what the heck?

Published on by Quandie8 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I decided it was time to stop focusing on the negative and look on the positive side instead.  In the garden, that is.

The ‘extreme drought’ that we experienced here in August and early September really did a number on my gardens.  I have to admit that lately I’ve been wishing it would just freeze and get it over with already.

Ferns are especially susceptible to drought conditions, and no amount of watering with the hose was able save them.

This is a good example of why it’s a bad idea to have a giant bed of ferns and little else.  I’d like to dig them all up and re-do this entire area, but it’s full of tree roots (there were two huge pine trees here that we had removed several years ago) and it would be a huge undertaking.  I’m not sure I have that sort of ambition these days.

Many of my hostas were hit hard by the drought as well.

The Sun Power hosta looks terrible.  However, some hostas are more drought tolerant than others.  The two June hostas on either side of that taller Sun Power look just fine.  Knowing what I do now, I would always opt for hostas with thicker leaves.  They are more drought and wind tolerant, they suffer less damage in a hail storm and they aren’t as appealing to deer, slugs and earwigs.  Just something to keep in mind if you are adding hostas to your garden.

But hey, I said I was going to focus on the positive.  There are still some things that look pretty darn good like the paniculata hydrangeas.

My Quick Fire Fab hedge is looking fantastic despite getting munched on by deer when the flower buds were first appearing.

And as per usual, the Limelights are looking gorgeous right now too.

This is also the time of year when the annuals really carry the garden.

I never used to plant many annuals in the garden itself, I mainly just put them in containers.  But for the last several years I’ve been popping them into bare spots.

They really don’t do much for most of the summer, but by mid-August they start to come to life.  I’m especially enjoying that pink gomphrena that’s finally popping up amongst the other plants.

I have a few coleus scattered about that have started to look impressive too.

By late September, especially this year, the annuals are one of the few things still looking good in the garden.

Of course, I do still plant plenty of annuals in pots too.

And as long as I remember to fertilize them weekly, they are still performing well.

I did change up a couple of the pots on my deck recently though.  I’d had Blueberry Muffin hostas in them along with some Rex begonias and Sea Salt artemesia.  I pulled out the hostas and put them in the ground so that they can get established there before winter.  I potted up the Rex begonias and I tossed the artemesia.

Then I popped in a couple of really gorgeous asters that I purchased at Cub (my local grocery store) for $9.99 each.

They won’t last more than 2 or 3 weeks, but at $20 for the pair they were definitely worth it.  I can always switch them out for something in a more autumn-like color in a few weeks.

While I was out in the garden taking the photos for this post I discovered this …

Wait a minute, what the heck?  A lilac?!  Blooming in September??

Apparently extreme summer stress can confuse the plant’s hormonal cycle (hmmm, I may be familiar with that feeling).  It confuses cooler fall weather for spring.  This won’t harm the plant, but there may be fewer flowers next spring.  Yet another struggle for my less than successful lilac hedge.

Before I end this post I want to share one more plant with you, Heuchera villosa ‘Autumn Bride’.

This is a new plant for me this year.  I tucked just one of them into this little corner of my shade garden to see how it performs.  This plant is supposed to do well in moist or dry shade, it’s deer and rabbit resistant, drought tolerant, low-maintenance and cold hardy (down to zone 3).  As you can see, so far it’s doing great.  It’s still blooming at the end of September.  It doesn’t seem to have suffered from the drought despite not even being well established yet.  In addition, this is planted in one of the areas of my garden most affected by jumping worms and the poor soil condition doesn’t seem to be a problem for it.

All of that being said, I have very mixed results with heuchera coming back in the spring.  Most of my heuchera suffer from frost heaving and I end up having to dig them up and replant them in the spring, and that’s if they survive at all. However, I have it on good authority (the Impatient Gardener) that this one is especially tolerant of our severe winters (zone 5a) and it doesn’t tend to heave.

So you’ll just have to check back with me in the spring to see if that’s true for me or not.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy a lilac in September and those gorgeous asters while they last.  I’m sure we’ll get that freeze soon enough!

the somewhat Christmas-y toolbox.

Published on by Quandie3 Comments

Well shucks.  Turns out I once again neglected to get a ‘before’ photo of today’s toolbox.  To make up for it, I took ‘before’ photos of the next toolboxes I’m working on twice!  I wasn’t sure I’d taken them, so I took them again.  Turns out I already had.

It’s a bummer that I don’t have a ‘before’ of this one because it was pretty gross.  It was covered in grease and grime, and it had been written on with a Sharpie.

Oh well, you’ll just have to imagine it.  It took a couple of passes with the Dawn dish soap and hot water to clean it up.  Once dry I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss inside and out to improve adhesion just in case there were any greasy residues still left behind.  It also blocks that Sharpie ink, that stuff tends to bleed thru paint sometimes.

This small toolbox was red to start out with, so I decided to keep it red on the inside, giving it two coats of Dixie Belle’s Barn Red.

As for the transfer inside the lid, that is from one of the new I.O.D. holiday sets called Stag Tavern.

More on that in a minute.

As for the outside, I painted that in Dixie Belle’s French Villa.  Once dry, I used more of the Stag Tavern transfers to decorate the top and front.

Although these transfers are from the 2026 holiday collection, I don’t think they are overtly Christmas-y.

This transfer certainly has the right colors for the season, mainly red and green.  And there is a little glimpse of some holly in the upper left.  Then there is that ribbon with a mostly obscured message … something about seasons?

So, somewhat, but not entirely, Christmas-y.

Regardless, I do think they are gorgeous.

That being said, I also find them difficult to work with because most of the elements are designed in ‘portrait’ orientation (rather than ‘landscape’) like the one shown above, and that doesn’t work well on a toolbox.

Also, because the elements are fairly layered over each other, it’s difficult to separate and re-arrange them into a wider, shorter layout without losing a lot of the design.

In the case of this toolbox, I used the “D.M. Ferry & Co’s.” and “Tavern 1875.” wording, but wasn’t able to use the center “Stag” section because the stag’s horns are layered over it.

I was able to carefully trim out some of the florals to drape down the sides of my toolbox.

But personally I find that a transfer that includes separate elements that I can put together to suit my piece is more versatile.  I suspect I might be in the minority on that though.  Let me know what you think?

Let me know what you think of this toolbox too!

hot cocoa season.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

I think it’s fair to say that hot cocoa season has started here in Minnesota.  At least, that is, if you’re an early riser.  Mr. Q and I get up early to go walking in the park before starting our day, and it was only 49° one morning last week.  That counts, right?

Well, even if it doesn’t, a few of you said that you wouldn’t mind seeing some Christmas projects here on q is for quandie even thought it’s a bit early.

So today I’m sharing the makeover of this piece …

I purchased this at a garage sale back in June 2025.  I think it was supposed to be a doll clothes closet.  I’d say it’s the right size for those American Girl Dolls, and it had a bar across the top inside for hangers.

It also came with a French provincial drawer pull on the top to serve as a handle, I suppose so you could carry your doll clothes around more easily.

I started with removing the drawer pull and filling the holes using Dixie Belle Mud.  I didn’t get a photo of it, but I also removed the rod from inside and filled the holes from it as well.

Next I sanded down those squiqqly markings so that you wouldn’t see them through my paint.  I also pulled off those little knobs to make the next couple of steps easier.

I gave the inside a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Barn Red.

Next I painted the outside in DB’s Drop Cloth.  I followed that up with applying an I.O.D. paint inlay from their new The North Pole Co. set.

After sealing the paint inlay with some spray sealer to avoid smearing it, and putting the little knobs back on, I then applied a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat both inside and out.

I’m thinking this little cabinet would be perfect for placing on the kitchen counter as a little hot cocoa station for winter.

I found a pair of seasonal mugs at a garage sale to tuck inside.

And I decided to paint up the lid of a glass jar to hold marshmallows.

I started by giving the very shiny, smooth lid a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss to help my paint stick.  Then I applied a coat of the Drop Cloth and added another paint inlay from that same The North Pole Co set.  It just happened to be the perfect fit.

I’m going to include the mugs, hot cocoa and jar with the cabinet.

I have to admit that I probably won’t be able to resist eating all the marshmallows first though.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this Hot Cocoa Season cupboard.  Would you have preferred it to remain a doll clothes cabinet?  Or do you like the idea of a hot cocoa station?

This little cupboard along with the mugs, jar and hot cocoa packets is ‘available for local sale‘.

mini furniture.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

I don’t know about where you are, but here in Minnesota it seems as though fall has arrived.  The sweatshirts have come out, the swimsuits have been put away, and the days are growing shorter way too quickly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about what sort of creative endeavors I can pursue over the coming months.

I don’t have the space to paint furniture indoors except smack in the middle of my living room, and I am no longer very interested in doing that.  So no more furniture … full sized furniture, that is.

Instead I plan to spend some time this winter painting miniature furniture.

Eventually I’ll need to figure out how to sell it.  It’s not really working to sell it here on the blog.  I will probably end up trying to get a spot at the next miniatures show here in the Twin Cities.  But first I have to see whether or not I can even accumulate enough finished pieces for that to be feasible.

Unfortunately, I’m not really patient enough to build my own miniature furniture from scratch.  I did attempt to create some miniature suitcases from the raw materials back in 2025 with somewhat mediocre results.

So I decided to invest some money in unfinished pieces.

I first ordered a bunch of items online from Walmart.  If you think you might like to order miniatures from them, I have to warn you that they do a terrible job of packaging them for shipment.  Every single item that had legs arrived with at least one broken.

That’s because none of their stuff comes in proper shipping boxes.  Each individual item is in a flimsy box like this …

which is then put into one of those poly mailing envelopes with no additional protection whatsoever.

Fortunately, I was able to put everything back together again with a little glue.

It’s also fortunate that I plan to paint all of these pieces because otherwise it would be difficult to disguise the repairs.

If you want to avoid this sort of mess, I highly recommend ordering unfinished miniatures from Miniature Crush.  Also, if you set up an account with them using this link, you will get 15% off and so will I!

I ordered a bunch of things from them …

and they all arrived boxed up nicely in a sturdy shipping box.  They also arrived within days of my placing the order … that might be partially because they are located just on the other side of the Twin Cities from me, but they also get orders shipped out a.s.a.p.

I’ve already gotten started painting with this piece from Miniature Crush …

I removed the little gold knobs from the drawers and then painted the inside of the cupboard with Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and the outside with my own custom Garden Green (a combination of Dixie Belle’s Acadia and Everglades).

Once dry I added an I.O.D. transfer to the inside back of the cupboard.

Next up I replaced those original gold knobs with some cup pulls.

I wish I could give you a source for these, but they were in my stash and I don’t remember when I purchased them.  Also, they started out black and I added some Bronze Age wax from re.design with prima to them.

I’m really looking forward to painting up all of these miniature pieces over the coming months and I hope some of you will enjoy seeing them too.

In the meantime, you can check out my miniature pieces that are available for sale here.

the birdwatcher’s toolbox.

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

It’s time for another toolbox.

Unfortunately, this is another one where I forgot to get a before photo.  However, I can tell you that it looked almost identical to this one …

It’s just a little bit smaller.  Same color and same general condition though.

It also received the same general prep that I do on all of my toolboxes; a good scrubbing, followed by some scuff sanding and another rinse, then a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss to prevent rust bleed through and improve adhesion of my final paint.

Next up I painted the interior of the box in that gorgeous new-ish Dixie Belle color called Sanctuary.

I also added a bird from the I.O.D. By Any Other Name transfer inside the lid.

Sanctuary is a chalk mineral style paint and does need a topcoat for protection, as does the transfer.  I went with the easiest (but not most cost effective) option this time, I gave it two coats of Rust-Oleum matte spray sealer.

As for the outside of the box, I painted it in Dixie Belle’s French Villa.  Then I added a few more images from the By Any Other Name transfer.

I’m sure this looks a bit familiar to you.  This is the 3rd time I’ve used this particular bird on a toolbox.

If interested, you can find the other two here and here.  I guess you could say I’m a fan.

The French Villa paint is from Dixie Belle’s Silk line, so technically it doesn’t require a topcoat.  However, the transfer does need some protection so I added a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax on the outside of the box.

When deciding what props to use to stage my photos I came across my Audubon’s Birds of America book and decided to lean into the bird theme.

This would be the perfect toolbox for anyone who love birds, don’t you agree?

To see if it is still available, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying their products used in this makeover.

the Swiss plant stand.

Published on by Quandie2 Comments

Well, what do you know?  I have another piece of furniture to share today and it’s another piece that was gifted to me by Vanessa from Iowa.

If you’re keeping track, so far I’ve shared the drawers that she gave me …

and a toolbox that she sent up …

and of course that beautiful radio cabinet.

I’m so lucky to have such a generous reader.  Thank you so much Vanessa!

That’s brings me to today’s project.

Is it a small side table?  Is it a plant stand?  I guess it could be either.

The first step was to send this piece over to handyman Ken’s workshop to be tightened up.  It was a little wobbly.  He re-glued the joints and tightened up some screws and now it’s quite sturdy.

Next up I gave it a brief scuff sanding all over followed by cleaning away any dirt and dust.

Once again (much like with the sanctuary cabinet) I didn’t bother with Bonding Boss.  The existing finish was quite dry, so I wasn’t worried about adhesion.  In addition, I was planning on using a dark color so I wasn’t worried about any sort of bleed thru.

That brings me to my color choice.  I have to admit that I got it wrong the first time.  I initially painted it in Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean.

I wrote about this color being the ‘new black’ when I used it on this banker’s chair …

And indeed I have used it in place of black on several pieces since then.

So I painted the table in Coffee Bean, and then added a stencil in Dixie Belle’s Putty which they call a muted taupe.  This combination ended up reading too brown/beige for me.

It seems funny since I do really like both of these paint colors by themselves.  I just didn’t care for the combination I guess.

So I sanded down the stencil and painted back over everything with Dixie Belle’s Caviar.

I consider this to be the blackest of the black shades offered by Dixie Belle.

Once the paint was dry, I once again added a stencil to the lower shelf of the table, this time using Dixie Belle’s Ecru.

That stencil is one of the 8″ German Grain Sack stencils from Ellen J Goods.

Next up I taped off a Swiss cross on the top of the table and painted it in Ecru as well.  Did you know that approximately 62% of the population in Switzerland speaks German?  So I think it’s safe to call this a Swiss plant stand.

Once dry, I sanded over the entire piece using one of Dixie Belle’s sanding sponges.  I like using the sponges on curvy things like the legs of this table.

It’s easier to make them look as though they were worn over time.

To finish I mixed some of Dixie Belle’s brown wax into their Big Mama’s Butta and applied it with a large waxing brush.  I follow that up by buffing away any excess with an old t-shirt.

I like to mix the brown wax into the Big Mama’s Butta because it adds a little bit of extra depth when applied over dark colors.  It also tones down the look of lighter colors to give them more age.

My original plan was to sell this table, but then I realized that it might work really well for me as a winter plant stand.

I don’t have any houseplants that live inside all year ’round, but I do bring plants inside to over-winter them.  This year I’m planning to overwinter some more rex begonias, and of course that myrtle topiary that is currently in the fairy garden.  I also have a large Norfolk Island Pine that comes in for the winter.  It might help to have another surface to put plants on this year.

Then again, maybe I’ll list it for sale and see what happens.  If you’re interested, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

what’s next?

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

I find fall to be a tricky time of the year for blogging.  Why?  Because I have to get started on any Christmas projects that are going to the shop about now.  I have a fall trip planned, so I need to get my Christmas merch ready a little bit earlier than usual this year.

But, it’s only September and I presume that no one wants to see Christmas projects on the blog already, right?  So, what’s next?

I know it’s actually time for fall projects, but I’m not really big on autumn decor.  Ironic, since this is actually one of my favorite seasons.  But for me the only fall decoration we need is that found in nature.

And maybe the occasional rusty pumpkin …

Also, I’m not planning to have a fall sale this year, so I’m not highly motivated to come up with fall themed items.

Gardening season has taken quite the nose dive over the last month or so too.  We’ve been experiencing severe drought conditions and the garden shows it.  My ferns are mostly dead, most of my hostas look a bit crispy, and I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel on my ‘Sunday morning in the garden’ posts.

In addition, garage sale season really slows down here during the dog days of summer.  My friend opK and I have found a handful of garage/estate sales, but haven’t brought home any large hauls.

Last week we ended up at an interesting estate sale.  If you happened to be on the lookout for taxidermy, it was the place for you.

That is if you happen to have a spare $780 and you’re in need of a bear skin rug.

But actually, there were quite a few things at this sale that appealed to me but were priced too high for me like these sleds …

One was $50 and the other $68.  I only buy them when they are $10 or less, and I already have 5 of them for this coming holiday season!

There were also lots of really beautiful ornate gold frames (some with photos, some with art, some empty).

But again at $70 to $85 each, they were too rich for my blood.

Granted, I could have gone back on the last day when prices were being slashed, but it was the holiday weekend and I had better things to do like heading up to the lake.

I did manage to buy one thing for myself.

I don’t see these antique marmalade jars around here very often, and this one is fabulously crackled.  Also at only $12 I think it was a bit of a bargain.  Do you sense the potential beginnings of a new non-collection?

But that brings me back to my original question, what’s next?  What am I going to share here on the blog over the next month or two until it’s reasonable to start sharing some of those Christmas projects?

Maybe a few miniature projects?  Possibly some random bits of furniture?  How about a not-exactly-Christmas, but kind of, toolbox or two?

I’m really not sure, but I hope you’ll stay tuned none the less.

the Reed & Fox cabinet.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

How many of you remember my humpty dumpty project from 2014?

Oh my gosh, that was 12 years ago!  How crazy is that?

In case you weren’t here back then, the humpty dumpty was a dresser that I purchased that promptly fell apart when my handyman Ken accidentally knocked it off some horses (the kind you support a piece of furniture on, not the kind you ride).

Ken put it back together again without any help from all of the King’s horses or men.

He also really enjoyed that project.  So, when my neighbor nnK’s parents offered me this random pile of bits that theoretically could be assembled into a small cabinet …

I thought, sure, let’s see what Ken can do with it.

And here’s what came back from his workshop.

A fully formed little antique cabinet that you could hang on the wall, or place on a flat surface.

I decided that the age and areas of pre-existing chippy paint on this one dictated a makeover using milk paint.  I was going for chippy and crackly.  I also wanted to keep it white.  I had just a small bit of two different milk paints in white on hand, so I mixed them together and hoped that I had enough paint (spoiler alert, I did, sort of).

Before I got started painting, I gave the cabinet a good wipe down with warm soapy water.  Once dry, I gave it a base coat using a satin clear spray sealer.  I’ve seen Yvonne from Ginger Chick Rehab do this before using milk paint and she always gets a fabulous crackly finish.

Once the sealer was dry, I brushed on two coats of my milk paint inside and out.  It was at that point that I realized it was going to take three coats to get good coverage, and I didn’t have enough paint left for that.  So I added a third coat to the outside of the cabinet and decided to paint the inside in Dixie Belle’s French Villa.

The nice thing about the French Villa is that it’s from the Silk line from Dixie Belle, and thus doesn’t require any additional topcoat.

As for the exterior of the cabinet, once the milk paint was dry I sanded it to distress the edges, but I didn’t really get any chipping.  I also only got some very slight crackling.  You can see it if you look closely, but only just.

That’s just the way it goes with milk paint, you never quite know what results you might get.  You have to be willing to go with the flow when using it.

Next up I decided to add just a little bit of text to the cabinet from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer (sadly, long since retired, for those of you who don’t already know that).  I put some wording at the back of the top …

and just simply added the year 1858 at the bottom of the door.

Next up I needed to add a topcoat to protect both the milk paint and the transfers.  I usually prefer to use wax over milk paint since a brush-on water based sealer can sometimes reactivate milk paint causing it to streak or even to lift back off onto your brush.

However, I was feeling a bit lazy when I got to this step so I decided to use Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy Spray Wax.

This is a water-based Carnauba spray wax and it’s super easy to use.  Simply spray it on and then wipe away any excess with a clean rag (I usually use an old t-shirt for this).

Now, you may have noticed that the door of this cabinet was missing its glass.  I had a couple of options for that.  Of course, I could get a piece of glass cut, but that would cost money and take time.  I also could have Ken cut a thin piece of wood to give the cabinet a solid door.  I definitely considered that approach.  But then I thought perhaps I could add screening like I did on a small cabinet back in 2016 …

I did just happen to have some old screen on hand.

It ended up being a little bit tricky to attach the screen.  I had simply used staples on that other cabinet, but it turned out that the door on this one wasn’t thick enough for staples.  They popped through to the other side.  So I decided to pull out my picture framing thingie a.k.a. my picture frame point driver.

This worked out pretty well.  It’s not the most subtle of looks on the inside of the door, but it does the trick.

And the cabinet looks great from the outside.

The final step was to come up with some sort of knob since the original one was long gone.  There also was a sizeable hole where the handle should be, so a knob with a screw wasn’t going to work.  So I dug through my stash of old hardware and found this …

It doesn’t actually latch, but I like the way it looks and I don’t think this little cabinet really requires a latch.

Personally, I love this sort of primitive looking cabinet with its screen door and non-functioning latch.  And this little cabinet has certainly come a long way.

What do you think?

If you agree, perhaps you’d also enjoy re-visiting some of the other small primitive cabinets that I’ve refurbished over the years.

The Roadkill Cupboard.

The French Country Rooster cupboard.

The Tangletown Cabinet.

The Lavender Cabinet.

The Vintage Medicine Cabinet.

The Reed & Fox Cabinet is for sale, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

the sanctuary cabinet.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

Finally, I’ve completed a piece of furniture!

I know it has been quite some time since I painted a piece of furniture.  I really intended to have this one finished a lot sooner.  I was slowed down by a few things.  First there was the really hot, humid weather that we had in July.  It was far too yucky to be out in my non-climate controlled workshop.

Then, when I finally got started on it in late July, I ran out of paint.  Turns out it takes more than one 16 oz. jar of paint to cover an old radio cabinet inside and out, front and back.  To be honest, I always forget that it takes twice as much paint to cover twice as much area.  Duh.

You also then have to factor in that I am a cheap skate.  So when I ran out of paint, I decided to wait and order more with my August order from Dixie Belle rather than running to a local shop to buy it in person.

Maybe I should take a moment here to explain that since I haven’t mentioned it in a while.  I am what is called a ‘content creator’ with Dixie Belle Paint Co.  They don’t pay me, but they do give me a certain amount of free product at the beginning of each month.  They don’t ever ask me to modify my opinions regarding their products or anything like that, in other words all opinions expressed are my own.  But, yeah, I waited until the beginning of August to order more paint rather than purchasing it from my local retailer.

Naturally, my order then arrived the day I left to go visit my mom.  So here we are, the tail end of August.  Where does the time go?

Anyway, let’s get on with it.  Here’s the piece in question.

Isn’t she a beauty?  And even better, she was given to me by my reader from Iowa, Vanessa (thanks so much Vanessa)!

I believe this is an old radio cabinet with its guts removed.  It didn’t have a back, and some work had already been done on it before I received it.  A shelf was added and some holes were patched up.  In addition, some damaged veneer was already removed from the top.

Vanessa also kindly provided some beadboard to use as the back.  So the first step in this makeover, after some sanding and cleaning, was to have my handyman Ken cut the beadboard to size and attach it to the back.  I should also note that I didn’t use any Bonding Boss on this piece for a few reasons.  First, the existing finish was not shiny at all so I knew that my chalk mineral style paint would adhere to it just fine.  Second, I was using a dark paint color so coverage over that dark-ish stain wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t think I’d need to worry about bleed thru either.

So I pulled out that 16 oz jar of one of Dixie Belle’s more recent paint colors called Sanctuary and got to painting.

You guys, if you are in the market for a moody, dark academia-ish color in a green with blue undertones, Sanctuary is perfect for you.

It definitely was perfect on this cabinet.

As I mentioned, I also painted the inside in Sanctuary, as well as the back.

Speaking of the back, you may have noticed that the lower portion is open in the back, but the front does not open down there.  I’m guessing that there were originally radio parts in this lower section that didn’t need to be regularly accessed from the front.

I debated trying to figure out a way to add some sort of door to the front but in the end I decided I’d probably ruin the look of the cabinet if I messed around with it that much.  So instead, I just painted it and left it open on the back.  Ken suggested it would be a great place to hide your treasures since the cabinet would be up against a wall.  No one would ever know what you’ve stashed inside there.

As for the upper section, why not use it to store a bunch of craft supplies?

Or books, or whatever.

This lovely radio cabinet is for sale locally, so if you’re interested please check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.

In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of this gorgeous semi-new color!

and I’m back.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

Phew!  That was a little longer of a break away from blogging than I intended.

As you know, I visited my mom in Las Vegas last week.  And it was HOT.  Like, ridiculously hot for a Minnesotan like myself.  It was over 100° every day, with my final day topping out at 110°.  Ugh!

I was able to get up at 6 a.m. every day though and get in a walk on my favorite walking trail before it hit 90°.

But for the rest of the day we had to stick to indoor activities.  For the most part I just helped my mom with some tasks that she couldn’t tackle on her own, like swapping out her mattress for a new one.

Definitely not very exciting stuff.

Then when I returned home the weather was so perfect here that I just had to be out enjoying it rather than working on blog projects.

One day my sister, niece and I went hiking at St. Croix State Park, about 90 minutes north of the twin cities.  They have a fire tower in this park that you can climb up.

However, I have to confess that I only made it up two levels before chickening out.  I’m just not a fan of heights.

My niece made it most of the way up though.

It was perfect weather for hiking here, mid-70’s with a pleasant breeze.

Surprisingly, there weren’t many bugs, even in the woods.  I’m chalking that up to the dry summer that we’ve had.  You can see how low the water was both in the Kettle River …

and in the various creeks and ponds.

Ironically, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, mosquito counts more than doubled in the Las Vegas Valley this summer.  I literally saw more mosquitoes at my mom’s house than I did hiking through the woods in northern Minnesota.  Go figure.

But, I’m back out in the workshop today and I have a really pretty piece of furniture that I’ll be sharing with you soon.  So be sure to stay tuned!