I finally finished up the new office chair. I'm really excited about it...our old office chair was acutally one of our dining room chairs. Not super comfy and no arms to it! I spent some time scouring Craigslist, looking for a cool, retro chair....with no luck.
So, I found this old dud....
You can read all about its transformation here.
However, I had a small problem. I had covered the back of the backrest and in order to reattach the backrest, I had to put screws under the fabric. Uh-oh.
So, I had to reevaluate and I decided to cut open the back and cover the backrest with a gold fabric I had leftover from another piece of furniture.
It looked great, except for the scruffy edges. What to do? Upholstery tacks to the rescue.
It was not perfect for my first time, but it looks nice and to be honest, it adds a lot more interest to the chair than before I cut through the back and added the gold fabric! My confidence level is higher after having done this project. : ) The hardest part was folding down the fabric, spacing the tacks and not hammering my fingers in the process.
Here is the back all finished out....
And finally, the chair in the office!
Much better.
I'd like to share a website I love. Today, May 1st, is International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day!
This blog and website is written by a guy who lives in London and he started surreptitiously planting seeds and plants in empty or trash-filled garden beds around the city--he usually plants at night! I loved his idea of making something beautiful in a concrete jungle. It's fun to read about the planting escapades and the pictures are great....lots of before and after. It's about taking a little time and effort to make something pretty and that makes people happy.
Also, on his site, he had declared that Friday would be the "Royal Weeding" and all should go out and pull a few weeds for beautification! You can check it out here.
Although it's still not time for widespread seeding here, I may plant a few sunflower seeds today in honor of ISGG Day. I may also try to find a spot in my neighborhood that could use a few seeds as well! ; )
Along with multitudes of rain around here, I have also had a number of festering decor projects that have been neglected. I'll start to share in the next week. Some I have had to do just to get them out of my garage! Now that it is starting to get warm outside, playthings are taking over the garage and real estate out there is coveted. ; )
One of the latest is also one of my more ambitious projects. You may remember this chair from my Habitat For Humanity ReStore venture. Nondescript brown office chair.
Well, here is what it looked like after I took off all of the dusty, dull fabric.
You can see clearly in that shot all of the TOYS that live in the garage these days. As I said, this was quite ambitious for me, since it was a bit more involved than just recovering chair pads. There were two pieces to recover and I had to use foam on the seat and on the backrest. Before I cut the foam, I spray painted the wood with a semigloss black spray paint.
Here is my fabric. It is great for the black and gold scheme I have going on in our study.
The corners were a bit tough, but I eventually got them looking decent.
Please excuse the picture quality....it was dark outside and my garage lights are somewhat inadequate! Last, I had to screw in the backrest....
This threw a wrench in my plan, since I had to get inside the back of the backrest to screw in the screws. Hmm. Punting here....I'll let you know how that turned out. And of course, I'll take pics of my flub, too. : )
I'm thinking upholstery tacks.....
So.....you know what they say about April showers? I've had it! We are about one inch of rainfall away from breaking not only the record for the most rainfall in the month of April here in Cincinnati, we are close to breaking the record for the most rainfall in any month in history.
Awesome! I am so behind on spring projects....mulch and windows, especially. The grass is extremely green, which is nice...but it's growing way too fast! On the upside, all of my perennials are nice and lush. Here's to some nice, dry and warm weekends coming up soon!
Here is what is blooming this week....
This is the one tulip I have in our yard. Actually, it's Charlie's. He picked it out and planted it in his raised garden bed. I'm not too partial to tulips....they are not the most reliable of rebloomers (some consider them "annual" bulbs) and deer consider them a treat. However, after observing my neighbors' tulips this spring, perhaps I should give them another chance.
This plant is new to me. It is called sea thrift. I was not even sure when I bought it last fall when it blooms...it turns out that it blooms now! Nice color and nice bloom time when not much else besides bulbs are in bloom.
Last, we have these blooms on a tree in our yard:
We inherited this plant when we moved in...I think it is a star magnolia or a Jane magnolia. We transplanted it to a new spot last spring and it had a rough time during the drought-ish time last summer. It seems to be doing okay, although not a ton of blooms. If it doesn't get its act together in the next year or so....
I apologize for the picture quality! It was quite windy the day I took all of these and hard to keep the plants still while I snapped the pics. : )
Oh, and an update to the birds....the babies have hatched! They have tiny little beaks and no eyes yet.
A few weeks ago, I noticed a bird flying away from the front door when I would open it. After it happened a few times, I decided to inspect it more closely. Up in our forsythia wreath, I spied a bird's nest.
At first, I thought maybe the bird wasn't done building and I could dismantle it.....but then I got a better look.
Oh, yeah...that's four eggs in there! Charlie and I climbed up on a ladder to check them out and he thinks it's pretty cool. No touching!!! I do think it will be neat to take out the bird's nest when I take down the wreath once those birds are out of there. Charlie will like that, too.
I guess I will be putting off those plans to paint my front door for a while until those baby birds are grown! Although, I do have a neat idea for the abandoned nest....: )
A week ago, I engaged in some heavy duty yardwork. I have been wanting to do this job for about eight months. I'm talking transplanting shrubs. It's really best to do it in late fall or early spring....and we don't have time for massive house jobs in the fall around my house! So, last weekend, it was time. Here is the before:
My little buddy has his trucks all lined up and ready to go. Those taxus bushes were in the crosshairs. To me, in the world of plants, taxus is vanilla. Eh. So they were getting moved to the side of the house.
It had rained the day before, so my during pics are limited....I was literally covered in mud. Here is the after:
Now, they need a little pruning, but they definitely fill in the space here (picture nothing in that spot before)! I also added some hostas divided from my mom's house in front of the windows. My favorite thing about this whole project? Free.
Except now, I have this in front of our house...
Next on the list is to build a few small retaining walls and add some plants. Not free....but it will be a good project for us this spring/summer!
My favorite thing about planting around a newer construction home? This.
Hello, huge rock-shaped concrete. You were a real b&*& to dig up.
Last....it was a day filled with yard work. You get a gold star if you can spot the special cargo in my wheelbarrow.
Spring is definitely underway in my yard and I couldn't be happier. First up this week, some pretty grape hyacinths.
I had these at our old house in white and I must say, they are more striking in purple. I planted bulbs at our new house last fall and it's tough to plant bulbs and get them exactly right the first time. You never know what they will look like in the place you put them until they bloom. I have had to move them in the past to more favorable spots. My thought about the hyacinths? I need MORE for more effect. : )
These beautiful blooms are from our new serviceberry trees (amelanchier). We planted these last fall and I have been so excited to see the blooms this spring. These trees will also have berries in June, plus great fall color. Their variety name is 'Autumn Brilliance.'
The next pic shows the blooms from our little sand cherry tree. I love the maroon leaves and pink blooms. This tree is in our backyard and was transplanted back there from the front yard last year.
Lastly, a few pics from my veggie garden. Not necessarily blooms, but fun to see anyhow. These are the lettuce seedlings I planted about a month ago. I started a second crop about two weeks ago to stagger the plantings for a continual supply until it gets hot here (when lettuce goes to seed).
And this pic shows off my perennial herbs. They are a-growin' like crazy! My personal fave is the oregano, the three huge bunches to the lower right of the picture.
Makes me want to start up some spaghetti sauce....
