A Start on A Mid-Summer Dream

Last summer while we were trying to survive the transition of Big K and kids moving in we were so broke, we were depressed about the breakup and the kids were pretty much a wreck. At some point we decided that we had to do something besides sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves. We needed a beach day. Our beach was 2000 miles away and a thing of the past. So we promised the kids a big fun-day and headed to our new "beach" at Cherry Creek Reservoir. I'm not kidding when I say we had to actually scrounge to come up with the means to do this, $8.00 for parking and a couple cans of tuna, a loaf of bread and some juice packs, probably a 1/2 package of Oreos and we were good to go. While we were unloading our car we spotted a really cool van in the parking lot, all painted up with a Pacifico Beer logo.

This isn't exactly the one we saw, but I found out that Pacifico had done an ad campaign a few years ago where they commissioned some artists to design artwork for 18 restored VW vans. 


I started talking about how cool it would be to have a funky old van to pack the kids in and go traveling, camping and beaching our way through the summer. Big K was down for that, but she figured that we would have to change the name to "Pathetico" because we were so pathetic and penniless. So that became our theme for the summer. We laughed at ourselves as we planned our "Pathetico" trips. If we had $8.00 and a dozen eggs we were off to Cherry Creek with a bowl of egg salad and a loaf of bread. We had a blast and the kids did too. They never had a clue that life was anything but grand and carefree.


At night when we were sitting out on the deck we would talk about how cool it would be if we had some money to fix things up and decorate a cozy little outdoor room to hang out in. 

Maybe something like this would be a stretch for us...

But something like this from Apartment Therapy would be nice.

Then summer faded and we never  really did anything. I started talking it up again as soon as the weather started getting warm this year. But I still couldn't see where I was going to get $$ to buy furniture and rugs and curtains to do everything I envisioned. Until... last weekend I stopped by one of my favorite blogs in the whole wide blogosphere and Donna at Funky Junk Interiors (bless her heart) sent my head spinning with possibilities from just rounding up all the funky junk and fabrics and pillows and wicker chairs I have laying about already. 

I started babbling on about floor cloths and drop cloths and how I was going to turn that ginormous coffee table into an outdoor bed. And I went shopping in the garage to find a few things that I recalled owning but haven't laid eyes on for quite some time. Like these:

I got these from my mother-in-law years ago. I didn't know what they were or where she got them, but they are very heavy and are made of oak. Mr. Rainbowcreek had to hammer them back together because they were falling apart, and then he proceeded to stain them and used them to store odd stuff in, like tools and a case full of refillable beer "growler" jugs. 

We made a good bit of progress on arranging things today. Too bad no one has responded to my "wanted" plea on CL for a twin bed size futon mattress :( I really need one of those for my day bed. 

So in the meantime, while I am waiting for that mattress, Big K and I hit on the idea of using the crates and some painted old fence pickets to make this awesome sidetable/bookcase. 

 Notice my sad mattressless day bed in the corner? I can't wait to add a stack of magazines to my bookcase and spend some lazy afternoons lounging on my outdoor bed looking at pretty pictures. Big K will probably prefer to hang out with her laptop there, but she'll have to beat me to it.

So there is our little side table, mostly put together with some zip ties in case I ever decide to repurpose the pickets and crates someday. Now if you all would just send up some prayers for someone to answer my ad for a futon mattress... Until it arrives I have plenty of painting and floor cloths and drop cloth curtains to keep me busy. 


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