Are the glue traps for mice or bugs?
This is an excellent āwhat not to doā picture! The whole place feels dirty to me - I wouldnāt want to stay there!!
Iām about to re-paint the room, including the ceiling, closet, and baseboards, to a more neutral color and chalk paint some of the darker furniture to add some lightness and update the feel of the antiques. That and a wall-mounted SmartTV should help my listings.
I leave a welcome note on Lily Pulitzer paper (Florida touch and I get it cheap at Marshallās) with a small package of something chocolate and a bottle of water. Guests love it.
BTW, this forum has really helped me. Thank you all.
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I have an āoakā formica and chrome framed MCM kitchen table and the formica was ugly. So I took a sander to it, found some of my Dadās old charts of Tampa Bay and St. Pete, decoupagged (make your own modge podge), varnished, and took chairs like these and painted them. Everyone loves that table and people have been known to sit for ages playing āboat.ā Sanding, spray paint, and a good varnish would make that set completely adorable.
BTW, Iām a menace with paint and sandpaperā¦
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I donāt believe itās intentional as itās throughout the house only around furniture legs like this. It looks like whatever finish it is didnāt hold up to people sitting and rocking back in their chairs or bouncing them when pulling them out.
They are definitely very old school chairs (I know my furniture, especially chairs 
) and definitely vintage, likely 1940s. The marks may just be from where school kids prop their feet up and kick chairs and stuff. They are just really old and I wouldnāt expect the finish to be intact. The housekeeping may also be not-great but I really believe those chairs are an aesthetic choice.
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I mean the floors. It looks like chair leg gouges because thatās where it is. Thereās another table that has the same thing around it on the floor.
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What varnish product do you use may I ask? I have maps on EVERYTHING (tables, bookcases, FILE CABINETS!) and want something tougher than Mod Podge to protect them. Iāve looked at epoxy resin as one option, in fact.
Oh, it might be. Iām on a laptop and canāt zoom in.
I guess it doesnāt bother me, sorry. Itās not out of place with the vintage furniture. Maybe itās old linoleum that came with the house. Do the rest of the pictures fit in with that sort of vintage style?
I like polycrylic for that kind of thing and itās low odor/low toxin. @casailinglady Do you like it or do you have something else you like better? I know that @gypsy mentioned shellac, which Iām a big fan of but itās not good for anything exposed to wetness regularly (like a sweating glass sitting on it).
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The whole place looked shabby. If I recall correctly it had 4 stars for cleanliness and 4.5 for value.
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Scorpions. We only use them in the outbuildings where guests have no access now.
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See, I love the idea of having something like that! One of my big furniture regrets is not buying an old 1950ās school desk that had all kinds of stuff written and engraved on it by kids. It was the kind where you can lift up the desk-top and thereās storage space for books. I think there was even a Latin jotter in there with all kinds of rude drawings 
Damn, why didnāt I just buy it?!
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I do a lot of painting and wood finishing (made my huge dining room table), and I use Varathane Ultimate Polyurethane for a waterborne crystal-clear finish. Goes on easy, dries fast, sands easily and has no amber color at all. But for durability when I donāt mind an amber color, I use oil-based Arm-R-Seal from General Finishes.
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Yes, I use the varathane as well. For most things they are interchangeable for me. I find the poly has no scent at all and I like the way it applies a bit better but otherwise, I buy whichever one is available.
Here is a good article.
TL; DR: Before layering on more amenities, services and experiences, letās ask ourselves:
āWhat do our ideal guests yearn for at our destination and property?ā and
āWhy would our ideal prospective guest choose our property over every other choice available to them (including hotels and even other destinations)?ā
- Differentiate: āIs it an improvement, or just an added expense?ā
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I love maps! So much so that I may have a problemā¦
I had to check in the garage - MinWax Polycrilic . This was my first time with decoupage, so I sanded it all down, painted the sides an antique French white, and then used the Modge Podge to glue down the charts. Then I applied 7 (not a typo) layers of Polycrylic whilst sanding with 400 grit between coats. Itās come out nicely, but I do need to re-varnish it as I hadnāt counted on the Florida sweaty glasses being such an issue. I may try epoxy resin, but the stinkā¦ ughā¦
Iām about to refinish a 1953 wood dresser and 2 end tables. Sanding down, painting, and then stenciling a compass rose offset on the tops of the end tables. I may do a seahorse on the front of the tall dresser. Then sell them. Theyāre all too big for the guest room. 
Just had the AC go out - $1,000ā¦ ughā¦
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THanks, would LOVE some pix of your projects!
It looks like Loweās has MinWax Polycrylic but maybe not the Depot, Iāll check into it.
P.S. good luck w/ the AC, yikes.
Iād love pics of yours, too! Perhaps a new thread for those of us addicted to upcycling!
I rarely shop at Loweās, so 98% of my purchases are from Home Depot. Iām a MinWax fan from way back - my Mom did a lot of projects and it was her go-to product line.
Yeah, I heard a āBANGā the other night and didnāt realize that I didnāt have AC the next day until I went to lower it. I keep it at 80 during the day and 77 at night when I donāt have guests. Iām cheap. 
So now the money I had put aside to wall-mount a TV is going in the attic. The catās so hot, sheās about a mile long, stretched out on the hardwood floorā¦
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The Arm-R-Seal is pretty bulletproof. We have an open-air home in the Caribbean so our climate is similar to yours. The only thing thatās worked itās way through the Arm-R-Seal on my dining table is a guest spinning the top cap of his beer sharp-side down and etching holes in it. Sweaty glasses donāt bother it.
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