Reuse, Recover

A few months ago, SisX and I got to spend an afternoon wandering through an antique mall.
We saw lots of interesting items, and even picked up a couple to take home.

One of my finds was a vanity bench. I took a risk because I wasn't sure if it would quite fit, but I lucked out and it turned out being perfect.

The seller had already painted the wood black and re-upholstered the seat with a striped fabric.
The black worked with our decorating scheme, the stripes... not so much.

I knew it would be easy enough to re-cover, but I didn't expect it would be THIS easy!

First, with the help of Dear Husband (DH) we picked out a new fabric to use. We opted for a sturdy home-decorating fabric. Usually it can run $25-$30 per yard. We needed less than a yard, and I had a coupon that I intended to use, but home decor fabric was on sale, and we got enough fabric to re-cover this mini bench for just under $6. Score!

It took me a while to get around to the project, but once I started it only took 30-45 min.

Sometimes you want to remove the previous fabric, but in this case I didn't need to. The new fabric was thick enough so you couldn't see the old pattern through, and it wasn't too bulky so I could still staple through it.


The key here was trying to center the pattern of the fabric on the seat. While not perfect, I got it pretty close.

After stapling it on, I just had to screw it back into the base, and it was done!

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.















I also finished another, much smaller project that had been on my mind lately.
I have been wanting to create a "mini-memorial" for my childhood dog, Pete.

Pete was our first family dog, and came into my life when I needed him most.
He was with us for 13 great years and taught us so much. Eventually he lost almost all hearing, most of his eyesight, and ached with arthritis. Once he started having more bad days than good, we knew it was time to peacefully let him go.

Pete was never a big fan of other dogs, but he was able to meet puppy-Eva twice and actually tolerated her quite well. That was more that acceptance, and it was as if Pete had approved of Eva and passed off the reins. Eva even has a small white patch of fur on her chest that is a little softer than the rest of her fur... I like to think of it as her "Pete-approved" patch.

Eva was looking pretty shaggy, so I slowly got her used to a pair of clippers to trim her fur. I trained her slowly, so she looked pretty silly for a few days while I only had her hindquarters trimmed.

Today she was lamenting about the hail and rain outside, but she is looking pretty cute with her Spring trim!

First Guests of the Season

This weekend we had so much fun! (And got in a little trouble...)

Dear Husband's sister (SisM) and her husband (BroP) were able to come and visit us! They are expecting a new little one in August, so this was their last chance to squeeze a vacation in before Baby comes.

The first thing we did was head out to the beach, as it was perfect weather.

Eva and her dog-cousin, Oscar, really seemed to like it too!















Siblings, sisters, and brothers, oh my!

I think everyone had a great time, and we were all pretty tuckered out, especially the dogs!

Other than the beach, we had a lot of great food and tried some new things out. We cooked "beer can chicken" for the first time ever.  Here it is, rubbed down and waiting for the grill.
It was our first attempt, so while not perfect, it was VERY tasty!
We carved off most of the outside meat, then finished cooking the inside in the oven since it needed just a couple more minutes.

In addition to the beach and good food, we also toured around town to do some shopping.
Unfortunately, this is where I got in trouble.

Like the absent-minded person I can sometimes be... I locked the car keys in the trunk. *$#!@*&

AAA took FOR-EV-ER! They only had one service company in our area, which only had one person working, and he had loooong list of people who needed help. We were asked to wait an hour and 15 min! Thankfully our guests were really understanding and took the whole thing in stride.

So we waited... an hour and 20 min. So I called... and they wanted us to wait another 45 min.
Not happening.
So I called the local police department and requested non-emergency help. We also called our friend, JP, to come and take our guests home.

The cop came in less than 10 min and was really understanding. He was working on unlocking the car for about 10-15 min when the AAA service guy arrived who had the better tools, and was finally able to pop the trunk.
Whew!

Afterward we had a tasty casserole, and spent some awesome time by the fire pit. JP was even able to run home and grab his dog, Aiden, so we had a full on puppy party too!

It was quite stressful but no one was hurt, the weather was nice, we weren't late for anything, and we got to spend some quality time with some great friends.