Category: furniture.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t normally do custom work.  Mainly because I find it too stressful.  I spend the entire time I’m working on a piece worried about whether or not it’s going to meet the customer’s specifications.  It’s just not as much fun for me.  I’d rather be free to make decisions on the fly as I run into problems, and then when the piece is finished try to find a buyer to match up with it.

However, earlier this year when I did the Blue Alligator dresser I had two people who really wanted it.

Since there was only one dresser, it went to the first person in line.  The second person in line, Debbie (not my sister, but another Debbie) mentioned that if I ever did another dresser with the same Iron Orchid Designs transfer she’d love to have it.

So, I did another one.

And as it turned out, Debbie didn’t like the color I chose.  Blue wouldn’t work in the room she wanted it for.

Ironically, I ended up again having two people who both wanted the blue one though, and once again it went to the first person in line.

So now I’ve done a third.  And although it wasn’t technically a custom job, I did paint it in a warm white, which is what Debbie wanted.

And this time I hit the nail on the head.  Debbie loves it.  And seriously, can you blame her?

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Oh boy.  I’m not going to sugar coat it, this one was in rough, rough shape when I got it.  That ‘before’ photo was taken after it came back from Ken’s workshop.  Ken took this one completely apart and put it back together again with fresh glue and wood reinforcements in every corner.  As you can see, it had only one sad little drawer pull.  Ken added the twine handles so that he could operate the drawers while he was working on them.

Not only was all the glue dried out, the finish was pretty dried out and beat up as well.

But I had a feeling there was some gorgeous wood underneath all of that abuse.

So after Ken performed his repair magic, I got out the stripper and started with the top.  I stripped any remaining finish off the top and sanded it down.  Then I waxed it with Miss Mustard Seed Antiquing Wax.  Yes, it’s just the wax over the bare wood.  Miss Mustard Seed has a great video tutorial on how to do this on YouTube, so if you’ve never seen it be sure to check it out.

Sure enough, it was the perfect way to go.  Just look how beautiful that wood is now!  I love these dresser tops that are made out of solid planks of wood rather than a sheet of veneer.

Meanwhile, I filled in the holes for the original drawer pulls on the drawers.  I knew I wanted to switch to glass knobs on this one (with just one hole each rather than the two required for a pull), so I filled the extra holes with Elmer’s ProBond wood filler and let that harden up while I was working on the top.

To prep the rest of the dresser I sanded it lightly by hand.  That finish was so dry that it basically just came off at the merest touch of the sandpaper.  I vacuumed up the dust, wiped the dresser down with a damp cloth and then painted the body and drawer fronts in Fusion’s Limestone.  It took three coats to properly cover that dark wood.

Once dry, I sanded the edges to distress and then applied the Iron Orchid Designs ‘Seeds’ transfer.  The transfer worked beautifully with the Fusion paint.

Q-tip:  the entire ‘Seeds’ transfer is almost 37″ long, this dresser is just under 33″ tall total, while the total space for the transfer is only about 23″ tall.  So I didn’t use the whole thing.  If you look back to the first two dressers, you’ll see that I did the same thing with each of them.  And in fact, I used different sections of the transfer on each one.  It’s quite easy to ‘cut and paste’ in this way with the IOD transfers.  And now I have a section of the transfer left over that will work beautifully on another piece.  It’s a great way to get two pieces out of one transfer.

Once the transfer was applied I went over it ever so lightly with 220 grit sandpaper.  That helps minimize the ‘halo’ that shows around each letter at certain angles of light.

Finally, I drilled new holes and added my clear glass knobs.

I’ve refinished a few serpentine dressers in my day (some of my faves are here, here and here), but this one is especially curvy.

Even the sides are curved.

I think this dresser has been improved 100%, don’t you agree?

So tell me, which of the three versions is your favorite?

I’m pretty sure Mr. Q and I purchased this dresser via Craigslist way back in early spring and it has been hanging out in my carriage house ever since.

It was in quite good shape.  At some point someone refinished it complete with a shiny poly topcoat.  If you know me at all, you know I’m not a fan of shiny and I’m not a big fan of the heavy grain of oak either.

I was in the mood to work with Fusion paint when I started this dresser, so I prepped the piece by scuff sanding it lightly, and then cleaned it with some TSP substitute before painting on two coats of Fusion’s Limestone.  Limestone is the warmest of the Fusion whites.

Once dry, I sanded the edges to distress.  Here is a close up of the mirror to give you a better idea of what that looks like.

To feed my current addiction, I added an Iron Orchid Designs transfer to the drawer fronts and the mirror frame.

In hindsight this dresser would have been pretty with sparkly glass knobs, but I opted to keep the hardware that came with it since I had all of the pieces.

This dresser has pin and cove dovetailing.

I’ve talked about this kind of dovetailing before.  Pin and cove dovetails were only used for a short time, from around 1870 to 1890 or so, and they were only used in the U.S. and Canada.  They never caught on in Europe.  Although I’m sure that the dresser itself dates back that far, I don’t think the hardware does.  I think this is reproduction hardware because it’s very flimsy and light.  Older drawer pulls like these were much heavier and thicker.

You may have noticed in the past that I often split up mirrors and dressers.  I find that dressers tend to be a little more versatile without a mirror.  You can use it as a changing table, or as a TV stand, or as a buffet.  But this time I kept the mirror.  The dresser just has so much more personality with the mirror in place.  It even looks amazing without any staging at all.

But since it’s way more fun to add some fab vintage props, I added my apron strings chair from Tuesday as well as the other ‘apron strings’ colored items.  I also added a few of my Limelight hydrangeas which are starting to turn a little pink for fall.

And I set it all up in the driveway for a photo shoot.

Sometimes I wonder if people driving by my house notice that I always seems to have furniture in the driveway.

Here’s the official ‘before & after’, what do you think?

This dresser is for sale locally.  If interested, please check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for more details.

Last Friday I shared the beginnings of my guest room makeover with you.  I didn’t really purposely ‘choose’ a color scheme for the room, it came about rather by chance.  As I mentioned, the cupboard painted in Homestead House’s Laurentien milk paint was something I painted months ago not intending to keep.  I added my mom’s little crocheted dress to the mix, and then realized that these two colors worked beautifully with a couple of vintage books I had and thus a color scheme was born.

At that point I couldn’t help thinking that the dress and that Tom Sawyer book were both similar in color to Miss Mustard Seed’s Apron Strings milk paint.

It’s not quite a pink, more of a coral, but a pink-ish coral.  Hard to describe, but coincidentally all of these items are this same shade.

Since I happened to have some Apron Strings on hand, I decided to keep an eye out for some small accent piece to paint for my guest room.  So when I brought these chairs home on Saturday, I was inspired to paint one in Apron Strings.

I’ve seen some pieces painted in Apron Strings on pinterest where the pigments show a fair amount of variation, like this gorgeous dresser from All Dolled Up.

You can see that the paint has a little more yellow on the upper drawers, but is a little more pink on the lowers.  Certain color pigments don’t always dissolve as well as others, especially the yellow.  I actually love that look on the dresser above.  I think it gives it a gorgeous, almost water color, sort of effect.  I was hoping to get some of that color variation on my chair, but I really didn’t.  I think I may have mixed my paint a little too well.

I also thought I might get bleed through from the original dark stain, but there was none.  I worried it might end up taking at least 3 coats of paint to get good coverage over that dark color (this was the darkest of the three chairs), but no, it just took two.  I was also was prepared to get too much chipping because I didn’t prep the chair much at all.  I just wiped it down with a damp rag.  But again, no problem at all.  In the long run, painting this chair could not have been any easier.  Keep in mind that the existing finish was very worn and dried out.  If the finish had been more recent, more shiny, more impervious, I would have either sanded it down more thoroughly before painting, or used a base coat of Fusion paint followed by the milk paint.

Since I didn’t get much natural chipping I ‘created’ some with my masking tape method.  I basically press some tape into the paint and then sort of rip it back off quickly.  I use the yellow Frog tape (for delicate surfaces) for this.  If you want more chipping you could try a stronger tape like regular masking tape.

So to recap; very little prep, no primer, no pre-sanding, two coats of milk paint, some post-sanding, a little frog tape and then I added a final coat of hemp oil.

I recovered the seat using some white chenille that I already had on hand.  The chenille tones down the formality of the chair a bit.

I’d initially thought the chair would work next to the cupboard, until I put it there and it looked like a miniature.

OK, that photo is a bit misleading, it’s not really that small, but the cupboard is quite tall and the chair is a little on the petite side.

So I’ve moved it over to the corner next to the radiator, a much better fit.

By the way, I almost nabbed a Jenny Lind bed for my guest room at the garage sales last Saturday.  There was one for sale for $5.  But then I noticed it was missing a spindle.  And it didn’t have side rails, just a headboard and foot board.  Still … I debated grabbing it and using the foot board (which had all of its spindles) as a headboard.  In the end I walked away though.  I’m still holding out for the perfect find, but eventually this room is going to come together.

 

 

I feel like mustard is one of those things where you either love it or you hate it.  It’s true of the condiment and the color.

Personally I love all kinds of mustard; honey, dijon, yellow, brown.  Mmmmm, just thinking about mustard is making me kind of hungry.

I also love Fusion’s Mustard paint.  I fully admit that I probably wouldn’t have chosen this color initially, but Fusion sent me a free sample of it last year and I used it on a toolbox and fell in love.

Recently nnK returned a typing table to me that she purchased at one of my sales and no longer needed.  The top was a bit worn, so I decided to give it a fresh new look.

I was planning to give it a little more personality with a union jack on the top in shades of grey, like the end tables I painted last year.  But then Monique from Reclaiming Beautiful saw it and suggested I consider using Mustard as one of the colors.  I took her advice and thus gave it a lot more personality.  I’m calling it ‘union jack with a side of mustard’.

This color combo gives the table more of a modern twist, or maybe I’m sensing a bit of a mid-century vibe.  What do you think?

This table itself is really rather challenging to photograph.  From straight on you just see the metal base and the 1/2″ sides of the top.  I tried a bunch of different angles when I was getting the ‘before’ shots and they were all pretty awful.  So I really wasn’t sure how I was going to stage the piece and get good photos.  I also debated, do I stage it as a desk, or should I stage it as a side table?  How about staging it as a bar cart?  Or maybe as a nightstand?  All were possibilities.

But then I remembered the September issue of Conde Nast Traveler that nnK had left on my deck the other day.  Just look at all of that mustard!

I had to use that.  Then I added a vintage camera to play off the ‘travel’ theme of the magazine plus the union jack.  Finally I threw in a golden toned wooden piano stool that plays well next to the mustard.

It was still a bit tricky to get a good angle on the table, but I had fun trying.

This piece really wouldn’t function terribly well as a desk, except possibly for a child.  It is the ergonomically correct height for a typewriter which is a bit lower than typical desk height.  However, it would be perfect for all of those other uses I mentioned; beside the sofa, beside the bed, as a bar cart or for that matter as a TV stand.  There is a lever you move to lower and thus activate the wheels.  Or it can be perfectly stationary with the wheels raised slightly.

By the way, did you notice that it’s only Tuesday and I’ve got a blog post?  I was so productive this past weekend that I have a back log of stuff to post about.  So I’ll be posting every day this week, hope you enjoy!

In the meantime, this union jack table with a side of mustard is for sale.  Be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details if interested.

 

 

 

Oh my gosh, I can hardly believe that it is September already.  Where did the summer go?  It started out with my two week trip in May.  Then there was moving my sister into her new house in June.  I spent a lot of time working on my master bedroom makeover in July and August.

In between all of that, I worked on this dresser and the summer just flew by.

But first, here is the ‘before’ photo.

This piece is large and heavy and I didn’t have the manpower to move it out of the workshop for a ‘before’ photo, so you’ll just have to excuse that.  I’d also already re-glued and patched some of the chipping veneer on the drawer fronts.  Ken had also already worked some magic on this dresser by re-attaching all four of the feet.  Two had come off when we loaded it in the truck, and the other two were pretty wiggly.  Ken added dowel pins and fresh glue and now those gorgeous feet will fully support the weight of the dresser.

If the style of this piece feels familiar to you, that’s because I’ve already painted its companions.  This small table …

and this small vanity …

As you can see, I got a lot of chipping on both of these pieces.  In fact, I even ended up re-doing the small vanity.  I had tried using General Finishes Flat Out Flat as a top coat over the milk paint and I discovered that rather than ‘sealing’ the chipping paint, it brought up more chipping.  I did that right before I left on my trip, and the photo above was taken then.  When I got back home I found that the finish had chipped even further while I was gone.  Basically I’d say about 80% of the paint had completely chipped off.  Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a photo of it at that point.  To salvage the piece I simply sanded off the chipping paint and then re-painted with the same Homestead House Stone Fence milk paint.  This time I added Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax as a topcoat.  Here is how it finally looked.

The good thing about discovering the propensity towards chipping on these two smaller pieces was that I was forewarned before starting on the large dresser.  I wanted some chipping, but I didn’t want to lose 80% of my paint.  So I prepped the piece really well by sanding it with 120 grit paper and then cleaning it thoroughly with TSP substitute.  That definitely did the trick because I ended up with just a very small amount of chipping on this one.

I painted it with Homestead House milk paint in a color called Bedford.  This is a lovely greige that is just a tad darker and a tad warmer than the Stone Fence.

I used another Iron Orchid Designs transfer on the front of the dresser.

If you look closely at the transfer you can see why I decided to call this madame’s dresser.  I thought about going with the full ‘dresser de madame la marquise de Cremy’, but that’s really a mouthful!

Once again I used the Real Milk Paint Co’s Dead Flat Finishing Cream on this piece.

I am really loving this stuff for pieces that I want to sell.  It’s nice being able to tell the buyer that the finish is washable.  And in fact, I was able to put that to the test on this piece.  When Mr. Q helped me move it into place for the photos he left a dirty hand print on top of the dresser.  It came right off with a damp cloth.

When looking at the ‘before’ photo you might have noticed that some of the trim at the bottom of this dresser was missing.  Some people have fancy ways of molding replacement trim out of bondo or some such thing.  I prefer to just fake it with paint.

I painted the trim with Homestead House Limestone milk paint and I just painted the areas of missing trim as though it was still there.

My staging of this piece hid the pretty trim at the back of the dresser top, so I took a quick photo after clearing it off.  I didn’t have to fake anything with that bit of trim.  It’s all there and isn’t it gorgeous?

The two little upper side drawers each have fun little coin/jewelry holders inside.  There was a velvet liner at either side of them that was pretty grungy though.  I thought I’d be able to remove the coin holders, replace the velvet and then put them back in.  I also discovered that one can’t get to the screws that hold the pulls in place because the coin holders block them.  Much to my surprise the coin holders were not removable.  At least not without leaving major damage behind.  I had Ken take a look and he thinks they are both nailed and glued into place.

So, I improvised.  I painted the drawer fronts with the pulls in place and I added fresh toile fabric over the velvet.  I used a little 3M spray adhesive to keep the fabric in place.

I had fun staging this dresser using old books, some hydrangeas from my garden, some pale roses from the grocery store and some ironstone.

We had a gorgeous sunny morning here yesterday so it was perfect for taking photos outside.

I may have gotten a little carried away with the quantity of photos, but I couldn’t help myself.  There is just something about these beautiful summer mornings in September.  They start to feel so fleeting this time of year.

 This is such a lovely piece of furniture, I’m sure it won’t last long.

This piece would work beautifully as a sideboard in the dining room or for storing clothing in your bedroom.  Be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details if you are local and in need of a gorgeous new dresser or sideboard!

You all know my opinion on matched bedroom sets, or as they called them back in the day, a bedroom suite.  I’m not a fan.  To be more specific, I’m not a fan of keeping them together and using them in one room.  On the other hand, I’m a big fan of buying them and separating the pieces.  It can be a tremendous value.

Even though I’ve already shared the ‘afters’ of most of the pieces in this set, I thought it would be fun to put them all together in one post so you can see just how far it went.

Funny enough, when I first looked at the ad for this set I was specifically trying to decide whether or not I liked the bed well enough for my own room.  I debated back and forth with myself on it for a while before I had one of those smack your forehead, duh, sort of moments when I realized that this set was a heck of a deal regardless of whether or not I was going to keep the headboard.  If I ended up deciding I didn’t like the headboard, I could still sell it along with everything else.

As it turned out, I loved the headboard and it is perfect in my master bedroom.  I altered it to fit my queen sized bed (read that post here).

I also love how the little nightstand/washstand turned out.  If I didn’t already have a similar piece that came from my grandparents, I would have been tempted to keep this piece myself.

I separated the mirror from the dresser, painted the dresser and added an IOD transfer.

Since I couldn’t use the foot board after converting the headboard to fit a queen sized bed, I decided to ask Ken to use one of the side rails to add a shelf to it.  I’d done this once before with a headboard and it was a great success.  This one turned out pretty awesome as well.

I made a Farmers’ Market sign out of the remaining side rail.  I currently have this hanging in my dining room, but it’s also listed on my ‘available for sale’ page because I don’t think it’s perfect for this spot.  I’ll continue to keep an eye out for just the right thing for my dining room wall.

 Finally, I turned the mirror frame into a chalkboard.

I didn’t share that makeover here on the blog since I’ve done several of these in the past and blogged about them here and here.  Usually I have Ken add a shelf to these, but this one didn’t have a good spot for the shelf because it has that raised panel at the bottom.

Here’s a close up so you can see the chippy, layered finish I achieved with milk paint.

That is a base layer of Homestead House Upper Canada Green milk paint with HH Limestone over it.  I used my secret weapon for perfect chipping, adding some HH Salad Bowl Finish (or Miss Mustard Seed Beeswax Finish, same stuff) between the layers of paint.

I finished with a top coat of Low Sheen Finishing Cream from the Real Milk Paint Co.

Currently this piece is hanging in my living room, but I don’t think this will be its permanent home either.

So, if you’re keeping track, I took this one 3-piece bedroom set and made six individual pieces out of it.  And technically I still have the mirror itself, which has a pretty frame.  I’m debating whether to turn it into a chalkboard also, or leave it a mirror.  So really, I will have 7 pieces in the end.  Like I said, a heck of a deal!