Thrifty Thelma and the Three Dollar Lamps

Do you have one of those friends who loves to get all her clothes at the thrift store so she can tell you all about it?

 You know the kind I mean, the Thrifty Thelma who can't receive a compliment on her  blouse without  assigning it a dollar amount followed by an outfit yakabout that sounds like a clip from The Price Is Right.

This blouse? It's Ann Taylor, and the tags were still on it.  It was only $5.00.

These Michael Kors shoes were $5.00 too.

 And this Kate Spade purse? Two bucks.

Wow. Just wow. 

I've never purchased an article of clothing in a thrift store in my life. I have enough trouble finding clothes to fit me in Retail Land where they have not yet begun to shrink. I'm sure enough not going to buy preshrunk clothes in a a place with neither a dressing room nor a return policy. That would be a trip to the crazy patch for me.

No, I'm not a Thelma in the fashion department. I totally get her, though. I get her because I'm a Thelma in just about every other department, especially in the home decorating department. I don't know what it is, folks, but I get a serious thrill (I mean a serious thrill...) out of finding stuff for my house on the cheap and then yakking it abroad to anyone who will listen.

But then, you knew that, didn't you?

 Very soon, I'm going to be finished with the Great Living Room Adventure that I've been working on for months, and I'll give you a tour. When I do, you can be certain that it's going to sound like an episode of The Price Is Right. 

Coffee table...$20.00.

Some sconces... $5.00 for the pair

Table lamps...

Three bucks.

About the cost of a pumpkin latte.
(Thrifty Thelma always throws in the comparison cost. It makes it even thriftier. )

I paid a latte apiece for the matching lamps in my living room,
and today, I'm going to yak about them.

I didn't buy them because they were pretty.  I bought them because they resembled the lamps living  in my head. Of course, the lamps in my head didn't have rusted lamp parts and a body coming apart in several places.

 And they didn't have a harp almost as tall as the lamp itself. 

What in the world is up with that harp?

But they were tall and skinny. I was looking for tall and skinny. And they weren't metal. I wasn't looking for metal.  I was looking for a modified baluster style.

And they worked.

That part's kind of important too.

So they got cleaned up, and the brass parts got polished and Rub n Buffed.  Gorilla wood glue fixed all the loose parts, and I bought new harps. (Which technically adds five bucks to each lamp, if you're keeping track.)

 I painted them with poor man's Annie Sloan in a shade  that I call taupelicious.  It's a combination of 423 different taupe rejects from my very large stash of taupe reject testers.

Because it's nearly impossible to find the perfect taupe for a project, that's why.

It's hard I tell you.

It's so hard that I have nearly broken up with taupe three times this year. When I finally created a shade that worked, I made a paint chip and took it to the paint store.  

It looks really pretty white washed with some soft white.

At least it looks pretty to me.

Kind of a latte color, don't you think?

 I could very easily sand it down in parts to distress it if I have a mind to. 

I don't really have a mind to.

The shade was actually the biggest pain.  Every lamp shade that I tried came up a bit short. Literally.  They were all ten inches in length, and they tended to make the lamp look like a gawky preteen.

See?

Longer shades were all too chiffony or pleated for the lamp in my head. 

I finally found these simple barrel shades at Target of all places for $22.00.  Lucky me, I happened to have a fifty dollar gift card to Target in my stash of unused gift cards.

So in Debbie Land, that means these shades were free.

They're a soft white, which is what I wanted, 

and they stay white even with the light on, which was important to me, too. 

I like them. 

Yes, I know it's plain. Plain happens to be exactly what I was going for here. I like to call it simple instead. Soft, restful, and simple. Those are the watchwords for the new living room.

And taupe. Don't forget taupe.

So in the end, the lamps ended up costing me about eight bucks each. Even if you add in the cost of a shade, which I didn't,  that's still only thirty dollars for the lamp and shade. Not  too shabby for a lamp that is so very much like the one living in my head, is it?

No, I don't think so either.

And that's all I have for today. I think it has stopped raining enough for Mr. Backhoe Man to begin the terrible, horrible, very bad, no good lawn destruction, and I need to go upstairs and put on the big girl pants...

... which I can assure you would never come from a thrift store. 

What about you? 

What will you buy from the thrift store?

What won't you buy?

And yes, dear Farm Sister. You do not need to answer this question. I know the answer fully well. Shhh.

.

A Wing and a Prayer...Chair

If I've ever told you that I'm praying for you,  I really do pray, 

and here's the chair where I sit to do it.

 It's a worn old wing back in the corner of my living room. I call it my prayer chair.  Actually, it's one of two chairs because Sir Lotsa Hair has one to match.  I pray in mine; he prays in his. Most of the time, though, we pray there together.

I know they're outdated. We've had them for nearly twenty years now, and they weren't even new when we got them. My father had them in his den way back in the 20th century.

Old things have a history, though. They've seen stuff. Ours have watched us raise our family, one prayer at a time. They've run the gamut from the highest highs to the lowest lows.

From praise and thanksgiving

to petition and confession. 

From job's lost

to job's found

. (and lost again... and found.again.)

From college scholarships

to college graduation.

You can see why the choice of  a replacement for them posed a bit of a problem. It wasn't just the sentimentality of it, either. There was another reason why I was having trouble deciding on a replacement.  It's about the style.

Here's the thing: I don't really care what's in and trendy anymore. Two and a half years ago, I decided that I was too 50  for that.  I just want to surround myself with stuff that I love, and I love wing back chairs.  I love the lines of them... and the height of them... and the historical look of them that works and plays so well with my old family pieces.

They still sell wing backs, of course. You just don't see them all that much in the showrooms 'cause they're not really hip. The newer ones are larger and more overstuffed. They tend to come with a grumpy little price tag, too, at least all the ones that I liked.

And then, there's the head thing.

I had a notion stuck in my Debbie head of  exactly what I wanted  them to look like. Unfortunately, it's a well known fact that random Debbie- head notions simply do not exist in the physical realm

Never. 

Ever, ever. ever, ever... 

Between all of that and the unfortunate carpet incident, I finally decided to shuck the new chair idea and reupholster my trusty old prayer chairs instead.  I had a notion in my head about fabric, too. What I wanted was the look of cotton ticking without the fabric actually being cotton ticking. I wanted something more upholster-y and a teeny bit dressier.

 Something like this:

Thankfully,  it's easier to find a piece of fabric living in your head than it is to find a piece of furniture. I found mine at  Peachtree Fabrics Direct. for ten bucks a yard.  It compliments the sofa swatch exactly the way I want it to, and the fabric was here in two days.

Want to see my prayer chair now?

Please ignore the wall color. It's going to be painted.
The saga of Debbie and the Paint Chips is a post all it's own.

And there's this  pillow fabric to consider...

Sure, I haven't actually made the pillows yet,

 but...

 One  living room decorating decision down,
 4,728 to go...

Of Noggers and Taupe-Lifts

I know it's the shortest month of the year, but am I the only one who thinks that this February was even shorter than ever?  I started out with such good intentions,  but before I knew it, the whole month was shot.

I'm blaming winter. 

And the piney stick forest that fell on my lawn. 

And  the power company.

And OK, the septic tank too. 

If that doesn't work, I'll blame hormones. At 52, you can blame hormones for everything. That's why I'm blaming my hormones for a the serious case of decorating ADD that kept me from finishing all  the projects on my February list.  

'Cause I started this month with the best laid plans. 

 I had all kinds of irons in the fire, folks. Some were big refinishing projects.

 Others,  I just wanted to taupe up a bit.   

I not only planned to finish it all; I planned to blog about it too. 

 Of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans... 

So here I am at the end of the month with a coffee table and side chair that remain unfinished.  I did manage to complete some taupe projects. I just never yakked about them. That's why I decided to do an end-of-the-month installment in the Nogger Collection called:

Five taupe projects that I never blogged about:

#1. A little taupe table...

 $10.00 at an estate sale two years ago.  Finally painted it about a month ago. 

#2. A little taupe lamp

It started out as a $2.00 brass lamp, and yes I realize that painting it oil rubbed bronze hardly qualifies it for a taupe nogger.  I'm counting it anyway because I added a little espresso paint for contrast.  Espresso is just an Italian way of saying taupe. Everybody knows that.  

See? Taupe.

#3.  Three little taupe candlesticks. 

I painted them. Big deal. I know.


Along those same lines...

#4. A little taupe tray

# 5. Little taupe photo editing  

Yes, I'm putting that in the taupe category, too.  I was planning to print the little photo above  in black and white,  but then I started thinking.

I'm always thinking...

Sepia is actually a form of taupe, isn't it?  And since my home is more tan than gray, sepia photos would just naturally look better than black and white, wouldn't they?  Yep, I thought so too.

Now, I'm on a little sepia kick.  

The photo editor turned these three wedding cake photos sepia.  

I hung them in the dining room because cake is kind of dining roomy. 

 The top one is ours. 

The bottom two are our parents. 

Love them, and though the photo sort of makes it look as if the wall swallows them up, it doesn't. It sort of draws you in to them instead.( Plus, I went ahead and purchased two more frames to go with it just in case I need them some day.) 

Just tossing that one out there in case my daughters  are reading...

*****

And that's all the taupe Noggin' I have for this morning.

I was also busy last week with an adventure of another sort,  but there was nothing whatsoever taupe about it so it can't go in this post. That's the rule. I know because I made it up.  I'll just say that it involved a trip to Atlanta with not one but two daughters... plus a niece for good measure.  It. Was. Lovely. If I ever do a pink nogger post, I'll be sure to yak all about it. 

 Until then...

I'm a Valentine s-MOOCH

If you're as sick of my long winded posts as I am, you'll be happy to know that this one will be short and sweet, mainly because that's all I have time to do right now.

I'm hosting our luncheon club this weekend so I'm busy working on that. Add to that the fact that I managed to start some larger home projects right smack dab in the middle of my luncheon planning, and you get a little crazy pants Debbie going on.  Crazy pants Debbie generally deploys the mooch option.

I mooched my Valentine wreath off of the Duchess.

I told her that I wanted something winter-y, yet still Valentine-y. I wanted it to be a little unconventional, and oh yeah... I also wanted it to be white and taupe. 

White and taupe?

Yeah. White and taupe.  Taupe is the color of the year, after all, and I wanted a nod to it on the front door. It might seem oddball to your way of thinking, but the Duchess raised me. She stopped being surprised by the stuff I do about four decades ago.  She just goes with my flow.

I loved it.

 It was exactly what I had in my head, right on down to the lovey dovey.  

Actually, even better...
Thanks, Mom.

And while I'm at it, I'll shout out some thanks to the Farm Sister as well. I've been mooching off her too. This one has nothing really to do with luncheon club, but it does have something to do with winter. You see, I had my heart set on making some sweater pillows to cozy up the den for the season. I even found the perfect sweaters  for $3.00 each at Goodwill to use for them.  I found them a month ago.

I just sorta  don't like to sew.

It's not really the sewing so much; it's the sewing machine. Machines and I don't have a good working relationship. That's why I procrastinated the great sweater pillow  project until winter was nearly over in this neck of the woods. I kind of whined about that over the weekend.

So she made them for me.

I'm not actually placing them like that on the sofa.

 I'm just trying to get artsy with the pictures.

Notice how I frost everything these days?
It's just a kick I'm on.

Blame winter.

I actually did contribute something to this project.  I sewed on those buttons. I figure she won't mind me telling you that since they're a little crooked and all. Well, oops.

And that's all I've got for now. 

I'm trying to finish my table in time for Laurie's Valentine Par-tay on Friday.  Plus, I have a meal to plan. I'll be mooching off the husband for that since he's going to be making some of his awesome tortellini alfredo. I just have to make the salad and the dessert.

Oh yes, and the chicken. 

Which brings me to two questions:

 Does anyone have a awesome-never-fail-parmesan chicken recipe?

And

Would you like to come and make it for me?

s-moooch...

Debbie the Diva and the (Little) Taupe Dress

It all started in the dressing room.

Have I mentioned how much I hate clothes shopping? Well, I do. It's not so much the casual shopping that I hate; it's the commando shopping. You know... the kind that you have to do for what I like to call a Loomer.

Now, I don't know how you handle the Loomers, but I generally follow a few simple steps. First, I procrastinate. Then, since procrastination does wonders for my appetite, I move into phase II: The panic diet phase. It's during the panic diet phase that I realize it's time for the commando raid to find the appropriate Loomer wear.

It's not a good mix. 

That's because procrastinated panic dieting rarely does what it's intended to do. About an hour into my commando raids, I usually decide to surrender, buy yet another black dress, and loom in the shadows. 

Can anyone relate?  (please?) 

(Yes, I realize that the phrase yet another black dress implies that I have a multitude of them. I do. They're just never the right black dress for that particular Loomer.  Plus, they don't fit. Try to keep up, people...)

So that's where I was, standing in a dressing room in middle Georgia, crying because not one of the 4,726 black dresses I had tried on that day was working for me. 

That's when the size 2 clerk who probably never had a case of Loomers in her life knocked on the door. She handed me this:

Does that look like a black dress to you?

Now, the typical Debbie thing to do here would be to take the dress and pretend to try it on. However, I might possibly have turned into a Diva in need of a Snickers at that point because what I did instead was flatly refuse. 

And I said,

 "Sorry, I can't wear that color."

And she said,

 "Who says so?"

I was about to tell her that everybody says so, but I knew in my head that it was sort of a stupid answer. I'm pretty sure that every person on the planet has not weighed in with his opinion as to wearable colors in Debbie Land.

Instead, I murmured something about being a blonde so anything beige just washes me out. 

While she agreed that I should not ever wear the color beige, she said that taupe was completely different. It's all in the shade, she said, and she began to prove it by holding every piece of beige in the store against my face to contrast it with that taupe dress. 

The next thing I knew, I was checking out. Then, she gave me directions to the best little accessory shop she knew and the name of a woman there who would be able to help me find a pop of color to go along with it. 

I was thinking red or coral or something,

 but the color maven suggested this:

Does that look like a pop of color to you?

It didn't to me either. I guess I protested too loudly, though, because before I knew it, everybody in the store really was weighing in on the wearable colors in Debbie Land.

I was still unconvinced, but since I had dubbed 2013 the year to step out of my comfort zone, I did it. I bought the single most daring outfit I have ever owned: Taupe on taupe.

And you'll never guess what happened next. 

My daring taupe outfit was a big hit. Seriously, not since the electric blue pant suit of '83 have I gotten more compliments on an article of clothing, specifically about the color.

On me.

As in, why don't you ever wear that color?

 It's wonderful on you.

What?

Then, since I never do anything in moderation, I began to buy more of that taupe-y stuff.

Taupe shoes...

Taupe sweaters...

A taupe scarf...

I even tried to taupe-stain a lace blouse with some strong coffee, but it was an epic failure. After three washes, it turned an unfortunate shade of beige, and my closet still smelled like Starbucks. 

You can't win them all, folks.

With all that taupe in the closet, it just seemed reasonable to go ahead and make it the 2014 Color of the Year. When God laid the word balance on my heart, it was a match made in Heaven. 

And there you have it: How Debbie the Diva learned to love taupe.

But now... if you have stuck with this too-long-yakabout for this long, I think you deserve a moral of the story as well.

And here it is:

Maybe you can do the thing you think you cannot do.

Maybe, just maybe, you need to do it a shade differently. 





*****
(I have no idea why that font suddenly changed. I can't fix it either. Ugh.) 

Because It Doesn't Have To Be Black Or White

Ugh.

Here I go again.

I was all set to yak abroad my color of the year and tell you the little story that inspired it, and for the life of me, I can't get the post on the page.  Oh, I'm getting words on the page... lots of them in fact. I just can't seem to spill the beans without making a whole pot of chili.  And so?

 I. Post. Nothing.

Can anyone relate?

A favorite blogger who shall remain nameless  has suggested that maybe, just maybe, I'm something of a perfectionist. Though that would probably surprise the dust bunnies living under my bed, she's not completely out in left field, only instead of a straight-up perfectionist, I'm more of what you call an extremist.

As colors go, I'm more of a passionate red, bright yellow, or hot pink.  My neutrals are either black or white. 

It's sad but true. In Debbie Land, it's either freezing or boiling. (Feel free to take that comment literally, by the way.)

 I'm either Richard Simmons or Henry the VIII.  

source  source

Sue Ann or Roseanne

source  source

OK, strike that one. I'm proud to say that I have never been a Rosanne.  ( I'm not exactly Sue Ann Nivens either, but that's not relevant.)

But really...

 Don't you think there's some space in between?

Yeah, I think so too. 

This year, I'm going to figure out a way to embrace more of it.

I'm not just doing it for myself, either. If you think it's frustrating for me, imagine being married to a pendulum for 30 years.  Therefore, for the sake of all concerned, I have decided to put my focus this year on the practice of moderation. Life doesn't have to be an all or nothing life, after all. It just needs some healthy balance.

That's why balance is my word of the year.  And the color I picked to go along with it? 

It's taupe. 

Yes, taupe. Don't even try to tell me that taupe doesn't have possibilities. It does. Taupe isn't the same as beige or cream or buff. I would never choose them for a color of the year. For one thing, they're boring. For another, I like to wear my color of the year, and I can't wear beige, cream, or buff.

Taupe, on the other hand, has just enough depth to distinguish it from the creams of the world.  Taupe has a personality; it's just a quiet one. It works and plays well with others, too.  It can be both a neutral and a pop of color.  Oh sure, it doesn't pop like red, but who says a pop of color has to scream at you? Why can't it just sort of converse?

That's what taupe is to me, a warm and conversational kind of color, not too loud, but with enough hue to keep it from being bland. Taupe is a color with perfect balance, and that's why it's my 2014 color of the year.

Ta da!!

****

And now that I've finally spilled the beans,  I can get around to visiting.

Yes,  I'm oddball enough to admit that I was afraid to read blogs  lest someone choose the word first and think I was a big, old, copycat. 

   So... even if you've already blogged it: 

What's your goal for 2014? 

Inquiring minds want to know.