Coffee table turned bedroom bench...

I mentioned before, this  car boot sale table...

 ...was begging to be transformed into a bedroom bench. I even found an image of a spookily similar bedroom bench.

Sometimes I can see how I can beautify something so I have to buy it.

Do we need a bedroom bench? No.
Do we even have space for a bedroom bench? No.
But when my creative juices flow I do not let practicality get in the way.
(For heavens sake, I've just painted my stairs white, with two muddy pawed cats and a 6 year old.)

So that I don't end up on one of those hoarding shows, and to save my marriage, this bench was going to have to be sold. In order to appeal to the largest possible market it had be be pale and neutral.
(I'm really just excusing yet another beige and cream offering...)

I had to countersink and fill all the nasty screws that stood proud of the timber.

Before...

After...

 

 I sanded, primed and painted the woodwork next.
I got a big sheet of 3'' foam from Dunelm Mill. It was £20 inc delivery and I cut it to size with an electric carving knife. It worked so well! I stuck it to the table with spray adhesive. Then I put wadding over that.

(I approached our local curtain shop as I saw they sold foam cut to size but they wanted £90!)

I used some upholstery fabric that was a boot sale find to cover it. I always pick up upholstery fabrics when I see them as they are very expensive and you never know when you might have an upholstery emergency.

So here it is!

Some pretty stylin'...

...and keeping it real...

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Upholstery is a lot harder than it looks! Those corners were very tricky. But I like how it's turned out. And everyone needs a place to fling their clothes at night don't they?

The finished mannequin!

 It was Friday afternoon, almost a week since I had blogged. I had created very little. Well, homemade soup and a cake are not really blogworthy. The pressure was building. I had to actually do something.
So, I picked up the partially made cover for the boot sale mannequin and started sewing it all together. Here is how it used to look. It looks better in the picture! It was very badly done! You can just see some sellotape near the neck which held the fabric on. Nice.
I had decided on hessian as it's very cheap and I thought it might emulate the old Stockman mannequins. Good choice! You cannot see a single stitch let alone a whole row of wonky stitches! Hessian is very forgiving!

 My dear husband came in before I had done the neck and said, ''It looks like a hooded executioner from a horror film!''
He is good like that.
Hooded executioner is not the look I was going for.

 I seem to have ended up with sexy boudoir meets er, scarecrow...but I like it! I was intending on properly finishing the bottom edge by stapling it to the base but I quite like the dangly look so I left it.

And my favourite bit? The ribbon laced back!
It's not a patch on the work of the lady at Corset Laced Mannequins but it's good enough for me and cost a fraction of hers. I got myself some citrisolve from ebay and might attempt to add a small graphic from the Graphics Fairy at some point. I'll have a practise on off cuts of hessian first!

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Pantry makeover and LOTS of painting!

Busy weekend celebrating mine and my daughters birthdays so sadly no car boot sales for me. The weather was appalling though so apparently there wasn't much to miss.

Sooo, I thought I'd share with you the sheer horror of my pantry as it was! No amount of baskets were prettying this up! Like the rest of the house, it was decorated 40 years ago, and the shelves were imaginatively constructed from a dismembered wardrobe.
Seeking cornflakes in here is not a good start to anyones day. 

  Did you know that IKEA now do online shopping? I had been lusting after some solid wood TROFAST units for quite some time, but in my state of car-lessness I had no way to get them. Until one day, they suddenly started online shopping and I almost melted my credit card in a frenzy of excitement.
I had already worked out what would fit by actually building paper templates of the units! The pantry has a sloping ceiling as it goes under the stairs and the back wall has a huge bulge in it to accommodate the downstairs loo but I figured it would be easier to assemble my units and then chop portions off them to make them fit, rather than build some from scratch.
So here are the off cuts.

 And here's the finished result. Cleaner, fresher, and easier to see what I have. I had about nine thingys of salt in there!

I painted it all in white water based eggshell so it will stay white despite the lack of daylight in there. Oil based would discolour really fast. I also used a special primer to stop the knots seeping and allow water based paint over it. It was Blackfriars problem solving primer. Great product!
You can get these Trofast units in white but they are the particle board ones and I wanted the strength of the solid pine.

 I made this peg bag to match the oil cloth shevles. (The oil cloth shelves may not be staying. I think it might be better just all white...)

   I'd always wanted one of these and I was lucky enough to find one at a car boot sale for 50p. It's a vintage iron holder.

 My pink broom is happy in her new home. See how the shelves fit under the stairs?

 I also made a new bag tidy with some linen and applique letters. Why not?

 And this is what I'm working on now. It's a tv cabinet, the drawers on the front are fake and two doors open up. I love the shape.

I am going round 2 with milk paint on this one and I'm losing the fight.
I really do not like milk paint. But I had a lot left over...

 Lovely shape! I've refinished the top. I'll show you when it's done.

And this is a little 1930's Lebus dressing table that is also having a makeover.
As you can see, it's in a bad way and is needing a lot of TLC.
I've given up stripping outside and have taken over the dining room. Er, and half the living room. 






I'm crossing my fingers for a dry sunday morning so I can get my boot sale fix for the week. 

Car boot sale mannequin

Look what I scored at todays boot sale! It wasn't cheap at £25.00 and it's in need of some carpentry and a total re-cover but I'm smitten!

So, what to cover her in? A bit of Cath Kidston? Hessian coffee and potato sacks? Or perhaps an old French linen mangle coth.... Watch this space...

What would you do with her?