Category: furniture.

Today I’m wrapping up my week of furniture re-runs by sharing my top five favorite furniture makeovers featuring transfers or paint inlays.

I have to admit, while I do think the simple paint job makeovers can be lovely and the mid mod makeovers are super easy and fun, the pieces with transfers or paint inlays are my personal favorites.  In fact, I really struggled to pick just five for this post.

The only problem is that these sort of makeovers are more expensive to do because the transfers and inlays are not cheap.  Secondly, they also take a bit more time.  And in my experience they take longer to sell, I suppose because they are possibly a bit more of a niche market.  So I don’t do many of them these days.

No. 5 on today’s list is the Summer Villa dresser from March 2023.

If you head over the my original post about this piece, I explained that when I picked up the dresser it had a bit more damage on the front legs than what was shown in the seller’s photo on Craigslist, but I bought it anyway.  Ken helped me make some alterations that helped disguise those issues including adding some air dry clay molds.

I followed that up with painting the entire thing using Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.

Then I applied I.O.D.’s Summer Villa paint inlay.

I swapped out the original wooden knobs for some clear glass ones that would sort of disappear over the inlay.

Isn’t it just stunning?  I have to admit that this one was hard to let go of.

No. 4 is the Queen’s Glory Bench from November 2020.

This was one of several benches that my handyman/neighbor Ken built for me using old bed frames.

I initially painted this one in a pale blue color, but it didn’t sell so I gave it a new look using Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  I followed that up with re.design with prima’s Parisian Letter transfer.

It really was so much better this way.

It is definitely one of my favorite pieces!

No. 3 is the Restored Armoire from January 2011.

As the name implies, I purchased this piece at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Handyman Ken did quite a lot of work on this piece too, which seems to be a running theme in this post.  He did a bunch of repairs, but also added some shelves to the right hand side of the interior to make it more functional.

Once he was done, I painted the interior in Dixie Belle’s Apricot.

I also added some of the Wondrous Floral II transfer from re.design with prima.

I painted the outside in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and then added one of my all time favorite transfers from Prima called Seeds.

I have literally lost track of how many times I have used this transfer, both in the large size (which is on this piece), the small size, and even the white version.  Here is it on a dresser …

and another dresser …

and here it is on a pair of beds.

Gosh that was a good one, unfortunately it was retired years ago and is very hard to come by now.  It sure was perfect on the ReStored armoire.

No. 2 is the St. Paul Hotel Bed and was a Facebook Marketplace find from January 2021.

Isn’t it fabulous!  Such a unique shape, and I love the curved footboard.

This one is also painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, and then I added IOD’s Le Petit Rosier transfer.

Are you starting to sense a theme here with transfers over Drop Cloth?  It’s just such a fantastic combination.

And this Petit Rosier transfer is another of my all time favorites.  It also came in both a large and small size and I have used both multiple times.  Here it is on a dresser for instance …

Sadly, it too is retired and hard to come by now.

I decided to save one of the few pieces that I’ve kept for myself as No. 1 and it goes way, way back to March 2017.  I’m talking about the Specimens de la Decoration cupboard.

Here is where it started out …

I’d purchased a pair of these primitive cupboards a few years prior to this and I was just using this one as a display piece for my carriage house sales.

But when I heard about these new things called decor transfers that were large scale rub-on transfers that were meant for use on furniture, I decided to use this piece as a guinea pig to try one on.

But first I needed to repaint the cabinet, so after giving it a base coat of Rachel Ashwell’s Clear Primer (yes, back when she branched out into paint, which was very short lived) I gave it three coats of Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint in Linen.

Then I applied my first ever furniture transfer …

and I was hooked!

The rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve since added some casters to the bottom of this cupboard, and it still sits in the same spot in my piano room and I still absolutely love it!

An honorable mention goes to my Gregory’s Catalogue sign.

I mean, technically it is a piece of furniture.  It just hangs on the wall and has stuff planted in it.

I also feel like there should be another entire segment to this trio of furniture re-run posts, one where I share some of the more colorful transfers I’ve used on furniture.  Like this one …

or this one …

or this one …

But I’m actually writing these posts on the day before leaving for my mom’s house, and I’ve run out of time.  I still have to pack!  So I’d better get going.

Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what your favorite furniture transfer is!

As promised, today I’m sharing my top five mid mod masterpieces.

OK, maybe masterpiece is a bit of an exaggeration!  And maybe mid mod is too, now that I think about it.  I’m not precisely sure what decades all five of these pieces date back to, but somewhere in the middle of the last century I think.

Let’s take a look and then you can tell me what you think.

No. 5 is the Millennial Pink dresser from May 2018.

Do you remember the Millennial Pink phase?  It seemed like everyone was talking about this color at the time.  Although in this case, I used Fusion’s English Rose, which I renamed Millennial Pink.

It was the perfect shade of pink for this mid mod dresser.

I gave the drawer pulls a refresh using Prima Marketing Metallique wax in Vintage Gold.

I absolutely love that combo of pink and gold.

No. 4 is this pair of Scandinavian style end tables that I got from my neighbor nnK’s parents in July 2022.

They had a bit of damage on their tops, but the rest of the wood veneer was in good shape, so I opted to just paint the boxes around the drawers using Dixie Belle’s Anchor.

Then I simply spruced up the rest of the veneer with Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

No. 3 is this literal trash to treasure dresser from August 2019.

Mr. Q and I picked this up off the side of the road, and it was in fairly rough shape.  But after some repairs by Ken the handyman and a little of Dixie Belle’s Bunker Hill Blue I thought it looked quite nice.

This time around I used RustOleum Mirror Finish gold spray paint on the hardware.

No. 2 is the Permanized Duo from August 2018.

Honestly, these were nothing to look at in their ‘before’ state, am I right?

But just look how great they looked painted.

They were both painted in Fusion’s Ash, and inside the little book cubbies on the headboard I used Fusion’s Mustard.

Once again I spruced up the existing hardware, this time with Prima Marketing’s Art Alchemy Metallique wax in Bronze Age.

That was such a fun makeover.

There was a third piece to this set of furniture, and that brings me to my No. 1 mid mod masterpiece … which isn’t really just one piece of furniture but rather many pieces that I painted using the same color … Fusion’s Park Bench.

I used this color on the third piece from the permanized set …

and I also used it when I took another mid mod credenza from this …

to this …

and another from this …

to this …

and yet even another from this …

to this …

This color didn’t just work on the low credenza style of dresser, but also on taller ones like this one from May 2019 …

and this one from January 2018.

I couldn’t pick just one of these Park Bench green pieces to share as my No. 1 mid mod masterpiece, could I?

I have to give an honorable mention to one of the first mid mod furniture sets that I painted, the Vintage Moxie set.

I painted this one way back in 2014 when my blog was just a baby.

The minty color was from Sherwin Williams and was called Aloe, and I didn’t even keep track of what shade of white I used.  I was definitely a pretty combo though.

Now it’s your turn, which one of the pieces in this post are your favorite?  Leave a comment and let me know!

OK, I know I said I wasn’t going to schedule any blog posts while I’m off visiting my mom this week, but then … well, I thought, how about some re-runs?

I was paging through my old furniture makeover posts a few days ago looking for a specific technique to share with someone and I was reminded of some of my favorite pieces, so I thought it would be fun to share some of them with you this week.

I’m going to break them down into three categories:  simple paint makeovers, makeovers using transfers, and mid-mod masterpieces.

Today let’s start with the simple paint makeovers.

I think of these pieces as having the best ability to fit into an already existing space.  They might still steal the show, but in a subtle way.  All of them were achieved with just some paint and some elbow grease.  So here we go.

No. 5 is the black bed from August 2018.

Here is the before …

To be honest, looking back at it now I remember that it was quite beautiful even in its ‘before’ state.  However, it did require a few repairs, and it also had some missing trim pieces.  The finish was rather worn too, but it certainly could have been sanded down and refinished.

But that’s not my thing.  I have never been a fan of stripping furniture.  So instead I gave it a simple paint job using Dixie Belle’s Caviar.

I distressed the paint job just slightly to make the details really pop.

I finished it off with some of Fusion’s Black Wax.

No. 4 is the Romantic Prairie Washstand from July 2019.

Here is where this one started out …

Your basic primitive-ish washstand.

I stripped the top (I know, I just said I wasn’t a fan of stripping furniture, but I am OK with stripping the occasional flat top), and then painted the body with Sweet Pickins In a Pickle milk paint.

The milk paint did what milk paint does best.  It chipped and crackled and ended up looking perfectly aged.

I finished this one off with Fusion’s clear wax.

No. 3 is the Soldier Blue dresser from July 2021.

I loved the details on this piece, but those white knobs were not doing it any favors.

After sending this one over to my neighbor Ken’s workshop for some much needed repairs, I once again stripped the top.  Then I painted the body in Homestead House milk paint in a color called Soldier Blue.

This is another of my favorite vibrant milk paint colors.

I replaced those white porcelain knobs with some round wooden knobs that I painted to match.

This piece was finished off with some of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta, which I consider to be the perfect blend of the qualities of wax and hemp oil.  It works beautifully over milk paint.

No. 2 is the Bunker Hill Blue Buffet from June 2018.

OK, in my opinion this piece was quite hideous in its ‘before’ state.  Something about that sort of ombre stain job just hits wrong for me.

This piece was actually a freebie, but we had to risk life and limb picking it up in the middle of January and carrying it up an icy hill to get it to the van.

Once again, this piece needed some repairs from handyman Ken before I could get around to painting it.  I also, once again, stripped the top and painted the body.

This time around I used Dixie Belle’s Bunker Hill Blue.  If you’re familiar with Dixie Belle colors, you’re probably thinking ‘wait a minute, Bunker Hill is a bit brighter than that.  In fact, if you aren’t a fan of using milk paint, Bunker Hill Blue is a good chalk paint substitute for the Soldier Blue milk paint.  But this time around I toned the brightness down with some of Dixie Belle’s Black Glaze.

I also swapped out the knobs for something a little more subtle than the originals.

I added a fun pop of color to the inside of this one with Fusion Mineral Paint in Coral.

No. 1 is the French Wheat Hutch from September 2016.

This was a gorgeous piece of furniture.

But back in 2016 this orange-ish wood stain was definitely not in style.  Everything was getting painted back then.

I ended up mixing two different brands of paint together for this piece (because I didn’t have enough of either one to paint the entire thing), Annie Sloan’s French Linen and Cece Caldwell’s Young Kansas Wheat.  Of course I called my new color French Wheat.  Also, FYI, both of these are chalk style paints and it was fine to mix them even though they are two different brands.

Back in 2016 I was still holding my occasional sales (I quit after this sale in 2016, and then resumed them again in 2024).  Anyway, I had already moved the hutch into the carriage house to prep for the sale before taking any ‘after’ photos, so the lighting was pretty poor for photos.  I wish I had taken more time to get better photos of this piece because it definitely was one of my favorites.

Instead of the chicken wire inserts that came with the hutch, I added some grain sack style cloth to line those two upper doors.

I just loved all of the details on this piece, those curved sides and that pretty detail at the top.

I hope those of you who have been following me since way back have enjoyed seeing these pieces again, and likewise, I hope some of my newer readers who are being introduced to them for the first time have found this post interesting.

If you have a moment, be sure to leave me a comment and let me know which of these five are your favorite.  Or, maybe head over to my ‘fab furniture (before & after)‘ tab and pick out a favorite that I didn’t share here today.

Then come back on Wednesday to see my top 5 mid mod masterpieces!

This summer I’ve been trying to make an effort to go through things that have been stored upstairs in the carriage house for too long.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t made much headway.  Somehow there’s always something more fun to do.

However, I did manage to drag this set of three bar stools down the stairs and into my workshop a few weeks back.

I don’t remember exactly when I purchased these, except that it was before I was retired.  So … yeah … at least 4 years ago.  I seriously considered putting them at the curb with a free sign on them.  But then I thought, no, just bite the bullet and paint them.

I originally planned to paint them black, and then add a Swiss cross to the seats like the stool I painted a few weeks back.  To that end, after cleaning them up, I gave them each a coat of Rust-Oleum’s spray black primer.  I even got so far as to paint the first chair in Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.

But I just didn’t love how the stool looked in black.  Then a little voice in my head said ‘hey, why not try out one of the new Dixie Belle Silk All-In-One paint colors instead?’

I picked Truffle because it’s a lovely, rich neutral.

The Silk line of paint has a built in primer and top coat, so technically I didn’t need to prime these bar stools.  But it was already done, and I’m not mad about it.  These stools had that shiny factory finish look to them, so a little extra primer just made it that much easier for the Silk paint to stick.

Each chair got two coats of the Truffle.

Then, inspiration struck.  I saw a post on Iron Orchid Design’s Instagram showing a set of cutting boards that were painted by Jonathon Marc Mendes.  If you haven’t ever seen his work, you should check out his Instagram account,  I really admire his style.

You might be wondering how a trio of cutting boards could inspire a set of barstools.

But it was the way he used the I.O.D. Gregory’s Catalogue paint inlay that caught my eye.  He just used parts of it rather than using the entire design.  And I happened to have that particular paint inlay on hand, so I thought why not try this look on the barstool seats.

So that’s what I did.

FYI, the paint inlay worked perfectly with the Silk paint (which is an acrylic paint).  One tip I’ve read is to not wait too long to remove the inlay’s paper backing.  Unlike chalk paint, acrylic paint is not reactivated with water and may not release the paper backing of the paint inlay as easily if left too long.  After applying the inlay into wet paint, I let it dry for about 30 minutes before wetting the paper back down and peeling off the backing (for full paint inlay instructions, head to this post).

After spraying the seats of the chairs with Rust-Oleum matte spray sealer to keep the inlay from smearing, I then sanded the edges of the chairs to distress them.

Finally, I decided I wanted to add just a little more depth to the Truffle color with dark wax.  So I blended some of Dixie Belle’s Brown wax with some of their Big Mama’s Butta.  The addition of the Butta helps the wax go on more evenly, and makes it easier to blend.  It also mellows the look of the brown wax a bit.

Here’s a look at the difference between a stool with the wax (on left), and one without (on right).

So even though the Silk paint doesn’t require a top coat, you absolutely can add one for aesthetic reasons like I’ve done here.  That brown wax really added some depth to the Truffle paint.

I realize that the look of the partial typography on each stool is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s pretty fun.

What do you think?

This trio of bar stools is for sale locally, so check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more info if interested.

Thank you to Dixie Belle for providing their products used in today’s makeover.

It’s time for another do-over project.

Usually I call for a do-over when an item isn’t selling, but in this case I’m making over an item that I originally painted for myself and used for many years.

This is your classic child sized schoolhouse chair.  It started out looking like this …

I used this chair regularly both while painting furniture, and also while taking photos of furniture.  It put me right at the perfect height for both.

Then back in 2017 I decided to give it a paint job using Fusion’s Putty.

That made it more presentable to have around the house when I wasn’t using it.

But that was 8 years ago!  Wow, time flies.  It had gotten pretty beat up, splattered with paint, and just basically dirty since then.  Furthermore, I rarely actually use it these days so it was just collecting dust out in my workshop.

So I decided to give it a fresh look before listing it for sale.

I started by giving it a good cleaning first, then I sanded down the stenciled design on the seat and gave the entire chair a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Blue Grass.

The Blue Grass is from Dixie Belle’s line of chalk style paint, and it went on beautifully over that original Fusion acrylic paint.

Once the paint dried, I sanded the edges of the chair to distress the paint back to that Putty color.

This is always something to keep in mind when you paint over another paint color and you like to distress your pieces.  That original color is going to show.  I think it works on this chair though.

Next up I added a portion of the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer to the seat.

I finished it off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax, and then I staged some photos in my garden using some vintage books.

This chair is going in the pile of merch that I’m readying for my fall Carriage House sale.  I’m tentatively aiming for the first Saturday in October for the sale, so if you’re local, pencil it in!

But I’ll also list it on my ‘available for local sale‘ page in case any of you locals are interested in it now.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for the products used in this makeover!