Simple Fall Centerpiece

I'm so excited for Day 1 of the 31 Days Challenge! The first project on my list to finish up was my fall table decor. I went really, really simple this year. I have been in love with neutral colored pumpkins the past couple of years because they compliment the colors in my dining room perfectly! Neutral colored pumpkins + dough bowl for the win!

My friend Amy and I and our cutie babies took a trip to the farmer's market and had so much fun shopping for pumpkins! I LOVE the blue and white pumpkins! I ended up with a couple mini white pumpkins, a multicolored mini pumpkin, and a beautiful blue pumpkin.

I have been obsessed with dough bowls for a while now, but have had trouble finding one of my own at an affordable price. I spotted this one at Target a couple weeks ago and snatched that sucker up faster than you can say "Who's your Mama?!" It's perfectly imperfect!

This was by far my easiest and simplest fall table centerpiece! 

Click the pictures below to see my previous fall centerpieces!

   

Click here for the main 31 Days page! 

Linking up to Migonis Home and Thrifty Decor Chick!

Dining Room Table Reveal!

Hooray!!! We finally finished the table! And I thought we could get it all done in one or two weekends. Ha!

To refresh your memory, here's my first post about the table. It's come a long way from its nicotine stained, smoke smelling days!

Here's the before:

See how the previous owner left on the plastic over the chair pads? Yeah, that didn't help. Even the foam on the inside of the chairs reeked like smoke and were all yellowed. Yuuuuuum. 

A little during action...see the difference between the primed chair and the yellowed chairs? 

Left: Picked out fabric, Right: Getting ready for the last coat of varnish

And finally, the after!

And some before/after comparisons:

This project seemed to drag on and on because we could only work on it late at night and on weekends during Little One's nap, but we're really happy with how it turned out! Totally worth it! Here's what we did: 

-Cleaned and sanded all painted surfaces

-Washed wood table top over a dozen times with vinegar solution to get rid of nicotine layer

-Primed all painted areas with oil based primer

-Applied two coats of latex enamel paint

-Applied two coats of water based polyurethane to all painted surfaces and wood table top

-Sprayed a light coat of spray varnish that we had on hand to the underside of the table to seal in any smoke   

 smell

-Stripped chair pads down to wooden base and did a quick coat of white spray paint to the wooden bases  

 to seal in any smoke smell

-Put on new foam, batting, fabric, and dust cover to chairs

-Scotch-Guarded fabric

-Put felt pads on bottom of chair and table legs

DONE! WAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's before and after party! 

New Shutters and a Table Update

Well...we're still working on the table. Oh brother. So far we've cleaned, sanded, primed, and applied the first coat of paint. We still need to do the second coat of paint, the poly coats, and reupholster the chairs. We've slowed to a stop for now because I pulled out my neck. In my sleep. Not kidding--how do I even accomplish such things as injuries in my sleep?! I rolled over in bed, heard a loud pop in my neck, and have been in *pain* ever since. Hopefully, we'll get back to working on the table soon!!!

In the meantime--the shutters that we ordered back in May finally came in and were installed last week. Woot woot!

Our breakfast nook had plantation shutters on one door and all the windows when we moved in, but had no window covering on the second door. We decided to keep things uniform and add plantation shutters to the naked door. Here's the before (with our temp shade on it) and after!

We also had shutters made for our bathroom window. The previous owner had a vinyl shade here, which in theory is fine, except that the sun had caused the shade to warp on the sides leaving a gap on either side of the shade. You could see straight into our shower from the road! Um, not cool, hence the painters tape in the before picture that was holding the shade down so no one could see in. I love the way the shutters look in our bathroom! They're so bright and cheery and make our window look bigger!

That's all for now, folks! Be back soon with an organizing project! 

A Smokey Situation

When Jeremy and I first purchased our new home, we knew we would be in the market to purchase a table for our formal dining room. In our old house, we only used the dining room to eat, and had converted the breakfast nook into a play area for Little One's toys. In our new home, we didn't need to do that, so after we closed, we went out and purchased our favorite table...easy peasy. Should be a simple, happy it-just-gets-delivered ending right? Well, no. The table was on backorder and was going to take 4 months to come in! We were so bummed, but loved the table and just decided to buy it anyway and wait.

In the meantime, I was keeping a close watch on Craigslist and happened to find a table that was a similar style for $300. That's $700 cheaper than the table we had bought and were waiting on. So, we made the drive out to go buy the used table and cancelled our order for the new table. Again, should be a simple just-come-home-and-clean-it-up kind of ending, right? Of course not! The sellers were HEAVY indoor smokers, so I immediately knew I'd need to reupholster, which wasn't a deal breaker. The table has good bones and is really sturdy and solid wood. Unfortunately, we did not realize that wood could absorb the smoke smell and that the chairs were badly yellowed from the nicotine until we had already paid and were loading up the car. The chairs looked white against their red carpet, but in the harsh light of day, they were yellow. I felt sick all the way home thinking we'd bought a dud table, but we quickly formulated a plan to save the table. 

Here's a pic of it in all it's yellowed glory. Did you know nicotine leaves a yellow film on everything it touches? Trust me, it does. 

I did some Google searching and found that a 50/50 vinegar and water solution plus a scrub brush would break down the nicotine layer which was critical in getting out the smell. Literally 15 rinse and repeats later, the yellow film was coming off of the table top! I had one bucket of cleaner that I'd dip my scrubby sponge in, would wipe the table, then rinse my sponge in a second bucket of clean water before putting it back in the vinegar solution. After each section I scrubbed, I'd let it sit for a minute then wipe it off with a white cloth so I could see if the nicotine was coming off. Tedious, but it worked and greatly reduced the smell! The vinegar did not work on the painted surfaces, though. Boo

Next step was to take apart the chairs and prime the painted areas on the table and chairs with an oil based primer. See the difference between the  primed chair and the nicotine coated chair? Yuck. 

After everything was primed, I started the first coat of a latex enamel paint. I'm about halfway done with the first coat now and still need to do another coat and finish it with a clear coat. I'll share more pictures and details on the products used when I'm finished!

I still need to get new padding and fabric for the chairs. Our dining room is sage green...a little unsure of what fabric to buy! So far, these are my favorites: 

Left: Premier Prints Ozborne Twill Powder Blue      Right: Heather Bailey Garden District Nouvelle Rose Canvas Dove

Which one do you like? Any other suggestions on fabric choices? I'm really lost when it comes to picking fabric! Be back soon with an update!