Just wasting time

I made a floor plan for our house.  Now this is definitely not the best use of my time right now but in the future it could help with bathroom renos and such.  Here is the floor plan for our house and here is the current plan

Which Cleans Brass Better?

I'm doing an experiment today (in between studying for my CPH exam) on what product cleans pennies better.  So I mentioned in my post yesterday that I'm trying to decide what to cover the top of our coffee table with.  River rocks and tiles were two top contenders but I've been inspired by something else since then.  Pennies!  What else is one to do with all the excess pennies lying around the house, the car, my purse?  I have to admit, I'm not the first to have this idea.  There is a great bar in Athens, GA that my husband and I loved to go to called  Copper Creek Brewing Company.  Their entire bar top is covered in pennies!  It looks lovely and way more classy than a table of bottle tops.  Not that bottle tops wouldn't be great for a bar top someday but just not for now. 

Back to my original idea... I need a way to clean all those pennies we already have because some of them look kind of dingy.  My first thought was brasso!  I had many years experience cleaning my mom's brass pot rack and kitchen collection so I thought it would be perfect.  The only problem is that it really stinks up the house.  So if you decide to use this do it outside!  Currently I have a cup of pennies soaking in the stuff.  

Then my husband says to me "Soak them in Coke!"  Apparently he's tried this, albeit with English pence, and it really does work.  So...

Now I've got that experiment running too.  Not as smelly as the brasso and hopefully the results will be better!  

I've calculated how many pennies I would need to cover the whole table top and its around $13 worth.  This isn't too bad considering that 15 lbs of river rocks was about $15 and I think I would have needed more!  

Just imagine how lovely its going to look with all these shiny pennies!  I'm excited!  What are your thoughts about my project?  Have you tried cleaning anything with coke before?  

Ideas...

I need some input here people!  Firstly, I would like a new name for my blog.  I like to DIY/Craft/Design stuff but it needs to be catchy, but not gimicky.  

The other thing is a project I recently undertook.  I refinished our coffee table because the top was rather beat up from years of abuse.  I've painted it but it still needs some help because the wood filler wasn't sanded down that well and it gets used as a dinner table almost every night so water and food landing on it is inevitable.  I was thinking first of tiling it but realized that may become rather expensive and very time consuming.  

My next thought was that I could use an acrylic bar top coating over some river rocks.  This may be relatively economical and look quite stunning.  This is a picture of some grey/black river rocks that I picked up at Target to test out.  5 lbs of rocks does not seem to go very far!  But I'm still debating it.  My hubs isn't sure about the boarder I would need to create in order to keep the acrylic from over flowing.  If I can work out a way that I could use the boarder but then take it off once the acrylic has solidified that may be even better.  

Finally, I think the house needs more greenery.  I have shyed away from it in the past because of all the animals in our house but I'm hoping that it may help filter the air a bit more to give a fresh smell.  Maybe I'm completely crazy but I think it will help.  This is my first plant idea. 

The current state of the living room.

With our new ficus!

Just a little photoshop magic to help me decide.  

Up to Something...

Well I'm at it again.  What is that you say?  Oh just trouble.

I decided the other day that it was finally time to repaint our coffee table.  It has been with us for quite some time and due to three cats and a dog and one bad house plant pot it is in need of an overhaul.  

You can see what it looked like previously in these pictures.  

My inspiration table.  I love the bright color of it next to the muted color of the walls and furniture.  

My color, which is available at the Home Depot.  

So far I've sanded and primed the table and am waiting an hour or so until I attempt to paint it.  I may need some wood filler for the little scratch marks from the cats and dog. Other helpful information about refinishing furniture can be found here. 

Hopefully the husband likes it.  If he does then I'll go about adding accessories of that same color as well.  Here's hoping!

~J




UPDATE:

Here is the latest picture of our living room and the table.  I still need to accessorize a bit and maybe touch up the paint but this project has definitely saved us some money for now.