Half Moon Table

I was doing my usual browsing online on mudah.my (similar to craigslist for those who are not familiar to the site) and I came across this half moon table that I have been looking for for quite some time. And the owner was selling it for only RM50!! ( I checked out some shops earlier and a brand new non-fancy half moon table easily costs about RM200 and above). And this one even had some carvings on it.

This was the picture of the table the seller uploaded on mudah.my.

The colour did not go with my decor but I figured, at that price I do not mind taking the risk of painting it. So, I contacted the seller and we agreed to meet. The seller even agreed to meet us about 3 minutes away from where we are currently staying (Just a note of caution: when purchasing from strangers, try your best to arrange for cash-on-delivery and never meet in private!). My husband and I met the seller in a crowded parking lot, did a once over of the table and it was a deal! When you get a deal like that, I suggest don't walk.. run back to your car, before the seller changes his mind :o)

So, last weekend, we spent half a day working on the table. I managed to coax my husband to make good use of his muscles and help to sand the table (I HATE sanding!). Hey, what do you know, he even sprayed on the primer for me (see how far some sweet coaxing gets you?:o)).

This is how it looks after being sanded by Mr.Muscle (hehe.. thank you, sayang!).

After waiting an hour for the primer to dry (waiting was agony!), I started painting the first coat and found out three-quarter way that I ran out of paint. That was because silly me just decided to use the left over half-can of paint from this project knowing that this was a much bigger table. And the place where I bought the paint was half an hour away, yes, I'm adventurous like that! :o) Soooo.. after another trip to the paint store (where I bought one BIG can of white paint and 3 cans of white spray paint.. why take the risk?? hehe) , I managed to finish a second coat and this is how it turned out:

Tadaa! My "new" white half moon table!

There was some water damage "bumps" on the surface of the table which we could not get rid of so I just covered it with a napkin and a doily. What do you think?

Do you like my apothecary jars which I filled with candles and seashells? I love them!

Now that I have this half moon table, I need to do something about the mirror. I see another paint job in the near future.. :o) so stay tuned!

Twigs & Feathers

Bedside Table

Our guestroom needed a bedside table. But a bedside table is waaaay down our list of priorities. So when I spotted an old, black, chipped "antique" table no longer in use at my mum's house, the lightbulb inside my head immediately went off. I have never painted furniture before, so this was my chance to try. After doing some minor convincing, my mum agreed to let me have the table (I think she was just happy that someone has taken it off her hands :o) hehe..). I quickly started working on it before she changed her mind :o).

First step, I sanded the table to get rid of the varnish and then I sprayed on a primer to ready it for painting. And here's how it looks after sanding:

Next, I used a spray paint in "Baltic White". Biiiigggg mistake. Number one, I did not like how the colour turned out (although it looked pretty good on the colour chart), number two, the drips from a spray paint is very unforgiving and if you're like me and have never owned a paint brush, you can't correct the drips. You'd do better using ye olde paint brush method. Tested and true. I know a lot of people use spray paint but it just did not work for me this time. Here is how it looks after a coat of "Baltic White", not pretty at all..

I then went out and bought a can of good old white paint and some paint brushes and voila! I lived to tell the tale :o). My white bedside table for my guestroom:

Ready to serve hot chocolate before bed and a scented candle to light and enjoy.

What I'm really happy about is that it cost me less than RM15 for the sandpaper, primer and paint, even with all the mistake!

Would you like to come over and stay a while?

Twigs & Feathers

Pretty Green Container

Surprise,surprise, another little project :o) I found this green container with pretty leaves and scrolls at a rejects store (please ignore the light green lines, the flash from the camera caused that). I'm sure if it had been perfect it would have cost quite a bit, but since it's not perfect, they were selling it at only RM15. The whole thing is almost perfect, no chips, no cracks and no scratches. You want to know the imperfect part?

There, see that hole? The cover/lid is missing a knob :o) . But I fell in love with the colour and the design, so it came home with me :o). I tried to find a suitable knob at a hardware store but none seemed to fit (design and colourwise). My solution?

This butterfly started its life as a napkin ring. Pretty isn't it? It just took me a couple of seconds to realise that it would look quite nice on top of my container!

So, out came the pliers and I carefully took it apart. I tried to glue it onto the cover using super glue but it just would not stick so I used my trusty hot glue gun and glued it on. Hot glue is not strong enough but it does its job at keeping it on. I'm just using the container as a decorative piece at the moment so I guess it's good enough.

See? Doesn't it look quite perfect now? So whimsical..

The leaves and the butterfly reminds me of a garden.Ahhh.. the little pleasures of life..

Twigs & Feathers

Cake Stand

I'll admit, there are a lot of things that I would like to have for our new home. Some are just waaaay down our list with the budget that we have set. Like a vacuum cleaner for instance, that has gone into the "luxury" category, also known as, the "not within our budget at the moment" category. But well, there's always my mum's to.. ehem.. borrow :o) So it is always a pleasure to find things that you think would break your budget but with just a bit of creativity, would turn out to be something that you always wanted but at a much more affordable price.

About a month ago I was walking around a local thrift store, treasure hunting as usual, and guess what I found?

This green 12" scallop-edged plate with flowers embossed on it. And the tag said RM10. How can I resist? I was happy to take it home as is but wait.. what is that I see??

This dusty little green bowl sitting quietly all alone at the bottom most shelf caught my eye. Does it match the plate? Yes!! Price tag - RM3!

So I happily bought them and started on my project. You see, I have always imagined having a pretty cake stand on my dining table (I would love to entertain!:o)) but the large, pretty ones are always so expensive. But look at how these turned out..

Just measure the diameter of the bottom of the bowl and measure and draw that on the bottom of the plate. Make sure that where you draw, the surface is flat and smooth, otherwise the bowl will not stick.

Use some ceramic glue (I just could not wait to get some ceramic glue so I just used super glue :o)) , and glue the bottom of the bowl to the bottom of the plate as shown.

After the glue has set, turn it over and voila! A pretty cake-stand. How charming.. just what I needed.. ok,ok.. wanted.

On a diet? A fruit stand it is :o). A pretty cake-stand for a total of RM13, I say that's a wonderful bargain!

Twigs & Feathers

Re-upholster: Dining Chairs

As everyone knows, the economy is not doing well, globally. So, wherever we can, we try not to spend too much. We have a budget for everything and we try really hard to stick to it. So when we saw a dining set which is sold at a fraction of the normal price, we had to grab it. My husband loved the solid wood but the fabric covering the seats? Well, it was a dull brown with some red and orange flowers and get this.. it even had some gold thread peeping through here and there. The 80's here we come. Lets just say, it did not compliment the other soft furnishings that we had and I would not have agreed to buy it if I knew we would be stuck with it. We bought the set with an agreement that we would later re-upholster it. Well, it didn't last a couple of weeks. I just HAD to have it re-upholstered. I'm even surprised that the photo below actually made it look decent (that's because you can't actually see the gold threads, trust me!).

The salesperson at the shop that sold the dining set to us told us that we could have it professionally re-upholstered for about RM30-40 per seat. We had 8 chairs so that would roughly come up to RM240-320. And that does not include the transportation fees of picking them up and sending them back. No way. So my husband and I decided to try and do it ourselves. Here's how we did it:

Just turn the chair over and see where they screw the seat in. Unscrew them. Ours came off pretty easily.

Cut off the material covering the bottom of the seat and put it aside. You will need to put it back on later (cause I'm too lazy.. erm, I mean busy, to find, buy, measure and cut another one :o))

This is what it looks like with the back cover off.

Next, put the upside down seat on the wrong side of the fabric that you would like to use (am I making sense here?). I didn't even bother to take off the old fabric. The thicker the better, I believe :o). Then, cut the fabric to size, so that you have enough fabric to staple to the bottom of the seat. I'm not very patient when it comes to measuring so whenever I can get away with it, I just eyeball it. Believe it or not, I did not even measure the seat before going out to buy the fabric. I'm adventurous like that :o). I just told the salesgirl "I need 2 metres of this.. no, on second thought make that 3, no, 2 and a half would be perfect. Thank you :o)". I know, I drive them nuts sometimes. Haha!

Next, you just pull the fabric taut and then staple, pull and staple, until you turn it over and it looks like this.

After you're happy with that, you can put back the back cover and re-staple it. Please ignore the uneven edges of the cover :o).

And then, just put the seat back on the chair and re-insert the screws.

And we're done! Ahhhh.. that looks much better. And the price: fabric RM60, staple gun RM30, the look on our neighbour's face when she saw what we did - Priceless! :o)

Twigs & Feathers

Twigs and Feathers

If you have visited my other blog, you would already know that I love home decorating. Alhamdulillah, we have been so blessed to be able to purchase our own home (well, it actually currently belongs to the Bank! haha.. but you know what I mean :o)) and now we are working real hard to furnish and decorate it (on a budget!) and transform it from a house to a home :o). It has not been easy, as this is our first home (all this while we were staying with my parents), so basically we have had to start from scratch. It is still a work-in-progress (it will be for many months more I believe :o)) but I thought it would be fun to share :o). I love to D.I.Y. (the hubster is learning fast!) so it has been quite a challenge! I am sooo in love with my drill, my spray paint, my glue gun, my staple gun and my measuring tape (no worries sayang, you are still number one! :o)). So please join us on our journey in searching for the twigs and feathers to build our humble nest..

Twigs & Feathers