The Garage Sale Table

I've reached my favourite stage in our family room renovations.

The walls are planked, everything has been painted, and almost all of the furnishings are in place. There are still a few details that I need to finish - put out the rug, hang my curtains panels, sew another small curtain for our entertainment unit and hang some art.

I'm so happy with how this room is coming together. It has a cozy, cottage feel to it which is perfect for this space. Toys migrate here from the den, it's where we snuggle up and watch movies together - it really is our family room.

But we'll talk more about that when it's finished.

For now, I wanted to share something I found this weekend.

While out on Saturday morning, I was forced to drive a different way home due to some construction. As I took the scenic way back to the highway, I came across a garage sale. It's a pretty general rule for me that if there's furniture, I stop. So despite the dreary weather, and my warm seat, I pulled in and did a quick tour.

I'm not sure what this little table would have been used for. It's high for an end table, but doesn't show any marks from hardware that would have made it a small kind of cabinet.

I was drawn to it's simplicity, and it's pretty little legs. And I liked the small shelf.

It was $20, but I only had $14.20 on me to offer. He happily took what I had and even loaded the table in my car.

So now it's found it's place in our family room. All of the furniture in this room is quite low, with the exception of two big cabinets on the other side. This dark and slightly tall table adds just the right amount of weight on this end of the room. It also is a convenient place to hide remotes.

If it didn't work here, I planned to use it in our master bathroom. I think it would suit some glass jars on top with soaps and things, and towels stacked on the shelf for easy access. I spent the rest of the drive home imagining ways to make it useful again.

I planned to paint it white, but I'm enjoying the dark wood for now. It's nicely worn and adds some contrast to a very light space.

The beautiful arched window was a salvage find that my dad has had stored away for quite some time. At our Christmas open house last year I leaned it against an old harvest table and added a swag of greens to it. I knew when I was arranging the display that I had to have this window. Finally I told him he couldn't sell it because I wanted it. It's going above the couch.

I'm nearly there.

Before Photos - The Family Room

I thought next I would share another room we are currently working on - the Family Room.

I mentioned in a previous post, that in hindsight, it was a mistake to work on both living spaces at the same time, while attempting to actually live in the home (no matter how "quick and easy of a job" the contractor might claim it is). 

Hence our half-put-together family room.

This room's walls and ceilings were originally coated in a plaster-type texture, similar to spacalding you would roll onto a ceiling. The reasoning behind it, I believe, was that it was a cheap way to cover up imperfections in the original plaster walls that had been wallpapered over a few times.

Re-drywalling this room was not in our immediate budget. So, when our drywallers came to quote our Living Room, and they mentioned that they could "skim" over the texture, and that it wasn't going to be expensive, you can imagine we jumped all over it.

Now, please be gracious and remember that while this isn't our first home, this is the first time we've renovated a home on this scale. I mean Ryan's done some big renovations himself before, but not quite like this. So we're slowly learning that no project is ever as easy at it seems, and how budgets seem to get pushed with each project, and that if a contractor quoting a job says that it will only take a couple of days, it usually, in our experience, takes a couple of weeks.

So, when the "smoothing out" didn't working on the walls, we needed to come up with another cost-effective solution. It was here that I had the brilliant idea to do planked walls. It provided the covered that we needed, without the huge cost. It's also quite cozy, and has a cottage feel to it, which is nice for a Family Room.

The planking is over halfway complete, however we've come to a stand still for the next week or so. Ryan's work schedule has been busier than usual, and other projects have needed more immediate attention. But again, due to the lack of space to relax in, we just set up the room as best as we could just make things comfortable - particularly for the kids. It's hard enough for them to settle into a new home, the renovations and unsettled house make it even harder.

Here you can see some of the lovely old wallpaper.

This is the room where we have our main entrance. The front door is rarely used, unless by visitors, as it's on the other side of the house (we're on a corner). Because of it's situation to the driveway, this is our entrance.

Here are the earliest photos that I have. Here we are in the middle of removing the spacalding.

You can also see that the ceilings have been smoothed. For some reason, they set perfectly, which is nice, as it will help make the room feel finished off.

This room is also the access for the crawlspace for the latest addition. It's quite tight down there! Our plumbers had to remove some galvanized plumbing, and bring it all up to date.

Ryan's working hard putting up the planking.

Once the rest is finished, the boards will be sealed and then primed before being painted. I haven't selected any colours yet, but it will most likely be white, especially as this room gets limited sunlight. Aside from that, I would also like to replace our aluminum door with a wooden door.

Hopefully soon I will have some after photos for you!