Dog Stuff – Sandy - with update added

It’s been a while since I gave an update on my dogs, seems when they’re being good (and when I say good,  keep in mind everything's relative here) I tend to leave them out of my blogging.

Today I have dogs on my mind. Not our guest, Katy, this time (she’s always inserting herself between the camera and whatever I need to take a picture of!),

 

or even Yoshi, our drama queen greyhound turned chow hound, (just look at her begging for ‘more cheese, please!’, who can resist that cute face?)

.

No, not them this time.

You see, this morning I had to drop our yellow lab, Sandy, off at the vet’s for surgery.

She’s no stranger to surgery, having just gone under the knife in November.

Close your eyes for the “Ouchy” picture coming up if you’re squeamish!

 

Her right rear leg had a blowout and needed to be repaired. 

Cruciate ligament surgery is what they call it.

 

She’s been on restricted activity for months now, leash walking only, no running or playing catch, or chasing the greyhounds.

Ever see a lab try to keep up with a greyhound?  Funny stuff.

Poor girl, everything she loves to do has been curtailed, even food, as she needed to lose weight too.

All that laying around with little exercise hasn’t been good for her figure. 

(I can totally relate to that, it hasn’t helped mine one bit either.)

And even with all these precautions her other leg had a blow out a few weeks ago. 

The surgeon says it’s not uncommon, when one leg goes they tend to overcompensate with the other leg, and that tends to eventually give out too.

She’s been in pain, and finally got to the point of not being able to go up the stairs to bed by herself.

The anti inflammatory meds and the pain pills aren’t helping her get around anymore.

Mike has had to pick her up and carry her up to bed the last couple weeks, much to her embarrassment.

We knew it was time to pull the trigger; without the surgery she can’t begin to get better.

So I dug out the dreaded “Cone of Shame” last night to bring it with us today.

I tried to keep it hidden. 

She still seemed to know something was up.

 

With a heavy heart I had to say goodbye and leave her behind at the vet’s, we won’t get to see her again until tomorrow. 

Gosh, I felt like such a traitor, just dropping her off and leaving like that.

The look on her face when they took her to the back just broke my heart!

But! 

We are so fortunate that she CAN be fixed,

and in a few months she will be able to run and play again, just like she used to.

She’s such a sweet girl.

Thanks for listening!

Edited to add;  Sandy’s surgery went well and she will be coming home on Thursday afternoon.  Thanks for all your caring!

Create!

Today you can find me hanging out over at “My Repurposed Life” doing a guest post.  Gail’s taken some time out for her daughter’s upcoming wedding and during her time-out she is having some of her friends fill in for her.  If you haven’t been there yet, make sure you go see my newly finished nightstand!  You might recognize it from a curbshopping expedition I took you on a year ago….Curbshop along with me today!, then again, maybe you won’t recognize it anymore, it’s really changed!

I’ve got a little re-do to show you here today.  Remember how I’ve been trying to lighten up my very dark living room?  I’ve been adding some white pieces to counter the dark brown sofa and my new dark stained coffee table.

This is the latest shot of the mantel, after adding the Nest sign and faux clock face.

Below it is the fireplace, and I needed something lighter to balance that side of the room.

I had this old card table in the living room, it’s not antique, but it is vintage….

I actually bought this years ago at an antique show for $5.

It comes in handy for putting out snacks when we have guests, and I like the fact that it stands against the wall the rest of the time, out of the way.

I loved the design on the top and the way the top (which is some kind of cardboard type material) is grained to look like fancy wood.

It stands up by itself when folded, so I decided to use it as a fireplace screen.

Of course I forgot to take a good before photo, so I searched through my albums and found this next picture.  (yes, that’s the ironing on the hook waiting to be taken upstairs…) 

See how the table is easily stored out of the way against the wall?  That’s why I like it so much.

Way back in February I purchased several vinyl's from ‘Say it on the Wall’.  Gail had a 30% off deal on her blog and I took full advantage. 

They have great prices and a wonderful variety of vinyl sayings over there.

I bought this definition of CREATE, not knowing what I would use it for.\

It was so much bigger than I expected when I got it, it’s huge!

But it just so happens to be exactly the right size for the folding table.  How ‘bout that?

I spray-painted the entire table with Heirloom White, then added the vinyl to the top.  It wasn’t as hard to do as the first one,  I knew enough this time to only remove a little bit of the backing at a time, sort of roll it down as I went.

Except- I started putting it on with the table opened up, then suddenly realized I should check to see which way it would stand up.  Good thing I checked, because I was applying the vinyl on the wrong side.  It would have been upside down when the table was standing!!!

I hadn’t gone too far, so was able to very carefully peel off the letters and start over, the right way!

Close call!

After applying the vinyl I taped off a border along the outside of the definition and painted it black.

It was a little too stark, but that was an easy fix.

Just a little bit of sanding, some dabbing with gel stain to age it a bit and it was done!

I like the way it looks in front of the fireplace.

     

 

Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget to go to “My Repurposed Life” and say Hi to me over there!

Nest

Remember this rack I picked up last month? (If not, you can read about it here.)

I’ve managed to do one thing with it so far.

This was so simple:  I just took the rack apart, cut the side panel (the HONEST) just above the N, and added a scrap piece of wood for the base.

(Yep, I still have the HO set aside.)

After spraying the entire piece black, I decided I wanted some color..

So I went back and taped the side bars and sprayed the rest of it with a light blue color I had on hand.

It’s called Tidepool by Krylon.  The only problem I had with it was the gloss finish.  Too shiny for my taste.

A

Sanding the letters down took care of that little issue and brought out some of the black base coat too.

After that I added a little bit of rust glaze wiped on and off with a damp paper towel.

Did you see that big paint drip on the T from the spray paint?

All the sanding in the world wouldn’t make that go away.

Oh well….

 

As you can see, I tried my hand at rearranging the mantel for spring.

Not great, but it works ok for now.

I’ve been on a bit of a mission these days to lighten up my very dark living room for spring.

Especially since I introduced the new coffee table in all it’s dark wood glory!

Today I’m going to meet up with Kolein to deliver her prize package. 

I’m so excited to get to meet her in person!

I’m linking this thrifty Nest sign to Nifty Thrifty Tuesday at Coastal Charm.

Can’t forget Catch as Catch Can over at My Repurposed Life…I just love that party!

 

I’m also linking to Everything but the Kitchen Sink at A Little Knick Knack

Coffee Table Revealed at Last

Back in January I showed you how the dogs had destroyed my wicker coffee table.

 

I had decided to make a new table from another curb find I had in my stash,

 

I had gone as far as cutting down a door to be the top of the new coffee table.

That’s when I stopped to ask your opinion on what I should do next.

And then I just left you hanging!

I do that a lot, don’t I?

Sorry! (I didn’t mean to!)

I actually finished this one a long time ago.  Like, within a week of planning it.

So why didn’t I share it sooner?

Let me see, I redid the counter stools, painted a clock, made the slipcover for the ottoman, the piano stool then the wing back chair, then we got Katy, then we went on vacation, then Katy ran away, then she ran away again (yes, again!) and then…..well you know how it goes, right? I’m just full of excuses.

And really all I needed to do to blog about it was vacuum the rug and take some good after pictures of it in daylight.

Simple, right?

Not really.

I still haven’t managed that feat.  I mean, yes, the rug HAS been vacuumed.  I swear it!  I just haven’t taken pictures while it was still clean and there was daylight.

With 3 dogs in the house now the rug is only clean for about 5 minutes before the hair starts falling back on it.

So you will get to see the coffee table in all it’s dog hair glory in a photo shoot taken in the wee hours of a very dark morning.

Because, really, enough is enough.

It’s time to share.

When we left off I had decided to stain the top dark, and lighten the piece up by painting the bottom white. 

I was trying to figure out how to keep some of the natural grain on the veneer but still have the piece be light in color because my living room is so dark.

My original vision had the drawer fronts stained and the body of the piece white.

That’s where we left off.

First up, a good sanding on all surfaces. 

I selected “Olde Walnut” gel stain from my stash of paints.

I applied it to the door and loved the look, it really brought out the beautiful wood grain.

Without thinking twice I started to rub the gel stain on the bottom of the piece.

It looked beautiful! 

There was no way at that point I was going to cover this piece with paint.

Just look at how the wood grain pops now!

This next picture shows the difference between the natural color (bottom drawer) and the “enriched with stain” color.

It made such a dramatic difference!

This is the view from the back.  (sorry about the glare)

I wanted to preserve the factory stamped and stenciled numbers, so I left it plain and just added a couple coats of poly.

After adding 2 coats of polyurethane to the entire piece I was ready to take it upstairs to the living room.

Now for the finishing touches.

This is the original knob and back plate that was on this door when I found it at the curb. 

It had to go back on to complete the look.

Can you believe somebody parted with this?

      

I love the way it looks.  Too bad I couldn't find all the original screws. 

I’m still hoping to find them in the basement someday.

The chunky wooden knobs on the drawers were swapped out for these round metal ring pulls. 

I had bought 6 of them for a dollar at a garage sale last year.

Somehow I think the dogs won’t be able to chew on these!

 

(That’s Sandy in the background on the couch, overseeing my photo shoot)

I then cut plexi-glass to size to fit the panels.  The one thing Mike insisted upon was a flat surface for eating! 

I chose the plexi because it’s easy to pop out for cleaning underneath. 

Real glass would have been tricky to move.

The curves on the front of this piece just blow me away! 

  

The remotes and Playstation accessories fit nicely in the top drawers.

 

And several of my blankies can be stashed in the large bottom drawer!

So that’s my new coffee table. 

It’s not the way I had envisioned when I first started to work on it, but I truly believe this is the way it was meant to be.

  

The total cost for this new coffee table?

$9

That’s $8 for the plexi-glass and $1 for the drawer pulls.

The gel stain and poly were a dollar each at Real Deals but I had already used them on several projects so I’m not counting them.

Best of all, Mike likes it!

Yayyy!

 

I’m linking up to Linda at Coastal Charm’s Nifty Thrifty Tuesday party.  Be sure to check out all the other thrifty finds over there.

Catch this one over at Gail’s Catch as catch can party too.

And

Furniture Feature Friday at Miss Mustard Seed’s