The Storm before the Calm

Next Sunday I will be so relaxed and our house will be so nice and blissfully empty . . .

Because right now it is craziness as I prepare for the Green Shag Market Parking Lot Sale next Saturday, October 20th. 

The living room is full.

Chair party!

The music room is full.

The basement is REALLY full.  No pictures.  Bad.

I’m happy I signed up for this even if I’m freaking out a little bit right now.  It’s making me face head-on two resolutions I set for myself back in January. 

11.  Participate in a outside-of-work money-making opportunity like the Rock and Roll Craft Show or a Flea Market to whittle down all the furniture/crafts I have stashed in the basement and maybe pave the way for the future “Thompson Guitar and Thrift” store that husband and I will run someday.

12.  Attempt to upholster a piece of furniture.  Attempt.

So #11 is obvious, #12 not so much.  I was given another gift by the alley gods last week.  I forgot my coffee in the morning before work and circled back around the house to run back in and get it.  As I cruised down our back alley I saw this poor chair sitting exactly at our back gate, begging for mercy.  I dragged it into the back porch, sent husband a text so he wouldn’t be alarmed upon returning home before me, grabbed the coffee and was only a few minutes late to work (albeit covered in cat hair).

So this one is definitely a “look what the cat dragged in” or really a “look what the cat scratched up” kind of guy.  He’s not vintage but still had good bones – a simple chair for my first major foray into reupholstery and if I mucked it up, back to the alley it could go.  I had some nice heavy-weight upholstery fabric that I snagged at Garden Ridge forever ago waiting in the basement that seemed just right. (Warning: bad in-progress photo ahead.)

The top I will be redoing tonight — the inside out sew down the sides method I was trying out there did not work.  Instead I’m going to replicate what the chair already had going on and wrap around the front of the upper back and then apply a wrapped panel to the back.  And so now this guy is living in the Living Room with all that other stuff. . . .

Something you may have spotted in the Music Room disaster photo above is a cute little dog bed. (What you didn’t see it in all the piles of stuff?  For shame.)  I found it a while ago at the Creve Couer Antique Mall but it didn’t have a pillow.  And there’s no way Sophie or Shenanigan will lounge on something without a pillow!  So I got to work —

I used the basket to make a makeshift pattern, then I cut the pattern out of some old Shabby Chic brand sheets (the fitted sheet died so I sacrificed the flat sheet).  I even did a cute detail with a dog bone in tan and white seersucker that ironed on top for that little extra “je ne sais quoi”.  Turns out Sophie and Shenanigan won’t get near that adorable wicker bed with an adorable cushion to save their little furry lives so it’s going to the Green Shag sale as well . . .

Will I be seeing any of you at the Sale?  I hope so, at least to say hi!  It looks like it could be some glorious weather . .. .

Forecast via http://www.weather.com

. . . until then, I’ll be feverishly working in my basement, shining and buffing and doing some last minute projects (one of them involves Annie Sloane Chalk Paint which must be diamond-encrusted BTW because it costs a small fortune!)  See you soon!