Tonight I did some cleaning up and started Christmas decorating. I took pictures, but this is the only one I remotely like:

So much pretty blue and white and vintage in the world to love.

I’ll try to take more pictures later in the weekend so you can see the full effect.

Today Ian worked on the basement again – replacing the cleanout and getting ready to replace the drain. Tomorrow he promised a friend he’d help him move – but maybe there will be some time to finish the drain and start burying things up again at the end of the day.

With the end in sight (not really, ’cause, there’s still concrete pouring, and do you even know how complicated the stair rebuilding is going to be?), I sat down and started making a list of the fun projects we want to do to the house: Built-in desk in the front nook, built-in bookshelves, panel ceilings, replica trim and moldings, flooring and paint all over upstairs, clawfoot bathtub, put a balcony in our bedroom, and many more things.

It’s a good thing we’re finally in the house we wanted to be settled in because it’s going to take us at least a decade to get to all these things. And then we’ll chill out for another decade to enjoy it. And then we’ll need to do it all over again.

Oh, and I purchased another project last weekend: a little half-sanded wooden chair.

Somebody obviously thought they would sand the whole thing down and refinish it. And then like everybody who wants to refinish a chair does, they started by thoroughly sanding the seat because it’s easy, and then they started on the finicky legs and then couldn’t be bothered with that project anymore.

Therefore I got it for $4.

I’ve been trying to decide what to do with its finish. I really like the excessively worn look – not a natural “vintage” chipped and worn look, but a rather excessive: “tough-loved and then abandoned” look. But the seat looks quite out of place right now – it’s actually more grey and weathered than it looks in the pictures.

So we were thinking that we either need to stain and seal the seat – though it would have to be done in such a way that the seat stain looks as worn as the rest of it – or I need to thoroughly paint the seat just to then distress it as much as the rest of the chair.

I’m thinking, though, that these linens are the answer. I’ll probably stain and seal the chair to preserve it, but I think one of my embroidered vintage pillowcases is going to become a pretty seat-cover. I had that bottom one draped over the  seat with its lace edging just hanging over the edge and it made my heart skip a beat. So lovely.

One of the items on our “fun” to-do list is to pep up our closet doors (to anything that’s not mirror and brass) and do a built-in vanity table between our closets. Possibly this chair is on its way to becoming my vanity chair.