Category: furniture.

Remember the pile of furniture that I purchased at the Linden Hills neighborhood garage sale?

Well, today’s post is about that white bookcase in the back behind the other pieces.  As it turns out, I neglected to get a good ‘before’ photo of just the bookcase.  Argh.

My handyman/neighbor Ken would be so disappointed if he knew that I didn’t have a good ‘before’ photo of this one (he never reads my blog because he is 80 years old and he doesn’t even know what a blog is, so let’s not tell him about this, OK?).  He made some clever changes to it and I know he was proud of his work.  Although I can try to describe what he did, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Well, I’ll try and do my best.

The thing about this bookcase is that it was formerly a built-in.  One side of it wasn’t finished on the outside because it had been up against a wall and tied in to the baseboard trim along the wall.  The other side was trimmed out top and bottom.  And of course the side that was trimmed out is the side you can’t see in that photo because it’s behind the cabinet with the glass door.  Dang.

Suffice to say that Ken removed some trim, cut down some trim, added an outside to the one side, and basically gave the entire piece a more symmetrical look.  He did a brilliant job.

While he was doing all of that, I removed the back so that I could stencil it.

I’d recently received some beautiful stencils from Prima Marketing’s new re.design line including one called Imperial Damask.  This is a large stencil at 22″ x 28″.

I knew it would be perfect for adding something special to this bookcase.

If you’re ever thinking about stenciling (or wallpapering) the inside back of a bookcase, it is much, much easier if you can remove the back to work on it.  In this case the back was held on with a bunch of nails and it came off rather easily.

So I started by sanding it down and adding a coat of Dixie Belle’s Fluff, which is a lovely shade of white and almost perfectly matched the existing paint job (which badly needed to be refreshed).

Before I started stenciling, I needed to pick the right color for the stencil.  I narrowed it down to three Dixie Belle colors; Sand Bar, Savannah Mist and Driftwood.  I painted a scrap of wood in the Fluff and then pulled out a small stencil I happened to have that is very similar to the Imperial Damask, just on a much smaller scale.  I stenciled a section with each of the three colors (please excuse the sloppy stenciling, this was only a color test).

Once I saw all three, it was easy for me to pick the Driftwood (far right).

Next I used a small inexpensive foam roller to apply the paint using the Prima Marketing stencil.

I just poured a little of the paint onto a paper plate and then rolled the foam roller in it.  I didn’t water the paint down at all.  The original thickness of the Dixie Belle paint makes it perfect for stenciling.  Much like when stenciling with a brush, you want to use a somewhat dry roller to avoid a messy result.  Runny paint is not your friend when stenciling.

I wanted the design to be centered once the back was back in place, so I measured and placed the center of the stencil at the top center of the back and then worked out and down from there waiting for the paint to dry each time before re-positioning the stencil.

Today’s q tip:  always start in the center and work your way out when using an all-over stencil like this one.  Otherwise your end result may look very unbalanced.

Before putting the back of the bookcase back on, I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s Flat Clear Coat.

Next I sanded and added a fresh coat of Dixie Belle’s Fluff to the rest of the piece, followed by the Flat Clear Coat.  I added a second coat of Clear Coat on the shelves because they will likely take more of a beating than the rest of the piece.

Once everything was dry, Ken helped me put the back piece back on.  While we were working I was telling him that I really couldn’t have done this piece without his help, while he was claiming that he really couldn’t have made it pretty enough to sell without me.  We concluded that we are a great team.  He makes ’em functional, and I make ’em pretty.

And this one sure is pretty!

The stenciled back adds so much life to this bookcase!

What do you think?

The bookcase is for sale locally.  If interested, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.

Happy 4th of July to all of my readers in the U.S. and happy Wednesday to the rest of you 😉

I thought it would be fun to go a little patriotic with the color scheme today in honor of the holiday.

Remember the desk I purchased at the Kenny/Armitage sales?

We came across it at the end of our shopping that day and I have to say, my sister is always game to try and fit stuff into her SUV.  So what if it’s mostly full already?  She will help me pull everything back out and re-arrange until the amazingly-bargain-priced desk fits.  Even in the rain.  That quality alone makes her the ideal garage saling companion.

Anyway, I mainly fell in love with the knobs on this desk.  Aren’t they adorable?  They give an otherwise fairly plain piece a lot more personality.  I’m so glad they were all there and I could keep them on the desk.

It needed a bit of repair, and at some point someone stripped some existing paint off of it and they didn’t do a very good job.  But it was nothing that a little glue and some new paint couldn’t solve.

After some gluing and clamping (handled by my handyman/neighbor Ken), I sanded lightly and then cleaned the entire piece with TSP Substitute.

Next I added two coats of Dixie Belle paint in Drop Cloth.  I left that overnight to be sure it was good and dry before I taped off some grain sack style stripes and painted them in Dixie Belle’s Yankee Blue (note:  all Dixie Belle products used on this desk were provided to me free of charge from Dixie Belle, but all opinions are my own).

I sanded to distress and then finished with Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy spray on wax.

I gotta say, I love that stuff.  It’s SO much easier than traditional waxing.  Just spray it on, lightly spread it with a cloth, then just let it dry and you’re done.  I will admit that it is not the cheapest topcoat option available though.  It costs $19.95 for 8 oz.  The same amount of Clear Coat is $12.95, and you can get a 10 oz. can of traditional wax for $18.95.  But sometimes it’s worth the splurge to go with the easiest option.

I did two coats of the spray wax on the desk top for added protection.

When I brought this desk home the drawers were all fully lined with some rather old and grungy contact paper.  I pulled all of that out only to find even older and more grungy drawer bottoms.  It’s always a gamble what you might find under drawer liners.  Most of the time I find pristine drawers that were always protected.  But sometimes I find yucky ones that were covered up instead.

So I cleaned them all with Krud Kutter, then painted them with the Yankee Blue.

That ended up working out great on all of the drawers except the middle one.

The middle drawer had a large black ink stain that bled through the paint.  So I pulled out the Dixie Belle BOSS (blocks odors, stains, stops bleed thru).

I followed what I thought were all of the instructions.  I painted one coat just over the stain (no need to coat the entire drawer bottom), let it dry, then painted a 2nd coat and let it dry.  Once the second coat was dry, I painted over it again with the Yankee Blue.  But once again, the ink bled through the paint.  Egads.

So as my dad used to tell me, when all else fails read the instructions.  It says right on the jar that if two coats doesn’t work then a longer drying time of the BOSS is needed.  So I put two more coats just over the stained spot and then let it dry overnight.

That did the trick.  The next day I added a coat of the Yankee Blue over the BOSS and voila, no bleed thru stain!

After I finished the desk I realized that it really needed a matching chair.  I just happened to have a spare chair out in the carriage house.  It also needed some gluing, but once it was shored up I simply painted it with just one coat of the Yankee Blue, sanded to distress and finished with the spray wax.

I especially love that Dixie Belle spray wax for chairs, it’s so much easier to apply than other waxes!

By the way, the back of the desk is painted as well as the front.  Whenever a desk has a ‘finished’ looking back I always paint it too just in case the future owner wants to float the desk in the middle of the room with the back facing out.

Since it’s the 4th of July, I couldn’t help but stage this piece up against the carriage house under my flag holder.  I purchased that flag holder years ago at an antique shop in New Jersey.  At the time my sister was still living there and I was visiting her over the 4th.  This style flag holder was everywhere out there and I’d never seen one before.  Just in general I would have to say that people in New Jersey do far more decorating for the 4th of July than people in Minnesota, does anyone disagree?

Anyway, I was determined to find one and bring it home with me.  I have since seen them for sale here too though.

Well, I’m off to enjoy the holiday with Mr. Q, my sister and my niece.

If any of you locals are in need of an adorable desk, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details!

Late last winter I shared the story of the three pieces of furniture that I purchased from one of my readers, Mary.  I finished the first two pieces earlier this year but the third piece was hanging out in my carriage house waiting for some more significant repairs.

Specifically, one of the legs had broken off the dresser and a big chunk of it was missing.  I thought I had taken a great photo of the dresser in its initial ‘before’ state, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.  Drat!

I did manage to get a photo of the repaired leg before I painted it though.

I have to tell you guys, when I first asked my handyman/neighbor Ken to take a look at this leg he gave me one of those looks.  You know the one, the look that says you’ve got to be kidding me.  But I had total faith that he could fix it and make it look like it was never even broken.

And I was right.  Basically Ken cut away the broken portion of the leg.  The he cut down and carved a new section of wood to match the shape of the original leg and glued it in place.  The man is basically a miracle worker.

Next I realized that a piece from the side of one of the lower drawers was cracked and had broken off.  We could have tried gluing that back together, but I don’t think it would have held up very well.  So I came up with plan B, remove the lower two drawers and add a shelf to the bottom instead.  Then the future owner could use baskets on that shelf instead of having drawers.

This involved another consultation with Ken, and a bit more work on his part, and here’s what I ended up with.

Ken removed the framework that was between the two bottom drawers, and he added a sturdier bottom ‘shelf’ made from the old bead boards from a ceiling that nnK tore out of her breezeway.  Try to imagine that there are two smaller drawers still in place at the top because those are going back in.

The next task was to strip the top using Citristrip.  That was easy enough.

Once I got that far, I was a little stumped about what color to paint the piece.  It had to be something that would work with the wood top and wood bottom shelf because I was leaving both of those unpainted.  I also wanted to use a contrasting color inside the bottom section.  I debated using green, or maybe aqua, or even just white.  But none of those choices felt right.

That’s when I decided to just go with what has become my favorite black, Dixie Belle’s Caviar.

And to brighten up the inside of the lower section, I painted it in Fusion’s Plaster.  I also painted the insides of the upper two drawers in the same color.

Then, while I had the Plaster out, I went ahead and used it to stencil ‘Farmers Market’ across the top two drawers.

It really wasn’t until this moment that I decided this piece would make an amazing kitchen island.  But for that it needed to have some sturdier updated casters so that it could be moved around in a kitchen.  The dresser had come with old wooden casters, but a couple of them no longer had the wooden wheel, just the metal framing for the caster.

So I removed all of them, but was unfortunately left with holes that were larger than the size of the new casters that I purchased at my local DIY store.

Once again, I called on Ken for assistance.  He filled the old holes using a dowel stick and lots of glue.  Once the dowel stick was in place, he cut it off even with the bottom of each leg.

Once the glue was dry, he drilled new holes of the correct size for the new casters.

Next I realized that I also needed to paint the back of the dresser if it was going to be used as an island floating in the middle of someone’s kitchen.  So I gave that a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s Caviar too.

Finally I used Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy spray on wax as a top coat over the paint.  I used Miss Mustard Seed hemp oil to freshen up the bead board lower shelf.  And I used Miss Mustard Seed Antiquing Wax on the dresser top.

You might now be rolling your eyes and asking yourself ‘why oh why does she use so many products?  couldn’t she have gotten by with just one?’  And the answer is yes, I could have.  I could have used the Antiquing wax for the entire piece.  It would have worked beautifully over the black paint, and it also would have freshened up the bead board nicely.  However, it would have required more elbow grease for both of those than the products I did use and I’m a fan of saving myself extra labor whenever possible.  So, three different topcoats it was.

So after many starts and stops and decisions along the way, the Farmers Market Island is finished!

And I absolutely love it!

My sister loved it too and is inspired to create a similar piece for her own kitchen.  I’ll be sure to share her project when she gets going on it.

In the meantime, if you are local and need a Farmers Market island be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details!

P.S.  Be sure to let me know what you think of the results on this one Mary!

A couple of you have suggested that I share a tour of my gardens, and based on that title you might be thinking that this is it.  But no.  I am working on a garden post, but I’ve also got lots of furniture posts coming up so I’m not sure if I’ll get to it and I’m not making any promises.  Plus, that would require at bit more weeding than I’ve been doing lately.

As for today’s post, ‘garden beds’ is just a play on words.

You might remember this pair of twin beds that I purchased at the Roseville City Wide Garage Sales.

I simply couldn’t resist a matched pair of vintage twin beds.  That’s just not something that I see very often.

Because they have some nice flat expanses on both the headboards and the foot boards, I thought they would be wonderful candidates for some Prima Marketing transfers.  I was running this idea past my friend Sue and trying to decide between the Seeds transfer and the Catalogue transfer when she suggested that it would be fun to use the Seeds transfer and call them Garden Beds!

I started by prepping the beds with a little light sanding and a good cleaning with TSP Substitute.  Next I painted them with two coats of Fusion’s Limestone.  This is my favorite of the Fusion whites because I like a warm creamy white rather than a crisp, bright white.

The reason I chose Fusion paint for this project was simple.  I wanted to avoid having to both paint and add a top coat.  It was a lot of painting, and I went through almost an entire jar of the Limestone on these beds.  But don’t forget I was painting two headboards, both the front and back of two foot boards plus four side rails.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded the edges to distress them.

Next I pulled out two of the large Seeds transfers (there is also a smaller version of this transfer available) and rolled one out to decide on the placement that I thought would work the best on the beds.

This transfer really is quite large and that’s one of the things that I love about it.  You get a lot of bang for your buck with this one (you can find it online as low as $17.99, so google it and shop around).  Well, actually that’s true with all of the large Prima Marketing transfers.  Believe it or not I wasn’t even able to use the entire thing between both the headboard and the foot board of each bed.  I cut off the top line, plus another line that was under “flowering roots”.

And that made them perfect.

In addition to the fun of calling them ‘garden beds’, I thought the Seeds transfer was also a good match for the flower detail on the beds.

By the way, these transfers went on easy peasy.  It’s hard to take photos of the process while you are doing it so I’ve never done a full on tutorial on how to apply them.  I’ll have to add that to my to-do list right after ‘weed the garden’.

I really couldn’t be any happier with how these beds turned out.

I think they’d be perfect for a lakeside cabin guest room, or for a girl’s room.

I wish I had a spot for them at my house, but there is no room at the inn.  They will be for sale while they last and for now I hope to sell them together as a set.  I suppose if they don’t sell I’ll have to re-visit that plan, but I’m hoping someone will keep them together.  If you are local and in need of some twin beds, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.

When I decided that the Seeds transfer would be the right choice for these beds, I contacted my friends at Prima Marketing and asked if they would like to sponsor this project as well as a giveaway for my readers.  They responded very enthusiastically and sent me not only several Seeds transfers in both small and large, but also several more transfers to give away.  Not only that, but they also sent a bunch of their Metallique waxes and I’ll be giving those away later next month.

But for today I am giving away these two transfers from Prima Marketing’s new re.design line.

Both of them are large transfers that are perfect for applying to furniture, but you can also apply them directly to the wall like I did in my guest room.

To be eligible to win one of these transfers all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post by Friday, June 29 at midnight (U.S. central).  I’ll draw two names at random and each winner will get one transfer.

The fine print: no purchase necessary, you must be 18 years of age or older to win, void where prohibited by law, the number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning, approximate retail value of prize is $25, if the prize is not claimed by Friday, July 6, 2018 another name will be drawn at random to win, blah, blah, blah.

Be sure to stay tuned this week for more transfer giveaways!

A while back Mr. Q stopped off at the thrift store to drop off some things and while he was there he decided to take a look at the furniture for me.  He ended up purchasing this piece.

Funny, I didn’t realize exactly quite how long ago it was until I dug out the before photo and realized there were no leaves on the trees yet!

Anyway, the piece is pretty traditional and not quite my normal style but I decided to modernize it a bit with Fusions’ Ash, a beautiful dark grey.

I’d done a similar piece in the same color last year and it turned out gorgeous (my sister ended up with that one).

This was a fairly simple makeover.  My handyman Ken had to re-glue a couple of runners for the drawers first, then I sanded the entire thing down to try and smooth out some of the more obvious scratches in the finish.  I cleaned the piece with TSP Substitute and then painted it with two coats of the Ash.

Once that was dry I sanded just the edges very lightly for some subtle distressing.

I was determined to keep the original knobs and pulls because there are 14 drawers on this thing!  The cost for new ones would add up rather quickly at that rate.

I love using the Fusion paint on a large piece like this because you don’t have to add a topcoat which saves a lot of time, effort and money.  Once cured, the Fusion paint will be fully washable as is.

I did use a little bit of the Homestead House Salad Bowl Finish around the distressed areas to protect any bare wood that was exposed.

A little bit of this stuff goes a long way.  I’ve had this one small 1.75 oz jar for ages and have used it on many pieces, yet it is still more than half full.

The peonies were in full bloom when I took the pictures of this piece last weekend and I thought the varying shades of pink worked beautifully with the color of this dresser so it was a no-brainer to use them for staging.

The white, dark pink and medium pink peonies are all from my own garden while those gorgeously subtle pale pink ones are from nnK’s garden.

We’ve had some relatively cool weather lately so it seems like the peonies are lasting just a little bit longer this year.

There’s nothing like a whole bucket full of peonies to make your house smell amazing!

As you can see, things have changed a bit around here since I took that ‘before’ photo.

The trees definitely have leaves now, and everything is a lot greener!

And I think the dresser itself is much improved as well.

This piece is available for sale while it lasts.  Check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page to see all of the pieces I currently have in stock.

One very blustery sub-zero day last January my neighbor nnK called me to let me know about a buffet that was listed as ‘free’ on Craigslist.  Normally I shy away from the free stuff for a few reasons.  First, they are often in rough shape and need too many repairs.  Second, I usually can’t get there fast enough to be the first in line.  Third, the people giving away stuff for free are usually not terribly accommodating … and why should they be?  After all, they are giving it away for free (I’m pretty sure my mother told me never to do that).

This time only two out of three were true.  The buffet was in pretty rough shape, and the people weren’t very accommodating.  They weren’t willing to help with the loading at all.  However, it was located right on my way home from work and I was leaving work in about 20 minutes, plus Mr. Q was available to meet me there so that we could carry it out of the person’s walkout basement, through someone’s icy backyard and to our van.  Perhaps the frigidly cold day worked in our favor because we were the first people who called and said we could pick it up right away.

And here is the piece we brought home that day.

I know some people might like this look but I find it quite hideous.  There is something about that mix of dark and light finishes that just does not appeal to me.  I knew I could make it pretty though.  But first I had to store it in my carriage house until it warmed up enough for my handyman/neighbor Ken to fix it up.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when it finally warmed up around here.  Ken came over and did some repairs to the drawers.  He and I then worked together and glued some of the feet back together.  Next I stripped the top of the piece using Citristrip.  And then after cleaning the piece with some TSP substitute, I finally got to the painting.

I painted the outside lower body of the buffet in Dixie Belle’s Bunker Hill Blue.  This is an interesting paint color.  It looks very bright in the jar, and it also looks quite bright going on.  So much so that you might be a little worried about your choice at first.

But it does dry quite a bit darker.  To tone it down just one step further, I used Dixie Belle’s black glaze over the paint (paint and glaze were provided by Dixie Belle).

The glaze was super easy to use.  I brushed it on with an inexpensive chip brush and then wiped it back with a clean cloth.

But I have to say, the look of the color really depends on the lighting.  When the light hits this color just right it looks much more like a cobalt blue than a navy as you can see in this next photo.

As you may have noticed, I changed out the knobs.  One of the originals was damaged beyond repair, plus they were kind of ugly.

I found these simple knobs at Hobby Lobby.  They were large and heavy enough so that they didn’t get lost on this big ornate piece, but I think their simple look allows the rest of the buffet to take center stage.

The insides of this piece were definitely in need of a little TLC too, so I painted them with Fusion mineral paint in Coral.

I kind of love that unexpected pop of color when you open a drawer or one of the cupboard doors on the side, don’t you?

I finished the top of this piece with Fusion’s furniture wax in Espresso.  Although I absolutely love how creamy and easy to apply the Fusion wax is, I think I may go back over it again with Miss Mustard Seed’s Antiquing Wax which is a bit darker in color.

This buffet is definitely not short on detail, but I think my favorite are those little finials that hang down from the trim below the side doors.  Aren’t they sweet!

I think this buffet has an entirely new look with its vibrant Bunker Hill Blue paint job.   I hope I’ve encouraged some of you to give this color a try.  Don’t be afraid if you think it looks a bit too vibrant in the jar, and remember you can always tone it down a bit with the black glaze or with some dark wax.

If you are local and in need of a beautiful blue buffet, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details!

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you are enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend.  I don’t exactly know what happened here in Minnesota.  It feels like we went right from winter to summer without stopping at spring in between.  Our temperature is supposed to hit 97 today, while a mere six weeks ago we had blizzard conditions.  Seriously, what is up with that?

So, I’m curious, how many of you have come across this photo on pinterest?

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m the only one who is utterly obsessed with that gorgeous color and that amazing authentic looking chippy patina.

I pinned that photo way back in the day when pinterest was new and you had to be invited to join, does anyone else remember that?

It took a bit of digging to find the origin of the photo.  I started by following it back to whomever pinned it, but that just led back to someone’s tumblr account.  Next I checked out the watermark, aprilpizana.com and found the photographer who took the photo.  I kept digging and finally found the answer.  April Pizana was hired to take photos at Rachel Ashwell’s b&b in Texas and that’s where this photo was taken.

So it’s a Rachel Ashwell piece.  Of course it is.  It has Rachel written all over it, doesn’t it?  The color, the gorgeous floral wallpaper, the fresh flowers.  The whole shabby chic-ness of it all.

But sadly, my research did not lead where I hoped it would.  To a blog where someone listed precisely what brand and color of paint is on that dresser.  In fact, I suspect it’s an original 60+ year old paint job.  So I gave up on finding this precise color.

But then I saw the Sweet Pickins color called Patina.

It’s pretty close to the same color, right?  A bit brighter, and with a bit more blue perhaps.  So I ordered some to use on an antique Eastlake style dresser that I’ve been hanging onto for a while.  However, once the paint arrived I simply could not wait to paint something in it, and the Eastlake still needs some repair work, so I pulled out this dresser instead.

This one also needed a few repairs, but my handyman/neighbor Ken had already done them.  The main problem with this dresser was the broken top.

Ken did a great job re-attaching that broken piece using dowel pins and glue and it’s firmly in place now, but the crack is still pretty obvious even though I filled it with Dixie Belle mud before I painted.  The entire top of the dresser is warped and Ken struggled with getting it to lay flat again.

Ironically the crack is not very visible in any of the photos I took, but trust me, it is much more noticeable in person.

But I’m hoping that someone else out there will appreciate this piece despite its flaws, even embrace them because they add character to the piece.

I ended up having to put three coats of the Patina on this dresser to get good coverage, but it did start out pretty dark.

I really expected it to have better coverage than that, but I could still see streaks of the original dark color after two coats.  So three coats it was.

I sanded to distress and then used Miss Mustard Seed clear wax as the topcoat.

When I purchased this dresser I thought those knobs on it were just simple wooden knobs that I could paint.  But when I went to remove them I realized they were metal.  Very plain, boring, solid metal knobs.  Obviously not original to the dresser.  In fact, if you go back to the ‘before’ photo and study them, the scale is just a bit too small.  Luckily I have a rather large stash of wooden knobs that I’ve taken off other pieces and I happened to have 10 of them that were a better fit for this dresser.

I painted them up and I love how they look!

I didn’t do anything fancy with this piece.  I felt like it had a simple vintage farmhouse vibe and I wanted to retain that feel.  The color itself has enough impact, wouldn’t you say?

The next time I use this color I might try to mix in just a bit of a more pale, minty color to get just a little bit closer to my Rachel Ashwell inspiration piece.  We’ll see how it goes.

But for now I have to say I am loving the Patina on this dresser!