Free Wicker Chairs After Restoration

I can't help myself; I'm into restoration. If I see an old house as I'm driving by that needs some loving, plans for restoration begin popping into my head. Likewise,

     There are times I cannot restrain myself when I see a piece of furniture that has good bones but needs a little spiffing up. So when I saw a pair of wicker chairs that were sitting on the side of a country road with a Free sign while vacationing, I had to stop and take a closer look.

Home of the Heart Hint: Choose a paint color to coordinate with other furnishings in the room, and bring a fabric or paint sample of those furnishings with you when shopping for paint. And always buy plenty of paint on your first purchase. 

Dogs had evidently chewed on the wood frame, and horrors of horrors, someone had attempted to glue the joints with Gorilla Glue. I hate GG because it expands upon drying to create a yellow mess.

Free Wicker Chairs Before Restoration

     The good news was that the chairs had a lot of style and the wicker was in perfect shape. My dear husband purchased some rope to secure them. and we hauled them home 140 miles on the top of our car,  
    Once we got the chairs home, I went to work chipping off the awful glue and sanding the chewed portions of the wood. I love the ease of spray painting, and it's the best method for painting wicker as it can get into all the grooves, so I happily trooped off to the paint store. These chairs are going in our garage playroom, so I felt free to choose some wild colors. But I made a couple of mistakes:
Mistake #:I I bought one can of turquoise and one of purple. Turns out that one can only covered abut a third of a chair. By the time I went back to get more paint, those colors had been discontinued!
Mistake #2: I assumed I would easily find wicker seat cushions in about any color and pattern I wanted. Wrong again. I couldn't find cushions in the colors I originally purchased.
      So I started over, scouring the Internet for cushions I liked. Once I had those in hand, I took one of the cushions with me to the paint stores. I found the tomato red paint at one store where I bought three cans, and a better turquoise than the original at a different paint store where I bought three cans. The results you see in the Before and After pictures. Despite my mistakes, I had fun seeing these chairs transform like magic before my eyes as I sprayed away, and they're going to offer a lot of style and comfort to our playroom.
     Have you transformed a piece of furniture with spray paint? I'd love to see the result.
from Home of the Heart, my best to you.
Linda

Hammock on the Hill

It all started with two cedar trees close enough to suspend a hammock. We bought a colorful one for eight dollars, but what to do with the dirt underneath where nothing

grows? A neighbor had excess wood chips that were free, so for a couple of hours of hauling, we literally had that problem covered. 
     Attaching the hammock was the next hurdle. We had on hand a ratchet and carbuncle set we weren't using that took care of that.

Home of the Heart Hint: When starting a new project, think about what you already have on hand to re-purpose. You'll likely save money and come up with a unique and pleasing result.      Walking through the wood chips was not pleasant though, but we did have some leftover blocks from building the garden wall. After a little hauling and digging, we had steps and a landing for our feet once

"CK" - Initials for Camp K

we poured in some left over cement.
​     A little table would be nice. I had rescued a metal one without a top, so I painted it with some red spray paint I had. The acrylic top was the most expensive piece at twenty-five dollars. I bought a paver for eight dollars to keep the table steady.  The little red pot it holds was fifty cents. ​
     Two bucket citronella candles came to ten dollars. The solar bottle lights on the steps were free. The flower pots were moved from other places around the house. I added a warm throw to the hammock I sometimes drape on the couch, and purchased a pillow for fourteen dollars. (If you've read my previous post, you know my love affair with pillows.)
     To enhance the ambiance, we hung a couple of suncatchers and a wind chime from the branches. These elements all add up to a magical outdoor room we were able to create in a week. Well worth the expense and our time here at the home of our hearts.

​from Home of the Heart, my best to you.
Linda

P.S. We like to call to our place "Camp K." which refers to our last names.

Look what I found! Being the author of the romance, Home of the Heart, I couldn't pass up this pillow. With its white canvas background, it's the perfect foil for my red velour couch, giving it a lighter look for summer.

     Pillows are some of the most fun, easy, and inexpensive accessories to play with. In fact, I have pillows for all the seasons, and of course, for Christmas as well.
​

Home of the Heart Hint: Matching throw pillows on a couch can be boring , so try to find coordinating pillows in different shapes and a different combination of colors. ​

​ I can't say I'm on the lookout for throw pillows--there's such as thing as having too many I suppose. But every once in a while, a special one catches my attention. That happened the other day when I was rushing down an aisle at Walmart, headed toward the garden department. I came to a screeching halt when I saw this beauty on the right. I took it off the shelf

Since you see this kaleidoscope pillow on my couch in this photo, you know I ultimately chose to take it home. Now I've got my eye out for a coordinating pillow or two to use with it.

and examined it. It seems as if it has been hand-hooked with rags and I responded to that old-fashioned look as well as the kaleidoscope pattern. Then I put it back on the shelf. I didn't need another pillow, did I?
​ from Home of the Heart, my best to you.
Linda