happy st. paddy's day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  This morning I thought I'd share with you this lovely mantle from eighteen25.  It's simple and it's holiday without being to obvious ya know?  And anything with an owl gets my heart (my grandmother use to collect owls).  They've made a big comeback this past couple of years - she would have loved that :)

Check out what the vases use to look like HERE (I would have sworn they were ceramic!).

Have a fun day...and don't get pinched!

xo Tanya

fun finds!

Matt and I went on a little excursion to the States yesterday.  We hit our usual spots:  parcel pick-up, Trader Joe's, Value Village (I go to V.V. while Matt goes to Trader Joe's - perfect!) and to the fabulous Grandiflora where I buy my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint...and sometimes a few other goodies (furniture knobs for one).  It's such a tempting shop - they have fantastic stuff...both new and vintage, home and garden.  I highly recommend you stop in if you're ever in the Lynden, Washington area!

Matt usually digs most of my purchases (after all, he hand picks things for me at garage sales, V.V. etc...!).  However, the milk glass collecting he has grown a bit tired of.  Not because he doesn't appreciate the look of it (I think?), but as many of you out there are sure to 'get' first hand, it is an addiction!  A very pretty drug.  A cheap drug.  A very useful drug (for food, for candles etc - we will be using almost all of my collection for both at our wedding...so there!  haha). 

Because Matt doesn't share my excitement at finding these beautiful milky white goodies, I wanted to start sharing my 'fun finds' with you!  Milk glass...etc!  Here are yesterday's goodies - all from V.V.: 

Super excited about this milk glass urn...it's quite large: 

Milk glass beer steins!  Man is beer gonna taste good in these bad boys (Matt has already advised me he won't be using them!):

One day I'll take pics of the buffet in our kitchen...it is full of these guys which hold all of our dry goods:

A little wrinkly but adorable and even has pockets in the sides (pockets are a fav of mine on dresses):

  

So, the journey was a success!  And no big bucks spent (haha except at Trader Joe's!...gotta stock up!).  Although, for only the 2nd time out of many, many trips, Matt and I were asked at the border to go in and pay tax and duties :(  There's no personal exemption for trips under 24 hours but usually the border guards are very forgiving and allow a certain amount of goods and bevies in tax-free.  Ah well, ya can't win 'em all!  ;)

xo Tanya

oval coffee table with drawer

This oval coffee table is a great size for a longer sofa and has a convenient little drawer for storing remotes, magazines etc...  I painted it in Pure White Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, distressed it and finished it with clear wax.

I picked up the fun moss balls at Michael's.  I bought several of them to use as decor at our wedding in June.  That's right - getting married on June 7th!  Lots of planning, but I'm trying to stick to my motto of 'Keep It Simple'!!  We're having a very small ceremony and reception with a total of 22 people.  It's a DIY event right down to the food (wish us luck!) so we're going to keep it very casual.  I'm currently on the hunt for a long white pretty summer dress.  Getting excited!

Here's the coffee table with a 'before' pic at the bottom:

*SOLD*

xo Tanya

happy new year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's Eve!  We had a busy holiday away visiting family and friends.  Our NYE was spent quietly at home over wine and an ol' school game of Monopoly!  I wish you all a great start to 2014 :)

Now on to a cute little rocking horse that I finished up this week!  I picked this one up at Value Village in Bellingham.  The before picture is included at the bottom.  If you're interested in purchasing this cutie visit my For Sale page HERE for further info.

Before:

xo Tanya

piano stool

This beautiful antique piano stool needed a bit of fixing when I purchased it (I didn't realize this until I got it home!).  The swivel mechanism no longer worked, it was likely stripped, and a previous owner had installed some make-shift supports for the seat. It wasn't pretty, or functional, as the seat could not be lowered/raised.  

Fortunately while picking up side rails at one of my favorite antique stores (Napier's Country Antiques) in Langley, Matt thought of asking about the piano stool (smart man - it wasn't on my mind at all!).  I totally lucked out, Ken just happened to have what I needed - an original 'threaded dowel' he had salvaged from a piano stool of the same era.  The parts were an exact match so swapping them out took no time at all, and the piece is back to its original condition!  

Next came the actual fun part - painting :)  I used a flat black acrylic paint and finished it with wax. After considering the use a piece like this might see, I added a coat of polyurethane (water-based) on the seat for extra protection.  I've included a before picture at the bottom but unfortunately you can't see the ugly supports someone had nailed on!

Before:

*SOLD*

xo Tanya

cottage coffee table

This cute little coffee table (or bench) was a recent estate sale find.  My fiance Matt and I were in the U.S. on a day trip and were heading back for the border when we saw the estate sale sign at the last minute.  Matt screeched (well, almost!) to a stop and made the turn.  He's a real trooper and is actually a great partner in rummaging.  He knows exactly what my taste in junk is and often finds the good stuff before I do!  About a year and a half ago (I'm getting side-tracked here but!) his co-worker's dad moved from his house into an assisted living home. His entire house and garage were being emptied and things were going to friends, donation or to the dump.  Matt helped his buddy out with the sorting/moving and was offered a chance to look through 'the goods'.  He came home with two car fulls of 'rusty gold'!  He brought home crates, old tool boxes with chippy paint, galvanized buckets and watering cans, old gardening tools, tins, old yardsticks...even an anvil!  Let's just say I was squealing like a little kid on Christmas morning!

Okay, back on track.  The table was originally forest green with a beige top - not a fan of the forest green!  I painted it up, distressed and waxed it and now it's fresh and light and a real cutie ;)

Unfortunately I forgot to take a before pic...it would've been a good one, but here she is now:

*SOLD*
 
Have a good one!

xo Tanya

my own studio!

After three and a half years (since we moved into our house) our tenant and good friend Zac moved out :(  He moved back to Ontario where he's originally from.  He moved into our suite when he arrived in BC after a drive across Canada.  Snowboarding is what he seeked and what better place than the Vancouver area with it's three local mountains, and Whistler under a two hour drive away.  He turned out to be a really great tenant and a good friend over the past years and we are sad to see him go.

After unsuccessfully finding a good tenant for September 1st or 15th, we got to thinking about my cramped dining room studio/front room storage area.  I can only work on two pieces maximum at a time because of my lack of space.  Due to the need for things to dry for a few hours or overnight, that doesn't add up to a full day's work.  I could be doing much more at a time if I had more space.  So...I'm moving my studio into our suite!  Yay!!!  Come Saturday I'll have a big room for refinishing, a kitchen for clean up/storage, and a bedroom for staging photos and storing finished pieces.  And...that means we reclaim two rooms in our house...which means we get to move our extra sofa out of our cramped family room (our new sofa went on sale for a great price so we had to scoop it up despite not having the space for it).  This will all be on a trial basis for three months to make sure the move pays off but I'm feeling like it will turn out well.

That's my big news of the week!  I hope you all had a great week with maybe a little good news of your own ;)

Stay tuned for the reveal of some new pieces!

xo Tanya

april update, fur babies, and a single bed frame with french provincial night stand

Last month was a busy month getting a jump on cleaning up our yard after winter (between MANY rain showers), pruning trees, weeding flower beds, and getting veggies started indoors for our first vegetable garden.

April also brought a quick visit with my dad and his wife who generously delivered some old furniture from my grandparents' basement (all to be refinished some day), and a visit with my mom and her partner over the Easter weekend.

Oh yes and there was a weekend trip to visit family as well!  We visited with my sister and her partner, celebrated a friend's bday, headed up for lunch with my dear gramma and one of my aunts, and last but not least, took Matt on a walking tour of one of my favorite old neighbourhoods where I lived for several years.

In addition to visits with family, a week in April was spent doggy-sitting Karma, our tenants' lovely Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog (have I mentioned we have a cat?).  Twas an interesting week...but if our kitty Yasha could talk, I'm sure she'd have choicer words to describe it!  It was a great experience overall and Karma and Yasha took big steps toward becoming friends..or at least being the in the same room together peacefully!  Here are pics of the fur babies:

Yasha

Karma (cuddling with Matt)

Despite the April busyness I did manage to refinish a few pieces of furniture to finally share with you today.  As you can see, this photo shoot took place on our back deck as I currently don't have a good place to set up a bed frame in our house. 

Although these cute little pieces didn't originally come together, they share similar lines and in my opinion, look great together as a set (they will however be available for purchase separately as well).

If you're interested in these pieces, please click here for measurements and pricing.  Update:  *SOLD*

before:

xo Tanya