Factory Cart

As you know, we are in the midst of decorating a few different rooms in our home, I have different ideas for each one and sometime find it hard to decide between decor choices.

Our living room is one of those rooms that we haven't focused on much, since we aren't sure how much we will use it. We have ideas for what we want to do in there, but obviously money is a factor and we can't do everything at once.

About a while back, a friend told me about a community garage sale in a local small town, where they were selling antique items, including factory carts.

One of the sellers had some of his items posted on Kijiji, which included a picture of a factory cart. When I showed the picture to Ian he LOVED it. "We have to get one of those carts", he insisted, but we had no idea where to put it. So we left it.

Fast forward a few months and I see this picture in a Style at Home magazine:

I knew exactly what to do with a cart...the Living Room! (plus I LOVED this room and figured it was close to the look we were going for). We figured it would be a great place to put the cart, since kids wont be there (or the dog) and it adds some character to the room.

So we went back on the hunt for a cart. I'd seen them on decorating shows on tv, but knew that they were pretty expensive (especially if you want an authentic one). I thought about making one....but figured it might look more like a random pile of wood....

So I looked on Kijiji and there it was. Our perfect factory cart.

The best thing about it, is that it has the original "Hudson's Bay Company" logo stamp on the side, and everything about it is original (but still in amazing condition).

Immediately, I emailed the link to Ian and his response was "have you contacted them yet? we HAVE to get this."

I have to tell you, we fought for this cart.

He wasn't asking much for it at all (a few hundred dollars)...actually a lot less than it's worth I believe and we contacted the seller right away. Unfortunately, there was someone else already coming for it. We offered full price, thinking that might persuade him, but he was an honest guy, and said he wanted be fair, and see if the first person would come for it. He told us he would let us know by the end of the weekend if it sold or not.

So we waited patiently and finally heard from the seller- the other buyer hadn't come and it was ours. YES!!!! And, it's much more beautiful in person than in the pictures. We now have a beautiful piece of Canadian history in our living room :) The room isn't finished yet, but I am so excited to put everything together eventually and have this gorgeous piece as our coffee table in there.

Here is our beautiful cart (these are the sellers Kijiji pictures, but I will add our own pics when the room is finished):

I looked around to find some comparables, and found this one at Restoration Hardware...for $1100.00:

I think we did ok on this one ;)

What have you done or would you do with a factory cart?!



Cabinet Reveal!

Ok, Im on a roll with the reveals right now-lol.
Ive been dying to finally post these pictures for a while now, so please bear with me, as many reveal posts are still to come.

Ive mentioned many times about searching through kijiji for great finds. Well recently I haven't seen much, however, when we first started looking on kijiji for furniture for our new home, we came across this cabinet:

Ok so It doesn't look like much, and to be honest, it wasn't in the best condition and we probably over-paid for it a little....we just felt bad for the seller I think-lol! She was the young, single mom with a little boy and an adorable golden retriever, and it was Christmas time, and she said she was trying to sell things to make money for Christmas presents.... (I swear even the dogs big sad puppy eye's were saying "please buy our cabinet so we can have money for Christmas" lol).

Maybe I caved...maybe. Plus, she lent us her car to drive it home in (who does that?!) so we really felt bad saying no. We did like it, we just weren't totally sure, but as the reveal shows, it actually turned out pretty good ;)

The cabinet is made out of walnut and has dovetail joints, however, part of the cabinet is veneer and this made for a difficult time when spraying it with paint.

We took this piece to a painter we have been working with for some of our other pieces and she has been fabulous. This piece gave her a lot of grief though, unfortunately. Apparently back in the day (whenever that was, yesteryear, maybe?! lol) they used a shilack to cover wood and it was partly composed of bug guts?! Anyho, this composition does not react well with paint, and often after painting you will see pink or orange colours bleed through the paint.

So of course after lugging this thing home (in our painters van, which she lent us- again, such nice people out there!), after a few days we began to see pink spots all over the cabinet. We had to bring it back (again in her van) and she primed it 2 more times before painting it again.

Now, it only has a bit of a yellow tinge to it in some places...but only if you really stare. So I just dont stare at it....for long.

We thought we could just leave the inside unpainted, but of course when I saw the outside sprayed all gleeming white, I had to paint the inside white...myself. That actually turned out ok, but it does make the drawers stick a bit, so I would not recommed doing that.

The inside had 3 pull out drawers, and there are 2 large drawers on the bottom. Our plan was to use this piece in our office as storage for the printer, paper, etc.

The final product:

Again, we matched the crystal knobs to the ones on the desk, and we are so happy with how it turned out. Office almost complete!

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Chair Reveal

A while back, I posted about picking fabric for the chairs that we found on Kijiji. So here is the final reveal! The hardest part about doing these chairs, was honestly sourcing out the fabric. Previously I mentioned finding some amazing fabrics on Tonic Living and I love what they carry. Make sure to check out their site! Once I found the fabric the rest was easy.

First let me remind you of how the chairs looked before:

We took the seats off, and the topic layer of plaid fabric to reveal this:

Then I began to measure and staple the new fabric on:



All the chair frames were painted white:

And then the finished seat cushions were added! Voila!

Upcycled dining chairs complete!

Destroyed to Devine...Desk Transformation

The first room in our house that we decided to redo was the office. It was an easy pick since we knew we weren't going to be using it as much as other rooms in the house. Plus, it was out of the way, and we could work on it slowly without the chaos of everything being all over the place.

The one thing that I desperately wanted for our office was a new desk. I was tired of the massive ikea desk we had and wanted something that I could "re-vamp". I wanted something that looked like this:

A "French Provincial Writing Desk" I discovered it was called.

I looked EVERYWHERE.

We went to every furniture store we could think of, and the only stores that carried anything similar were selling for around $800-$1200. Way beyond our budget.  We were hoping for something in the 'under $200' range....wishful thinking I suppose. I searched on Kijiji for weeks in a million locations...nothing.

However, being the determined person I am, I wasn't about to give up on my idea of my dream desk. I could invision it beautifully in that room, and I was going to find it! Finally, one morning my brilliant husband suggested I look on Kijiji in a different geographic region- one close to his parents. That way, if we did find something, we could ask to borrow their van and drive it home.

There it was. My perfect "French Provincial Style Writing Desk".... listed at $95.00.

It must be a typo I thought, and the desk had been listed months ago, and was probably sold (another person who forgot to take down their listing).
However, I couldn't give up on this, so I emailed the person immediately and stared at my computer, waiting for a response. Nothing. I called. No answer. Sigh.....
An hour later the phone rang and Ian answered- it was the desk person!!!! I was thrilled- the desk was still available, however, it had a bit of damage to one of the corners from their dog. They had just returned from a vacation and hadn't been actively selling it. 

We drove down that afternoon to check it out. Perfect. It was in absolutely gorgeous condition- solid wood, beautifully cared for...except for the one corner which had been chewed by the dog. I looked past that. Ian was certain we could fix it would wood filler, and we were painting it anyways. Plus, for $95.00 I couldn't pass up this deal.

So we brought it home, piled on the wood filler, sanded. Piled on the wood filler again, sanded. Did that about 5 times until the corner looked somewhat like a corner again.

Then I sanded the entire desk and had it painted white.

We changed the knobs to crystal knobs and there it was. My perfect desk. For under $200.00 :)

Here's that chewed up corner that we fixed with a bit of wood filler and paint:

Put the crystal knobs on:

Ta Da! 

Another DIY project for the books!


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