Home Improvement Project - Vintage Suitcase Dog bed...

After seeing a blog entry about making a dog bed out of a vintage suitcase, I was inspired and decided to give it a try. 

(source: www.curbly.com)

I dragged Mr Lim to the Hell's Kitchen flea market in hopes of  finding my own vintage suitcase. Lucky us, we managed to pick one for just USD20. (And it was in green!!) 

Once we got it, I started procrastinating. I read the post sometime last year and bought the suitcase maybe a week later. 8 months later, I finally took the suitcase out, gave it a clean and took a photo of it. 2 months later, I finally started (and COMPLETED) the project.

Sam was curious about what this was for. 

The suitcase was really beat up inside. The fabric lining smelled pretty bad and was falling apart. But the little man liked it anyway. Yikes~

I spent a good half hour giving the outer case a good clean using the Rejuvenate leather & vinyl restoration kit and probably emptied a bottle of febreze inside to kill the smell.

I loved that the suitcase was green in color and I knew immediately that I wanted a yellow stripe fabric to make the pillow case out of. After some online shopping, I found the exact fabric that I was visualizing on fabric.com - the Riley Blake Chervon Yellow fabric. I bought 2 yards of the fabric, but only used about 1 yard for this project. 

As usual, the dog approved.

I hate cutting fabric, thus lazy me simply used an exisiting pillow case and added 2 inches to the width (for seam allowances and zigzag stitches to prevent the raw edges from fraying) and 5 inches to the length to allow me to fold the fabric in. (Hee, a easy tip is to fold the fabric into half and cut, keeping the folded side intact so that there'll be one less side to sew!)

A quick sew and ta-dah, a really basic pillow case was completed!

Sam test-laid and approved (again).

A quick check and it appeared to fit in the suitcase perfectly. 

I thought the sewing was the tedious part and once I was done, we just had to unhinge the suitcase and the dog bed would be completed. Boy was I wrong. The tough part was actually unhinging the suitcase. Damn the suitcase. It was really built to last. 

Mr Lim, the engineer, studying the structure. 

The hinge simply refused to give way and despite constantly hammering, it did not budge. 

After possibly 2 hours, a drill and some internet research, the engineer finally broke the suitcase into two! (HOORAY~) I was so bored waiting that I actually went on and completed yet another project (next entry!!). 

Mr Lim was pretty proud of himself for his hard work.

Look at the amount of tools we attempted to use.

After a more detailed examination, we realized that the inside of the suitcase was far more disgusting than we expected. There were orange residue (probably rust) and dirt under the lining.

Hence, we went ahead and removed the lining and gave the shell a really thorough clean (and disinfecting). 

I thought that the case looked really ugly and decided to add my own lining instead. I found a really cute (and appropriate) dog fabric in my stash - Premier Prints Best Friends Slub Charcoal. After a lot of hot glue, the new lining was added!

Tadah~ Presenting our very own vintage suitcase dog bed! It looked a little deflated due to the pillow. Time to search for a fuller pillow for the dog bed, meanwhile, we made do.

The dog couldn't wait and hopped right on it once we declared it completed!

He did a trial run of tossing and turning and approved (YET again).

We left it at the little corner by the window and went ahead to pack up the mess we created. When we turned back, we found the little man sound asleep on it. Sigh~ what a heart warming feeling to know that he appreciates our hard work and effort. (Okay, I'm reading too much into it.)

My initial plan was to make two beds from each half of the suitcase. Unfortunately, the condition of the upper half was just horrible that we simply tossed it away. While I am really pleased with the end product, I am not too sure if I would want to replicate this project! It was a lot more work than I've expected. But at least it was fun. 

And the little man does like it. 

That makes it all worth it. 

What happened next...

Time for the big reveal.. Our change of plans brought us to.... ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORES EVER - Vintage Junky!

What exactly happened was this.. while planning for the trip, I already requested that I would to like to add the store as one of our pit stops. However, after doing the math, we decided that the detour was a little too big and thus I disappointedly gave up the thought. (Mr Lim made it a little better by promising that we would do that road trip another time.) 

SO... when the longest yard sale turned out to be such a disappointment and Mr Lim was feeling all bad and stuff, I suggested making the pit stop again. Of course he said yes! Though that meant an additional 6 hours drive each way (and making new hotel reservations), I was super duper excited. (Hee, I even called to make sure the store was gonna be opened!) I've been following the blog for the longest time (often drooling over the delicious furniture she has) and it's just such an amazing feeling to know that I would finally get to shop there!!!

Sam's getting a little restless after asking "Are we there yet?" for a consecutive 5 hours.. 

And when we finally arrived, someone was as happy as I was!

I was seriously grinning ear to ear when I saw the sign.

And yes, it was OPEN!!

The actual store!

The little trailer outside the store was really cute. The retro vibe aside, the decor was yellow!!

Yeah, I could totally live here...

I didn't take many shots in the store (too engrossed shopping~), but check out the blog and you would see all the amazing furniture she sells. (I would buy the whole store if I could...) The owner, Michelle, was really sweet and friendly.  Her little guy's really cute and funny too. I was such a groupie when I finally met Michelle in person. I sure hoped that I didn't scare her with my over enthusiasm. I just felt so at home and totally glad we made the drive in the end. It was so worth every single minute!! (even the backache I got from the whole road trip.)

Of course that was absolutely no way I would go back empty handed. Here are my steals~

A vintage display unit

A repurposed vintage window

(I'm thinking of using it to put Sam's many polaroids!!)

My favorite buy of the day - an Odette Dresser with Mirror!

(source: Vintage Junky)

The drawers are actually laid with vintage music scores. LOVE LOVE LOVE the little touches that make the dresser even better. 

Plus, I also love that even the receipt is vintage!

To make it easier to transport the dresser back, the mirror was detached. We decided to keep it this way for now so that it would be easier for us to ship it back home. Hee, I actually caught the silly little dog checking himself out.

For now, the dresser sits proudly in our living room! Hee, I cannot wait to bring it back to Singapore!! And of course, the dog approves~

All in all, I was really happy with how the road trip turned out. I'm equally thankful for a supportive and sporting Mr Lim for being so gung-ho (and Sam for not complaining. =P). While the longest yard sale sucked, everything else was perfect and I'm loving all the items we got on the trip, hence no regrets. 

It sure was a crazy wild road trip.

Will I do it again? Absolutely yes~

Crazy ass road trip...

Mr Lim and I (and of course the little monster) will be taking our wildest/craziest road trip in August. We are going for the... *Drums roll* WORLD'S LONGEST YARD SALE!

I first learnt about it when I watched a special episode on HGTV about flea market bargain hunters and immediately turned to Mr Lim to express my EXTREME interest in going for the yard sale. Amazingly, Mr Lim didn't seemed to mind and here we are, kinda on our way there! We have rented a big ass SUV from NYC and we are going to drive a whooping 12hours to the yard sale! We will be spending two-three nights in different hotels along the route, and I just can't wait!!

Hee, I'm so sure that I would be spending big bucks that I actually told Mr Lim to rent a Uhaul to haul my potential prized purchases back! But after some debate, we decided to be practical and just rent a HUGE suv. On my to-buy list are a vintage table and a mail sorter! I'm also hoping to find little cool vintage stuff to just satisfy my vintage craze. 

Wish me luck!!!

My Etsy purchase!

Following my vintage craze, I found this amazing one-of-a-kind item on Etsy.

Wondering what it is? Hee, hint: It's for the little monster!

It certainly takes an engineer to figure out how to open it. (Well, he didn't manage to. -_-) I was a little surprised that the item came locked and I just couldn't find the key in the package. I tried using my mailbox key and somehow managed to open it. I closed and tried again but failed. After sending a message to the seller, I was soooo embarrassed to find out that no keys were required, instead, I just had to push the lock to the right. DIAO~ Silly me.

Yes.. it's Upcycled Vintage Train Case Pet feeder. Okay, in simple english, it's Sam's water and food bowl!

I love that it's vintage and recycled. I love that it's elevated, so Sam could eat more comfortably. I love that there's storage under the bowls and I could just use it for travel in future. I just love love love love it. And I think Sam feels the same too!