Cream Iron Architectural Piece

I added a little accent to the frames and plates on our basement guest bedroom wall.

I would like to first thank all my readers and friends who take the time to stop by and visit with me here at Blue Clear Sky. I appreciate you. I have noticed quite a few new followers and email/FB subscribers who may not have seen the changes I am slooowly making to our basement guest suite. 

These frames and plates on the wall between the walk in closet and bedroom door are one of those projects using items I already had. We have so many things we need to freshen and maintain in our too big for us home that I am working on updating our basement by using things we already own, thrift store and yard sale finds. 

This iron scroll piece adds a bit of visual height to this shorter wall (under a heating duct.) I see now that I will have to pop down there with some cream paint to cover the screws. It is a really heavy piece and I didn't want it falling on someone. I'm looking for a narrow cabinet or bookcase for the spot below these frames to hold a small flat screen TV.

I finish school/work for the summer on Friday and I can hardly wait to start a few projects (well, after my surgery next week.) Finishing painting the doors and trim in this bedroom will be high on my list. What are you keeping busy with this week?

$13 Aegean Blue Dresser for our Basement Guest Room

I scored a bunch of new hardware at a garage sale today. Perfect timing because now I can share the freshly painted and distressed Aegean Blue dresser in our basement guest bedroom.

I moved the little white tables I was using as night stands to our living room for now. This dresser might be a bit tall, but I got some advice from blogging friends to try bigger pieces beside the bed. It will be nice for guests to be able to unpack if they choose.

This is the dresser we bought off kijiji (only 2 streets away) for $10. It is a newer piece but it is very solid and spotlessly clean. I had to lose the double knobs however : )

I decided to try Zinsser Cover Stain as a bonding primer, as recommended by Kate at Centsational Girl. Zinsser Cover Stain is an oil-base primer-sealer in liquid or spray but I chose the brush on liquid. It went on nicely but next time I will buy a brush more suited to oil-base paints as bristles kept coming out of my brush. The best part is that it dries to touch in 20 minutes and you can paint over it in one hour.

The paint I used is Martha Stewart Living eggshell finish in Aegean Blue.

When Home Depot was clearing out their MS sample containers (with the little foam brushes in the lid) I picked up a bunch for $1 each. This dresser used less than 2 sample pots. 

I distressed the edges and some random spots. Using the high adhesion primer makes the finish more durable, but the white shows through when you sand it back. I can live with it though. This is a basement bedroom so it is a bit tough getting good lighting for photos (our carpet is grey.) 

The best part was the bin of new brushed nickel hardware I found at a yard sale today. I had priced handles for this dresser at Home Depot and it would have been $16-$22 (Cdn$) for four simple handles. The bin today had 80 packages of knobs and handles in four styles.  The asking price? $20. 

That would be about 25 cents each for still in package brushed nickel hardware. You can probably guess that they came home with me : ) I may have skipped to my truck. 

Projects are progressing in our basement guest suite but we still have lots to do. Our budget is really tight, especially for the basement, so I am trying hard to make things look good with items we already have or finding things super affordably. I think this $13 dresser works quite well.

I'm sharing this with...

SNS 140 at Funky Junk Interiors

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Inspiration Friday @ At The Picket Fence

Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now

Weekend Wrap-Up Party at Tatertots and Jello
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm
The Ironstone Nest's Transformation Tuesday Link Party is back!
Primitive and Proper's Piece of Work Wednesday Furniture Link Party
Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday
and SNS Special - Refabbed Furniture - at Funky Junk Interiors

Ironstone and Canning Jars

This afternoon I couldn't help pausing to enjoy the play of sunlight on my aqua canning jars. 

I quickly grouped together some ironstone plates and one of my aqua Crown mason jars.

Through the process of sorting for a recent garage sale I have been able to narrow down the collections that I really enjoy having. On my list are ironstone pieces and old canning jars. Among other things : ) Luckily a bonus of  purging is that now we have more storage room for the items I love.

These colours make me happy.

I hope you enjoy your weekend. Josh (13) and I plan to hit some garage sales tomorrow morning and if we are lucky we just might find a new piece for my collections.

I'm sharing this with...
Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage
SNS #140 at Funky Junk Interiors

Rearranging Jelly Cabinet

With all the de-cluttering from our recent garage sale I have been making changes to find room for my collections.

The tall jelly cabinet (pie safe??) that was originally in our kitchen...

 

 and then in our dining room (but I can't seem to find a photo)...

 and most recently in my studio/sewing room...

is back in our dining room. Without the glass front that had an unfortunate encounter with my teen son and a dining chair. Luckily said teen son is handy and also has a roll of rabbit cage wire that he was kind enough to install in place of the glass. So now the cabinet looks something like this:

I opened it up to share the display that still needs some tweaking. Just not sure what. Taking photos sometimes helps me in this process.

I started with my cream lace collection.

And then added the black and turquoise coffee set. Our china cabinet opposite this is black...

 so I was trying to add some black on this side of the room.

I still think it needs something, but I like having it back in our dining room. Edited to add: the white with aqua/turquoise paint is not new, I painted it this lovely mistint turquoise in 2009.

Wishing you all a Happy Father's Day with your loved ones. I visited with my Dad today and brought him Tim Horton's for breakfast. I have the day to myself because my husband likes to take our boys to visit with his father at his hometown car show and then spend the day at the farm.

I'm sharing this with...

SNS at Funky Junk Interiors

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Bamboo Roman Blinds

I love the texture this new bamboo roman blind adds to our dining room.

I would be surprised if I actually remembered all the combinations of window coverings and hardware this window has seen over the thirteen years we have lived in our home. Some of them would make me seriously cringe. I loved the new black metal rod and clips we added last year but I was still looking for texture and  some light filtering.

Before bamboo blinds:

This, however, is my favourite look of all. Texture, simple, and light. Our 15 year old hung this one for me this afternoon and I hope to get the living room blind up soon. We plan to move the curtain rod supports in closer to the window trim and close to the edge of the blind (they are about 10" out from the trim at present.) Oh, and our walls are not pinky at all. Just the lousy lighting at this time of evening.

It is a simple little change but one that makes me very happy. I have been looking locally for affordable bamboo romans but found them quite pricey. Luckily I was able to pick these ones up for 50% off when Zellers was closing.

Hoping you are having a great weekend.  I posted twice today, sharing the yard sale we had today in the post below.

Garage Sale Ready

 We had a beautiful day today for our garage sale.

I had everything priced and ready to go last night. At 5:45 am our 13 year old son woke us up ready to go. He is my garage sale buddy and was really looking forward to it. Funny how he doesn't look forward to helping around the yard or house, eh? 


Garage sales in our area don't start until 8 am but with the help of my husband and Josh, everything was ready at 7 am.  Yeah, a wee bit too early. We were fortunate to get lots of traffic and happy buyers. (There were more items not shown to the right of the photo.) The funniest part of the morning was that we brought our front porch chairs onto the grass in the shade of a tree for quiet moments and got 5 offers on them. One guy even tested it out.


A few items I decided to keep and we took 3 small boxes and mirrors left over to the thrift store. Now I just need to limit my yard sale purchases to only buy things that are my most favourite collections (ironstone, pitchers, milk glass....) Did you hit any yard sales this weekend?

Sorting for a Garage Sale

I have decided to have a garage sale this weekend and the sorting and organizing has begun.

This is just the first pile of stuff picked and priced. I love my collections, but I am trying hard to only buy things that fit my 'loves' and not just 'likes' because they are a good deal. We regularly take bags and boxes of items to the local Salvation Army, but this time I am digging a little deeper. Being a little harder on myself and letting things go. And it feels good. No clothing or toys, just home accessories and small furniture pieces. So even though it is more work I am planning a garage sale for Saturday morning. The weather forecast is great and I hope to put the profits towards a new man-door for our garage. Do you have yard sales or donate your used items, or like us a combination of both.

Summer Beach Kitchen Shelves

Today I changed the shelves in our kitchen for a beachy summer look.

I like to change these shelves in our kitchen with the seasons and holidays.

This square glass container was a 50 cent yard sale find from May, and the dainty little starfish was 40% off with a Michael's coupon. I layered an old ironstone platter with a navy plate and added a few little white dishes.

I brought back my Adirondack / Muskoka chair napkin rings. I love using them especially at this time of year. The navy, white and turquoise are favourite colours of mine and remind me so much of summer and lazy days at a lakeside beach.

My favourite aqua Crown canning jars with their old zinc and glass lids stayed on the top shelf. I love seeing how the changing light deepens and lightens the lovely aqua tint of the glass. Today is quite overcast but we have had some much needed rain.

This little plaster cast was an impression of seashells made by our youngest son on an art field trip in grade six. I love adding their hand made creations to vignettes.

This BEACH sign used to be in our ensuite bath but has found a temporary home on a little turquoise easel my sister-in-law gave me.

On the breakfast bar below I added my grandmother's silver sugar scuttle, and old silver pedestal with ironstone plates and another Crown jar with mismatched tarnished silver spoons.

I kept the vintage kitchen scale here but changed out the napkins to shades of blue stripes. The best part is that this was assembled with only the small starfish (less than $3) and the 50 cent square glass jar as new purchases. Everything else was from 'shopping the house.' You can find more seasonal variations of these shelves for Spring here, for Valentine's Day here, for Christmas here, for Halloween here, for late summer here and for Fall here. 

Again, thanks for the kind comments and emails while I have been resting. I am back to work and feeling much better, although my second surgery is still ahead in early July. Thankfully I have only three weeks left of work and then I am off for the summer. Have you added any summer decorating to your home? I would love to stop by and see it.

I'm sharing this with...

SNS #138 at Funky Junk Interiors

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm

Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style 

and the Summer Mantel Link Party at The Lettered Cottage

Update

Thanks for all the kind comments and emails. I was admitted to the hospital rather unexpectedly with a bad kidney infection that required surgery. I'm home now.

The kidney will need to heal for a few weeks before the second surgery to break up the stones. I have had this procedure before so at least I know what to expect. I hope you are all enjoying your early summer weekend, and thanks again for the kind thoughts and prayers.