Tuesday, February 22, 2011

favourite things


I'm in Red Deer today as I had to help mom with some stuff. Momly stuff. Top secret. So I've just been wandering around the house trying on clothes and purses and boots (cuz she's got crazy amounts of those things and always whips out a ton of stuff for me to try on and take home -- she announced that one of her goals in life is to collect as many leather purses as she could for my inheritance. So I can [supposedly] later brag about how she once got three Kenneth Cole real leather purses for $30. Has she gone nuts?!). Otherwise, I'm just sitting here staring blankly at the internets (being relatively bored). The post I was planning on publishing today is just not doing it for me anymore (well, I suppose it's ok. I thought it was a swell idea a couple weeks ago when I started working on it, but now I'm not so sure), so I thought I'd take some pictures of stuff in mom's house I really wish I had in my house.

This is the most gorgeous sofa table. I love it so much. I want eeet!

 I have a snake plant, but it's all three leaves tiny and spindly. Don't plants look better when they're huge and full? This one's just about up to my shoulders. I doubt I could lift it and carry it out of the house, though.

I can't remember where we found this dresser/bureau, but it's so neat and it's completely made of metal. You wouldn't know it to look at it, eh? When we bought it, we took it directly to an auto shop and inquired as to how much it would cost to paint it with auto paint in some cool colours. Needless to say, even though we paid under $100 for it, we weren't prepared to pay as much as a small car to spruce it up. I'm kinda glad we didn't. It's pretty unique with the pretend wood grain. It occurs to me now that I should have opened the top "drawer" to show you how it pulls out into a little desk, but I totally forgot. I would do it, but it took me all afternoon just to load these pictures and I'm getting kinda tired of watching things load.

I bought this geode for mom as a gift, but it's so pretty I'd like to put it with my mom's other geode that I stole have. Sorry for the dismal pictures. I don't have my swanky camera with me. The crystal is actually tinged more purple than this weird yellowy/white colour. Next time I go to Drumheller, I'll buy my own (and maybe some split geode bookends).

So I got these huge fake cherry blossom branches super cheap for a large bundle at the thrift store, and the flowers are in the best shades of pink (perfect for the house) and so springy (I'm still so tired of winter! It's enough already!), I really couldn't pass them up (plus it was during my Valentine's Day gift of thrift shopping with Idle Husband all day, so they were his everlasting flower contribution to V-day). Then I got them home and realized I didn't have a vase large enough for them. I could cut the stems, but I thought I'd at least make an attempt to find a vase first. So I'm sitting here at mom's computer and I turn my head and spot this one. I'm still eyeballing it. I think it might be tall enough and the blue would look so great with the pink. I may be able to make off with it when I leave tomorrow.

She's got super awesome vintage furniture pieces all over the house, too. I really wish I had more vintage pieces like this. And this:

We painted this china cabinet/hutch. It used to be shiny yellow wood and the handles used to be brass. But we sanded it all down and painted it bright white and sprayed the handles glossy black. Love it! It's kinda retro modern. Maybe she has a before picture on her computer...


This is the best I could find. Oh it also comes with a table that has pretty neat legs that are bowed out in the shape of a C, kind of like a staircase railing. I like them from far away, but it was really a pain if you found yourself having to sit at the ends of the table. I could never pull my chair up properly without my knees bumping up against those legs (and shaking everyone's drinks all over the table).

 Neato pieces of driftwood I remember picking at our favourite driftwood spot years ago. I can't actually remember the name or I'd totally tell you; and no, I'm not just keeping it a secret for myself! It's out west somewhere. Past Rocky Mountain House. I'm sure it'll come to me as soon as I publish this.

So I expressed interest in the vase and she showed me over a dozen more tall vases (hidden in the bottom of that white china cabinet) I could also have. Hoo boy. I'm going to be going home with a lot more than I came with (as usual).

2 comments:

readwatchrelax said...

what awesome furniture your mom has. I really like how the hutch turned out. I have yet refurbish something but always say i'm gonna do it..lol!

GALaxy said...

Isn't that just the way?! We kind of HAD to do this one since the chairs were all in pieces and unusable. Otherwise, big projects like this would totally sit around for years (I still have a small side table I've been meaning to fix for years and I still haven't).