Surely

So here we are in November already...and I wish I could tell you that blogging is the only thing I'm behind at in my life.

Alas. I'm behind at practically everything.  Except my laundry.  I'll count that as a win.

We've had lots of lovely things going on lately, but our biggest news is that Maybe Baby is now Surely.  We're having a baby girl and she's due on April 17th.

The best part of all of this is that, at over 16 weeks along, my morning sickness is finally fading to manageable levels.

Cue the choir of angels! Bang the gong!  Celebrate in the streets!

I've had a few people ask me how my pregnancy has been going and how I would compare it to how I imagined it would be.  Well, it took me three years to get pregnant (and I desperately wanted to be pregnant), so I was hoping that I would adore it.

BUT

Let me tell you. This whole pregnancy this is highly overrated.  IVF was no picnic, but I was hoping that I'd get a break from some of the less fun symptoms.  No dice.  From six weeks on it has been one big party centered around crackers, string cheese, and the porcelain throne.  I've had vertigo, whooshing in the ears, hot flashes, restless legs, bloody noses, stuffy sinuses...you name it.  Set me in front of a teen audience with my zits and cellulite (no glow here!) and those suckers would never have sex again.

I feel silly for how useless I've been the past couple of months.  Looking at screens of any kind gave me headaches, so I avoided the computer and the TV like the plague.  A couple loads of laundry would take me all day (with naps in between folding sessions) and cooking has been practically non-existent in our home (the smells! the horrible smells!).  Whoever named it "morning sickness" was horribly mistaken.  Try all day/all night sickness.  Blech.  I'm so glad to be over the worst of it.

Now that I'm starting to see straight again, am able to eat salad, and am no longer cursing the heavens during every waking moment, I'm looking around in awe at all of my friends and family that have birthed multiple children. I've got a whole new respect for the women in my life.  I've also got a long list of questions as to how/why they had more than one child.  Women are tough cookies.

(As I'm reading over what I've written so far, I'm thinking I'm sounding a little hard-done-by.  I'm not.  Life is good.  I've had it fairly easy.  I'm just grateful that the worst of it is coming to an end.)

Switching from complaints to SCIENCE...fertility science is THE COOLEST.  The more I learn about pregnancy and the human body, the more I think WHAAAA? and WOWWWW!

I have a picture of my "baby" at five days old.  It's 150 cells and looks more like a biology class slide presentation than what will become a baby, but it's pretty much the neatest thing ever.  Also, we found out the gender at 10 weeks!  10 weeks, people!  From a vial of blood drawn from the crook of my arm!

The day after we found out that Maybe is a girl, we celebrated by buying a couple baby dresses (Janie and Jack will probably take the majority of our bank account from now on. yikes!) and building some shelves in her room.  We've been working on other projects off-and-on as the whim strikes, and the room is really coming together.

Check out the shelves and the dresser we bought for $25 at a yard sale (and painstakingly refurbished)...and my favorite thing: the stuffed animal that looks like a mini copy of Mr. Bear.

Shopping the House

We moved into our house from a 583 square foot apartment.  So we only had 583 square feet worth of stuff - a couch, a chair, a small IKEA table, a bed, and a couple of book cases.

The woman that was moving out of our house was moving into an assisted living center and was downsizing considerably.  When she asked us if we'd like her to leave some of her furniture, we jumped at the chance.

It wasn't the most beautiful of furniture, but it was functional and it has saved us stacks of cash.  A lot of what she left was modular furniture that could be combined into desks, long dressers, cupboards etc.  There was lots of it.  And it was all a mustard yellow.  Not a nice mustard yellow, either, but a really old, dingy mustard yellow.

So a couple months after moving in (when I took on the daunting task of painting the basement) I painted the dressers quickly with what I had on hand.  The black and white looked fine, but it never really sang to my soul (like any truly good piece of furniture should).

For the past couple of years we've had an IKEA Expedit shelving unit in our guest room for storage.  It wasn't beautiful, but it was functional and it fit the space.  But the more I looked at it, the less I liked it.  It blocked the sight line from the doorway out the window, making the room feel darker and smaller than it is.  It's a small room as it is, so that really wasn't helping.

Originally I wanted to purchase a new dresser for the room.  Something wood, with maybe more curving lines.  I scoured craigslist and the local flea markets, but nothing was really doing it for me.  Also, there was some sticker shock involved.  Ever since this whole IVF thing entered our lives, I've been feeling pretty cheap with all other aspects of my life.  But that's neither here nor there...

After wandering the house trying to find a free solution, I stopped and stared at the modular dresser stored and unused in our basement.

I'd always hated how low and chunky it felt, but an idea finally came to me.  A couple weeks earlier I'd fallen in love with a great Eames bachelor dresser at Peg Leg Vintage.  The price tag scared me away, but I hadn't been able to stop thinking about it.

So I set out to make my own.  Blake and I flipped the dresser over, removed the chunky trim from the bottom, and separated the two pieces.  Then, I ordered some Eames hairpin legs from a man on Ebay and screwed them on to the bottom.  They're 8-inch legs, so they gave the dresser a bit more height and solved the visual weight problem.  I also painted it in Benjamin Moore's Grey Timberwolf (because I already had it on hand).

It feels much lighter now and the low-ness (yes, it's a word) of the dresser allows a lot more sunlight to come in through the window.

And if I know one thing to be true, it's that one garbage find deserves another.  I moved up from the basement the mock wingback chair that my mom and I had reupholstered and called it a day.

Field of Dreams

Sorry for the radio silence lately.  You'll be glad to know, however, that it's been a very productive silence.

We received bad news about our last IVF cycle last Friday.  I had a nice ugly-cry for a while, then turned to the interwebs to read all about my new protocol for this coming cycle.  Let me tell you, the internet is a great and calming place to a gal doing IVF.  There are so many chat rooms, message boards, blog posts, and articles that I can browse to my heart's content.

About twenty minutes after I got off the phone with the doctor, my parents arrived at our house direct from their flight from Italy (they'd been there for the 10 previous days for work).  So we all had another good cry.  It was a soggy day.

But the best part of their coming to town was that we got a mini vacation.  It took me a couple days to start feeling normal again as the meds left my system, but then we had a grand time together.

We tagged along with the BYU Law group to see West Side Story at the National Theater.  I'd forgotten all of the fun music in that show.  That said, this particular interpretation of the show was pretty darn dark and depressing.  Also, it's hard to buy guys as tough gang members when they're so obviously teeny dude ballerinas.  The Sharks and Jets have never looked less intimidating.

We also ate out at all our favorite places with my parents.  Pacci's Trattoria (it says something that even though my parents had been in Italy for 10 days, they still wanted to eat here right away), District Taco, Parkway Deli, and Seasons 52.  It was a busy, and full, week.

My Dad left the day after the conference ended, but my mom stayed an extra couple days to hang out.  It was the first week in a long time that I haven't been abundantly medicated.  I can't tell you how wonderful it's been to start feeling more normal.  Even though I'd be happy to start right up again, I'm sort of glad that this new protocol has a built-in time off period.  No daily shots for a bit! Hallelujah!

My mom and I spent a lot of our time working on the someday nursery.  I think I'm going to start calling it Maybe - the Maybe Baby, just for ease of description.

Over the past few years my philosophy has been "don't count your chickens before they hatch."  I haven't really let myself buy or do anything baby-related because I didn't want it to bring more cosmic bad luck on me.  But, at this point, it's not like our luck could really get worse, so my philosophy has changed to one of "if you build it, they will come."

Now, as a self-admitted non sports enthusiast, it's funny that I'm governing my life with a quote from a baseball movie, but I've got to say that it's helping my outlook immensely.  So, with that in mind, Maybe's room got a preliminary gender-neutral make-over.

We painted the walls a soft grey and made black-out curtains for the big window that gets sun all day long.  These sheets from West Elm were marked down 50% and then an extra 15% off at the register. It's hard to tell from the photo below, but they're a white background with small navy blue arrows that almost look like polka dots from far away.  I bought the king set and used the flat sheet to make two panels.  We lined them with a heavy white black-out fabric (also 50% off at JoAnn's - it was my lucky day!) and they now hang beautifully.

After using the flat sheet for the drapes, I've still got two king-sized pillow cases and a huge fitted sheet.  I'm going to make a few crib sheets and a quilt with all the extras.  So, for $70, I'll be getting two lined curtains, three crib sheets, two pillowcases (for someday big kid beds) and a quilt.  That's not too shabby!

The longest ode to garbage you'll ever read

The spring has been very very good to me so far.  I've been collecting so much garbage furniture that I'm running out of storage places and even turned down a dresser this morning on my walk.  Can you believe it? Me?  Turning down free furniture?

It really hurts my soul to see a piece of perfectly good furniture in the trash.  I can't stand that it'll just end up smashed in the back of a garbage truck and then chucked in a landfill.  Sometimes that's the only reason I'll pick up a piece - even if I don't like the looks of it.  But this morning when I looked at the piles around my house I just couldn't justify adding to it.  Not until I decide what to do with some of this stuff.

I've had such good luck lately, in fact, that everything I've been thinking of purchasing has shown up on the neighborhood listserv within the next couple weeks. For example, I've been lusting after a paper shredder for ages, but haven't wanted to buy one. Those ugly suckers can be expensive and there are so many other things I'd rather spend my money on.  Our "to shred" pile has been growing ominously lately (I did a file cleanse a couple weeks ago) and it was time to bite the bullet and buy a shredder.

The day after I'd come to that conclusion, what should show up on the listserv but a like-new paper shredder.  For free!  Blake and I put the Bear in the car and drove right over.  I spent the rest of the evening (I think it was a Friday night - how's that for nerdy?!) gleefully shredding my pile and oohing and ahhing over the efficiency of the shredder.

I had also planned to buy new toilet seats that weekend to replace ours because it was just time.  The day I was going to head up to Home Depot someone from church emailed the listserv saying they were re-doing their bathrooms and had a bunch of extra still-in-box toilet seats to give away.  I think Blake questioned my sanity when I told him I was going to pick up toilet seats from our neighbor's front porch, but now I'm set with brand new toilet seats for the foreseeable future.

The moral is - ask and ye shall receive.  Or think lustfully and ye shall receive (wait, that doesn't sound right?).

So, without further ado, here's some of the other garbage I've hoarded the past few weeks:

- A brass and pewter lamp straight from the 1950's.  With a more modern shade to contrast the ornate scroll-work I think it could be really awesome.

- A 1970's cane-sided recliner. The rust colored velvet (velour?) upholstery is in great shape even though the color isn't really my jam. I'm debating whether to recover or sell this sucker.  It'll take a heap of fabric because it's a recliner and there's a lot of detail work in the welting and tufting.  We'll see if I feel like I can face project.  Maybe I'll get lucky and find 10 yards of great fabric at a yard sale.  You know what they say about the power of positive thinking...

- A hand-quilting frame.  My neighbor (who is a member of not one, but several quilting guilds) had an extra one and I snatched it up.  For now it's hanging out in my front window.  Gorgeous, I know.  It's not for me, of course, but to donate to the church.  We do quilting service projects a couple times a year at church and only have two frames, so it'll be nice to have another one on hand.  And again: FREE.  You can't beat that.

- And last, but not least, is a brand new Atari gaming system for the iPad.  I think I'll probably give it to my nephews, but am keeping it on hand until after my parents come visit in June. I think they'll get a kick out of it.  I'm not much of a gamer, but I do think it's cool looking and it takes almost no space to store, so for now it stays.

In Miniature

I've had great luck finding things on the side of the road lately.  So good, in fact, that maybe I should start gambling.  I just can't lose!

A couple weeks ago I found a sad looking set of children's table and chairs.  They were wobbly, covered with cobwebs, and scratched all over the place.  Not to mention they were a horrible color - who thought it was a good idea to stain furniture speckled orangey-brown?

I was out on a walk with Bear when I spotted them, so I quickly ran home, jumped in the car, and drove back over with Bear in the passenger seat.  (Blake was on a conference call and Bear was being especially naughty, so I wanted to keep him out of the house as much as possible.)  Did I mention I was also on the phone at the time?

So I'm the one gal who is seemingly talking to herself (headphone speakers) and loading things from a garbage pile into the back of my car.  The other folks out walking gave me the oddest looks.  It was worth it, though.

In addition to the table and chairs, I also got several large frames.  One was a professionally framed painting of a barn. The frame was ugly, but I liked the painting, so I just painted the frame another color.  I still need to take pictures of that, but hopefully I'll get around to it at some point.  I gave three other large frames to a friend because I didn't have a place for them and frames don't exactly sell well on Craigslist.

I started this project with the intention of selling the set.  I tightened up the chair legs and backs, sanded down the table, and vacuumed off all the spider webs.  I painted the chairs in a light mint green and the table in a stark white.  Three coats each.  They're both in high gloss for easy wipe-ability.

Alas, when I finished I realized I was too attached to sell them.  They turned out much better than I'd anticipated.  Sure, it'll probably be another 5 years before we have any kids who will be able to use them, but they're just so cute that I can't let go.  And if it turns out that mint green isn't as gender-neutral as I was hoping, well, I can just repaint.  Paint fixes everything.

Bear, the attention-hog, modeling the finished product.

Don't ask me why there is a flower pot full of lemons on the table.  I had it on hand and wanted to add some more color to the photo.  And this is why I will never be a set stylist.

Vinyl

This past weekend was beautiful.  We wanted to spend as much time outside as possible.  I convinced Blake to go to a barn sale with me up in Buckeystown, Maryland, called Chartreuse & Co.  Twice a year they have a huge market sale with six buildings and tons of outdoor booths.  It was glorious.  I'm adding the next sales to my calendar in indelible ink.

We found a couple of small things: a glass and silver terrarium and a tile and wood tray.  But, my favorite find of the day was a 40's style chrome chair for $26.00.  Blake spotted it right before we were about to leave and we convinced each other that we needed it for Blake's side table/desk.  It was exactly what I've been looking for.  I wanted something more modern-looking to contrast with the more woodsy-feel of the desk.

I'm not usually a fan of vinyl, and even considered recovering the seat in a navy blue velvet remnant that I've been hoarding in my fabric stash.  However, it's pretty rare to find a seat in as good a condition as this one, so I think I'm going to stick with it. It goes really well with the wood and the floors, but I'm still trying to figure out if it feels too honey-colored over in that corner of the room.  For now, it stays.  Maybe I need something colorful on the wall above the desk?

Peacock Blue

It's been too long since I've posted about a garbage project.

When we bought our house over four years ago, the previous owners left us a bunch of modular furniture.  The man had been a wood-worker, so I think most of it is handmade.  I've got one set in my closet, we've got a couple down in the basement as storage until I can figure out what to do with them, and then we had one up in the spare bedroom.

Two of the pieces were in fairly bad shape and I wasn't wanting to re-glue all of the drawers, so I gave them away.  I kept the small piece on the left, though, because it was in great shape and I loved the size.

I had a sample pot of peacock blue paint in my basement hoard and decided this was the perfect project for it.  And, of course, now that I've painted this one piece of furniture, I'm in love with the color and want to paint everything in my house.  (In case you're wondering the paint is Valspar and is called Perfect Storm).  It may have a little too much pizazz to find a place in every room, but maybe I'll surprise myself and work it in everywhere.  It's already found it's way down to the puppet theater (yeah, we have built-in puppet theater) and onto a couple picture frames.  I just can't stop!

...Back to the mini dresser.

The brass pulls are sash lifts from our local hardware store and were $3.00 (so much cheaper than other hardware options).  I'm loving the way the brushed brass looks against the blue.  Even Blake, who is not a fan of brass, likes them a lot.

One of these days I'll get my act together and take some real camera photos.  (I always say that, but still have yet to make any progress in that department).  But for now I'll just go about my way.  Ba da ba ba ba - I'm loving it.

Three cheers/chairs for garbage

I think I have a chair problem.  I can't see one on the street and not bring it home.  My basement is beginning to look like an old folks home - but instead of old folks it's old, bedraggled, slightly confused-looking chairs.

They migrate around the house depending upon my whim (and need for seating).  Right now I've got this emerald green velvet fella up in the nook in our room.

The back (where your head would rest) is slightly greasy and needs a good cleaning, so until I get around to that, I've draped a blanket over it.  See no grease, be not scared of grease.  Easy peasy.

If it doesn't clean up well, I'm debating covering it in a charcoal velvet - a color I think would go well with its masculine shape.  I also need to re-stuff the seat cushion so that it looks less tired.  Other than that, I'm really loving the way it looks in our room next to the little Christmas tree.

You really can't beat the price, either...free-ninety-nine!

Better After

The weather today is gorgeous, so after a long walk and lunch with Adrienne, I finished the touch ups on the chair.  Now it's dry and ready to be sat upon.  I'm loving the crisp, clean white (emphasis on clean).  I decided to add a blue plus sign on the back for fun, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it or if I like it better all white.  My spray painting finger is sore today, so for now it'll live to see another morning.  Who knows, maybe when I wake up tomorrow I'll be smitten with it.

I had been skeptical of painting pleather, but after I saw a similar chair that Jenny Komenda did, I took the plunge and bought two cans of Rustoleum multi-surface spray paint.  $6.00 and an hour or two later and I'm already enjoying the finished product.

Not too shabby for a garbage chair.  I only wish I had two (my neighbors had a pair, but kept the other one).  How great would a pair of these look tucked into a long, butcher block-topped desk?

Good Garbage

One of my greatest pleasures in life is finding good garbage.  You know, the kind of garbage that's not really garbage?

My neighbors throw away the greatest furniture and I have been known to make Blake drive me around the neighborhood the night before trash day to check out the situation.  We go under the cover of night and I have Blake shine the car lights at people's piles.  It's all very cloak and dagger… mostly because it feels strange to be looking at other people's trash.

I love turning trash into treasure.  I've furnished a lot of my house that way and now you, lucky reader, get to see it all documented here for my viewing pleasure.

A couple years ago my next door neighbors put this beauty out on the curb for trash pick up.  It was a little worse for wear (grimy pleather- eww- hence the Goo Gone in the second photo), but otherwise in good shape. I loved the lines and the brass casters.  I was sold.

It's been hiding out in the basement all this time as my sewing chair and is now making a resurgence to the main floor.  I'm currently working on updating it, but am still putting on the finishing touches.  I'll share the "after" tomorrow, but for now enjoy the grimy "before."  Bear kindly acted as the model (read: he wouldn't leave the chair alone and insisted on being in as many photos as possible).

Montage

That chair in the last post?  We got it for $50.00 at a neighborhood furniture sale.  It's a brand new Pottery Barn armchair that normally retails for $650.00.  Score of the decade!  I do so love a good deal.

In other news, Bear continues to be an absolute delight.  He entertains us all day with his silly antics and his penchant for snuggling.  He's loving this fall weather and asks to be let out every few minutes just so he can lay down on the patio and chase the falling leaves.  He's trained on the bells now, so all he has to do is go ring the bells and sit and wait for me to open the door.  Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure he's got us trained rather than the other way around.

He loves to survey his domain every morning - both from the front window and from the edge of the patio.  The first thing he does when we come downstairs in the morning is to run to the front window, wiggle his way between the curtain panels, and try to push the curtains aside so he can have a better view.  This means I actually have to be halfway dressed and partially presentable in the morning so that all our neighbors aren't horrified when they look in.  BUT, does this mean I actually do look presentable that early in the A.M.?  Not a chance.

Bear finally reached his 16 week mark last weekend, so he's cleared to meet other dogs and go on more involved adventures.  Yesterday he was the toast of the town in Bethesda when we went for a walk and lunch with friends.  A few people even stopped to take photos of him.  He posed like a champ. That's my boy.

Oh boy. I'm turning into one of those dog owners.  Well, begin as you intend to go on, I say.  To cement my status as crazy dog lady, here's a montage of the little guy surveying his fiefdom:

Around the house

I know you've all been dying to see some grainy iPhone pictures of the current state of our home.  Well, your wish is my command.

Without further ado, I give you:

1.  The blue velvet couch. My favorite piece of furniture.  Also, a self-made parsons table and a pillow with inquisitive zebras on it.  Because who doesn't need a flock of zebras looking at you incredulously every time you sit down?

2. The entry way.  (For the record, this is not an iPhone picture...it is courtesy of Blake and his camera skills).  I love the way it looks when it's so sunny.

3.  Flowers from the garden on the kitchen counter.

4.  My new coat hooks.  Do I love them? You bet giraffe I do! (That joke never gets old.)

5.  New (cheap!) pillows for the living room couch.  I've since re-arranged them so that the patterns aren't both facing in the same direction. It's absolutely driving me crazy in the photo below. Alas. First world problems.

And that, my friends, is a quick tour of our house as seen through an iPhone lens.  You're welcome.

And then I redeemed my week...

Last week was a week of mishaps, but all-in-all it wasn't so bad.  In between the madness, I got to see a lot of friends (these ones, these ones, these ones and more), ate a lot of really great food, went out for a night-on-the-town with my brother, and caught up on some much-needed housework. 

By the time it got to the weekend, the only plans Blake and I had made was to go to the pool and relax all day.  Well, it rained steadily all day, so that plan was a bust. 

It's a rare day that we don't have anything planned, so we took advantage and puttered around all over town cutting our perpetual, mile-long to-do list down to size.  We got our break lights replaced, went to a farmers market, went to a garden center to look for a lemon tree (I really want one for our dining room, but no dice!  They're surprisingly hard to find.), ate a leisurely lunch, went to Lowes to look at lighting options, went to IKEA to find inspiration for a side table and to give ourselves a headache, and then went to a really fun birthday get-together with friends.  It was a full day, but even with the rain it somehow felt relaxed and chill.

It's pretty slow-going furnishing a house.  It's takes a lot of money (which we usually don't have) and time (which we almost never have), so it's a continual work in progress.

We picked up a lamp on clearance from my favorite store (Arhaus) a couple weeks ago and it has been looking pretty forlorn on the floor next to the couch.  So when we were out in the IKEA direction on Saturday, it sparked my memory of an IKEA-hackers post about combining two Lack side tables to make a faux Parsons table. 

It was such a simple Sunday morning project, but for $25.00 I don't think it looks half-bad.  It's probably a little more modern than what we usually go with, but I'm really happy with how it turned out and love the way it looks with the navy blue couch. 

I want to get a large basket to put in it to hide games (yep, we're finally stepping up to our Mormon heritage and collecting some board games...I never though I'd see the day!).  But, design friends, is it blasphemous to ruin the clean lines with a basket?  What do you think?

It's Friday, I'm in Love

Wow.  This week has worn me out.  It's Friday and I'm just happy I made it this far.

Work's been crazy.  We did some babysitting - where I quickly learned that I know absolutely NOTHING about babies or taking care of them (and that the best way to get a baby fed is to give the baby to Blake, who does a much better job of mushed-pea-feeding than I do).  And some meal-bringing - where I continued my trend of over-estimating the amount of food I'll need and ended up with 10 pounds of pasta salad.  And found out some bad news - that Amazon Student is no longer going to provide me with free shipping.  Grr.

And in between those things we also watched some Alcatraz, suffered through a recent episode of 30 Rock (that show is getting worse and worse...and may even be demoted off our DVR schedule in the near future), and went to bed at times too-early-to-mention on a daily basis.  I blame the fatigue on my supposedly non-drowsy Claratin. 

Blake's been a trouper all week.  Even with a migraine headache and allergies, he still puts up with me when I do things like spending the morning griping about the weeds in our yard and cursing our lawn company.  In fact, because he knows how bothered I am by it, he not only put up with me, he puts in long calls to said yard company and got them to do what we want. 

That, my friends, is true love.

This photo has nothing to do with anything above...it's just that this nook in our bedroom makes me smile.  And I'm tired enough right now that I welcome any excuse to smile.

Cheery Chair

Blake and I had a restful, fun and productive long weekend.  I spent about 20 hours in the yard (for some of the results, hop on over to our house blog) doing fall cleaning, and also finally got around to photographing and uploading some of our latest projects. 

So, without further ado, I give you the throne:

I forgot to have Blake take a close-up of the nail-head detailing.  It looks really cool (pats-self-on-back).  The best part of it is that it came on a long spool and only requires that you nail in every fifth nail-head.  They're a pewter color and I think they show off the lines of the chair really well. 

The throne is going to permanently reside in the basement, but I haven't wanted to move it down there just yet.  I've kept it in our family room (where it doesn't match AT ALL) so that I can look at it just a little longer.

What do you think?

A Golden Throne

Our neighborhood listserv is a wealth of information and furniture cast-offs.  Want to find an honest plumber or a dog sitter?  E-mail the list serv.  Want to get rid of a cat-pee stained wingback chair?  E-mail the list serv.

As I've mentioned before, I like to troll the listserv and our neighborhood streets for free finds.  I'd wanted to learn how to re-uphoster a chair for a while, but didn't want to spend much money acquiring the chair (seeing as I'd have to fork it over for fabric and other supplies).

A couple of months ago I hit the jackpot.  A neighbor a couple of streets over posted that they'd left a free wingback chair in their front yard for any takers.  I took it.  

We got it home and looked it over.  It was slip covered in a frilly yellow with blue piping.  Ugly.  And underneath was a thick creamy fabric stained with cat pee and who-knows-what-else.  Uglier.  In fact, the cushion was so gross that I threw it out alltoghter rather than keeping it to use as a pattern.

I should have taken pictures, but for some reason I never got around to it, so you'll have to take my word for it. 

When my mom came to visit we tackled the beast, or as I like to call it, the Throne.

We stripped away all of the old, disgusting, cat-dander infested fabric and batting.

And got it down to the bare bones:

 Then we used the old fabric as a template to cut out fabric from the new yellow and grey suzani Blake picked (he has really great taste!).  My mom is an engineer and is absolutely meticulous about having things line up exactly right.  This is great for me because I'm more of a "we'll see how it goes" sort of crafter.  So we agonized over every centimeter of the fabric to make it line up correctly through all of the seems. 

With our pieces cut, we began stapling and nailing the fabric to the hardwood frame.  My parents got me a staple gun for Christmas last year.  It's been invaluable and I consider it to be my version of Blake's power drill.  Who says women can't love power tools as much as the next guy?

As we neared completion we were both exhausted (and Blake, too, who we'd enlisted to help with our particularly difficult stapling needs). I now know why people pay hundreds of dollars to have someone else recover their furniture. It's backbreaking and tedious work. But it is so worth it. I've never done a project where I was more suprised at the results. The before and after were shockingliy different.

I am so happy with the way it turned out.  But you'll have to wait to see the finished product until I can get Blake to take a photo of it with his fancy camera.  The iPhone photo I took doesn't do it justice.