Month: March 2016

The fun continues with the freebies from my friend Terri’s uncle.  Today we have a sweet little garden chair.

It didn’t start out as a sweet little garden chair though.

This poor thing was a little rough for the wear.  I suspect it was used in the garage as a workshop chair.  It had lots of oily looking stains.

Take a look at how dark those two front legs are.  They appeared to be almost saturated with some sort of oil.  Or maybe it’s just really greasy dirt.  I scrubbed the chair good with some TSP substitute (which is a de-greaser), and then I decided to just go for it.  Either I’d paint it and the paint would just all bubble off, or it would stick.  I was willing to take a chance on it sticking.  After all, the chair was a freebie.  It likely would have ended up in the trash if I didn’t take it.

I pulled out the second sample color of Shabby Chic paint I received from Bungalow 47, Green Fields, which is a lovely pale, pale green.  I painted it on straight from the can without watering it down.  I somehow felt like I’d need a good thick coat of paint to cover this thing.

I was super impressed when two coats did the trick.

Even on those legs!

I was worried that those greasy stains would bleed through the paint, but I only had trouble with that in one spot on the seat.  If you were being very particular about your finish, this wouldn’t be good enough (in which case I would have used the Shabby Chic Clear Primer first) …

But since I was going for a distressed look on this chair, I decided it was OK to leave that as is.  I specifically choose not to use the Shabby Chic Clear Coat this time around because I didn’t want to draw any more of those stains through the paint.  Instead I waxed this with Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax.

I could have gone without a top coat of any kind, but when I am distressing heavily like this I prefer to use a wax.  The wax darkens up those bare wood edges and makes them look more ‘believable’, like they have worn away over time, not just been freshly sanded.

Did you notice that I applied some rub-on numbers to my chair?

I like the touch of whimsy that they add.

In the end, this chair is rather wobbly and most people would feel a bit insecure sitting on it.  It will have to be more for looks rather than function.  But I think it would be darling as a bedside perch for books.  Or use it in your potting shed to hold a stack of clay pots.  If you are local, this chair went to Reclaiming Beautiful last week!

I think there are three categories of blog readers.  First there are the ones who just look at the pictures, but don’t really read anything I write (come on, I know they are out there … but they probably aren’t reading this, so I’m safe).  Then there are those that read my text and look at the photos, hopefully finding both at least slightly entertaining.  The last category are those that also read the comments.  I know Mr. Q reads comments, as does my sister.  How about you?  If you don’t, you are missing out!  I have quite a few regulars that leave insightful and often funny comments.  By the way, if you don’t know how to read the comments, you just click on the little ‘conversation bubble’ that is to the right of the title of the post.  Hopefully there is a number in the bubble, because that is the number of comments.

You also might get a little sneak peek into my future projects by reading the comments.  In this case, I’m referring to a comment left a while back on one of my posts from Skip.  Skip was asking whether or not I’d be interested in some free furniture, all I had to do was drive to St. Cloud to pick it up (about 1.5 hours from here).  She later sent me some photos by email, and I was in!

Although originally Skip had offered me a buffet/sideboard and dining room table pair, when I got to St. Cloud she had a couple more pieces that she was parting with and one of them was this sweet little french provincial end table.

Of course I threw this in the truck!  I love those graceful legs and the pretty hardware.  I knew that some paint would help bring out its charm.

See?

I knew exactly what colors I wanted on this one.  I painted the body of the table in Fusion’s Inglenook and the drawer front in Fusion’s Limestone.  French provincial, Inglenook and gold hardware make a great combo.  I figured this out last year when I painted this lovely french provincial piece …

I love the way this little table turned out.

I distressed the edges just a little, because that’s the way I like ’em.  Plus I always feel like if your piece is purposely distressed, than a couple more unintentional distress marks will just blend right in.

This table has a leather insert in the top.  I just painted right over it.  I’ve done this before using milk paint

Once the paint is cured (in about 21 days), I expect this to be quite durable.

I spruced up the hardware by adding a little gold rub ‘n buff.  You could get this same effect using the Gold Leaf Goat Stick (I just couldn’t find mine, I think it rolled under the cupboard in my Q Branch and I still need to dig it out).

This little table is the perfect spot for your cup of tea.

Do you need a spot for your tea?  Check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab to find out if this piece is still available.

A little while ago I told you about the Fusion custom color contest.  After some confusion about when the deadline was for submitting colors, I can confirm that it has definitely been extended to March 31, 2016 (instead of February 29).  Which means I had some time to get my act together and submit a piece myself.

To participate in the contest, you have to create your own custom color by mixing together two or more existing Fusion colors.  Then you have to name your color and paint something in it.  Check out their Facebook page for more details.

When my sister was over for my hatbox party the other day, she played around with mixing some colors and she came up with a gorgeous dark teal blue by combining equal parts of Homestead Blue and Liberty Blue.

So I asked her if she wanted to team up with me to paint a piece to submit to the contest using her color and my painting skills.  We even went halfsies on the paint.  She had a jar of Liberty Blue and I had a jar of Homestead Blue.  We mixed our two paints until we got a color that we thought was perfect.  Our recipe ended up being 3 parts Liberty Blue to 2 parts Homestead Blue and it leans a little more towards blue than Debbie’s original half and half mix (although it certainly doesn’t look that way in the jar!)

Debbie hadn’t come up with a name for her color though, so I gave it some thought.  I wanted to name it something that reflected our partnership, but also described the color.  I thought about our trip to Duluth last fall and came up with Lake Superior Blue.

I knew this color would be the perfect choice for updating this piece …

This was another freebie from my friend Terri’s Uncle Don.  The finish was in terrible shape and the bottom drawer was completely stuck.  Poor Mr. Q spent quite a long time getting that thing out.

Although the top of the credenza had numerous stains (I think someone probably kept house plants on it at one time), I decided to attempt to stain it rather than paint it.  I wanted the warmth of some wood to pair with the cool Lake Superior Blue.  The existing finish on this one was so dried out that I was able to easily sand it off with just a couple of passes with the palm sander.  Also, it was so nice out last weekend that I was able to work on it right there outside on the deck so creating a bunch of dust wasn’t an issue.  I sanded it down first, then I decided to try bleaching some of the heavier stains.  I used a q-tip to apply bleach just to the dark stains, then left the piece out in the sun for an hour or two.  Then I sanded some more.  I wasn’t able to eliminate all of the stains entirely, so I stained the top with in a dark walnut to camouflage them a bit more.  I then added a wipe on poly in a satin finish.

This was the darkest stain and although I didn’t remove it entirely, in the scheme of things it blends in fairly well.

Here are the knobs that I ended up with on this piece.  It took me a while to land on this choice.  I’ll be posting more detail about this choice on Wednesday, so be sure to check back!

That brings me to the trim detail on the two upper drawers.

That’s metal.  I debated removing it and filling the groove with wood putty, but I think it would have been difficult to disguise it completely.  I also considered just painting over it.  The Fusion would have stuck to it, and that would have been a very reasonable choice.  But ultimately I decided to work with it.  It was a brassy gold to begin with, but I added some gold rub ‘n buff to give it a more of a gold leaf look.

I purchased this India board game box on eBay many years ago.  The colors worked beautifully with the credenza, but I had a lot of trouble with glare on it in my photos.  I originally tried hanging it on the wall, but for some of the shots I had to angle it in strange ways in order to not just get a shiny blank in the photos.  So for some final shots, I just took it down from the wall.

And voila!  Here is the Lake Superior Blue credenza!

What do you think of our Lake Superior Blue?

Voting for the contest begins in April so I may have to call on you guys to go and vote for us!

Sharing at Friday’s Furniture Fix!

I’m always a little sad when I find an already shabby, painted piece that is just not quite right.  Let’s face it, as much as we try to recreate an authentic chippy, shabby, aged finish using all of the fabulous products available to us, we are still only approximating the look of a genuinely aged piece.  But those genuinely aged painted pieces are hard to come by.  If they were a dime a dozen, people like me would be out of work (or out of a hobby might be more accurate).  And when we do find them, many times they cross the line from fantastically shabby chic to just plain shabby.

Such was the case with this stool.  It’s so close to being fabulously chippy, but darn those cigarette burns!  They just aren’t charming at all!  I had to deal with cigarette burns once before (on this piece) and they can be seriously frustrating.  On that earlier piece I sanded and I bleached, and in the end I used a dark stain to try and disguise them.  On this stool I went in a different direction.  I wanted to clean things up just a bit, without losing the chippy vintage paint job entirely.

First I pulled out the Fusion Colour Blocker, which I just discovered has a new name, Concealer.

Just so you know, this product is not a stain blocker or a primer.  Concealer is made from 100% recycled waste pigments.  It costs about half as much as the paint.  The idea is that when you want to paint a dark piece white, you can start with a coat of two of Concealer first and then follow that up with another coat (or potentially two) of your final shade of white thus saving some money on your paint costs.  In my case, I used this product much like its name implies.  I used it to conceal those black burn marks.  I used a small brush and put about 4 coats of Concealer just over the marks.

Once the Concealer was dry, I mixed up some random Miss Mustard Seed whites.  I had several already opened pouches with just a little powder left in them, so I mixed up about a tablespoon each of Ironstone, Grain Sack and Linen.  I painted on two coats of milk paint.  I did not paint carefully or try to fully cover the entire stool.  In fact, I specifically avoided the large area of chipped away paint on the top of the stool.  One the milk paint was dry, I sanded the stool fairly haphazardly to ding it back up again.

And voila!

Burn marks are gone, gross drippy marks are gone … but the shabby looks is retained.

I’m choosing to forgo a top coat of any kind on this stool.  I want to see how the milk paint wears over time without one.

So, the next time you see a painted piece that has crossed the line into just plain shabby, consider giving it a milk paint makeover!

You’ve all heard of the concept of six degrees of separation, right?  This is the theory that absolutely everyone is connected by no more than six other people.  This led to the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”.  Any other Footloose fans out there?

Well anyway, today I am officially two degrees of separation away from one of my earliest decorating idols, Rachel Ashwell!

Yep, I’m definitely a fan from way back …

I’ve got all of her books …

And now we are separated by just two short degrees!

A while back I was contacted by Chantelle from Bungalow 47.  They are the distributors for Rachel Ashwell’s new line of chalk and clay paint.

She asked if I would be interested in sampling this new line of paint products.  My answer was “Um, YES!  Where do I sign?”  After all, Rachel’s shabby chic movement was what prompted me to begin painting furniture in the first place!

So I picked out a color, Caribbean Sea, and Bungalow 47 sent it off to me along with a can of their Clear Primer and their Clear Coat.

The next step was trickier.  It was finding just the right piece to paint!  I hemmed and hawed, and went round and round with myself.  I had a couple of dressers lined up to paint, including the ‘battle scar dresser’ from last week, but none of them seemed “Rachel” enough.  I also knew that I wanted to add some vintage wallpaper into the mix, so I needed a piece that had a spot for wallpaper.  I debated painting my own armoire, but decided it just wasn’t ‘vintage’ enough.  And then I came across this piece …

A lovely linen press with two doors in front that would provide the perfect spot for some vintage wallpaper.  It looks as though at some point these doors had embellishments of some kind on them.  You can see a ghost of them, but whatever was there is long gone.

Painting the dresser was a breeze.  I followed my usual m.o. of cleaning my piece with some TSP substitute first.  Then I painted my first coat of paint straight up out of the can.  Once dried, I could see that I needed just a light second coat to get perfect coverage.  Bungalow 47 suggests dipping your brush into the paint first and then into water to get a thinner coat of paint, but I went ahead and actually poured some paint into a small container (another empty Talenti ice cream container if you must know) and thinned it out by mixing water directly with the paint.

After the second thin coat, the coverage was perfect.  Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic paint is a chalk and clay paint, and much like other chalk paints it dries to a very matte finish.  At this point I had some options about a top coat.  According to the instructions from Bungalow 47, I could have gone without a top coat if this piece didn’t need much protection from wear.  In that case their instructions are to buff the finish with a clean dry towel.

I also could have waxed this piece.  The Rachel Ashwell line doesn’t include a wax yet (they are working on developing one), but you can use another brand of wax with it.  The Miss Mustard Seed wax is my personal favorite.  But I’m all out at the moment.

So in the end I decided I should just try the Rachel Ashwell Clear Coat since they had taken the trouble to send it to me.  I don’t normally use a clear coat, so I have very little experience with them.  Chantelle had warned me about the potential for water based clear top coats to draw stain from under paint.  Are you aware of this?  I was not.  I should have listened to her when she explained this the first time, but you know me, I always prefer to learn things the hard way!  So, I went ahead and added two coats of Clear Coat to my dresser.  The next evening I proceeded with adding the wallpaper to the doors (to read more about how to wallpaper furniture, check out this post).  As I was doing that I noticed that there was some discoloration around the edge of one of the doors.  I thought maybe I’d gotten a little messy with the wallpaper paste, but then it wouldn’t wipe off.  A closer inspection revealed that I did indeed have stain bleeding through my paint.

The next day I ran home on my lunch break from the day job so that I could inspect the dresser in the light of day.  Sure enough, I had stain bleed thru in a few other spots too.  Yikes!

Luckily all was not lost at this point.  You can use the Clear Primer to solve this problem.  I painted a coat of the Clear Primer over the areas where I had bleed thru.  In my case, this was just on the sides and the right door of this piece, the top and the drawer fronts were fine.  Once the Clear Primer was dry, I painted another coat of paint, and then finished with another coat of Clear Coat.  Problem solved.

So here’s the thing, even though I had to learn about this the hard way, you don’t have to!  You can just pay attention now and not make this mistake yourself.  Here are your options:

Option no. 1 –  Just start out with the Clear Primer.  If you know you are going to use Clear Coat or a similar water based sealer, then seal your piece first.  In addition, if you have a piece that you are pretty sure is going to be a bleeder even without the Clear Coat, one with a very dark stain, or a very red stain, just hedge your bets and start with Clear Primer.  Yes, you can also use shellac or a stain blocking primer for this purpose.  The benefit of the Clear Primer over shellac is that it can be cleaned up with soap and water and it isn’t as stinky.  The benefit of the Clear Primer over a stain blocking primer such as Zinsser or Kilz is that it’s clear.  If you are going to distress your piece, you probably don’t want to see a white primer underneath your paint color.

Option no. 2 – Wax your piece instead of using Clear Coat.  If your piece is painted and there is no bleed thru yet, you will be fine with wax.  The wax will not draw out the stain if it hasn’t already bled through.  The downsides of wax are that it takes some elbow grease to apply and it is not as durable as a clear coat.  If you are working on a dresser or similar piece of furniture that isn’t going to be subject to a lot of wear, wax is awesome.  Personally I prefer wax over other top coat options most of the time.

So, to recap, Clear Primer and Clear Coat together, or wax.  Got it?  I know I do now!

And after all of that, what do you think of the finished dresser?

Oh, and hey, did you notice?  Anybody?  I’m back in the photo cottage!  Spring has sprung here in Minnesota, for the moment anyway.  The snow has mostly melted and I can be out in the photo cottage without freezing my buns off.  It’s always a happy day for me when I get to head out there again.

By the way, I call this piece a ‘linen press’ because of the drawers that are behind the doors.

Once upon a time I read somewhere that these drawers were intended for storing linens and these pieces are called linen presses.  I kind of love that name, so I go with it.  I love the idea of storing one’s linens in a piece like this rather than in a closet in the hallway.

Did you notice that this color is almost exactly the same color as my new favorite vintage typewriter?

There are 9 other equally lovely colors in the Rachel Ashwell line up.

If you are interested in learning more about the Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic paint line, or if you’d like to order it online simply visit Bungalow 47.

If you are local and are interested in purchasing this lovely linen press, leave me a comment and I will email you with the details!