Turning the Tables

hey y'all!!!

oh.my.gosh. i've been v. bad. AGAIN.

i know i'd promised to blog more often, but more often than not, i don't. whaa??

i don't know. life is so crazy. either i'm too tired, too bizzzzy or something else comes up.

ANYway, what drew me back to blogger (gahh gahh gahh!! it took me THIRTY minutes to figure out my login and password!!) was my most recent project(s).

recently, as i was driving down a neighborhood road, i spotted two cafe tables, sitting pretty as you please, curbside. naturally, i slammed (er, i mean slowed down) on my brakes, hit reverse and backed up to the aforementioned cafe tables. not ONE, mind you. but TWO of them. CURBSIDE!!!! (read: FREE)

i don't know about YOU, but my heart goes into v-tach (that's like real fast thumpety thump-thump for you non-medical types) when i see "stuff" that has been tossed out and kicked to the curb.

i mean, one man's trash, blah blah blah, and all that jazz, right?!?!

so i jumped out, hauled the not-so-light tables to my camry, arranged them nicely in the backseat and headed on my merry way.

let me interject here and say that these cafe tables were UgLy!!! if i had no motivation or inclination to paint them, I'D throw them out too.

case in point:

 

 

seriously?! red and silver metallic stripes! what was this USED for?! WHO used it?? looks like something that belongs at the north pole, no? ho-ho-ho!!

and then THIS one:

 

metallic silver with an attempt at trees on the top! what. the. WHAT?? maybe the tin man from the wizard of oz lost his table along with his heart.

 

 

well, i've been wanting to do a chalkboard project for the longest time. yes, folks. that's right. i'm the LAST person on planet EaRtH to use chalkboard paint. so before i even got home, i knew that one of those tables was doomed, i mean, destined to have a chalkboard top.

ALSO, i've had it in my crazy tow-headed/gray brain to paint something ... ANYTHING ... a lovely robin's egg blue. i've fallen head over heels in love with it and thought it'd be a nice change-up from my usual PINK. yes, i know ... a moment of silence. she's not using PINK.

over the last four days, the project has finally come together (after only 3 trips to walmart, several naps, multiple xanax and more than a few cuss words!).

the gawd-awful red and silver metallic table (henceforth to be known as table 1) was converted into a chalkboard table. i used the robin's egg blue for the heavy metal base.

 

the metallic silver table (table 2) has been transformed into a lovely cafe table. it has the robin's egg blue top and white for the heavy metal base.

 

i think they both turned out pretty well. i love it when i can rescue an old, thrown out, kicked to the curb piece ... and give it new life. makes me just a tad sentimental for some reason.

together, before:

 

together, after:

 

 

with any luck (blogger is imPOSSible to work with ... slooooow photo uploads, weird screens, ack!) my next post will be about another recent rescue rehab, a bad-a$$ old screen door which was teetering atop another pile of junk, on another road, awaiting another life.

til then!

love and hugs,
terry lee

 

let's have a cup of tea!

Say What?!

hey y'all,

haven't felt well lately and so i totally missed out on a great junking weekend because of it (sorry, marta).

but i've been meaning to post this since i saw it a couple of weeks ago. ever been in one of those funky dollar stores where things just. don't. feel. right? you know the ones. you see a product on the shelf and you think you recognize it. but no. on closer inspection, it's some weird knock-off of the brand product.

let's say, just for kicks, you spy a pack of panasonic batteries. but wait. when you pick them up, it actually says penesamig batteries. are the chinese (or choose your favorite foreign country) just slapping a slightly-off label on an inferior product and expecting us to not notice?!

sadly, most of us do notice but are still enticed to buy the inferior knock-off because it's cheap. oh, nevermind it doesn't work or its quality is so poor you end up trashing it. but hey! it was only a dollar!

which brings me actually, to the main point of this post. there's a "dollar" store in this area called "giant dollar store; everything's $1". don't believe me? here's the actual signage:





a few months ago, i was in this particular store for some gawd-awful reason. okay, it might've been the cutesy $1.00 earrings that i'm terribly fond of:

huge, i know. but adorable!

c'mon! pink peace signs?!?! irresistible!

anyhow, i noticed some pink croc-type shoes that i wanted.

"hey, they're only a dollar and they look comfortable," i said to myself (when no one else is around, i tend to self-talk).

but when i was checking out, the foreign-type (not that there's anything wrong with that) man behind the counter said, "deez ah tree dahluhs, oh-kay?"

i replied, "no. that's not okay. i thought everything in your store is a dollar."

"deez ah berry high qualiteee choos," he countered.

"yeah, but the name. of. your. store. is EVERYTHING'S $1!"

"tree dahluhs for choos."

i left him, with his damn $3 croc knock-offs and vowed to never return. also, i whipped out my handy dandy iphone and took the pictures above as evidence. of what, i'm not sure. i guess just to remind myself that i wasn't going crazy. the sign really does say everything's $1!

to those of you who might be thinking that $3 was a good deal, you may be right. but that's not the point. IF you're going to advertise (read sign) that everything's $1, then every. damn. thing. should. be. a. dollar ... or less. not more. arghhh.

btw, i did break my vow. i returned a couple of weeks ago with pal bonnie. yeah, we couldn't resist the new shipment of jewelry we heard had arrived. after choosing a few pairs of earrings, i wandered around while bonnie finished her shopping. that's when i spotted the following. i could scarcely believe my eyes ... which is why i took the picture. no one would've believed me:

anyone need some cotton pads??



let's just take a little closer look, shall we?



after that, all i can say is ... at least the fuxing nob nob cotton pads were only a dollar.

love and hugs,
terry lee