Furniture finished

I'm really bad about blogging, I posted all those photos of my furniture project and never posted the finished product, which was finished just in time for my Thanksgiving company in November 2013.

Now the room needs a new paint color and new curtains. But no one ever sleeps in there except at Thanksgiving, so I have almost 5 more months to worry about that. Or not!

Painted Furniture

I don't post much. (My last post was almost 2 years ago!) I'm painting some furniture and decided to document the process and share it with anyone interested.

We bought some furniture for a guest room years ago at an antique store. It wasn't particularly great furniture, thin veneer, some damage, not really that attractive, but it was functional. I went into that room recently and realized how dark it was in there, and part of the reason is how dark the furniture is. So I decided to turn some kind of ugly furniture into something fun.

Here is what the dresser looked like before I started. The bed is similar.

So Saturday I primed it all and already it looked a lot better:

Then Sunday I started painting large areas with a pale yellow green paint. Especially areas that won't even be seen once the bed is put back together like the rails that connect the head and foot boards. And the inside of the footboard.

Yesterday I decided to add some other colors. I didn't like the pale yellow as much as I thought, so I added some apple green, some turquoise and pink. I also tried out some dark blue but don't think I like it very much. I think I will repaint the dark parts turquoise.

This is the dark blue I'm not sure about:

Today I put a second coat on the pale yellow that I've decided to keep. Then I took the side rails off so I can put the head and foot boards on saw horses and work on them on a flat surface. It's impossible to do the detail stuff properly without doing that.  So today I decided to try to figure out what color to use for the outline grooves. I had originally thought maybe white, but decided to try black just to see what would happen. It's only paint after all and I can paint over anything. And I really like the black so it will stay. Now my question is what color to paint that squiggly scrolly thing on the front of the dresser and on the head board? I'm thinking black. What do you think?  

I probably won't work on it any more until next week, since retreat is this weekend, newsletter is Monday, and I've got other stuff to do tomorrow. This is a really fun project. It might not end up to be beautiful furniture, but it will be fun, and it will look better than what I started at (which isn't saying much).

Connect the Dots Design

At our quilt retreat I took a class from Nysha.  The triangle I started with is this:

I only shaded the pieces so you could see the different sections. On the quilts I changed the values around.

So here are some of the designs I came up with using that one triangle:

Personalize your own free slideshow design

More flood photos

From the Arkansas side looking toward the I-40 bridge and downtown Memphis.

An unofficial river gauge - according to the Corps of Engineers we crested at 47.8'

Some fool out there in a kayak. The current is so strong that the river is very dangerous now. Actually it's always dangerous, but even moreso now.

More fools

 Two more from the Arkansas side

Harbor Town homes - those are 3 story homes, the bottom floor is all underwater.

The river crested at 47.8 feet on Tuesday morning. The normal level for the river here for May is 19.5 feet. So we are nearly 30' over normal.  I think about 34' is flood stage here. So far the levees are holding, most of the damaging flooding is on the tributaries - the Wolf River, the Loosahatchie River, and Nonconnah that are backing up because they can't drain into the Mississippi.

Shelby Farms 4/28 near my house

I40 Bridge looking toward Arkansas

I55 north toward Missouri

Mud Island Amphitheater

 Beale and Riverside Drive

 Tom Lee Park where the BBQ contest was supposed to be this weekend

 The structure on the left is where the Memphis Belle used to be. Mud Island is now 3 islands.

 Jefferson Davis Park next to the Welcome center looking toward the end of Mud Island

 One of the casinos

 Deer stranded on an island

A deer who found refuge on a roof of a house. Hopefully he got out safely, though they are estimating that 60% of the deer are drowned.  Another danger - spiders and snakes are coming to dry land and getting to places where they usually are not so that becomes another danger.

Tom Lee statue, before and after. There was a riverboat that capsized way back when and Tom Lee was a black man who took his little row boat and rescued a whole bunch of people who would otherwise have drowned.

 The south end of Mud Island

 Harbor town

 Tom Lee Park

 Mud Island - that is where the "gulf of Mexico" is on the scale model of the river

 Mud Island

 Mud Island before and after

 Beale and Riverside (or Riverunder) drive

Harbor Town park

 Beale & Riverside Drive

 Dewitt Spain airport hangers

 Satellite after the flood

 Satellite before the flood

Tom Lee Park taken by me sort of in front of Cybil Sheppards house