Category: furniture.

At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon.
– Edgar Allen Poe

OK, wrong month.  If only that quote said ‘in the month of October’, but that doesn’t quite rhyme, does it?  Nothing really rhymes with October, which was rather unfortunate for Edgar since October is the spookiest month of the year.

Well ‘midnight’ works with this dresser because I painted it in Homestead House milk paint in Midnight Blue, so I’m sticking with that quote.

Before I did any painting though, I sent this one over to Ken’s workshop where a simple repair job became a tad more complicated.  I thought I just needed a few drawer stops replaced, but as it turned out Ken had to replace a couple of the drawer glides as well.

Once the dresser came back from Ken’s workshop I stripped the top.  After sanding it smooth, I once again waxed with Miss Mustard Seed Antiquing Wax.  Gorgeous!

Next I painted the rest of the dresser with the Midnight Blue.

I probably could have gotten away with one coat (dark color over dark wood), but I went with two since I had the paint already mixed up and I wanted that deep, rich color.  I also used Miss Mustard Seed hemp oil as my top coat to get the darkest shade possible of this color.

Today’s Qtip:  hemp oil will darken up your colors more than wax or other top coats.  For this reason I love using it when I want a deep, rich color like this Midnight Blue.  I also prefer using hemp oil over black milk paint.  However, hemp oil does not provide quite as much protection as wax or poly.

I had a couple of people mention how much they liked the drawer pulls that came with this piece, but I didn’t put them back on.  I didn’t like the way the pulls on the top drawer hung down below the bottom of the drawer itself.  It makes me wonder if they were even original to the dresser.  I’ll save that set to use another time.  I added these glass knobs from Hobby Lobby instead.

The top drawer of the dresser was pretty grungy.  I think it stored greasy tools at some point in its life.  So I lined it with some pretty fabric.  I purchased this fabric at a garage sale a couple of years ago and I’ve used it to line quite a few drawers.  But I’m starting to run low, so only had enough for the top drawer which was really the only drawer that needed it.

The drawers in this dresser are really quite shallow.  I can’t imagine it being very practical for holding clothing.  But I think it would make a fantastic bedside table.  It would also be perfect for use in a home office with your printer on top and the drawers filled with office supplies.  I can also imagine someone using it to hold a TV, you could fill those drawers with DVD’s.

If you are local and you happen to need a dresser like this, be sure to check my ‘available for local’ sale page for more info.

As part of our recent master bedroom makeover, we replaced our 90’s sleigh bed with an antique headboard.  Mr. Q was not a fan of having a foot board, so he’s much happier with our foot-board-free bed now.  Here’s our new bed …

Initially I was going to post our old sleigh bed on Craigslist ‘as is’…

Then I did a little research.  I found nearly 100 similar sleigh beds listed ranging from $95 all the way up to $579.  That’s a lot of competition.  I thought about listing mine for $75 just to stand out in the crowd.

But then I stopped myself.  Why in the world wouldn’t I paint it?  After all, painting furniture is my thing.  And out of those nearly 100 beds only a handful of them were painted.  Painting it would definitely help differentiate (that’s a fancy term I learned in my marketing class) my bed from those of my competitors.  It will also make my bed more attractive to my target market.  I already had all of the product on hand that I needed, some Fusion Ultra Grip and Coal Black paint, so the only additional investment into this project would be my time.

If you are considering selling items on Craigslist, I encourage you to do your research first.  Take a look at what else is out there and at what prices.  Keep in mind that just because you see an ad for a sleigh bed at $579 doesn’t mean it’s going to sell for that price, especially if there are 99 similar beds priced much lower.  Look at how long the ad has been posted.  Keep an eye on it over time.  Even if the ad disappears eventually, that doesn’t necessarily mean the item sold.  The seller may have given up and donated it to a charity.

One factor that still made me hesitate about painting our sleigh bed was the slick factory finish on the bed and not knowing how well the paint would stick to it.  So I decided to prep the heck out of it.

I started by sanding it well.  Not enough to totally remove the original finish, but enough to rough it up and give the paint something more to stick to.  Next I cleaned the surface with TSP substitute. Then I added a coat of Fusion’s Ultra Grip.  This product is designed to increase the adhesion of Fusion paint.

Today’s Qtip: do as I say, not as I do.  I should have read the instructions before I applied the Ultra Grip.  I really don’t know what I was thinking, but I used a big clunky paint brush that ended up leaving some pretty heavy brush strokes.  That was entirely user error on my part.  The Fusion website suggests applying it ‘thin and sparingly’.  After doing both the headboard and foot board, I did get out a better suited brush for the side rails and as a result the finish on those looks much better.  I can definitely see a difference.  So when using Ultra Grip, be sure to follow the directions!

I let the Ultra Grip dry the required 12 hours before painting over it though, so at least I got that part right.

The next step was to paint the bed.  I used just one coat of Fusion’s Coal Black.  Once dry I had to touch up just a couple of spots that I had missed the first time around, but I did not need a full-on second coat of paint.  When using a dark paint color over a dark wood, you can often get away with just one coat.

Next I sanded the edges to give the bed a distressed, pottery barn-ish look.  I added a little hemp oil to the areas where distressing had revealed the wood. This serves two purposes; it darkens up the fresh wood to make it look as though it was more naturally distressed over time and it also protects the bare wood from moisture.

Here are those side rails I mentioned.

As an added precaution I decided to hang onto this bed for the full cure time of the Fusion paint, which is 21 days, before offering it for sale.  If you aren’t familiar with the distinction, dry time is how long it takes for paint to be dry to the touch but cure time is how long it takes for the paint to reach maximum hardness and durability.  I wanted this bed to reach maximum durability before someone starts to use it, and probably even more importantly before they try to load it into a truck and get it home without dinging it up.

So, that was three weeks ago.  The cure time is up and this sleigh bed is ready to go.  I’ll be sure to let you guys know whether or not my ‘product differentiation’ paid off.

Any of you locals need a queen sized sleigh bed in black?  If so, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page.

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.