Auction, Estate Sales and a Dumpster

Here he is! My $1 lion. I caught the end of an auction and spied this guy on a cart. His arm was broken off , the plaque and the arm were on the cart with him. No one bid on him, I wanted him but, always wait and act so nonchalant. I had that "ho hum" face and raised my number. I try never to get excited just in case someone else thinks that I know something. A security man helped DH put him in the truck. At home, Nate the giant took him off the truck for us. He said, "that must weigh 200lbs."! Saint Jim bought some landscape adhesive and fixed his arm. Haven't named the lion yet. He's second hand and I LOVE him. Jasmine was the name of the lioness in Second Hand Lions...maybe something related to that movie?
Next, does anyone ever wonder what other's work areas look like? Or do you all even have work areas? We have a large shop but, I TRY to leave that for Saint Jim. I have the workbench in the garage...besides, I've taken over the whole garage itself. I spraypaint outside when it's calm...on a stump. I knew there was a reason that we didn't have that removed when we took that Cottonwood down.

You can see the crate of spray paint on the ground, the drawers have tools and refinishing stuff, frames here and there as I paint them a lot....am always picking them up cheap for future projects.

I picked up this 1960's thingy at an estate sale for .50 cents. One day while vacuuming I thought, I'm painting that aqua!


There it is drying on my workbench. Nearby are frames that are now black. Against the wall is the starfish picture that I bought from OliveRue! It's going in one of the frames.

Here's a picture of the holder and bowls. The little dog cracker holder was at an estate sale, $1.50...it'll all be so much fun on my retro deck the next time that my girlfriends are over for wine and cheese.

Next picture:

Little cow for .25 at an estate sale. He can hold toothpicks. Next to him is a little travel S&P, .50 at an estate sale. I love that. When we travel by car, I like to skip restaurants and picnic in small town parks...that will be perfect. The little S&P's in the background were .50 for all. Nice when having a cookout with multiple tables.

And then, I can't just leave something in the condition that I got it in. I have these cast iron vintage looking stars.

Now all clean and new...in MY colors.

Below are some things...before I messed with them. The pink radio is from a dumpster down the street. It works...not to worry. I only cleaned that up. I had the cast iron bird and the spoon and fork for a little while.

Little bird likes being white now.

The fork and spoon are white and best of all, baling wire hangars.

This is a recent $5 purchace from an estate sale. I totally envisioned it painted black...and leaving the vinyl as it is. My 21 yr. old (Nate the giant) said, "NO, I like it the way it is"! Hmmmm.

chairs that I changed

Someone gave me a dining set with a hutch. I went hog wild with the chairs. The captains chairs, I left the backrest the original color. The chairs were all black. Lots of compliments in person...But, not sure about the cushions.

I've painted a lot of vintage folding chairs but, decided that I really like the black most of all.

The next 2 chairs are a walnut colored sort of chair with a straw sort of seat. I sanded them down outdoors. I like doing most of my refinishing in the spring or fall as conditons are best then here in Nebraska. I spray painted them white and took a sander to the edges as I liked them way better roughed up. Hey, here at our house, they'll end up that way anyhow.