Furniture Friday!

I don't think I've done one of these in a while (probably not since the refinishing extravaganza we went on after moving into the house last fall, although I guess that was a transformation Tuesday post), but it's been a slow week and I like having these photos to look back on down the road. First was one of my projects -- a shelf to hang necklaces on. Kind of a stretch to call it furniture but it's my blog so I'll do what I want lol. I have a jewelry armoire but it's overflowing and disorganized and trying to locate and retrieve what I want to wear is annoying.... not that I really wear ANY jewelry working from home these days, but assuming life goes back to "normal" at some point and I leave my house, I wanted it to be easy to find what I wanted. 

Supplies!

Started with an old cedar board leftover from the porch. The longer piece is what I measured for my shelf. The shorter one I slapped some paint and stain on too and figured I'll find somewhere for it eventually. This was cut and sanded, and ready to start with the chalk paint. 

Officially chalk painted, check. 

I had been seeing/hearing things about how great this product (unicorn spit) is so I decided to experiment with it for this project. I think the ones you can buy online come in squeeze bottles, but my local store had this and beggars can't be choosers. 

You can dilute the stain with water to make a sort of color wash, and since it's water-based, if you don't like it, you can basically wash it off and start over. This was my first attempt, and I was happy with the initial color, except then it dried basically back to chalk white again. Duly noted, go darker on the color than you think you need. 

Trying a second time. This is what it looked like wet. 

Board to the left is what it looked like dry. So I went even DARKER on the next attempt, haha. 

Back to just a smidge not-white... c'mon man, you're killing me!

This was the last coat of stain, barely diluted at all. I also vowed it would be my last, and whatever color it ended up was what I was going for. 

Oh hey, not the worst. That aqua is in the same family-ish as my bedspread. 

I don't have a photo of this part, but the "hooks" are all horseshoe nails leftover from my tack shed project. I had to buy them in a box of 100 and only used like... 6. So I clear coated the rest (so they wouldn't rust), and then while I was working last Friday after the vet visit, DH drilled/tapped EIGHTY SEVEN of them into the board. 

He was upset that they weren't perfectly even and straight (which would have been way more work than he has the patience for honestly lol) but now that they have necklaces on them, you can barely notice. 

I own... a lot of necklaces. All of the hooks were full, and I still have some left in the jewelry armoire.

I ended up rearranging the perfume bottles, digging out my horsehair pot and another little fancy ceramic dish for my daily use stuff. I'm pretty tickled with the result!

So that was a nice project to finally have done, it's been rattling around in my brain for a few months and I was trying to find some sort of wall hanging I could sort of amend to my purposes, but this works better I think. 

On that same Friday, DH took the day off, and while I worked in the morning, he busied himself in his garage. Imagine my surprise to walk out and find this on my morning break!

He dug some scrap lumber out of the burn pile to build a plant shelf for our guest bedroom (aka my office) because the plant situation was OUT OF CONTROL in there lol. 

We still had lots of stain leftover from house projects, luckily. So this cost nothing but some labor :)

Two coats of stain and drying before coming in the house! The top is a seat from an old pew that was damaged when the church collapsed. The legs are scrap lumber from the concrete forms they built for the garage. 

In the office! (ignore that pile of books and things in the background, I finally used this as an excuse to get those put away haha)

He installed a grow light on the bottom of the shelf, so the plants on the bottom still get plenty of light. 

We have... a lot of plants... lol. I did actually cull some this day -- I had snapdragons in pots on my porch all summer and I brought them inside and one of them is still sort of alive but the other three gave up the ghost, so I am gradually reusing those pots for cuttings off my other plants. I've given away an actual shit ton of spider plants and aloe this year, and I have an inch plant that is GOING BANANAS so I'm probably going to need a bigger pot for that one soon! Becoming a weirdly emotional overly attached plant mom is not where I saw my 2020 going, and yet, here we are!

LOOK AT THIS MONSTER.

I accidentally broke off a stalk, DH was mad. He shouldn't overwater the plants then, because I was mopping up his mess when I bumped it into the wall and broke off it's "arm" haha. 

The plant stand was a direct reaction to his anniversary present of an olive tree (he is OBSESSED with olives). 

The world's most ridiculous spider plant. It was actually MORE ridiculous this summer when it was outside, but I am perpetually amazed at how it looks inside lol. I'm waiting for it to grow down and take over the dog bed haha. 

At any rate, sorry this post wasn't really horse-related -- minus using horseshoe nails on the shelf I guess? But I got such positive engagement about the construction posts last year that I figured the occasional follow up about whatever weird projects we're currently working on wouldn't hurt! :)