! Or you could just look it up at www.aberfoyle-antiques.com ;)

ETA: The cupboard door does infact close now... it was swollen from a combination of the side crack and the rain yesterday, apparently a day airing out in the warm sun (I can only handle so much 'ou de fruit farm' for so long while trying to sleep) did it some good because the door fits nicely now. However, it may never open again... why can't I just leave things alone?!

Dresser Love

It's been so long since I've used my sander that I forgot how to put the sandpaper on... resulting in me spending half an hour swearing at it for being such a cheap piece of crap... obviously I am the cheap piece of crap in this story, that's what happens when you get rusty!

I found the girls' a new dresser for their room last week. Did they need a new dresser? No. Is it a bigger dresser? No. But is it a better dresser? Hells yes! So I sold their old one, and bought this one. Please note that it had just been sanded down and will turn into a sweet concoction of dreamy pink and white with oval glass knobs shortly.

See the sweet little details that makes it special?

As I was emailing my girlfriend to tell her about this sweetheart (she's probably the only other person I know who loves furniture, antique markets, and sanders as much as I do) I realized what a freak I am, and that I should share it since I've been lacking blog fodder lately ;)

Firstly, I absolutely adore the mustly smell of well aged furniture. As soon as we had this in the house I opened the first drawer, stuck my head in and took a giganitic whiff of musty well aged goodness. Mmm... heavenly... Mr. Pretties pretended not to see this taking place, things like this make him worry about my sanity ;)

Secondly, as you can see this dresser has two litte drawers. I love little drawers, they are so adorable there aren't even words to describe how adorable it is. So I took one of them out and gave it a hug. Seriously. A hug. Mr. Pretties simply responded with 'You're sick...' which may or may not be true... sometimes I'm just so over come by the absolute adorableness of a piece of shabby furniture that I can't contain myself. This piece came with bubbled veneer on the top, rusted paint (wth?) spots, and a really crappy super shiney sponge painted paint job that was in dire need of redoing. It also came with gorgeous spindled legs, wonderful original appliques, dovetailed drawers back and front, and that fantabulous smell. I think the good out weighs the bad 20 fold. My old disappointment is I bought it for the Pretties' room instead of mine ;)

I'll show the after pictures when it's done, which may be a while as I'm waiting for glass hardware to come in for it, it's already ordered but international mail is slow, snail mail to the max.

Done Like Dinner...

... Or how not to cook a chicken...

I remembered some blog fodder ;)

Saturday morning Mr. Pretties and I were sitting outside enjoying ourselves some sunshine when we smell smoke. Not from our house. Our driveway and our neighbours are attached so we can see the back of their house clearly, since there isn't anything there. We look over, and low and behold, there's heavy smoke streaming out the back of their screen doors (which were opened and unlocked). So top floor tenants (duplex) call 911 and we wait. Mr. Pretties calls in to see if anyone's in there, which they aren't. but, their little dog is. Being the animal suckers that we are Mr. Pretties goes in to look for the dog, barely being able to see the smoke was so thick. He finds the dog on the main floor bedroom and I grab her leash from the doorway and we bring her home and wait for the fire department. It was seriously like 10 more minutes before they arrived to check it out. Keep in mind this particular neighbours uses oxygen tanks to breath and has half a dozen sitting inside her kitchen door... (Kaboom! anyone?)

Anyways...

So the fire department comes to find that our neighbour lady has put a small chicken in the oven for dinner, and instead of roasting it (or she roasted it alright) she put it in the oven and then set it on the self cleaning setting... Omg... So other than a major smelly house there wasn't any damage (although note: they said the dog wouldn't have made it with the amount of smoke that was in there when they arrived) so they air the house out, note that there were no smoke alarms going (bad!) and went on their way.

We took the dog home with us to wait for it's owner to get home. We were sitting outside with her when she arrived home completely oblivious to the previous going-ons. She sees us with the dog and comes over in a right aggressive mood with:

'What the hell?! You decide to walk my dog and just help yourself into my house and get her?!'

Yes, that's exactly what we did... with three little ones and a BBQ to get ready for we have nothing at all better to do than break into your unlocked house to find your dog and talk it for a random walk... never mind that we've never ever done that or expressed an interest in doing it the entire three years we've lived here... However...

I then explained that she tried to self clean her chicken instead of roasting it and it resulted in a smoke engulfed home that the fire department just left from... that in turn brought her to tears and next thing I know she's hugging and kissing us while crying her little old lady eyes out. Which them makes me cry my non-so-little-old-lady eyes out! She ended up being super thankful that Mitsy had been saved and her house only needs a new coat of paint to be back to itself again.

Oy! What day that was...

Oh My Cow!

In the words of Emma...

Wow, can you believe it's been over a month?! It's amazing how blogging goes, sometimes there are so many things to blog about that you're on here 3 or 4 times a day (or maybe that's just me... yeah...), others you're racking your brain the night before trying to think of something productive to blog about but make sure that you offer a few decent posts in a week, while others still you're just at a loss of what to blog, how to blog it, and then it's like the blog light just burns out and you can't do it. Blogging is very therapeutic for my, but it's like the light wasn't there anymore to come up with anything worth reading (I'm by no means passing this post off as something worth reading LoL).

It's actually kind of depressing, after four weeks of a blogging vacay I should be able to come up with 101 things to tell you and pictures to prove it. I've. Got. Nothing. Ugh...

We registered Emma for preschool last week, and Meaghan will be registering for JK next week, and then two mornings a week we'll only have Ethan, weird, eh? Everyone's growing up so fast... I know, I know, that's such a cliche among parents, but it's just so true and with each subsequent child it goes faster. With Meaghan she seemed to age at a reasonable pace, still to quick, but not scary quick, turning 1 was fine, turning 2 was fine, turning 3 was fine, turning 4 was entirely unacceptable!! With Emma she did things a little quicker, her first birthday came a little faster, and she was a big sister a little sooner (not really, there's only 19 months between Meaghan and Emma but 23 between Emma and Ethan) and with Ethan he was just born I'm telling you and already he's 9 months old and trying to walk, at the end of the summer we'll be celebrating 12 months of Ethan, WTH?! Don't you guys remember, we seriously just had him not that long ago, I remember it like it was yesterday (yeah, full of cliches today) and yet it wasn't... if he and Emma were spaced the same and Meaghan and Emma we'd already be worrying about him starting preschool in '10 (which we wont thank god!) In two short years Ethan will be in preschool and he'll be the last baby I have at home part-time.

I guess I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here, but seriously, what's two years? It'll practically be here tomorrow!

Mr. Pretties injured himself at work last month and was home with us for a couple weeks, which was, let's say... interesting. Yes. Actually it was nice, made me wish he'd retire and stay home with us all the time. But with work injuries comes the good old workers compensation board, and when you have a very structured financial situation (as in when pay cheques get screwed up or, say, randomly don't appear, it topples the careful balance very quickly and very effectively) everything tends to fall apart, so that's bit just a little bit stressful and stress sort of saps my creativity which really sucks.

I should really be blogging about things that stress me out because it's therapeutic to me but I'm always worried someone's going to read it and a) be offended by my language (despite popular belief, I really pack a strong profane punch when I'm stressed) b) stop reading because who wants to listen to me whine about my problems (Nobody knows... the troubles I've seen... nobody knows but Jesus... *please use your best Spaceballs voice for that part*) and then I'll be blogging to myself. I guess I need to work harder at just being me, and I'm not always butterflies, cupcakes and pink glitter, infact a lot of the time I'm sarcastic, profane, and a little irritable and I try to hide that side from the blogging world in fear of getting labeled with dual personalities (which, essentially, would be true...). *Sigh*

In other news (now that we're all aware that I'm a nut obviously) the kittens went to their new homes, which we're very happy about :) I'm personally satisfied by every home each one went to, so that does a lot for my emotional health :)

We're on week two of the kids taking turns having fevers of 106 and the flu. It's sort of getting old at this point... mostly it makes me want to cry actually... Hopefully this'll be the last run since Meaghan's done preschool in a few weeks. I'm done now, but preschool isn't so I guess we'll wait it out. Although this seems to be a fun preschool months since we have the Mother's Day tea to go to, Marineland, and the end of the year picnic, I love those interactive preschool days!

In a four short days I'll be stretching my legs at the Aberfoyle Antique Market in Guelph. It's the opening weekend, and Aberfoyle is one of the few places that I go to and truly feel at peace (and where Mr. Pretties doesn't as he fears I'll bring the entire market home. On the roof of the Buick. Tied by dental floss found in my purse.) and the weather is supposed to be fab so I'm pretty stoked! Next weekend Aberfoyle is having what's called a 'Spring Special' which is on Saturday and is loaded with new visiting vendors. We'll be going there too. Clearly.

We've done some buying and selling in the last few weeks, but generally in equal amounts as one piece funded the others. And ofcourse that's rooted out some bad eggs on good old Kijiji. We bought a British bow front short chest of drawers a few months ago, used it, and then got tired of it so listed it for sale. It was sold for $65, which was a fair price as it's kind of an odd piece. Definitely shabby chic, but in an unusual kind of way. Anyways. The buyer was super rude when she came, tried to barter me down to a song and a dance (which didn't happen) and then made out like she was doing me the favor of the century by purchasing it for the asking price. After that I didn't give it another thought. Until my friend sent me an email telling me to check out this 'adorable bow front dresser' I click the link expecting to see something I need to buy when low and behold... it's my dresser... but it couldn't be, could it? At a whopping $175? Nothing had been done to it, and this miserably broad has relisted it for nearly 3x what she paid. She also stole my description almost word for word, except for the part where she lied about it's age... by 20 years... I emailed her nicely and said it looked great, her pictures were lovely, and that it was infact purchased new in 1951 not the 30's and received no response, this being the same address she used to buy it from me. She also listed it in every Kijiji area except mine, where it was purchased, even though that's her local area. So obviously she knows she's lying about it's age, is rudely reselling (a mere three days later) without doing anything to change the value, and that she behaved like a jerk at my house. All in all, I'm not happy. Not because of the money (she'll be fortunate to sell it for $100, obviously I'm aware of values more than she is) but because she stole my description, was a total creep at the sale, and is using my piece that people saw me list to lie about ages and hiking the price. That comes back on my ass and makes me thoroughly unhappy. It makes me want to buy it back and go to her house and kick her ass. Ofcourse I'm all talk, a wuss on top of it and that would never in a million years happen... so I'll have a glass of wine and stew instead ;)

Thanks for sticking with me throughout the absence, and for listening to my ultra persona rant :) I think I'll be able to get back in the groove now :)

What's new with all of your guys? (don't be thinking just be cause I haven't blogged or commented I haven't been reading, because I have, regularly).