Liberty Antiques Festival

Yesterday, (after watching the Royal Wedding, of course) my friend Crystal and I went to the Liberty Antiques Festival.  They hold it twice a year in a small town outside of Greensboro, NC.  It's supposedly the largest in the southeast with 400+ dealers.  There was SO much to look at.  I think I'll definitely be going to the next one in September.

These little patio sets were apparently very common because I think we saw 3 or 4 of them, all at different vendors.  If that's what you came for, you were in luck!

Oh, the lanterns.  I loved them oh so much but I loved my money more.  Sad.

This was probably the coolest thing I saw - a rotating card catalog!  For $2,000 it could've been mine!

These were just weird, but cool.

There were probably 10 aisles that all looked like this.

Before we left, we stopped for a photo op.

So, I'm sure you're just dying to know what I brought home.

First up, a Coke crate!  It's old and chippy and will look perfect in our game room downstairs.  The dealer had a bunch of old bottles sitting in it and had it marked for $12.  I asked him if he would take $10 and he said "No, I think I'll keep it at $12 because I don't have anywhere else to put these bottles."  Um, how is that MY problem?  Sheesh!  Obviously, I gave him the $12.  I liked it too much to quibble over $2.

Next up, something I've wanted for quite a while now.  A vintage fan!  This one's made by Koldair (clever name, huh?)  It was marked for $30 and I asked the guy how much he would take for it.  He had a much larger Kenmore fan sitting beside it and asked me if I would take both.  I asked him what he was thinking for both and he said $40.  I really didn't like the large Kenmore fan.  It just looked old, not cool and vintage.  So he reluctantly parted with just the small one for $25.  I lugged this heavy cast iron fan around all.day.long and boy were my shoulders sore by the end of the day!  Next time, I know to bring my little SmartCart to lug things around in.  I wasn't even thinking that I would have to carry whatever I bought for the rest of the day.  D'oh!  Anywho, I just love this little guy.

Oh, and of course I looked at similarly sized fans the rest of the day and I definitely got the best deal - go me!

Do you know of any other awesome antiques festivals?  I think I'm hooked!

Lamp Revamp

Last week I found these beauties at Goodwill:

Yes, you read that right:  Only $4 each!  And they matched!  And the only thing they needed was a little spray paint!  I snatched these babies up quicker than I could say "gimme!"

Before I show you the big reveal, a quick little anecdote.  I was so excited about painting these today that I rushed outside to lay out a plastic tarp to protect my patio, slammed the door shut behind me and immediately regretted it.  I tried the knob thinking maybe my suspicions were wrong, but nope, locked out (I unlocked the deadbolt to get out, but forgot to unlock the actual knob, which lets you get out but not back in).  I had on a pair of flip flops and my PJs with a sloppy sweatshirt over them, and my only option was to run across the street to the neighbor's house that we've never met in almost four years of living here because I saw that her car was in the driveway.  She answered the door probably thinking I was some hoodlum and I told her I lived across the street and I'm an idiot and could I please use her phone to call my husband?  She obliged, I used her phone, and then she promptly showed me to the door and I had to wait for Steven on our deck until he got there.  Luckily he was off work this afternoon and was on his way to meet friends for lunch, and wasn't stuck in some marathon conference call or something.  So next on our list to buy:  Remote keypad for the garage door. 

Okay, back to the lamps.  Here they are all nice and shiny black with cute Target drum shades.

Ignore the kitty paw prints all over the table.  For some reason, it's their favorite place to jump up on and proceed to walk all over.

Here's the before with the mismatched lamps.  The one on the left is too short and the one on the right is too tall.  It has always bugged me.  Well, it's bugged me for the two months we've had a living space down here.

And here's the room with brand-spanking-new, perfect height, matching lamps.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all about mismatched lamps, but this room just screams for symmetry.  (Ignore the computer and heated blanket cords in the following picture.  Laziness again rears its ugly head!)

I'm going to jazz up the shades a little bit with some some ribbon or stenciling or something, but I haven't decided what yet and will probably hold off a while until we decide exactly what we're doing to this room.

These totaled up to $17 per lamp + $5 for the spray paint.  Not too shabby.

Here's another before and after.

Symmetry just makes me happy.  Love!

Happy Birthday to Me: Fabulous Bathroom Hooks!

Today was my birthday (well, yesterday I guess seeing as it's after midnight)!! How did I celebrate, you ask? 

By giving our master bathroom a mini-makeover!

It all started last week with a trip to Hobby Lobby (I had a $10 gift card that was burning a big fat hole in my pocket!).  I didn't go in with anything particular in mind, but when I went down the clearance aisle, I found some glass vases that I just knew would look perfect around our bathtub.  They even matched the Ball jars I got at a garage sale over the summer that I really wanted to incorporate into my bathroom decor. 

The before:

A couple of seashell owls and the Ball jars just randomly sitting there.

And, the after:

Love!  I want to get a bunch of off-white votives to fill in the rest of the space around the bathtub and provide cozy mood lighting should I ever actually decide to take a bath.

On Monday, I went down to Charlotte with my aunt, where we stopped into Southpark Mall and whadya know but they have an Anthropologie store!  I picked up two cast-iron hooks that I just couldn't resist.  When I got them home I was a little unsure how they would look on the wall where I wanted to put them.  It seemed to me that two random hooks in the middle of the wall all by themselves would look a little bland.  So off to Houzz I went to search for ideas.  I saw a photo of someone's mudroom, and they had frames hanging on the wall, with coat hooks in the middle of them - genius!  Theirs were all fancy with either scrapbook paper or wallpaper in the center of the frame, but mine were going to be in a bathroom so I didn't want to take any chances with paper.  I woke up on my birthday with a mission - find cheap frames!

I got these lovelies at Goodwill - $1 each!  Score!  I picked up some Vintage Copper spray paint and two little wooden plaques that are supposed to be used in some capacity for crown molding. 

There were quite a few staples holding the picture in, but they were no match for a pair of pliers!

Except, I sustained an injury in the process.  My hands don't look so wrinkly in person... I blame it on the close-upedness.

Whew!  Hard work.

So, here they are, de-uglified.  Well, almost.

There!  Lovely.

Random picture time.  I had my camera on and I set it on my bathroom counter for a second.  When I came back to it, I noticed this on the screen and just had to snap the pic.  Doesn't my curling iron cover look cool?

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Blank, boring wall before:

Our towel situation before: 

We had to fold our towels twice just so they would both fit on this short rod.  It took them forever to dry all the way, plus it just looked sloppy.  I really (and I mean really) wanted to put some nice pretty towels on this rod instead.

The mid-after:

Hallelujah!  We're getting somewhere...

Wondering why I chose vintage copper?  The color ties in with our counter top, and the accent pillows we have on our bed (you can see our bed in the background of the last photo in this post).

Here they are, complete with towels and white paint to camouflage the screws:

Eeee!  How I have dreamed of bathroom hooks...

If you're wondering where those two little wooden plaques went, they're still sitting on the kitchen counter.  I haven't decided what I'm going to do with them.  I bought them with intentions of painting "his" and "hers" on them and mounting them above the frames, but then I had a stroke of genius and thought "Hey, I'll use my new Cricut Imagine and cut his and hers out of vinyl and put it right on the wall!"  Well, I'm still working on that.  Stay tuned.

While I was in the bathroom makeover mood, I moved the tissue holder (see it there in the background? Yes, you're right, it doesn't have tissues in it, but that's because I can't find them and I know we have four boxes somewhere so I refuse to buy more! Oh the joys of moving.) and replaced it with these apothecary jars from my stash, with some rock vase filler and seashells I gathered in Florida. I think having the glass there makes the countertop seem larger and I just love it.

Prettier towels - yay!  I still want some new ones though.  It's on my list.

Total cost for blue glass vases:  $16 ($26 - $10 gift card)

Anthropologie Hooks: $24

Frames: $2

Spray paint: $6

Total cost for master bathroom mini-makeover = $48