Quandie

the hutch.

Published on December 9, 2013December 8, 2013 by Quandie1 Comment

Remember my faux European grain sack? Well, I had a purpose in mind for it when I made it.

I saw something similar on pinterest and thought it was fantastic. So when I found this hutch on craigslist, I knew I had to try this myself. I’ll admit this piece was in much better shape than the pieces I usually work with. I might have even felt a tiny little twinge of guilt over painting it. However, I wanted to take it from ‘grandma’s hutch filled with her tea cup collection’ to amazing. And I hope that is what I did.

I painted him with Miss Mustard Seed’s ‘grain sack’ overall. The trim at the top, and the oval on the drawer are painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s ‘typewriter’. I have noticed that many furniture refinishers swap out the hardware on their pieces for something new, but I prefer to keep the antique hardware whenever possible. These drawer pulls were gorgeous and full of character, so I kept them.

With the grain sack ‘curtain’ this hutch becomes a fantastic storage piece that could be used for just about anything.

Personally, I would keep it this way. But, one could also remove the sack and use this as a display cabinet.

I think this hutch is a stunner. I am SO tempted to keep him, except I have a very similar piece on my front porch already. So, I will be delivering him to the Round Barn in Andover soon for some lucky buyer to discover.

meet Lula.

Published on December 8, 2013December 7, 2013 by Quandie8 Comments

I still have fond memories of staying on the farm with my Aunt Lula and Uncle Homer. Lu was my maternal grandmother’s sister, and she did not have any children of her own. She loved kids though, and was always happy to have us visit (at least I’m pretty sure she was). I’ll always remember her homemade donuts and how she laughed when I didn’t know that potatoes grew in the ground (hey, I was a city girl).

Here she is with her first husband, who passed away before I was born.

Don’t they look happy? I love this photo.

In honor of Lu, I named my manikin after her. Meet Lula.

I cobbled her together on a whim. It started with an old yellow Styrofoam manikin that a co-worker salvaged from a torn down mall. She was rather hideous, but I could see her potential. When I came across a small table with a fabulous base at a garage sale, I knew the base would be perfect for my manikin. Once again, I called upon my favorite handy man Ken, and asked him to come up with a way to attach the Styrofoam torso to the table base. Like magic, he made it so. I then painted her with black chalkboard paint. I topped her off with an old black porcelain door knob, and metal no. 1 tag. The writing was added using a chalkboard pen.

She’s wearing numerous strands of pearls, as well as an apron from my husband’s grandfather’s lumber supply store.

Isn’t she pretty?

vintage ornaments.

Published on December 7, 2013December 5, 2013 by Quandie2 Comments

I have collected vintage glass ornaments for many years now. I find them at garage sales and antique shops. At first I kept any that I found. Any color, solid or with a painted design. But, as my collection grew, I knew I needed to cut down and only keep the ones I really love.

Now I stick with mostly pink and aqua, but I love a little pale green thrown in too.

And recently I culled out most of the solid round ones too. I love the ones with pretty hand painted designs, or those with a unique shape.

I display my ornaments on a small silver tree. This is my only tree. A larger tree would overwhelm my house. I don’t use any lights or anything else on this tree, it doesn’t need any extras. It is sparkly and gorgeous as is. It looks perfect next to my newly painted buffet.

sometimes I fake it.

Published on December 5, 2013December 4, 2013 by Quandie1 Comment

Shhhh, don’t tell, but I have a confession to make. Sometimes I fake it.

Do you love the look of vintage European grain sacks as much as I do?

Have you ever priced them? I still remember the first time I saw them for sale at Oronoco Gold Rush. The woman had a booth with stacks and stacks of them. I casually strolled over to take a look. Not a price tag in sight. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not. In this case, not. I asked how much and tried not to show how excited I was. “Well, they start at $100 and go UP from there.”

That was when I just as casually said “oh, well they sure are lovely” and slowly backed away from the grain sacks.

I have since priced them on Etsy, and at other sales, and this seems to be the going rate. Oftentimes even much higher.

This is the point where I tell you that I am usually a cheapskate. Not always. If I see something that I absolutely cannot live without, I will spend more for it if I have to, but for the most part, I’m looking for bargains.

And when I can’t find what I want at a reasonable price, then I just fake it.

Last summer I picked up a plain grain sack at a garage sale being held by a lovely elderly woman. She kindly noted on the tag that it had been ‘repaired’. I’m quite certain that she considered this a negative quality, but I only loved it more for its flaws. Price: $3.

I got out the tools of the trade, some Martha craft paint, a stencil brush, and my favorite stencil.

And I made my own ‘faux’ European grain sack for far, far less than $100.

What do you think?

Stay tuned to find out what I’m going to do with my faux grain sack!

50 shades of green.

Published on December 3, 2013December 1, 2013 by Quandie7 Comments

I only recently started using Miss Mustard Seed paint. I held out for a long time simply because it is kind of expensive. Then last summer I bought a sample of it at the Oronoco Gold Rush. As I feared would happen, I loved it. Damn! Now I drive all the way across the river to Hudson to buy it.

Oh … who am I kidding … I send my husband all the way across the river to buy it. Thanks hon!

Working with this stuff has a bit of a steep learning curve though. One problem has been especially prevalent with the green shades. The thing is, you don’t get the same color every time.

It started with a dresser I painted in MMS’ Boxwood. After painting it, I realized that one of the drawers needed to be completely sanded down and re-done (long story for another time). I was pretty new to MMS paint then, and I just decided to use the leftover paint from the first go around. I gave it a good stir and repainted the drawer … and ended up with a totally different shade of green. Argh. In the end, I had to repaint all of the drawers with a new mix of paint.

So really, I should have known better with the Luckett’s Green dresser. But yet, I did it again. One drawer needed repairs and was sent over to Ken for work. I mixed up the paint and painted everything else. This time I figured I could just mix up a new batch of paint for the last drawer. If it didn’t sit around with the pigments separating, I figured it would be fine. Surely it would be the same color, right?

Wrong.

Yep, there it is. The bottom drawer. Not the same at all. I don’t know why this happens. I use the same ratio of paint to water. I am painting the same type of wood, with the same light sanding to start.

The lesson learned here. Be patient. Wait until you have all the pieces ready to go, and then paint them all at once. In the end, it is worth it because you end up with this:

Live and learn baby, live and learn.

the long weekend.

Published on December 1, 2013December 1, 2013 by Quandie11 Comments

One thing you should know about me, I have a day job. As an accountant. For the government. There. I said it. All this means to you is that I have to let my creativity out in other arenas.

Every once in a while, I get a break from the day job in the form of a long holiday weekend. Four whole days in a row for Thanksgiving! I give thanks for them.

I gave myself a challenging to-do list for this long weekend. Here it is: put up Christmas decorations, paint hutch to be sold at Round Barn, start a blog and paint the oak buffet. Here is it Sunday morning, and is it all done? Almost. I may not quite get the hutch finished, but it’s nearly there. Everything else is checked off the list.

More on the other items soon, but let’s start with the oak buffet. My aunt gave me this piece many years ago along with a Swedish spoon carved cupboard and a firm “DON’T paint them!” So, for quite some time I didn’t. Then one day I realized that I was living with pieces in my house that weren’t ‘me’ just because someone else didn’t think ‘real’ furniture should be painted. How long is the statute of limitations on such things anyway? I had even relegated the poor spoon carved cupboard to storage because it just wasn’t right for my house. I was considering selling the oak buffet and replacing it with some other painted piece, when I realized how silly that was. Whoever bought it from me could just as easily turn around and paint it! Isn’t it better to paint it myself and keep it as a reminder of my aunt? I say YES!

Thanks to the wonders of Miss Mustard Seed’s milk paint, I was able to finish this project in a day. With milk paint there is little prep required. I removed the knobs and gave just a light sanding to all of the flat surfaces (because I didn’t want excessive chipping there). I mixed up some Kitchen Scale, and slapped it on. It dries so quickly that I could put a second coat on within an hour or so. Once it was dry, I lightly sanded the whole thing. It chipped in all the right places (mostly where I didn’t pre-sand) all by itself. I finished by applying a coat of hemp oil (while watching Hitchcock’s The Birds in the background.)

Et voila. The oak buffet is transformed! And I love it.

P.S. The fab ink and watercolor drawings hanging on the wall above the buffet were done by my grandfather on the same side of the family. Consider this area an homage to my paternal side.

the winter window box.

Published on December 1, 2013December 1, 2013 by Quandie1 Comment

A couple of years ago, I asked my neighbor Ken to make a window box for me. As is always the case, Ken did a bang up job. I had already purchased some old tin crown molding that I knew I wanted on the front of it. I also had some plastic rectangular planter boxes that I wanted to fit inside. Ken took some measurements, and voila, created a window box.

It’s kinda huge. But one of my biggest decorating rules is ‘go big, or go home’, also known as ‘never do anything half way’. I wanted it to be the full length of my front porch windows. However, it can be a bit expensive to fill up. I consider it the ‘focal point’ of my front yard though, so it’s a priority to make it look fab for summer and winter.

Originally the tin had a coat of white paint. Despite numerous clear coats every spring, the paint continues to flake off, first leaving that lovely shade of blue, and then just the rust. Since I pretty much love anything rusty, I consider this a good thing.

To fill ‘er up without breaking the bank, in winter I use stuff from the garden. Mostly hydrangeas, but there are some other things tucked in there as well. Some seed pods, and even some dried Astilbe. To make it pretty at night, I’ve added twig lights that can be found at Target.

I also include some fab rusty metal ornaments that work perfectly with the rusty tin.

As you can see, I don’t really go for a traditional Christmas look with reds and greens, or silver and gold. I want something that’s going to look good for the entire winter … and here in Minnesota that means it has to last a good long time. It won’t be long now before the window box has a couple feet of snow under it. Dare I admit that I am looking forward to it?

the owl dresser.

Published on December 1, 2013December 1, 2013 by Quandie5 Comments

The other day someone asked me “is your house full of your own painted furniture?” My initial reply was no. Painting stuff for myself always takes a back seat to painting stuff to sell. I always have that one item (or ten) that I need to finish before the sale, or before the next trip to the Round Barn.

But then I looked around my house when I got home and realized the answer is closer to yes. Most of the stuff in my house is furniture that I have painted over the years. And occasionally I paint something intending to sell it and end up falling in love with it and keeping it for myself instead.

Such was the case with the ‘owl pull dresser’. I bought this from a young guy in NE Mpls via craigslist. I was drawn to the owls on the drawer pulls.

Who could resist these?

I was drawn to the price too. It was cheap. I called the guy and he said he was moving that night! If no one bought the dresser, he was just going to leave it in the apartment. Holy mackerel. I was on it. I couldn’t get there before his going away party though, so he agreed to leave the dresser on the porch, if I would leave an envelope of money in the mailbox. I know, crazy, right?

Once I got it home, I decided to paint it black. I don’t do a lot of black anymore, but this dresser was so strong and masculine looking. It was calling out for black.

Then, I did something really crazy. This is the point where I have to swear you to secrecy. Do not reveal my method! I painted the whole thing with satin black spray paint. After allowing it to dry for about 30 minutes, I then used a rag to apply paste wax. The wax takes off some (or maybe a lot) of the paint. This method is not for the faint of heart. It’s messy, and you never know what kind of result you might get. For this dresser, the result was fantastic!

I loved it so much, I knew I had to keep it. And I had the perfect spot for it just inside my back door. This thing holds a ton of stuff too. Bottom two drawers are all shoes. Top two are scarves, gloves and hats. And those two little jewelry drawers at the top are perfect ‘his and hers’ spots for the little stuff … keys, sunglasses, spare change.

So, for now, I’m keeping this one.

the carriage house.

Published on November 26, 2013October 30, 2015 by Quandie2 Comments

My house was built in 1904. Or possibly 1898. Depends which documents you look at. The official record says 1904 though. It was originally the farmhouse for a dairy farm. But now it is smack in the burbs. The surrounding land was sold off and developed and now my house sits on a normal sized suburban lot. The beauty of it is that my house is like a little pocket of country conveniently located near the city.

One of my favorite features is the carriage house.

Yep, it’s a genuine carriage house. It was never a barn or anything like that. I assume they kept the carriages in it. I still keep the carriages in it … well, the cars. But only in the winter.

In the summer it becomes my workshop extraordinaire. It is filled with furniture and other goodies waiting to be transformed. Then twice a year, once in June and once in early October, it hosts the Carriage House Sale. The occasional sale that my like minded friends and I put on.

the toolbox.

Published on November 26, 2013November 27, 2013 by Quandie2 Comments

If something isn’t painted, I tend to paint it. I just can’t help myself. I love the transformative power of paint. Recently my friend Cathy gave me a wooden tool caddy in a dark stained wood. I was in the middle of painting a dresser with Miss Mustard Seed’s “Luckett’s Green” and I had a little left over. I figured it was just enough for the toolbox.

I wish I had thought to take a ‘before’ picture. I’m sure I’ll get better at that as I go. Right? Right.

So, a couple of coats of Luckett’s Green, then some sanding, followed by a quick rub-down with Hemp Oil and voila! I also added a fab metal number plate that just happened to match perfectly. I’ll display this for the holiday season with one of my fav holiday decorating books and some of my vintage ornaments, but it will likely eventually end up at my next occasional sale.