cabinet door chalkboards

Once upon a time I had an old footlocker/wardrobe base which went with the wardrobe Wayne brought with him when we moved in together. Our ceilings in the bedrooms are too low for us to use this as intended (as a base for the wardrobe) so it sat on the front porch for a couple of years as a kind of 'hold all' for anything we weren't sure what to do with.

Since it didn't have a proper top, I did a mosaic on it so it would look pretty on the porch while it held Wayne's boots. I had five old, crazed, oblong tiles and a ton of plain white ones. I used the green tiles (funny, guess I was always attracted to that colour!) in a staggered pattern with the white around them. I colour matched the green tiles and did one coat in that, then topped it with white which I distressed to show the green through.

 

Wayne made spoon handles and a wire closer for the doors (not pictured, sorry).

When I had to move back to my old house in Fentonbury for a while, it made an appearance there...

but it spent the majority of its life on our porch outside the mud room. Here it is in its prime, before the accumulation of crap useful items seeking a permanent home began to accumulate.

Then Wayne started using the cabinet as a bench and sat on the corner while pulling on boots, breaking the chipboard top... pieces of tile everywhere... It wasn't worth salvaging so I did what any reasonable person would do, I kept the doors and chucked the rest out.

In fact, its still in the junk pile waiting to be taken to the tip...

The doors became my first experiment with milk paint.

I bent the spoons a little more to make them into chalk holders.

I do like the textured effect of the milk paint, but I can't say I'm a convert...

All in all, I'd say the latest incarnation of the (leftover bits of) cabinet have turned out ok.

z

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accidental stripes

You know how sometimes things work out in ways you never expected? Well, that's how it turned out with the striped blind in the kitchen.

One morning soon after I installed the blind I went outside as the sun came up and noticed the way the stripes in the blind and the stripes on the enclosed porch side sort of matched. It was totally accidental - when Handyman was enclosing the end of the porch he used some of the old bits of timber from the front of the house where the window was put in. The new timber is unpainted, the old timber is the light yellow the house was originally painted.

I kinda like it.

I'm considering painting the enclosed area two colours - the antique white I used on the posts and the white pepper I used on the house and the handrail slats. It'll be way more subtle than it is now, but it might be interesting.

Then again, it might be stupid and it'll be a ton more work...

So, what else's has been happening?

Well, the office floor is half sanded. I've finished a couple of projects and am close to finishing another. Plus I've started on the costumes for the movie we're making at work.

Other than that, I've been having a quiet time.

ha.

More later. Check back soon.

z

not quite what I'd planned to do...

I had a plan.

I was going to do a ton of stuff while at home this week.

I was going to empty the office and sand and polish the floor. And the small hallway floor. And paint both spaces. And finish a couple of projects.

But I told myself, this was not the time to start new projects. I had to concentrate on the office. And hallway. The floors. And walls.

Well... I started on Sunday. It took me two days to empty the office of furniture. Mind you, I had to move it all somewhere, right? The living room seemed the most reasonable spot for it all.

Again.

Plus, I had to set up the old coal burner (my old pc) cause the new whiz bang laptop has gone to hospital. I think it had a loose cable in the hinge area which caused interference when I moved the monitor... which, by the very nature of a laptop, you do often. Not good.

Actually, it wasn't just that... I've also got a sore back. Since last week. Just in time to do the hard work I'd planned. Great.

No wonder it took me 2 whole days to empty the office. No need to push myself too hard, right?

Being Superwoman, I've been working through the pain and not let it stop me, just slow me down.

I also spent a fair bit of time shopping on ebay.

Ugh. I just couldn't stop!

I need an intervention... I shouldn't be allowed near ebay...

Still, I'm getting there. I think. I'll let you know soon.

z

a new chalkboard for the new kitchen

One of my friends said this corner of the kitchen looked wierd, with the little shelf and the mixers. Well, this corner is still the same as its always been since we bought the house. Only difference is its now a different colour.

And this narrow strip of wall always held a calendar.

Not even a really nice calendar most of the time.

When planning the new kitchen in my mind, I always thought a new chalkboard would look nice there... for our shopping list.

We already have a long narrow shopping list chalkboard near the fridge, but I have something else planned for that spot. Plus, I wanted a much more elaborate frame for the kitchen and this one fit the bill.

It had been painted a bright red before I got it and I thought that would make a nice contrast to the greeny/aqua colour I painted it. I used milk paint for the first coat and acrylic for the second. No idea why. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. It gave it a roughed up look which is fine by me. I added a little 'age' (or grime) with some burnt umber artist acrylic to make the details stand out a bit more.

Compared to our long shopping list chalkboard, this is pretty small. Maybe we'll save money with smaller shopping lists... More likely we'll just write smaller.

I used a drawer pull as a chalk holder. Old trick, yeah. But I had 10 of these pulls. I bought them for the kitchen drawers and when they arrived they were too small. Alright for my delicate girlie fingers, but not for Wayne's manly ones.

In other words, I had spare drawer pulls, I may as well use them, right?

This is the only creative, house-related thing I managed to do all this weekend.

Though I did bake again! I made a pasta flora. Its a greek jam tart.

I also made another spanakopita cause I'm addicted. Sorry, no photos of that, but here's a photo of the baclava I made last weekend.

Yum.

z

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