Reclaimed Wood Top Table

I love when my willy-nilly planning actually pays off. By willy-nilly I mean I just start something and see where it goes.

The willy-nilliness started when I grabbed this from the trash men with like 2 minutes to go before they wrestled me for it. Sounds like something I would do but alas, this was just a dream. Somehow my dreams are really acting like real life!

I did see this on the way home from a swim meet and I went right back out after I dropped the kids to check it out. I almost didn't pick it because the wood top had joints that were separating. The thoughts of having to fill with wood compound and sanding and then maybe not liking the result was giving me the willys. Sadly the wood top did a trial separation but it finally ended in divorce.

I got rid of the top and figured I'll just replace it with something else. Marble maybe? Ponder...

The willy-nilliness kept going by just painting the base in an oil-based jet black I had sitting around.

Then I waited for it to speak to me.

Apparently it was still bitter about the divorce because it was NOT giving me any indication of how it wanted to be finished.

Inspiration struck as I was cannibalizing my pallets for extra slats.  Make these into a top for a nice farmhouse table look.  I introduced the two and they have been inseperable ever since. That is when the willy-nilliness stopped and true love took over.

Just look at the love birds.

 This is stamped into the back. Love these kind of details.

I didn't seal it with anything, just gave it a good sanding because wax and poly would have darkened the grey color and I love the weathered look.

I <3 it!

It's for sale in the shop if you are interested. Just email me!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies!      

My Sister's Wreaths

Hi Miss Missy! Since You WILL be reading this (it is in the sister contract that you signed, remember? It is right under the paragraph about being able to borrow each others clothes forever?) just thought I'd start by saying a "hello gorgeous!"

Missy is my Big Sista. She is one of the loves of my life and I love spending time with her whenever I can. She lives in NJ and I am in Pittsburgh so it is not often enough or long enough but we deal. I think every visit is ended with the phrase "I wish you lived closer...."

You have seen her a few times on the blog in pictures, see here and here. But NOW you can see her bee-u-tiful wreaths that she makes.

I love the summery-ness of this one. I think she might have just made this because I don't remember this one the last time I was out. Somebody stop her, no, somebody have her make me a few!

Spring Butterflies

She said a few bit the dust while hanging on the front door. I think they just might have flown away they look so real

This one is my favorite because I love the rich colors and the peacock feathers. I could never have patiently wrapped that string around the wreath form. Well, I could have but I would have probably chucked it half way through the process and said "Isn't there any good trash I can weld?" NO patience for this kind of crafting.  She is a patient, steady girl and I am a fly by the seat of your pants kinda girl.

Funny how we are so different but from the same family. We both got the crafting gene though.

She also made me this awesome ring that I literally wear almost every single day.

I like to think I am wearing a little piece of her when I look at it. Plus it is silver and funky, just how I like my jewelry.

She blames me for getting her going on this creative streak. Her husband and my nephew think she is addicted. Hey if you are going to be addicted to something it might as well be creativity.

She likes the blogs that are jewelry and fashion oriented that I don't have time to visit and tells me about what inspired her and then we laugh and talk for hours about what we are going to make next.

XOXO Big Sis.

I wish you lived closer girl!


Always being renewed,

Garage Door......

Just a quick What will it be Wednesday!

This was our old garage door that the Manly Man and I replaced two weeks ago. Yes, we did. Lots of little parts but just follow the directions and you can do it!! Saved $700!!

So before my husband could say the backyard is starting to look like Sanford and Son, I had to come up with a good use for the old wood sections. I knew we couldn't just throw them out or donate them to the local dump. Not right. But the ideas eluded me.

I woke up in the middle of the night and came up with the idea! My best ideas seem to come at 3 am. Why is that!!! I could really use the sleep....doesn't my brain know that??

Do any of you other brilliant bloggers have the same issue? Makes for a hard days work the next day I tell ya'.

Stop back tomorrow to see what it turned into......

What do YOU think it will be?

Always being renewed,

Vintage Downspout Planters

You guys are too smart and my kinda peeps! You think outside the rusty junk box.

You all guessed correctly about my "vintage"  downspouts!

I did make them into planters! And.....

I LOVE THEM!!

Since you have been so patient and this post should have been up on Wednesday, since I do call it What Will it Be Wednesday......

Here they are before in all their "vintagy" glory....

And here they are now, still vintage but now with some coral bells and not sure what the vine is. They didn't even recall at the nursery where I bought it. But it has a grey/silver look to the leaves which I thought would look great with grey of the metal.

I wanted to hang this one on the garage by the door but I seem to be missing my hammer drill and you kinda need that to drill into concrete! So when I find it, I will hang this and hopefully remember to show you that photo.  Hanging this one on the fence did make me wish I had about 15 more of the downspouts so I could have one for every section. 

And here is how they got transformed. Just a little chicken wire and some moss did the trick. Oh and some nice think rope to hang them and add to their charm.

I had to first remove the flanges that were on either side of the opening. Then I stuffed the bottom with some moss and chicken wire to offer a little bit of drainage.

Line the back with chicken wire and then lay your moss on the inside to cover the hole. I layered this thickly.

From the back. Then just plant add your plants and your rope and hang where you fancy!

Beauty from ashes

What have you transformed lately? 

One thing I have been striving for is embracing my flaws. When I say embrace I don't mean saying they are okay. I mean they should be analyzed and deal with the ones I can and accept the ones I can't. Some are physical, some are personality (or mental as I like to call them). I have many and I am not sure if I can embrace them all. I think many are deeply ingrained and should be worked on. They need to be tinkered with so they aren't so sharp. Some need to be tinkered with so they don't cause harm. That one is my mouth. I tend to have a short temper and I find myself apologizing for yelling, flying off the handle, or having really ridiculous expectations. I have been studying the book of James and it is very convicting regarding controlling your mouth. So I am finding myself repeating this verse about 2000 times a day:

^{James 1:19 & 20}

 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,  because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

Some days are better than others but I keep moving forward and I consider that progress. I know I can't do this myself so I am relying on God to make those changes that need to be made. He promises only good to me and I know that struggles are good. They bring about perseverance and perseverance brings about maturity and completeness. Maturity and completeness breed contentment.

Contentment brings about beauty. That kind of beauty is radiant and should be shown off.

I hope  you have been working on letting your inner beauty out and showing it off. I also hope your are not trying to cover up the rust with a coat of spray paint. I think you should wear it like a badge. It means you have lived life, gained knowledge and transformed that knowledge into wisdom. And that is something that should not be covered up.

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are.      

Industrial-look Pallet Coffee Table

You know all those "Pallet wood" projects that everyone is doing? Well, I want in! I didn't really think about it too much until I saw two pallets laying in my neighbors yard. A quick "you gonna use those?" and they were mine! Brought out all of my tools and started to assemble until I realized they were not the same size! Who knew pallets come in small, medium and large!

Seeing my distress, my sweet husband surprised me and brought home a pallet in one of his runs around town for his job. AS he was unloading it he said "I can't believe I put this in my car....".. Now that's twoo love! He is still processing the idea that he has become my picker but he's not really sure how I accomplished that. Secret CIA mind control techniques.

When we laid it against the one I wanted it to match....IT wasn't the right size either!

So now I had 3 pallets leaning against my garage and none of them were the same size. Enter my hardware store. They have pallets for $2.00/each! Got me a pair of identical twins finally but without all the hard work of pregnancy and labor.

I spent two hours, literally, trying to figure out if they were going to be too big for my porch, and then laying all of the other pallets out on the grass and seeing if I could make anything work. Went back to my twins and just started stacking. I also wanted something a bit industrial but when I went to the Home Depot to price out black pipe (gas pipe) and the attachments it was going to be $60!!! Now I will tell you that that is not a bad price for a coffee table but I was not really looking to spend that much on this project just in case it did not materialize they way I saw it in my mind.

See my projects never have any problems when I imagine them in my head but the reality show that I live in really doesn't do multiple takes. I need to get it right the first time, or at least by the third.  As I was leaving the aisle disappointed I came across my favorite DIY substitute! PVC pipe!

Remember what I am always preaching? Don't look at something the way it is intended to be used, unless you really do need PVC for you plumbing needs. Probably not wise to use something else.....

But the pipe and the connectors etc can all be spray painted and modified. And that is exactly what I did.

Like I said, I wanted the black pipe look on a PVC budget. So I got to work on modifying the caps to look like the large nuts that I coveted.

So......do you wanna see? I can't wait to give you the final number on this project either. You're gonna flip!

You'll need the following for the PVC nuts:

1" PVC pipe - I used (2) 24"pieces cut in half
(4) 1" rounded top pipe caps
Hammered metal spray paint
paintable caulk
flat edge


You'll need the following for the pallet table:

2 pallets of same size
wood glue
tube of liquid nails
your "metal"pipe and nuts that you just made
(4) 1" connector joints - spray painted

Metal Pipe: 

 Slide PVC pipe over a bamboo stack or some other stake in the ground

Spray paint with the hammered paint. I originally used the oil-rubbed bronze but it didn't look like I wanted so just waited for it to dry and then re-coated in the hammered.

Metal nuts:

While your pipe is drying, take your caulk and caulk gun and run an even bead around the bottom of the pipe cap. If you look at the picture closely you will see that the tip of the caulk tube is NOT in the caulk. It is slightly away from the cap edge. That is how you should apply it. You will get a smooth rounded bead that way with no gouging. Slightly over lap the ends carefully. You may want to practice a few times first but even if you mess up, you can just wipe it off and start over.

 Let dry about 15 minutes, until you can touch move it around and mold it but the caulk isn't sticky.

 Here's the fun part:

 Take your straight edge (for me it was a chopstick) and flatten the top and bottom of the bead. 

 Now flatten the sides so that you have about 6 small flat edges. You are trying to make this look like the nut edges

 This is what it should look like when you are finished

 It doesn't need to be perfect!

 From the top

Do this to all four pipe caps.   Let these dry completely

While this is drying you can start to assemble your pallets!

 Give the top pallet a light sanding to take off the rough edges but don't ruin the patina unless you are going to stain it or paint it.

Cut and glue wood spacers together and then glue onto bottom pallet in the middle. Use wood glue for the spacers and liquid nails to attach the spacers to the pallet.

I wanted it to  look like the "pipe" was separating the pallets so I wanted the spacers to be somewhat "invisible". That is why they are in the middle. I have seen other tables where they just cut a 4x4 block and placed them on the ends and it looks great that way as well.

I originally was going to use a 1 1/4" paddle drill and drill through the pallets and then slide the length of pipe through all of the holes. HOWEVER, I am not that straight a shot and I am sure that my pipes would have been threaded through and looked like modern art so I decided to cut them to fit in between the spaces and it would "look" like the pipe was threaded. See below to see what I mean.

 To do this you will have to measure each corner of the pallet precisely and then cut the PVC with a compound miter saw. Cut it a 16th longer than your measurement so it will fit tightly and then using a rubber mallet, tap into place.

 I didn't get too worried about placement until I had the whole thing assembled and then I adjusted each pipe piece to make it line up well.

 This is just to show you how these pieces will line up. I didn't cut the middle pieces until I had the pallets on top of each other. Then I could get a tight measurement and cut the remaining pipe to fit.

 Here are your little "nuts" sprayed and in place. Cool huh?!?

 Spray paint your feet (joint connectors) if you haven't already done so.

 This is the table upside down and assembled so I could glue the feet on. I used liquid nails just on the inside of the rim of the feet and let dry. I also used liquid nails to glue the top to the bottom by the wood spacers , just in case you thought I was a wizard these really were suspended in mid air.

 A little side view while it dries. See how it looks like the pipe is what is connecting the two pallets? The bottom  pallet is actually going to be the top. I put them together so the slatted tops were on the bottom and the top. I hope this makes sense. So essentially the bottom pallet is top side down and the top pallet is top side up!

Now get a man to help you move this sucker because she is a bit on the heavy side.

Here she is in place!

Here is the view from the side.  I guess I should have glued my nut on a liiiiittle to the right. I was a wee bit tired at this point.

 A little styling...

 Cool trivets

Look at my sad little palm tree. It needs a makeover or maybe just some regular watering might help.

I am about half-way done re-doing this porch. Can yo guess what needs to be reworked next?

The chair is going and I have my mid-century pair of chairs replacing it. So please be patient as I need to get sewing and cushion making and spray painting those bad boys.

Oh, BTW, the table cost me $8.00! 

Please stop back tomorrow when I show finally reveal the vintage downspouts turned........?

Update: I added some different colored slats to make the top solid and more functional. Love it even more I tell ya'!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are.