I love old things, don't you? There is something in their color, their feel, and perhaps their aura that makes them interesting. They draw me in and make me think of the past.
Sometimes I want to change them...bring them up to date, but sometimes the beauty lies in the untouched, the unchanged. That's the case with this small rusty green table.
Well...almost.
I needed a small table out at the barn to put beside one of my occasional chairs. My mom had this in her garden house. She wasn't using it, so she graciously let me see what I could do with it.
After tightening the legs, I sanded all the loose paint off and sealed with a satin polyurethane to help keep it from continuing to rust.
This is where the fun began. I decided to make a loosely pleated burlap skirt for it, so the table would have some "chunk." I started by measuring the circumference of the top and multiplied this times 4. This would give me enough fabric for the pleats. I used the finished edge of the burlap at the bottom so I wouldn't have to hem it. I hot glued this around the top edge of the table.
This would hold it tightly but if I ever wanted to remove it, I could do so with no problem.
I already had a neat rafia-type fringe to use to finish off the top edge, and I love how the table turned out. What do you think? Would you have done it differently? My hubby would have liked for me to leave the legs showing.... I like the frilly skirt.
The little chair was my granddaddy's. He kept this beside his bed as long as I can remember, to sit in to put on his shoes and socks. I love this little chair. It has a rustic quality.
I would love to hear your ideas about the table. Leave me a comment and give me some ideas as to what you would do. Have a great "hump day" and I hope to see you Friday.
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I'm not sure how many of you know what a barn quilt is so let me explain a little. A barn quilt is a barn or other farm building that displays a quilt square. Usually these barns are very old and have historical or landmark significance in the area, but aren’t limited to that significance. While traveling I've seen many of these and have been facinated by them. I wanted one for my own barn. Here's a neat one I found online.
Many of the quilt square patterns chosen for display on the barns reflect the owner and his way of life on his own farm. So they are very personalized.
Quilt patterns are appearing on barns all over the southern states. Donna Sue Groves, purchased a barn in Adams County that had the “Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco” slogan already painted on it. She wanted to replace the slogan with a painted quilt square, to honor her mother, Nina Maxine Groves, a noted quilter who learned the craft from her mother and grandmother and the barn quilt was born. Here are some examples on a few neat barns I found on google images.
I designed a quilt square that represented the four generations that have lived here on my little farm. To begin, I drew a grid on a piece of paper to draw my design on which made it easier to transfer onto a plywood square. Since the board was 4 x 4 ft I drew the grid 4 in x 4 in and each inch represented 1 ft. Here's a photo of it freshly painted before we put it up.
You can still see some of the grid pattern in pencil on it. I used a craft acrylic paint and then applied several coats of polyurethane to protect it. Here's my hubby climbing up the very tall ladder to put it up on the barn for me. He’s such a trooper. I love it.
Now we have a neat topic of conversation when people see it. There are four of everything on the board; 4 generations on this farm, and 4 of us. The stripes are for our gardening rows, the corners are chickens, black wings, yellow bodies and there are 4 crosses in the middle representing our Christian faith.
. Oh yes, can you spot the 4 J’s for our last name?
This was a fun project and one I have been wanting to do for a long time. Glad I finally got around to it.
Try one for yourself. You can even have a small square on a little tool shed in your yard.
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I love old things, furniture, hobnobs, houses, and barns. There is something so imaginative about these things. We get to look at them and wonder what they've seen, who's hand has touched them, what was happening long ago.
I have lots of old things and I seem to have an affinity for them. Sometimes I want to redo, remake, and repurpose them, and other times I want to leave them as is. Our old barn is both leave as is and redo. Just this past weekend, my husband added a little shed roof off of one side for his tractor and lawn mower, so I took a few pictures to share with you. We plan on leaving as much as possible original, it's in good shape, and use wood and tin roofs from old barns to repurpose ours.
The photo's above are the barn in different seasons, below is my hubby working on the barn this past weekend adding a shed roof for his tractor.
Here are a few of the pictures of the barn. Our barn is about 80 years old and the wood on it is both beautiful and hard as a rock.
New, shiney things have their place, and I love them like everyone else, but nothing touches the beauty of worn, used, aged, and well loved things from the past.
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