Showing posts with label Trash to Treasure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trash to Treasure. Show all posts

Monday, March 8, 2021

A Deer Blind To Potting Shed Transformation

Hi, Friends,


I thought I'd share a remarkable transformation. When we closed on the house out in East Texas, we found an interesting collection of deer blinds. The former owner's son was clearly a fan of deer hunting. 
We are not fans of deer hunting. I'm not disparaging the sport by any means, it's just not something that Bill grew up doing nor has he showed any interest in it whatsoever. 
Three of the blinds were back in the woods but one had been pulled up to the yard. 
We were under the impression that the blind would be gone shortly after closing. It wasn't. 
Two or three weeks went by and the blind was still there. 
Bill wanted to haul it to the dump. 
I began to get a vision for its transformation. 
It wasn't big enough to be a green house but I thought it'd be a good place to store flower pots and gardening tools. 
Here is what it looked like the day we saw the house for a second time. 


Bill pulled some raggedy burlap off of the window openings. He also took care of some decaying wood on the sides. 
It was gross inside. 



This is how it sat for several months while we worked on other projects.

 

I knew it was facing the wrong way. The door needed to be on the south side instead of facing west. So, one drizzly Saturday morning, Bill chained it to the back of the truck and we turned it around. It was so much fun. We went to a local antique/junk store to find some windows. 

Last weekend, we were in the cabin doing some demo. I stepped outside and it was at that point that I noticed that my pine trees were no longer green. They were rust. (It is too early to tell whether the trees will recover.)  I felt the need to bring order out of chaos since I could do nothing about the pine trees and the issues in the cabin were more severe than I anticipated.  
The urge to bring beauty out of the ugly became overwhelming. 
I looked at that deer blind and went to work. 

I grabbed some white paint out of the shed/shop. 
I started painting the wood slats and the door. A couple of swipes across the red corrugated metal told me that it needed to be taken off. 


 The old shutters from the main house were dismantled and cut down for the sides. 


This past weekend, while I painted the cabin, Bill took off some weird trim pieces and he installed two old chippy windows. 




Even though my hands were tired from painting the cabin, I wanted to finish painting the little potting shed. 
Once the paint was dry, the shed got a bit of styling. 



The wreath was made from grapevine pulled from the woods. 



A Hobby Lobby bracket is a stand in for gingerbread trim. 
The white wire planter box is really part of a closet component from IKEA. 


One of the windows has perfect chippy dark green paint. 


The other window has a some celery paint showing through the white. 


I love that. 






Bill did a great job with the windows. 


I don't know if this will survive another move but it would look so cute inside my future vegetable garden.
I told Bill that it would be like the shed in Mr. McGregor's garden.
"Who is Mr. McGregor?" 
???
I stared at him over the top of my glasses but finally told him.  
"My parent's didn't read to me when I was a kid." 
He's worked from home for 11 months. I stare at him from over the top of my glasses sometimes. 
That's all for now. 
Thanks for stopping by. 
Katie  

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Spiral Topiaries, A Trash To Treasure

Hi, Friends, 
How are you? Is it cold where you are? It's way below normal here and I'm already over it. 
I'm acclimated to the south so this northern type weather is not a keeper. My friends up north don't feel sorry for me, I bet. 


A few weeks ago, I was driving into our neighborhood and spied a lamp sitting by the curb. I thought it was too good to be thrown in the trash, so I swung back around and picked it up. If it couldn't be updated, I'd donate it to my thrift store. They would love it and it'd be saved from the landfill. As I pulled into my driveway, the local mission truck drove by. "Oops, I may have just stolen from the mission." Later, I came out of the house and the owner of the lamp was visiting across the street.
"I think I may have just stolen your lamp." I said. 
 He said that he noticed that the lamp was gone and he couldn't believe someone stole from the mission. He had a ladder stolen out of his garage the day before so he was lamenting how low humanity had gotten.  
I explained my propensity for trash rescues, we had a good chuckle but I made a point to tell him that I didn't steal his ladder! Haha.  
To be fair, however, the lamp was in the spot where the trash should go. 
To make it right, my husband ended up making a nice little cash donation to the mission. 
 I could have gotten a nice, new lamp when all was said and done. 

It hasn't put me off dumpster diving, however. 
We've taken to stalking the trash in the nice neighborhood just to the east of us. 
  I was driving through last week and spied two spiral topiaries. 


The urns were damaged. 
The lights were rusty. 
The greens were brittle.
Someone was sitting by the garage. I waved, I said "Thanks!" and hoped I hadn't stolen from the mission again.  


The leaves literally fell off with a light brushing. 


The boxwood sprigs had been glued and then stuck into burlap. 
Initially, I thought the burlap could be saved but it all ended up coming off of the spiral. 


Now to save the urns. 
My "go to" stuff for fixing anything like this is caulk. I squirted caulk into every chip and ding. 
It can be shaped and it dries solid. I let it dry for a few days before painting. 
Once the spirals were stripped and the urns were fixed, these sat for a few days while I decided what to do. 

I had a boxwood garland from Hobby Lobby so I started playing around with that but some burlap needed to go back on before any greenery. 


Burlap ribbon from Hobby Lobby ended up working great. 
It was a little fiddly but it only took a few minutes to figure out the best way to wrap and glue. 
Green chalk paint helped disguise the burlap.


I went early one morning to Hobby Lobby to look at some other garland selections. The Green Boxwood Garland has been my favorite for a few years. It ended up being the best choice for these topiaries. 
It took several days to get this done. I'd drape, glue and look at it. 
 It took some tweaking and clipping to get the boxwood to look as natural as a faux garland can look. 
The boxwood has same length stem all along the length but that looked weird at the top of the topiary where sprigs would naturally be shorter. It took about 24 hours to muster up the courage to clip the sprigs near the top but I liked where this was going. I finished the first one. Once it was done, it sat on the table right next to the second so that I could compare the two and ensure that the second looked like the first. 


The urns were painted with gray Amy Howard chalk paint. Black paint mixed with some of the gray was dabbed on as the second coat. 




I added a sweet little nest to the base of one. Faux lavender from Walmart was tucked into the nest. 




The garlands were on sale so they were $12.49 each. 
The burlap was $8.99 a roll. It was not on sale but I only needed one roll.  
I had the paint, caulk, moss and the nest. 



New spiral topiaries at Hobby Lobby are $129.00 each. Of course they are half off every other week but what a savings.  


I think they are a great trash to treasure rescue. 
What do you think?
Thanks for stopping by and stay warm. 
Katie 

Saturday, October 6, 2018

A Second Scarecrow Refurbishment


Hi, Friends,


Please join us next week for a blog tour featuring some Texas bloggers. 
I know you will be inspired. 
Here is the line up. 

Monday 


Tuesday


Wednesday 


Thursday 



I've been cleaning out some of collections. I am a collector of collections, in case that was evident.
My collection of fall accoutrements includes vintage and antique squirrels, owls, leaves, and acorns. I get a little frustrated that all this stuff takes up so much room in totes so I was trying to purge things that I didn't love or that aren't in perfect shape.


A little scarecrow's face got damaged.
He used to decorate my classroom but he came home with me at some point.
I set him in the give away pile.
We have a running give away pile which is sad on many levels but that's another post.

A casual stroll past the pile was met with a sudden epiphany. The body was in pretty good shape.


I removed the head and all of the cheap "Hobby Lobby like" details.  I had cuter stuff in my scrap pile.



The head was used as a pattern.
A quick Pinterest and eBay search yielded some face inspiration.

The cutest faces were embroidered in my opinion.


He got a new scarf, patches and buttons.



New raffia was used for his stuffing and hair.


The corn came from one of my favorite crafters.



Scarecrows are the snowmen of fall. A harbinger of all the fun decor brought out at Christmas.


I hate to break it to him but he's not scaring any crows.
What a cutie if I do say so myself.



It was a fun way to while away an evening.
Please stop in to see our tour next week.
Katie

Click on the picture for other posts you might like:

Five Fall Essentials: A Theme

A Scarecrow Refreshed With Paint

Linking with,
Between Naps on the Porch
Share Your Cup