Snow Day!

Well, I figured it was high time that I make use of that lovely metal ladder that I ordered from Decor Steals. It's been sitting in my entryway for a few weeks now. I'm a school teacher and we had a snow day today. Perfect time to move the ladder and hang some quilts off of it! Of course, I did some other projects too.

I decided to put the ladder with the quilts on it in a bedroom that used to belong to our oldest daughter. It's still where she stays when she comes to visit. I had been storing the quilts in this room on a shelf anyway. This is just a nicer way to display them. All the quilts on the ladder have been handmade by family members. A couple from feed sacks and old clothing during the depression. There are also a couple on the bottom rung that are children's quilts. One is totally hand stitched and falling apart, it belonged to my dad when he was a baby and toddler, made by my grandmother. The other child's quilt on the bottom belonged to my husband and was made by his mom. Each quilt has a story and each has been hand quilted, one is a tied quilt. I still have quite a stack on the shelf. Guess I should have bought two of these ladders. LOL

At a fairly recent auction, I bought a vintage buffet. I just love the lines of this piece of furniture. It needs some help, so that will be one of my next projects. And, just in case my oldest daughter happens to read this.... yes, I plan to make your roman shades first! I'm glad that I always have plenty of projects to occupy my time. I wouldn't want it any other way.

Here's a few shots of the buffet with potential. One of these days I plan to post the "after" shots.

I've ordered some CeCe Caldwell's paint for this project. I usually use Annie Sloan's chalk paint but she just didn't have the colors I was looking for for the buffet. I'm anxious to give this new paint a try.

A Complicated Order

About 2 months ago I ordered a metal display ladder from an internet company called Decor Steals. The ladder was a Miss Mustard Seed pick. Here's the ladder I ordered:

I thought this would be great to display wreaths, pictures, or quilts. I could hardly wait for it to arrive. I waited, and waited, and waited. I was thinking it must be taking so long because it was ordered before the holidays or maybe it was on back order. Finally, one day when I got home from work, my husband said that he had hauled in a large package that had been left on the front porch. Sure enough, the ladder had arrived!

When I saw that box, I suspected that there was a problem. The top of the box had been taped ... A LOT... And, the rungs of the ladder were sticking out of the bottom of the box. Plus, the box was pretty short for the size of the ladder. But I though ... maybe the ladder was in two pieces. So I cut open the box and took a look. Oh, my, the ladder was a mess! Take a look:

Well, the box had been delivered by the United States Postal Service so I gave them a call the following day (on a Saturday) to report the damage. The lady at the post office had a very interesting story to tell me. Right away, she said, "oh yes I remember that box, it came in that way". And she proceeded to tell me more... well, in our town, the USPS has a contract with Fed Ex. Fed Ex drops off boxes at the post office and USPS delivers the boxes as a part of their normal delivery route. Well about 2 weeks before I got my box, a tall box had been brought in by Fed Ex for USPS to deliver to me. But, that tall box didn't meet the size limitations of the Fed Ex contract with the postal service. So the post office refused the box. Then, the day before I got my delivery, this taped box was dropped off by FedEx... at the post office... to deliver to me. The people at the post office realized there was a problem, but it fit the size requirement, so they delivered the box.

My next move was to find out how to contact customer service at Decor Steals. It's an internet company so all I could find was an comment section for e-mails. I was very pleased when I was contacted within 24 hours by the company (they sent me a reply e-mail on a Sunday). The person at Decor Steals asked that I send some pictures of the damaged ladder. I heard back from him quickly, he couldn't believe that ladder ended up like that! It was made of heavy metal... how could this happen? I shared the FedEx story with him. Is it possible that someone at FedEx had intentionally bent the ladder just to get the postal service to deliver it???? Well, I guess we'll never know that.

On Monday, the owner of Decor Steals gave me a call. She was extremely nice and even laughed about the entire incident. She said they had another ladder in the warehouse and would get it delivered to me right away. Sure enough, it came today (Saturday). And, it's PERFECT!

It came in this nice tall box:

And it's in perfect shape:

I'll have to say that the people at Decor Steals were wonderful to work with. They were efficient and friendly and certainly corrected the situation. I'll sure order from them again! I'm very happy with the metal ladder!

A special little table....

I have some fabulous friends. A few of them keep me in mind when they go to garage sales or find freebies in soembody's trash heap. A while back one of these special friends stopped by my house with a small wobbly table that she had "scored" at a garage sale. I agreed that it was indeed special and that I could surely do something with it! Here's the table in it's "before" state.

This table proved to be more of a challenge than I imagined. It needed repaired in a strange place; where the spindle attached to the base. So to begin I took it apart and reglued it. It seemed pretty sturdy after that. Then I painted it with Annie Sloan's Graphite paint. While it was sitting on a cloth drying, I tripped on the drop cloth and knocked over the table. Crash, it was broken again. I figured that was a good thing as I didn't want it to break later after I had sold it out of my booth space. So I repaired it again! Which meant I had to wait for the glue to dry.

As I was waiting, I did some thinking about what treatment I could use on that triangular shaped top. I had an idea! A while back I bought some old record books from a church that was closing it's doors. I loved the old handwriting and aged and tattered pages in the book. These were written throughtout the years. I chose some pages that were written in 1904. Nobody writes like that anymore! Some of the script was even in German! (We live in a town that had German settlers.)

So, I cut those beautiful 1904 pages to fit the top of the table, and decopauged them on. I just love it! But..... oops, the base is still al little wobbly. So after the top dried I pulled the bottom apart again. This time I got out the big guns. I drilled a hole in each side that joins together and put a wooden chopstick in the hole. Yes, a girl has to get creative with repairs sometimes. LOL I put some of that foaming Gorilla glue around the hole. After that dried, it was PERFECTLY sturdy. Of course I had to paint over the patch. Then I waxed the painted part with dark wax. And the table turned out beautifully I think.

I took the little table, along with a whole lot of other things, into the store today. I wrote the story about the 1904 paper on the tag. I already had people commenting on the table and the neat little story that accompanied it. So THANK YOU Lona, for this great find! I hope you keep finding unique items for me to redo!

Linked to:

Well, the table didn't last in the store very long.... that's because I pulled it out. LOL A local art group asked for a donation for their art auction and this piece seemed to fit what they were wanting. So, I donated the table. Tonight at the auction, I was very pleased with the amount the table brought for the art cooperative. A big thanks to the special lady who bought the table.