Secondhand Scores...

I've been up to my eyeballs in curtain shortening, door painting and valance planning. Yes that is a thing. My daughters room is coming together even if it is very white so far. We need some colour injected in to the space or she'll leave home. And she's only seven so we don't want that.

I've also had to paint over the mess I made whilst staining the floor. Wood dye is very spattery...

I'm still making time for car boot sales and the flea market although my chazzing has fallen by the wayside. Time for a roundup of my most recent second hand shopping goodies!

First up, this gorgeous rusty old paper sorter desk tidy thing I found at the flea market. Heaven knows I need a tidy desk!

I like the little card holders...

Next this lovely table I got at the flea market for a bargainous £20. It was FILTHY like it had lived in someones garden. It was home to lots of spiders and even a snail! I scrubbed it down on the patio.

I like the original painted legs so I'm not going to tamper with them.

 But that top? It's crying out for wood bleach if you ask me.

Er, and some woodworm treatment. Then it can live happily behind the sofa.

[All these black corners are caused by the camera being dropped and now the shuttery covery thing won't open fully. Oops.]

 I found another of these vintage religious prints.

I still haven't thought of a place to display them but I have a few now. Perhaps we could have a downstairs loo/monastery. I do like rooms with more than one function.


I got this cool vintage chair with an industrial vibe and some godawful upholstery.

It looks wonky. I think that's just my dreadful photography.

I plan to strip off the metallic blue and get back to unpainted metal and recover the seat.

Do you remember this seat?

Well, I had a disaster with it. Once I took it all apart and re puffed up the collapsed cushion, the tapestry top no longer fit on it. I tried to stretch it and it tore a bit. Hopefully I can turn it into a cushion at some point and find some other fabric for the top of the stool. Some you win...

But the chair will go by my desk instead.

Last of all, I've been hoping to find a full length mirror for my daughters room and I got one at the car boot sale this weekend.

Sorry, another truly dreadful photo. You can't even see it.

  But it has bevelled glass and looks very Laura Ashley to me. It was £5. Woop woop!

Later today the skirting boards arrive and hopefully I can show you progress on the room soon. Speaking of skirting boards, now we're going to have deep glamorous skirting, I'm very much looking forward to using this...

It's a self adhesive Pretend mousehole to fit on a skirting board which I'm sure you'll agree is just the best thing EVER. I just love anything with 'pretend' in the title.

Legend has it that they're painted by an artist called Helene and she painted the first one lying on her belly for eight hours. Printed stickers are somewhat easier to use. There are several designs, something for everyone and they're only £2.99. You can see them all HERE.

Right then, skirting boards...

Link

Furniture from friends and the Friday flea market...

I've had a lovely week. I brought a new piece of furniture in from the garage to work on. A friend gave me this. It's an Edwardian dressing table. Don't I have nice friends?

 

  

It fits quite nicely between the pile of flooring and the pushed back dining table. This isn't really a 'before' shot as I've already removed the mirror section and refinished the top. I had to replace the drawer bases as they were badly warped making the drawers impossible to pull out. I also decided to lose the two wing mirrors as they are very clunky and make the whole thing absurdly wide. 

This shot shows the difference between the old wood finish at the top and the refinished part looking glossy and rich. The rest of the wood is being painted in milk paint and it's not going to plan so far, but I'm hoping to finish it all next week. 

Freddy is casting a critical eye over my work...he likes the smell of the milk paint! I'll come back and show you when it's done...

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Dee  from Dee Dee's vintage retro delights and I share a love of these vintage big eyed animal ornaments and I said I would post a picture of mine which I inflict upon my daughter although she'd rather have Disney tat on her shelves. Dee has an entire mouse orchestra of these that I'm envious of!

I love these guys! They've all been collected from boot sales and charity shops.Against my daughters will. Aw come on! How can you not like them?

I squeezed in a trip to the flea market this morning and found this:

 

Isn't that lovely? (It's wet because I washed it)

And the other side?

It's a crate lid! My crate fetish refuses to go away! Sadly the rest of the crate was missing but I got this for £1 and I'll turn it into a rustic sign. I think I like the top view best and the sides will be like a little frame...

I think we're in for a further dumping of snow tonight and then a downpour to wash it all away. Not a moment too soon. The snow has turned to ice on all the footpaths here and I've been risking life and limb on the school run. Hooray for rain! x

The ugly truth...

You've probably all seen this shot by now...

 

What I haven't shared is the other side of the hallway...

Not quite so pretty!

I decorated as far as I could without taking the radiator off. And it's been like that for almost a year!
With the new floor being laid very soon we finally got the plumber in to take off the radiator so I could finish the job.

Wahey! I took off the skirting too as that's being replaced along with the floor. It looks so much better. I was under the impression that having a radiator off meant we'd have to do without heat but the plumber just capped off the one radiator so I could work on the wall all weekend and not freeze. Genius!

I still need to paint the pipes...

Bit by bit the house is getting there. Slowly!

Despite not being able to put up a single Christmas decoration due to emptying half the downstairs for the flooring, Christmas spirit is well and truly here!
At the Friday Flea market I picked up this sweet vintage box with it's paper labels.

I'm not sure how I will utilise it yet but I love it.

And we went up the road to the garden centre to see Father Christmas arrive in style!

And Freddy is getting very excited!

This is the 'good' cat! He's only looking fed up as my husband wanted him to look at the camera when he wanted to sleep! He didn't mind the outfit at all. I think he has a future in modelling!
The 'bad' one would not tolerate such silliness.

Linking with Magpie Monday at Me and my shadow

Flea market finds...

I started a new job in a charity shop in Hitchin which was really good! I have never worked so hard in my life and my background is childcare so I think that is saying something! A kids party is a walk in the park in comparison. But it was so rewarding. I put away all the summer clothes as I thought it was a little chilly, and I went through ALL the kids clothes and put out some nice warm items and surprise, surprise, people were snapping them up!
I was up and down stairs, tagging, steaming and sorting and I really enjoyed it.
Then I spied a new donation of Christmas decorations containing some vintage glass lovelies so I boxed them up and stuck a £20 label on them. They sold the same day they were put out, to the surprise of the staff who would have sold them for £1. So I felt great about that.

I even managed to get up early and do the Friday Flea market before going into the shop and scored some goodies!

This little fella I haven't even paid for! I owe the lady the money and will give it to her next week as she didn't have any change. We are a trusting bunch in Hitchin! I think he's from the 60's and will add to my vintage Christmas decoration collection.

[I am dying to show you my Christmas decs and give you a guided tour of my favourite bits as I know I'm not the only bauble maniac out there, BUT... instead of getting it all up on Dec 1st and getting our moneys worth before 12th night it's going to be sooo late this year. The flooring guy comes on the 11th so all the furniture has to be removed from the living room and hallway as we are being screeded, then floored over 2 days (maybe three?) and THEN I have to put the rooms back together, put back all the books and games and THEN get the decs out. It will be a frustrating wait but it's taken us 4 years to be in a position where we can proceed with the flooring (wiring etc) so that takes priority.]

My favourite find was this pristine carpet bag!

I'm not really into shoes and bags like 'normal' girls but this just screamed 'have me!' and cost next to nothing. I am one lucky lady.

I found very little at Sundays boot sale apart from a lovely new friend, the beautiful Rebecca from Crivens Cottage who had never been to boot sale before. Unimaginable I know! Well, she took to it like a duck to water and scored more cool stuff than I did! Not to mention charming the regular stallholders!

I did find one very sweet thing:

A faded Christmassy box containing...

...teeny tiny Christmas crackers! 3'' tall, they are the size of boiled sweets...

...yet still contain snaps mottoes and charms! We were tempted to pull one to see what was inside but didn't want to ruin the unused set. Cost? 25p!

Result!


Linking with: Me and my shadow   A living space   Fath, hope and Charity shopping 

Home made chalk paint and other adventures...

I love Hallowe'en. In a big way. So when I found this framed print of people in devil costumes by M. de Solar in the charity shop I thought it would be the perfect addition to my Hallowe'en decorations. Only problem was the frame which was a gaudy gold. Not very spooky. So I mixed up some matt black emulsion with plaster of paris dissolved in hot water and painted it without sanding or priming. I'm very impressed with the adhesion. I thought the black might wear off a bit when I waxed it but it hasn't. I think M. de Solar was a costumier in France and complete books of his work go for hundreds of pounds.

Last night whilst watching the X factor it suddenly dawned on me how I could finish off my mannequin seen here, here and here so I dug out this book...

Which has lots of useful styles of calligraphy in chart form for cross stitching like this

and this

and a short while later I came up with this

I explained to my husband I was aiming for the style of vintage French grain sacks and his little eyes glazed over. Bless him.
I'm really pleased I left the bottom of the mannequin cover loose so I could take it off by undoing the lacing!

I found this vintage piece of linen at a flea market, it's a nightie holder I think, but quite holey and I thought I'd turn it into a pretty cushion. But the thing that I didn't like was the yellow of the embroidery. I just thought it would be so much nicer if it were all neutral. So I got some 'Dylon Pre Dye' which bleaches the colour right out of all natural fabrics.
Wow! That stuff stinks! The kitchen smelled like 20 rotting cabbages and my poor husband was threatening to leave as his office is next to the kitchen.
And here is the result

An epic fail. Looks like the yellow is there to stay. And I still get a whiff of cabbage every time I use the washing machine...

In other vintage linen news I got a lovely old mangle cloth from Hitchins Friday flea market in the  more unusual blue colourway. If you don't know, these are what you wrapped your clothes in before you'd put them through the mangle and they're about 3 metres long and make lovely table runners. If I ever unearth the dining table I'll show you how it looks!

The only other cool thing I got this week was this globe lamp for my daughter from a charity shop in town

Yeah, it's wrecking the whole French country vibe I was going for with her room but hopefully it will put a stop to questions like, ''Is England in London?''
And we shall call the room vintage eclectic.

But the most exciting thing of all is that I have finally mastered getting photos and text on my blog exactly where I want them! Finally! ;)

Delighted to be linking with The Rose Garden In Malevik saturday show off.
And  Magpie Monday
And Ta-dah Tuesday at Faith Hope and Charity Shopping 
(My big ta-dah is managing to load the Christmas swap thingy onto my side bar. It only took me 24 hours and invoved me emailing the image to myself, not sure if there's an easier way!?)
And Coastal Charm

Friday Fleamarket Finds

I'm intending to try out the British made milk paint to see how, if at all, it compares to the Canadian  variety. Presently, I'm waiting for the colour card....

But with future experimentation on my mind I headed off to the Friday market looking for small wooden items to be my guinea pigs.

 This was the haul. One wonky wooden box, I think it was a sewing box, that has lost some decorative parts and has a broken lock. Nice and big though...

One wooden egg holder.

And a quirky window shaped mirror just itching to be shabbied up. I'll save this for last as I think the Canadian paint will look damn fine on it. I don't want to sacrifice it to unspectacular paint. It has lovely bevelled glass in each pane. I recently treated myself to a little gun like a staple gun but for glazing tabs as I do a lot of mirrors and always prefer to paint them with the glass out. It's so much easier to rebuild them with the right kit. (The pole sticking out of the table is the parasol pole. I can't get it out as the rain has swollen the wood around it.)

The British paint is ready mixed unlike the Canadian so it will be very interesting to see if there are any similarities between the two beyond the name 'milk paint'.
I'm really hoping it performs like the Canadian paint so I can stop paying shipping costs!

Boot sale tomorrow, better get an early night!