Another project and cute kitty pictures

The latest project was pretty spur of the moment. I found this piece and immediately started picturing how I could fix it up. We still have a few boxes in the spare bedroom and I thought this would be perfect in there for storing some of their contents. The piece is made out of a light would that wasn't in very good condition, but with a few coats of my wonderful brown furniture paint, I got it looking good as new.
The handles and the overall simple square design reminded me of the 60s or 70s, so I played up that style with overlapping circles all over the top of the piece. I used pots and pans to trace the circles and then painted them in with shades of gold, yellow and brown.
I lucked out with the colors. I actually already had the paints, which just happened to match the hardware perfectly.


And, because he's so darn cute, here's a few more pictures of our new apartment buddy.

Callie the Bookseller, Oreo the Cat

I am officially employed at Borders. From now on, I will get paid to make book recommendations to customers and learn all I can about the newest books coming out. Basically I'll be paid to be myself. haha Not too shabby, huh? The pay is nothing special, but I am eligible for benefits, I get an employee discount on books, and I should be able to make enough to keep up with my loan repayment. So I'm pretty happy. And since I'm part time, I'll have plenty of time to write. I've got three stories brewing right now.

On Sunday, Chris and I went to the Saratoga Racetrack. My biggest winner was for $4. Chris usually won between $.20 and $1.20, but he won more often than me. We ended up leaving the track $14.60 lighter, a little tanner and full of cheesy fries and ice cream. lol It was a good time, even if we didn't win big.
Chris bet on a horse called Acquired Cat, which we were sure would be lucky for us, since we were, in fact, acquiring his dad's cat that same day. No such luck. But we did luck out with the cat. Oreo was unhappy on the 2-hour ride back to our apartment, crammed in his little carrier, but once we let him into the apartment, he was happy as a clam. He contented himself to walk around every inch of the place, rubbing his head and neck against everything he could find. After an hour or so, he jumped up on the back of the couch where Chris and I were sitting. His reaction was incredibly funny. It was obvious he didn't expect to be walking on anything so soft. His ears shot backward and his eyes got wide. As he started pushing his paws into the cushion, he pretty much started purring immediately. Within ten seconds he was sprawled out.




I'd say he's pretty happy to be a part of our family now. I'm sure he'll miss getting full freedom to run around outside, but so far he seems to be loving all the soft things he gets to lie on in our apartment.

Apartment update

My latest project was fixing up a mirror I bought at the Salvation Army for $6. I covered the frame with leftover paint from the map table. It has some really pretty detailing at the top that I want to bring out more, but for now I'm content to hang it up and actually have a mirror in the bedroom.




I also put up the sign my mom gave us from an art fair in South Haven, MI, along with some pictures I took in Croatia. I imagined it looking a little more proportioned with the bed, but that bed is just soooo big. lol Oh well.

This past weekend we went to the drive-in movie theater in Rome. We saw Pineapple Express and Step Brothers. Pretty silly movies, but Pineapple Express was actually pretty good. As for Step Brothers ... well, it was written by Will Ferrell, so we'll just leave it at that.

Renaissance Festival

Here's some pics of our adventures at the Renaissance Fair in Sterling, NY. It was a really fun afternoon. We may have not been as into the whole scene as some of the people that came in full costumes--including their own wooden drinking goblets--but we still really enjoyed it. I think those people made it even more entertaining. lol

Living Room Shelves: A Progression

My idea to brighten the place up a bit: painting the shelves.


... And then the walls behind the shelves. The color is called Amsterdam, so I thought that was neat and persuaded myself to choose this crazy color.


But it's definitely growing on us. Reminds us of the Adriatic Sea. :-)

A Handle that Fits

The table is officially finished. :-) This was literally the only handle in all of Home Depot that actually fit with the drawer. It's not the style or color I wanted, but I think it actually looks kind of nice. And it's definitely a good feeling to have it completed. Now onto the next project ...

Outside with Chris and inside with Furniture

Week two of my official unemployment and Chris's job. As a thank you for being there for him this past week, Chris brought me home these beautiful pink roses. :-) You can see in the picture below that I also got the other two chairs assembled. We now have a complete dining room set. I've also been working on getting the extra boxes moved into our storage unit at the other end of the building.


Lockheed Martin gave Chris two free tickets to see the Syracuse Chiefs, the local minor league baseball team, on Friday night. The team lost, but the fireworks at the end of the game were awesome (put on by Lockheed Martin). It was also just fun to be outside, eating hot dogs and drinking beer.


Apparently the mascot is an train conductor?

On Sunday, Chris and I went to Onandaga Lake Park. We walked about 2 miles of the way around the lake, which wasn't even a quarter of the length. The park was really nice. They have separate paths for walking and biking/roller blading. You can rent bikes and roller blades, and there is even a free tram you can ride back to where you parked. Basically, I was pretty impressed. Lots of cute dogs running around, too.


One of the funniest things in the park: The Salt Museum.

One of my most recent projects has been renovating an old table I found out by the dumpster at our apartment. The first two pictures show how I found it: dirty, missing the hardware and all-in-all pretty ugly. Basically, it's pretty obvious why it was thrown out.


Over the past few days, I cut out maps that we collected in Europe and rubber cemented them onto the top, the shelf and the front of the drawer. Then I painted the rest of the piece, sprayed it with a finishing coat and boat new hardware for it. As it turns out, the handle is just slightly too big, so I have to exchange it. But other than that, the table is just about finished with its transformation. Pretty neat, right?