Month: June 2023

a virtual garage sale.

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

I’m doing something a little bit different today!

I’m having a bit of a virtual garage sale.

We’ve been doing some re-arranging here at our house.  It’s one of those chain reaction sort of things.  We’re turning the guest room into a studio for Mr. Q, and he’s gotten a bigger table for that space, thus freeing up his old desk to become my desk.  But a bigger desk for me means getting rid of my small farm table desk, and also moving the rooster cupboard out to the porch and thus getting rid of the black cupboard on the porch.  You get the idea, things are being shuffled around and as a result I have several pieces of furniture to sell at garage sale prices.

After listing a few of them on Facebook Marketplace, and then getting multiple spam messages about them (argh!  so annoying!), I decided to try a blog post.

Now, be advised, I’m not willing to ship any of my items, so you have to be within driving distance of St. Paul, MN to purchase any of them.  But maybe some of my local readers will be interested.

First up, the former guest room twin Jenny Lind headboard and bed frame.

The ancient mattress and box spring have already been picked up by my trash hauler, I’m just selling the headboard and the metal bed frame with wheels that I used with it.

All for $45, the headboard is 41.5″ wide by 40″ tall.

Next up, the wicker chaise lounge from my front porch.  It is 41.5″ tall, 64″ long and 40″ wide.

I’ve decided to replace that with another of Ken’s Adirondack chairs, so it has to go.  The cushion is slip covered in a basic beige linen, and the cover can be removed and washed, which is nice.  This is for sale at the same $45 price tag (throw pillows not included).

I’m considering spray painting it black and then asking a little more for it, but if you’re interested in it ‘as is’ be sure to leave a comment (or email me at qisforquandie@gmail.com) a.s.a.p. before I get out the spray paint!

I’m also selling the black cupboard from the front porch.

It’s an antique piece that I painted black a long time ago.  I added the Beautiful Botanist transfer to the inside back in 2019.

You can read all about that here.

I’m letting this one go for $195.  It is 79″ tall x 16.5″ deep x 38″ wide.

I also still have this square farmhouse style table for sale at $40.

The base is painted in Dixie Belle’s Kudzu.  These photos make it look just a bit brighter than it really is.  The top is finished with white wax.

It is 31″ tall and 34″ x 39″ wide, so not quite exactly square.

I added some casters to the feet after taking these photos, so this would be a great piece to use in a craft room, sewing room or studio since it can easily be moved around.

If any of you locals are interested in these pieces, leave a comment or email me at qisforquandie@gmail.com!

buyer’s remorse.

Published on by Quandie39 Comments

Last Friday I headed out to a neighborhood sale that was fairly new to me, with a companion who was totally new to me, Karen, the painter of the oars.  I think I’m going to call her opK, or ‘oar painting Karen’, to distinguish her from nnK (new neighbor Karen).

We headed out to the city wide sales in Fridley, MN.  I’d been to the Fridley sales before, but it was a long time ago … probably before I started blogging, so at least a decade or more.  Certainly long enough ago that I felt like it was new.  Fridley is one of the older Minneapolis burbs with many of the neighborhoods having a distinctly mid-century, or post-WWII feel.  There is also a smattering of really nice houses along the Mississippi River, which flows through Fridley, and pockets of newer homes here and there.

We did a pretty good job filling up opK’s SUV.

There are a few smaller items not in the photo above, which I’ll share in a minute.

But let’s start with those chairs.  To be honest, I’m having a bit of buyer’s remorse over those chairs.  They certainly aren’t my style at all, and I have no idea if there will be a market for selling a pair of modern looking chairs.

But they were only $2 each.  So in the end, I’ll only be out $4 total if I have to donate them to the Goodwill when they don’t sell.  Well, technically it will be $5.75 because I also purchased some new batting for 75¢ and some fabric to cover the seats with for $1.

I’ll need to do a bit of gluing on the chairs, but I’m not going to paint them, so that should be a fairly quick makeover.

And speaking of the fabric, I also purchased two other pieces of fabric for $1 each.

I’m going to try the one on the top of the pile with all of the bugs on that green wicker chair that I brought home last week.

The yardage on the bottom of the pile is pretty funky, opK and I both thought it might be fun on that pair of chairs.

But as we looked closer we realized it was sort of a Halloween fabric.

As we were studying it, the seller asked if we were fans of ‘the ghastlies’.  Um, the what now?  Apparently this is from a line of fabric by Alexander Henry called The Ghastlies.

It really is kind of fun.  I don’t know, would there be a market for a pair of chairs with this fabric on them?  Maybe in the fall?  What are your thoughts on that?

I grabbed the painting because I absolutely love the colors in it, and I liked its sort of mid-mod vibe too.  It’s a genuine oil painting, but I was totally unable to read the signature so I have no idea if it’s at all valuable.  I’m guessing not, since it is very cheaply framed.

And I really don’t love that frame.  I could paint it.  Or I could just take it off.

Hmmmm, not really sure about that either.

How about a few finds that I am sure about?

This ironstone pitcher and vintage cookbook were both a steal.

And this vintage lunchbox will be a fun makeover.

I purchased a pair of these iron crosses too.

And speaking of pairs, I purchased three pairs of vintage pillowcases.

You can always tell when these have been tucked away in someone’s linen closet for 50 years and never even used.  They are often yellowed, but not at all worn looking.  A little soaking in some OxyClean, followed by a day in the sun on the clothesline, will totally take care of that yellowing.

I tend to hang onto the all white versions because I love sleeping on these, and they work with our bedroom décor.

There is something about the quality and weight of the fabric that is so much better than modern linens.

And for that reason, I’m awarding them with ‘find of the day’ status.

Plus, believe it or not, these were only $2 per pair.  Where else can you get beautifully hand-worked pillowcases for $1 each?!

In the end, I may have a bit of buyer’s remorse over those chairs, but it is outweighed by my other fabulous finds.  But tell me, have you ever had buyers remorse over a garage sale purchase?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a french country rooster.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

Remember this little cabinet that I found at the Linden Hills garage sales?

It’s just a simple, rustic sort of wooden cabinet that once had a door (you can see where the hinges were).

I thought it would be a fun little makeover.

I started by simply painting it in my usual Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.  Then I added the rooster from the I.O.D. Melange paint inlay (see this link for full instructions on applying a paint inlay).

He was an almost perfect fit for the back of the cupboard so it seemed meant to be.

Once the inlay was applied, I sprayed the interior of the cabinet with some Rust-Oleum matte clear spray to seal it.  Then I added some random French wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer to the edges of the cabinet.

Actually, full disclosure, I first added the “FRESH FARM TO TABLE’ wording from the old Delicious Menu transfer from redesign with prima to the edges.  But I really didn’t like the way it looked.  The font was too harsh and just didn’t jibe with the rooster.  I don’t know, he really kind of has a French country vibe don’t you think?

Not to speak ill of the Delicious Menu transfer, because I have used it successfully on a number of pieces, like this stool …

and this coffee pot …

It just wasn’t working on this piece, so I sanded it off, repainted the edge with some more Drop Cloth, and then added the French wording.

Finally I sanded the edges to distress and then applied a coat of clear wax.

You’re probably thinking that once the cabinet is full you won’t be able to see the rooster, and sure, that’s true if you fill it to bursting.

But you could artfully arrange a few favorite pieces in a way that lets the rooster still shine.

I added a couple of small books, a couple of my favorite little McCoy planters …

and some old flower frogs.

You could hang this cupboard on the wall, or place it on a tabletop or shelf.  I painted the back of it, so it doesn’t have to be up against a wall.  It’s perfect for displaying a small non-collection!

I think a little paint, a paint inlay and a few scraps of transfer gave this cupboard a fabulous new French country look.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know.

This little cupboard is for sale, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

 

don’t get attached.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

Since I seem to have eight of them, I have to say that clematis is one of my favorite plants.  I have several of them blooming right now so I thought it would be a good time to post about them.

There are so many different varieties,  allaboutgardening.com says over 350!

There are different flower sizes from huge and showy to tiny and delicate.  And different flower shapes from star shaped to bell shaped.  They come in plenty of different colors; whites, reds, purples, blues, yellows and pinks.  Apparently there is even one called ‘Orange Peel’ that has flowers that start out yellow but gradually darken to orange.  You can find different varieties that bloom at all different times during the season from early to late.  And even some that bloom all summer long, like my Roguchi.

I planted this last year and found that it bloomed continuously from the time I planted it in late May to September.  It has come back strong this year and is already over the top of my arbor (on the right side).

The clematis on the left side of the arbor is one whose name has been lost to time.  It blooms a bit later than some of my other ones and although it has lots of buds, they aren’t quite open yet.  But here’s a photo of how it looked last year when it bloomed.

One thing to know about clematis if you want to grow them successfully are that there are three pruning groups.

Group 1 are the spring bloomers.  They should be pruned back immediately after blooming.  They bloom on last year’s growth, so if you prune them in the spring you won’t get any flowers that year.  Luckily I don’t have any of clematis from this group because the rabbits eat my clematis to as high as they can reach in the winter.  So, in a sense, my clematis is all ‘self-pruning’ … or rabbit pruned anyway.

Group 2 are the mid-season hybrid bloomers with large flowers.  You should avoid heavily pruning this group, only pruning out the weak or dead stems in late winter or early spring.

Group 3 are the ‘late’ bloomers and I have quite a few of them.  They call them late, but several of my group 3 clematis are blooming now, and I wouldn’t call the end of June ‘late’.  The beauty of this group is that they can be cut back hard in the spring (or over the winter, by rabbits) and they will flush back with vigorous growth and plenty of flowers.

Unfortunately, I never kept track of the name of that one either, but it’s the prettiest deep violet color and it’s filled with flowers right now.

I have most of my clematis growing up structures like an arbor or garden obelisk.  Last year I planted a Jackmanii  on the pyramid that Ken made (and I painted with my English racing green earlier this spring).

I think this variety is one of the most common, you see them everywhere.  It has been around since its introduction in 1862.  I’m hoping that one day it will entirely cover that pyramid with flowers, but it’s just a bit sparse yet this year.

You can also use a shrub, or even a tree, as a ‘trellis’ of sorts for clematis.  My neighbors Ken & Arlene have one growing over a tree stump.

Many people also combine them with climbing roses.  I have a shrub rose that I pretend is a climbing rose.  The rose itself won’t attach to a structure, but I let the canes grow long and tie it onto an obelisk.  Last summer I planted a Huldine clematis to intertwine with it

So far the Huldine hasn’t bloomed, and I don’t see any buds on it.  I’m hoping to see it bloom later this summer though.

I have what I think is a variety called The President on a trellis right outside our back window.

It’s not blooming all that well this year, which would make sense since The President is in pruning group 2 and shouldn’t be heavily pruned.  But of course, mine was rabbit pruned right down to the ground along with all of my other clematis.

A few weeks ago I planted a Betting Corning clematis next to it.  It hasn’t bloomed yet, but it’s another bell shaped clematis like the Roguchi.

You’ll often hear that clematis like to have their feet in the shade and their head in the sun, and many of us planted lower growing plants around the base of them to ‘shade’ the base of the plants.  But really, what they want is moist soil.  So they don’t have to be shaded, but it’s a good idea to mulch around the base of the plant well, and also to keep it watered.

I think my biggest piece of advice when it comes to clematis is to not get too attached.  I’ve had more than one that is huge and beautifully covered with blooms one year, and then just simply doesn’t come back the next.

For example, this gorgeous clematis used to grow on that pyramid from Ken …

It was there for years, and then one spring … nothing.

I once had a spectacular white clematis growing on the side of the carriage house.  It was huge, and absolutely covered in big white flowers every year.  Until one year, it just never came back.  So disappointing!

Theoretically a clematis can live upwards of 50 years, so perhaps it’s just our harsh Minnesota winters that sometimes do them in.  Or maybe it’s those pruning rabbits!

I guess in the end, losing one just provides the opportunity to try a new variety next time, right?

How about you?  Do you have a favorite clematis?  Or do you have rabbits that provide a free winter pruning on yours?  Leave a comment and let me know.

half fancy.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

My garage sale hauls started out with a bang (and ended with a bit of a bust) last weekend. On Friday I went to my friend Lisa’s occasional sale, and then stopped off at Lowe’s on the way home.

OK, to be fair, Lisa’s sale is way too nice to be called a garage sale, and Lowe’s doesn’t really count at all.  But I did come home with some fantastic things at prices halfway between ‘garage sale’ and ‘fancy boutique’ at Lisa’s, and also some fun plants from Lowe’s that I wanted to share with you guys.

First up, I purchased a couple of plastic urn planters, a concrete pillar and an oval shaped galvanized bucket at Lisa’s sale.  I’ve already used the Dixie Belle patina paint on both of the urn planters to give them a rusty look.  I’m listing one for sale here on the blog, while making space for the other in my own garden.

Lately I’ve gotten really fond of placing planters like this right in the garden bed.

They are great for adding instant height where needed.  They also can be moved around to fill in a hole where a perennial has died back, where you’re waiting for a slower growing plant to fill in, or where you want a pop of color from annuals but don’t want to plant them in the ground.  The nice thing about these plastic pots is that they are lightweight and pretty easy to move around, even when filled with soil and plants.  And in my opinion, they totally pass for the real thing with the patina paint.

I use the Iron patina paint with the green spray to get my rusty results (the full process can be found in this post).  One thing to keep in mind is that the rust takes some time to develop, it’s not instantaneous.  I just finished rustifying these pots yesterday, so keep in mind that they will continue to get rustier.  But I thought you’d still like to see my results.

Here’s the first pot, before.

I have to say, it looks like legit concrete in the photo, but it’s plastic and had a lot of flaking paint.  You’ll have to trust me on that.

And here it is after …

It’s starting to show some good rust.

Here is pot number two, ‘before’ …

And here it is with it’s new rusty finish.

If any of you locals are interested, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for that one.

  I’m also planning a paint treatment for the galvanized bucket that came from Lisa’s sale, stay tuned for that.

As for the pillar in the back of my ‘haul’ photo, I left that ‘as is’ and put it in the garden.

You might recognize that spot right behind my Chelsea chopped sedum.

As for Lowe’s, well, although it’s obviously not a garage sale of any kind, I just had to share the gorgeous plants that I found there.  First up is an astilbe from Proven Winners called Dark Side of the Moon.

Isn’t that dark foliage fantastic?  I have to admit, I don’t even know what the flowers on this one are supposed to look like.  I’m planting it just for the foliage color.  I’m hoping to have more success with this plant than I did with the heuchera that I planted for its foliage.  Fingers crossed.

I also picked up three of the Proven Winners Heart to Heart caladium in Tickle me Pink.

You know I just can’t seem to resist caladium, even though we really don’t have the best climate for it.  They perform best if the nighttime temps don’t fall below 60°.  A week or so ago we were still having temps in the 50’s at night, and even got down to the 40’s a couple of times.  It’s great for sleeping with the windows open, but not so great for caladium.

Also, caladium are rather pricey annuals.  I purchased a couple of them earlier in the year for just under $20 each, but these from Lowe’s were only $10.98.  A bargain for a caladium!  I made an unsuccessful attempt to overwinter caladium bulbs last year, so I was happy to find some selling at a reasonable price.  I have to say that I was really impressed with both the quality and the price of the perennials at the Stillwater Lowe’s.

And here are those caladium in my new rusty urn, plus another shorter one that I rusty-ed up last year.

On Saturday, my sister, niece and I headed out to check out a neighborhood sale that was new to me, the NEighbors Sale Days in Northeast Minneapolis.  There were several neighborhoods participating, so it looked like it could be promising.

I have to admit, that part of Minneapolis can be a bit of a mixed bag.  There are areas that are filled with fabulous mid-century modern homes with lovely gardens, and areas that are a bit sketchy to be honest.  It also includes the Arts District, which is filled with artist studios and lots of trendy eateries.

The garage sales were really hit or miss … but mostly a miss.  My sister purchased some plants, and my sole purchase was this …

Yep, just one simple wooden recipe box.  It will go in the stash and be good for a winter project.

We called it quits early after not finding much and decided to drown our sorrows in a pitcher of mimosa’s.

We did a bit of googling and ended up finding a place called Half Fancy that was only a few blocks away from where we were.

Somehow, Half Fancy seemed like the perfect way to describe the neighborhood … and maybe us.  Although to be honest, we might be more like only 1/4 fancy.

I ordered the purple hash which was made from red potatoes, braised red cabbage, onions and carrots and I added a scrambled egg on top.

Delicious!

As we were finishing up with our brunch I got a text from my friend Sue who suggested we head to some sales in White Bear Lake.  So on the way home we stopped there and I picked up another piece of furniture.

Seriously, I need to get going on some of this furniture I’m bringing home.  The summer is getting away from me!

Last, but not least, I also brought home this child sized vintage wicker chair.

You know I can’t resist smaller than normal sized anything.  It seemed like the best option for find of the day, but really, that status should probably go to the mimosas!  Or maybe those rusty pots!  Or even the plants.  I don’t know, what do you think?

up a creek.

Published on by Quandie23 Comments

Remember the oars that I found at the MacGrove garage sales?

Well, if you read the comments on my blog posts, you may have noticed that a neighbor of mine mentioned that she’d be willing to trade me some toolboxes for the oars.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with all of those oars.  I just couldn’t pass them up at only $2 each and I figured I’d come up with something.

But would I rather have some toolboxes?  Yes I would!

So I loaded up the oars and headed over to Karen’s house (not nnK, my neighbor across the street, another Karen, I may have to start calling her onK, or ‘other neighbor Karen’).

Turns out, this was an excellent decision.  As it happens, Karen is a bit of an oar (or paddle) artist.

The one shown above is still in progress, but isn’t that a cool design?

Karen does some very precise work, and she starts by drawing out her pattern on paper.

Then she even tries out her color selections on paper before painting the actual paddle.

Such a great way to make sure your colors are going to work together.

I really like the abstract fish design that she’s adding to this one …

As you can see in the upper right of that photo, Karen uses regular ol’ latex paint.  She gets the sample size jars and has them mixed up in whatever colors she wants to use.  It’s pretty cost effective, and she doesn’t need much of each color of paint.

Here’s another design that she has just started working on.

I don’t believe she ever does the same design more than once.

She created the Canadian flag version below for her husband who is originally from Canada.

Karen displays a number of her paddles around the perimeter of her sun room (which happens to have really cool wood clad walls and a corrugated metal ceiling).

I think it’s fair to say that Karen will never be up a creek without a paddle!

I’m so glad that the oars went to someone who is going to do something like this with them.  I would never have come up with anything as special for them.

Unfortunately, Karen doesn’t have any sort of social media presence so I can’t send you anywhere to look at her work.  But I’m sure she’ll be reading this blog post so be sure to leave a comment and let her know what you think of her gorgeous paddles and oars!

stretching your transfers.

Published on by Quandie15 Comments

I’m sure that many of you saw that I.O.D. came out with a new summer release recently.  It included a couple of really pretty transfers.  Even though I’m trying not to buy new transfers, and instead use up the ones that I have, I just couldn’t resist this one called Elysium.

This transfer costs around $30 (plus shipping in most cases), so adding it to a smaller item, like a toolbox for example, that I am planning to sell for less than $50 doesn’t seem like a smart plan.

But I figured I could break it up and get at least 4 smaller projects out of just this one transfer, and suddenly the cost seems a lot more realistic.

So far I’ve used it on two pieces, so I thought I’d share those together today.

First up is the rustic box that’s underneath the wood tote in this photo …

It may once have looked pretty cool with that paper label on the front, but there wasn’t enough left of the label to salvage.  So I cleaned the box first, then sanded off most of that label.  As I was working with the box, I realized that it was pretty much falling apart.  So I did a little gluing and nailing too.

Finally it was ready for paint.  I first painted the interior in Dixie Belle’s Kudzu.

Other than paint, I left the inside quite plain.

I kept the pretty stuff on the outside.

After painting the exterior of the box in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and sanding it well to distress the edges, I added just one sheet of the Elysium transfer to the top (this transfer comes in 4 pieces).

One thing to note with this transfer is that there is some typography in the background.  It’s subtle, but it’s there.  So you want to be careful to not place it with the words upside down.

 Next I layered on some wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.

Once I had those in place, I decided that the box needed some rustic hardware, so I added this old rusty handle that I had in my stash.

And voila, a fun box that would be perfect for housing your stash of Jeanne d’Arc Living magazines (or any sort of magazine really).

The 2nd project using just one sheet of the Elysium transfer is this tackle box.

I picked this out of a ‘free’ pile on the curb in my neighborhood.  Mr. Q and I were passing by on our daily walk and there it was, so I grabbed it.

It didn’t look too terrible on the outside, but the inside was a gunky mess.

I actually ended up discarding the tray because I didn’t think it was worth the effort to save.  But for the rest of the interior I first soaked it in soapy water and then scraped off as much gunk as I could.  Then once dry, I sanded it down until it was mostly smooth.

Then I applied a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. to prevent any kind of bleed thru problems in the future.  I followed that up with two coats of DB’s Holy Guacamole.

Then I sealed it with two coats of DB’s flat clear coat.  My main goal here is to make the inside of the box suitable for use, whether that use is containing art supplies, storing old photos or holding your makeup.

I painted the outside in two coats of Drop Cloth, and then I added the Elysium transfer.

Once I had the floral in place, I again added some wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer to the top.

With this section of the transfer, it would be much more apparent if the background typography was upside down.

So there you go, two projects down and I still have two more sections of the transfer to use on a couple more things.

Both of these items are for sale, so be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details if interested.

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

chop or flop.

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

Can I ask you a personal question?  Does your tall sedum tend to get floppy?  Does your phlox fall over?

Well, if so, I have the solution for you, and it’s free!  It’s called the Chelsea chop and the reason it’s called that is because the timing of this process in England usually coincides with their RHS Chelsea Flower Show, which is held in late May.  However, here in my northern, zone 4b garden, mid-June is a good time to Chelsea chop (you want to do it before you see any flower buds on your plant).

The Chelsea chop encourages branching, so the plants will be shorter and more compact thus reducing, or hopefully even eliminating, the flop.

So what is the Chelsea chop?  Basically you simply cut down the stems by 1/3 to 1/2.

  You don’t need to be precise, I’ve seen some gardeners just take a hedge trimmer and go to town.  Or, you can let the deer get in on the action.  They seem to be Chelsea chopping my neighbor’s asters!

But personally I like to be a little more discriminating, so I use my handheld pruners to do the job.

There are a few things you should know about the chop.  First of all, it’s only suitable for perennials that bloom in late summer or early fall such as phlox, bee balm, cone flower, asters, veronica and of course, sedum.

Second, the Chelsea chop will delay the bloom time of your plant by as much as a month or so.  If that thought bothers you, another option is to only prune every other stem on your plant leaving the other half of them long.  There are a couple of benefits to that option.  For one, you’ll still have flowers at the normal time, plus you’ll have more flowers several weeks later.  So basically, you’ve extended the bloom time of your plant.  In addition, the shorter, sturdier stems that have been chopped will help support the stems that you left long.

Another potential benefit of the Chelsea chop, at least with sedum in particular, is that you can easily root some of your trimmings to grow more plants.

I did this a couple of years ago, and they all took off like gangbusters.

I have to say, before I discovered the Chelsea chop this variegated sedum was definitely not one of my favorite plants.  It always tended to flop over and look pretty sloppy in the garden.  Now that it stays a bit more compact, I really love the way it looks in combination with the ‘blue’ upright hosta behind it, and the purple heuchera beside it.

By the way, I believe that is Palace Purple heuchera, in other words one of the older, more reliable varieties.  If you read my post about heuchera from a couple of weeks ago, you know that I have trouble getting any of the newer, more colorful, varieties of heuchera to perform well.  But I’ve had these two plants for years now and they continue to do well.

How about you?  Have you ever tried the Chelsea chop?  If any of your late summer or fall blooming perennials don’t have flower buds yet, it’s not too late to consider it!

almost perfect.

Published on by Quandie24 Comments

Remember the vintage doll crib that I found a few weeks back?

When I saw that pile of pieces, I immediately thought that the two end pieces would make fun ‘remnants’ to hang on the wall.

So I dug through all of my possible embellishments; stencils, transfers, and paint inlays, and came up with a couple of good options.

The next step was to paint each end piece.  I painted the first in Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy, and the 2nd in their Midnight Sky.

For the Sawmill Gravy piece, I applied one of the paint inlays from the I.O.D. Melange set (see full instructions for applying a paint inlay here).

It fit on that center section almost perfectly, like it was meant to be.

I also decided to add a couple of wooden knobs under the inlay section and I painted those with the Sawmill Gravy as well.

After sealing the inlay with some spray clear matte sealer, I sanded everything to distress it and then finished it off with some clear wax.

You could hang anything from those knobs, but I chose to hang some small ironstone pitchers filled with herbs from them for my photos.

The original wooden casters were so charming that I opted to leave them in place.

The 2nd piece was painted in the Midnight Sky, and I decided to add the Farm Fresh Honey Bee stencil from Wallcutz.

Once again, an almost perfect fit.

I lost a little bit around the edges, but I still think it works.

I decided to forgo the wooden knobs on this version, but I may change my mind about that and go back and add them later.

For now I’ve decided that this piece looks really fab layered over the old chippy window that hangs on the wall in our dining room (but the Sawmill Gravy version is for sale).

What do you think?  Would you have put the doll crib back together again, or would you have repurposed those ends like I did?  Leave a comment and let me know.

 

a summer deck refresh.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

I know it probably seems like I haven’t done much lately in the way of furniture makeovers, and that’s true.  It’s mainly because I’ve been busy with other things, like gardening, garage saling and a deck refresh.

Our deck was starting to look a bit shabby, and when I put my foot through one of the boards this spring I realized it was more than time to freshen things up a bit.

Just for fun, here’s what our deck looked like prior to 2009.

OMG you guys!  Does it look like a jumbled up mess or what?  I know I loved that pergola at the time, but looking back it was just too much.  In the end that grapevine that was trained up the pergola attracted both racoons and Japanese beetles.  It had to go.

Anyway, we replaced that with our current deck back in 2009.  Here’s how the replacement looked when it was brand new.

Phew!  Much cleaner.  We did make it just a tiny bit larger, but it looks so much more opened up without that pergola.

Fast forward 14 years and that brings us to me putting my foot through a board.  It was high time for a refresh.

I had already started with the English racing green paint job on the Adirondack chairs that Ken made for us.  The next step was to replace that rotted board, and some rotted boards on the steps.  Ken helped out with that task too.  The hardest part was getting the screws out of the old boards, they did not want to come out.

But we eventually got them up and pieced in the new board.

It’s going to stand out like a sore thumb for a while, but eventually it should blend in.

We have taken a couple of steps to prevent further boards from rotting.  The first was to have gutters installed all around the roofline over the deck when we did our roof last summer.  The spot that was rotted just happened to be right under the spot where an old gutter stopped short before the the end of the deck.  So when it rained, water poured down right on that area.

The next step was to add a protective coating to the wood this year.  You can sort of see how the decking was looking underneath the chair in this photo.

It was very grey, and very dirty.  I assume that black stuff is mildew.  In case you’re wondering, the last time we cleaned the deck was in 2019, so this is 4 years of dirt.

So we borrowed our neighbor, nnK’s, pressure washer and gave the deck a good cleaning.  Then after waiting a couple of days for it to dry out thoroughly, we applied a product called TWP, or Total Wood Protectant, in clear.

Sure, we could have chosen a tinted version of this product to help that new board blend in, but in the past we have found that those tinted options tend to look kind of awful pretty quickly as they get dinged up.  Our deck sees a lot of traffic year round because this is where we come and go from our house.  We wanted to protect the wood, but not add a product that would peel or show excessive wear over time (been there, done that).  And in addition, we really rather liked the natural color of the wood.

TWP is an oil-based product that penetrates the wood rather than forming a film on top that can peel.  At least, that’s what the paint guy at Fleet Farm said.  He claims that he put it on his parent’s deck three years ago and it still looks good.

I’ll have to report back on how it wears over time, but I can say that it looks fantastic right now.

We are planning to be more diligent about keeping snow cleared off the deck next winter in an effort to keep it looking good longer too, but we’ll see how that goes.  We certainly didn’t accomplish that last winter!

Next came sprucing up the table and chairs.  We’ve had this set since we replaced the deck back in 2009, so it’s 14 years old.  As you can see above, we don’t leave it out in the winter and I think that has helped prolong its life.

It was definitely starting to show its age though.  Step one was giving the tabletop a fresh coat of paint.  There were a couple of spots where the paint was starting to chip and bubble, so I sanded those down and then sprayed the table with Rust-Oleum’s Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.

It was almost a perfect match for the original color of the table, and now it looks like new again.

Next came giving the chairs a much needed refresh.  Over time quite a few of the vinyl straps that support the cushions had deteriorated.  So I ordered some replacement vinyl strapping via Amazon.

Now, I have to tell you, it was quite the production to replace these straps.

If I had read the directions before purchasing the strapping I’m not sure that I would have wanted to tackle it.  Basically, you have to heat the vinyl to get it warmed up enough to fully stretch out, then quickly attach it to the frame with those plastic rivets before it cools down.  As it cools, it tightens back up enough to provide the needed support.  The recommendation on the packaging for the heating process was to boil the strapping in a pot of water!  Then handle it using heat proof gloves of some kind so it doesn’t burn you.

Um, yeah, right.

This was another job that Ken helped out with, and instead of boiling water, we heated the strapping with a heat gun.  It took both of us to attach the strapping on one end, then heat it with the heat gun while also pulling it as taut as possible using a pliers to hold the other end, and then somehow wrangle it into place and attach it on the other end.  Honestly, it was a very frustrating process.

But we got ‘er done.  And really, what was the alternative?  Send these chairs to the landfill?  That seems like it would be a shame.

That left one final issue, the original cushions had gotten rather flat over time.  I looked and looked for replacement cushions that would be nice and full and never really found anything I liked.  So instead, I purchase some inexpensive cushions from Menards and simply added them to the existing cushions inside of the slipcovers that my friend Sue made for me years ago.

The slip covers were always a bit roomy, so fitting a second cushion in them was easy enough.  Now they are super thick and cushy.

The great thing about these slipcovers is that they are washable, so I threw them in the wash quick before putting them back on.  Same with the throw pillows.

You can read more about the slipcovers in this post from 2019 when Sue initially made them for me.

The Adirondack chairs were already painted and my new Flower Market sign was in place on the other side of the deck.

That just leaves the fun stuff, filling this year’s planters.  I’ve placed three of my faux rusty pots (learn how I created my faux rusty pots here) in the one corner of our deck that still gets a fair amount of sun so I can fill them with some sun loving annuals.

I once again chose to start with Proven Winner’s Mini Vista Indigo petunias.  I purchased them for the first time last summer and absolutely fell in love with them.

Isn’t that color gorgeous?

I added in this verbena …

Seriously, how could anyone resist a lilac and white striped flower?  That is another Proven Winners plant, the Superbena Stormburst.

I also have added some white bacopa, some purple salvia and a pink gomphrena.

I realized last year that the two pots that flank the stairs are mostly in the shade now, so I went with some more shade tolerant choices in those.

There is a heuchera, a small ivy and the purple flower is a Summer Wave torenia.  This is the first time I’ve used this particular annual and so far I have to say it looks great.

Now all that’s left is to mix up a Cosmo and enjoy a lovely summer evening sitting on the deck.

Phew!  It’s always good to have a big project like this tackled.

How about you, do you have any big summer projects lined up?  Leave a comment and let me know.