Our $1 French Provencal Couch

Finally, we're back and rets-t'go (ready to go)! We've found a beautiful Victorian home in the Western part of Massachusetts that we adore.We'll be bringing you projects we're working on and as always, you'll get to learn along with us!

First up, our $1 mid-century French Provencal couch. To make a long story short, the wife and I went to an auction, she went to the bathroom, I felt bad for this cat-clawed marmalade mess and bought it for a buck while she was in the loo. Look at it. Can you blame me? It had great bones and a great price! :)

The wife, not surprised at my impulse purchase, went along with it and soon fell in love with the couch, too. We found out it was made by Homer's Furniture out of Chicago. The company was made up of five Russian brothers who moved to America and made mighty fine furniture. Unfortunately, Homer Bros. went out of business in 1992, but their furniture holds up against the times beautifully... even if after a cat attack.

In our quest for new furniture for the new home, we went to big name store after store after store looking for just the right piece, but learned quickly most of these overpriced mega furniture stores offered nothing but pure crap. The couches had very little personality and we had no choice in fabrics or even in the thickness of the cushions.

We swirled around fantasy ideas of refurbishing the $1 couch ourselves, complete with piping and zippered seat cushions. The problem is, we had no idea what to do and we had a short amount of time before moving into our new home. So we took the easy, nay, smart way and took the couch to a local company to be reupholstered. (It's good karma to support local peeps, btw!)

Before the upholstery place picked up the couch, we hand-sanded the woodwork with 220 grit paper. We then painted the woodwork with Behr's paint/primer ($17) with two coats of the "Stealth Jet" color in semi-gloss. (Don't let the name of the paint fool you, it has a lot of nice ashy-brown undertones.) We finished our part by giving the paint two coats of Minwax's water-based Polycrylic Protective Finish. ($15) We have plenty of paint and polycrylic leftover that we can use in other projects!

For our couch material, we picked out natural linen, which really brought out the brown and deep gray undertones of the woodwork's paint. Instead of having the upholstery people make back cushions, we chose to fill the back with feather pillows, also covered in natural linen, and a french relief pattern for the bolsters.


ARE YOU READY FOR IT? ARE YOU READY FOR THIS AWESOMENESS? YESSSS!

The pictures above were taken in our old home. Below was the couch's first placement in our new home but now is it against the front windows as you will see below.

Initially we tried to keep the dogs off of the couch but decided, like everything else we own, our items are to be used and enjoyed. Otherwise, what is the use of having stuff? Here we see the boys making sure the couch is comfy enough for all.

We loved this so much, we salvaged an old wing back chair my wife's parents purchased many years ago. It was covered in a weird faux blue leather and brass grommets so we had it reupholstered in the same linen material as the bolsters on the couch:

Technically, our couch cost $551 + $32 for supplies, but it all started with a good feeling and one dollar. We had the choice to purchase some generic low quality, overstuffed couch for $800+ whose color and material we would have had to just deal with, or spend $583 plus $1 and have this truly awesome, sturdy piece that's been around since the 1950s and will be around long after the $800+ couch has fallen apart.

The point here, I guess, is to not forget the artisans in your home town. Instead of throwing away that shirt that has a small hole, take it to your local seamstress. Instead of buying a brand new pair of shoes because your heel is worn, take your shoes to the local cobbler and have them replace your heel. Instead of buying a newly-made piece of furniture, ask your local upholstery place to spruce up that vintage yard sale find!

It is the local people who will take care of you and your items. They aren't a faceless company that won't have to answer to your concerns, they are your neighbors who would love nothing more than to do right by you and the community you live in. Hooray!

Now - move over, pups. It's time for mamma #1 to take a nap on that great looking couch!

Quick Fix: Bathroom Shower Caddy

A year ago we purchased a tall "stainless steel" bathroom caddy from Target for $30+
The caddy began to slowly rust and finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. Picking up a shampoo bottle
dripping with rust on the bottom was not making my day. So I informed the wife it was time to purchase a new caddy to wit she replied, "Why don't we just paint the one we have?" Genius, that one!

Here's how it went down:

This is what we had been staring at for quite a while. Yuck.

1. We purchased a can of Rust-oleum brand Appliance Epoxy ($6)

2. We lightly sandpapered the rusted surfaces with some leftover sandpaper we had in our tool kit.
3. We laid down an old sheet on the garage floor (with the door open, of course!) and spray painted the parts as directed by the manufacturer.

In a little over 24-hours we had what looked like a brand new shower caddy!


Here is a similar caddy we could have purchased to replace our old rusted one:

For $6, here's the one we saved:

Questions? Suggestions?

Welcome!

TheProjectWives are two married women with a mission, like most every American nowadays, to get back to basics. Many of us have become too lazy and too wasteful. Sound harsh? Tough. It's our reality. Take food for example - it's no longer a matter of price or nutritional evaluation, it's how fast we can buy it and get it in our bellies before we've even had time to think. We've come to heavily rely on products that are supposed to make our lives "easier" but is this really even true? Sometimes yes, sometimes, no but wouldn't it be nice to save and do for yourself where you can?

During the course of this blog we will take you through easy projects in the kitchen, the craft room, the garage, and anywhere else we can find room for improvements. We're not experts as we, too, are in the process of learning so if there's something you'd like us to cover, let us know!

Want an example or our laziness? Cheese. 

Where there once used to be blocks upon blocks of cheese, the grocery 'fridge walls are now filled with shredded bagged cheese that is not only more expensive but worse for you! Factory farms already pump our dairy and meat products up with things like antibiotics that tear down our body's ability to accept antibiotics when we really need it so why add more and more to our already strained sense of nutrition?

When you purchase an 8oz. block of natural cheese, you can grate almost 4 cups of cheese whereas purchasing pre-shredded cheese, you will only get two cups in the bag for the same price.  Does this make sense to you? Ever wonder why shredded cheese doesn't stick together? It's cellulose... i.e. virgin wood pulp or other natural fibers such as cotton. Of course, it's not as appetizing to print "wood pulp" in the ingredient list. Cellulose is found in a lot of foods but has no nutritional value. In fact, human bodies are not even able to process cellulose. This may be helpful-sounding to dieters but nutritionally, cellulose amounts to nothing but cheap filler for companies to feed you with while charging you an astronomical amount in the name of convenience.

Some cheese includes natamycin, a medicine used to treat human fungal infections. Natamycin is used in cheese to prevent mold. YUM! Perhaps it would be less expensive to rub cheese in your eyes than to purchase an eye drop prescription to treat a fungal infection but we do not recommend you do so.

What other products have made us lazier for the sake of convenience? Off the top of my head I can say some of the worst offenders are 100 calorie snack bags, bagged lettuce (which also includes cellulose and typically cost 3x's more than regular lettuce), individually packaged chicken breasts, and jarred spaghetti sauce. I guess it's better than the previously released "ham sticks" introduced to the shelves after WWII but still, the processed and *convenience* foods lining the shelves of our local stores is out of control, wouldn't you agree?

We don't propose people raise their own farm animals and create their own cheese, we're simply asking you, and ourselves, to be more mindful of the things you do and the stuff you buy. Just a few changes and you could not only help your community and environment but your bank account and most importantly, you!

If you like to eat cheese, we suggest you try Cabot. It is a company that's been around since 1919 and is a farm family-owned coop. Their cows are not treated with rBST, the artificial growth hormone that causes animals to over produce milk and is a main source of udder infections in cows (that make it into your cheese and milk products - yuck!). You can absolutely taste the difference. 


Take this quiz and find out much you know about Americans and waste. 
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/425/american-excess.html