Category: furniture.

Is that Barbie movie being marketed like crazy or what?  You’d have to be living in a cave not to have noticed.  I haven’t seen the movie, mainly because I don’t go to the theatre anymore.  I’ll wait until I can stream it (and drink wine while still wearing painting clothes when watching).

I was definitely a Barbie girl growing up though.  Malibu Barbie was a favorite, I loved her tan and her long, straight hair that was so much prettier than my frizzy curls.

But Live Action Barbie definitely had my favorite outfit.

How many of you remember that one?  That outfit was awesome.

I have actually hung onto one of my Barbie’s outfits.

My grandmother knitted that for me.  It’s far more classy than the psychedelic number on Live Action Barbie.  That’s probably why it’s still in such good shape, Malibu Barbie rarely actually wore it.

But today’s post isn’t actually about Barbie, it’s a furniture makeover post.

Hallelujah, I have completed another piece of furniture!  Four more to go before the snow flies.

I picked up that hutch at a garage sale earlier this summer.  I thought it looked a bit outdated in that wood tone, with those aged brass knobs.  I knew it would be fun to give it a new lease on life.

Well, I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the right word.  These sorts of pieces can be so much work.  Especially if you’re opting to paint both the inside and the outside.  I started with removing those knobs and the decorative metal back plates behind them.  I then used some of Dixie Belle’s Mud to fill some tiny nail holes left behind by the back plates.  Then I cleaned the piece, followed by a light sanding overall, followed by a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. (again, an ounce of prevention for bleed-thru).

Then I got to work painting.  I painted the outside and the upper inside with Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Once dry I sanded lightly to distress.

I know that not everyone is a fan of distressing these days, but I still love the way it brings out the detail in something like this.  I also like that you’re not quite so worried about wear showing over time, because it’s meant to look a little worn.

And here’s where this hutch joins the Barbie world, I painted the inside of the lower portion in Dixie Belle’s Prickly Pear.

Wowza, now that is a pop of Barbie pink!

And why not have a vibrant pop of color inside?  No one will know it’s there unless they open the cabinet.

Sidebar note; our new fence is earning its keep in that photo (right side of above photo), it’s blocking the neighbor’s pickup truck from view.  It was worth every bit of blood, sweat and tears that went into putting it up.

I added re.design with prima’s Flower Collector transfer in gold inside the top portion of the cabinet.

I like that it’s very subtle in the gold on white (it also comes in black), and I know most of it will get covered up if the cabinet is full of stuff, but as I’ve learned from my own glass fronted cabinet, you can artfully arrange things to allow that background to peek through.  Especially if you’re a fan of the ‘less is more’ approach.

As you may have noticed in that photo, the shelves in this piece are adjustable.

Once the transfer was in place, I added a topcoat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat over all of the Drop Cloth and over the transfer.  The Prickly Pear interior didn’t need a topcoat since it’s the Dixie Belle Silk paint with a built in primer and top coat.

Finally, I added replacement pulls from Hobby Lobby.

I wanted something a little more updated, and a lot more gold.  Although these pulls came in ‘gold’, they weren’t quite gold enough for me.  So I added some of Dixie Belle’s Gold Gilding Wax to them to brighten them up even a bit more.

Although you could use this hutch in the traditional way, filled with china or knick knacks, I think there are so many other ways to put one of these to use.  You could use it as a linen closet, filling it with stacks of pretty towels.  You could use it as a small library, filled with books.  You could use it in the potting shed, filled with clay pots and other gardening items.  You could use it in your craft room, filled with all of your crafting supplies.  Or in the end, you could fill it up with one of your non-collections, like my matte white pottery!  The possibilities are endless.

What do you think of the transformation?

And I have to ask, do any of you have ‘I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world’ stuck in your head now?  Or it is just me?

This hutch is for sale locally, check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing their products used in this makeover.

My neighbor nnK spotted this headboard at the curb with a ‘free’ sign on it sometime last summer.

She came and picked me up, and we went back for it (she couldn’t load it by herself).

I had initially hoped that my handyman Ken would be willing to turn it into a bench for me, but he wasn’t up for it this time around.  If there had been a matching footboard to cut in half and use to create the arms, he would have done it.  But without the footboard, he just didn’t want to tackle the project.

So, it sat in my carriage house all fall, and winter, and spring … and I finally pulled it out to get started on it the other day.

At first I was planning to just simply paint it black.  After all, I’ve done a couple of these spoon carved beds in the past in black …

and they were pretty quick sales.

But before I could get started painting it, I needed to sand it.  It had a lot of flaking varnish and I needed to get rid of that first.

As I was sanding it, I seriously considered doing a ‘raw wood’ sort of finish on it.  It really would have been pretty fab with the finish stripped and then a coat of clear wax.  But honestly, I just couldn’t make myself do it.  I’m not a fan of stripping, and after sanding on it for quite some time, I realized it would require the use of a stripper to get all of those spoon carved details clean.

In the end, what I really wanted to do was paint it in Drop Cloth and add I.O.D.’s The Botanist transfer to it.  I was hesitating because I just don’t know if it will sell this way.  But I decided to just go for it.

After cleaning up the dust from sanding it, I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. first.  I have definitely learned over the years that it’s so much easier to be safe rather than sorry when it comes to bleed-thru.

Next up, two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

After that had dried for several days (while I painted the back of the house), I applied the transfer.

Isn’t that just pretty as a picture.  So sweet.

Maybe too sweet for some?  That’s what I’m worried about.

But I love it.

After the transfer was in place, I sanded lightly to distress this piece and then finished it with a coat of clear wax.

The transfer may seem like it’s placed too high on the headboard in my photos, but I think once you’ve got a box spring and mattress in front of it, with a nice stack of fluffy pillows, it will be just right.  And your pillows won’t hide the design.

Sidebar comment; just check out the tatting on that pillowcase.

Can you imagine how long it took to do that?

OK, back to the bed.  In case it’s not apparent in the photos so far, I should point out that this headboard is TALL at 6′.  It will definitely make a statement in any room.

As I’ve mentioned a few times before here on the blog, antique beds don’t come in sizes larger than a full.  They didn’t start making queens and kings until after WWII, and they didn’t become popular until the late 50’s to early 60’s.

So this headboard is technically for a full (or double) sized bed.  However, I’ve modified it to also fit a queen mattress.  We did this with our own bed, and it works out great.  You can find all of those details here.

But basically, with Ken’s help I’ve added a 60″ board along the bottom of the headboard.  It is pre-drilled so that one can bolt the metal frame to the board using the brackets on the metal frame.

The metal frame (that will be included with the bed) can be adjusted for a queen, full or twin sized box spring and mattress.

One could easily switch this back to a double sized bed by removing the board (it’s held on with screws) and bolting the metal frame right to the legs of the headboard.  You could also technically turn this into a twin bed by drilling new holes into that board, but I don’t think it would look quite right with so much ‘extra’ headboard.

When it comes to selling these antique beds, I’m always asked “is it sturdy?”  Well, in this case all of the weight of the box spring, mattress and sleeping people is carried by that modern metal frame.  The headboard is purely decorative.  Attaching it to the metal frame will allow it to stand up, but it won’t completely eliminate any wobble.  For example, if one were to be jumping on the bed (or, um, well, you know what I mean), it will make that headboard bounce.  But it shouldn’t come crashing down or anything, unless you’re some kind of a gymnast, and then all bets are off.

I always try to read the wording on transfers like this one, just to make sure they don’t say anything odd.

I had to laugh when I got to the part about descriptions that were ‘intended to convey both moral and intellectual gratification’.  I’m really wondering what the moral implications of ornamental plants might be.

I don’t know about moral or intellectual, but I definitely got a lot of some kind of gratification out of making over this curbside find.

Not bad for free at the curb, right?

This bed is for sale, so be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page if interested in the details.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the B.O.S.S. and the paint used for this makeover.

Remember the antique washstand that I brought home from the Nokomis neighborhood sale?

Well, I’ve been working on it for weeks!  Somehow it always seems like there is something else I need to focus on first.  But I’ve been chipping away at it, a little at a time, and it’s finally done.

I started with a few repairs that involved gluing some joints.  I also had to thoroughly scrub this one inside and out because it was filthy.  Next I stripped the top.  It took a couple of applications of CitriStrip to get that dark stain off.  Once it was gone, I sanded the top smooth and then stained it with Varathane’s Sunbleached wood stain.

I’ve used this stain a few times on various pieces and always love the way it turns out.

If you’re a fan of the sun-bleached look of raw wood, but you don’t like how adding back a topcoat darkens the wood back up again, then you may want to try this stain.

After letting the stain dry for 24 hours, I added two coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat over it to protect the top.

As much as I know that people are loving the raw wood look these days, and that top looked fabulous, I just couldn’t bring myself to tackle stripping the entire piece.  There is just so much elbow grease involved no matter how you do it.

So instead I decided to ‘neutralize’ the base with some of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.

Step aside Drop Cloth, this color is slowly becoming my new favorite neutral.

Last year I used it on my potting shed floor (as I mentioned in Wednesday’s post), then I used it on Annie’s dresser …

and then I used it on the Farmers Market bookcase …

And of course I used it on the trunk on my front porch.

And now I’ve used it on this washstand.

I love that this color has a little more depth than the Drop Cloth (although, don’t worry, I do have another piece that I’m going to paint with Drop Cloth soon).

I opted to swap out the round knob that was on the door for a wooden one, which I also painted.  Then I also went ahead and painted the drawer pulls.

Since I was aiming for a more neutral sort of look, I wanted to blend those pulls in with the body a bit.

Next up I lined the two lower drawers, and the cupboard area, with some scrapbook paper.  Since scrapbook paper is 12″ x 12″, it works out great if your drawer/cupboard is that size or smaller.

I doesn’t work so well if your drawer is quite a bit wider, and also has a curvy front, though.  So instead of lining the top drawer, I freshened it up with a coat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

Finally, I couldn’t just leave this piece totally plain.  So I added a small stencil to the cupboard door.

This is one of the small 8″ x 8″ German Grain Sack stencils from ellen j goods, and it fit the opening perfectly.

I have to tell you that I initially stenciled it using Drop Cloth, but found that was too much of a contrast.  I wanted a far more subtle look so I sanded that down, repainted the door, and then tried again using some more Dried Sage that I lighted up a tad with Drop Cloth.

Perfect!

I top-coated the painted areas of the washstand with Big Mama’s Butta from Dixie Belle.

I have to say, I definitely lightened this one up.

What do you think?  Do you prefer the lighter version?  Leave a comment and let me know.

This piece is for sale locally, so be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page if interested.

 

 

 For today’s ‘re-run’ I decided to share all many of the pieces I’ve done using one of my all-time favorite transfers called Seeds.

I’ve never actually added up how many times I used this transfer, I’ll try to do that with this post, but I’m not sure I’ll find all of them.

Unfortunately, this design is now retired and after a quick search online I was unable to find it for sale anywhere.  If any of you are retailers and have these available, be sure to leave a comment below with your details so people could buy them (or so I could buy them).

This transfer came in two different sizes and two colors, black or white.  And I’ve used them all, so let’s take a look shall we?

My first ever use of this transfer on a piece of furniture was the Blue Alligator dresser.

I had custom mixed the milk paint color for that piece using three different colors and two different brands of milk paint.  It’s equal parts Homestead House Loyalist, Homestead House Upper Canada Green and Miss Mustard Seed Kitchen Scale.

I loved the resulting color, and I named it Blue Alligator.

This was early days for furniture transfers (although smaller rub on transfers have been around for decades) and since then they have cleaned up the look of that hazy halo that a lot of people complained about.

But it never bothered me.  I was so thrilled to find a product for adding detailed typography to furniture that wasn’t incredibly painstaking and time consuming (hand-painting).

That was back in April 2017, and I used the smaller version of the transfer on a metal stool that month as well.

Or a portion of it anyway.

I used the upper half of that smaller transfer on a little wooden stool a couple of months later.

The next larger piece that I used the Seeds transfer on was this dresser in July 2017.

 I mixed up a custom milk paint color for this one too, mainly to use up a few partial packets of paint I had on hand.  I started by mixing equal parts Miss Mustard Seed’s Eulalie’s Sky and Shutter Gray.  The resulting color was just a bit too blue for me, so I then added another equal part MMS Grain Sack to both lighten it up and add a little more grey.  I loved the subtle pale blue gray color that I ended up with.

In autumn of 2017 I added the Seeds transfer to yet another dresser, this time over Fusion’s Limestone.

In January 2018 I used the smaller version of the transfer again, this time on a washstand that was painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen milk paint.

I advise using caution when applying a transfer over chippy paint as the transfer can pull off the paint, rather than adhering to your piece.  You may want to add a clear coat over your milk paint first, then add the transfer to avoid that problem.

The next piece that received a Seeds transfer was this linen press dresser painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

That piece was a bit of work since I initially painted it in milk paint that then proceeded to almost completely chip off.  I had to sand it down and start over with Dixie Belle chalk style paint.  But in the end it was awesome.

Next up came the garden beds.

It’s not often that I find a matching pair of twin beds, so I was thrilled to find this duo at a garage sale.

I added the smaller version of the transfer to the back of this chair in July 2018 …

and also to this little wooden stool in the same month.

While I was at it, I also used some remnants from a large Seeds transfer on this wooden tote.

Let’s see, are you keeping track?  What am I up to?  An even dozen pieces so far.  Let’s keep going.

I used another small sized transfer on a mirror frame that I turned into a chalkboard in September 2018.

and also on this washstand in October of that year.

That one is also painted in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

I also had some fun using pieces of the smaller version of the transfer on this pull toy.

I still can’t believe I paid less than $1 for that horse and cart at a garage sale.

I also applied bits of the smaller one to this vintage refrigerator box.

The following January I used the larger version again, this time on one of the bed benches that my handyman Ken created from an old headboard/foot board combo.

That bench is painted in Fusion’s Bedford.

In summer of that year I used the smaller versions on yet another washstand that was painted in Drop Cloth.

I also used the smaller version on the back of a wooden folding chair in July 2020.

It wasn’t until January 2021 that I used the larger version on a big piece of furniture again.  I think that’s because I was hoarding my last couple of these transfers knowing that I’d eventually not be able to find more.

That armoire was perfect for it though.

It remains one of my all-time favorite pieces.

I used another of my carefully guarded stash of Seeds transfers on this dry sink last summer.

Wasn’t it just perfect for that piece?

As I mentioned in the blog post about that one, I don’t necessarily recommend hoarding a stash of transfers like I have done.  They do tend to dry out a little over time, and then they become harder to apply.  Not impossible necessarily, but certainly more difficult.

But when they keep retiring your favorites, there doesn’t seem to be any other option.

Sadly, that dry sink received the last of my large sized Seeds transfers.  However, I did have a few scraps that were left over from pieces where the entire transfer didn’t fit.  I used one of them on the wooden box I painted for my potting shed last fall.

Then one of my lovely readers was kind enough to send me one of the smaller ones, and it made its way onto this little cupboard.

In the end I had one small white Seeds transfer left.  But to be honest, I never liked the white version.  The first time I used it was on a wooden box that I painted up as a gift for my sister in April 2018.

Yep, not spectacular.

I wouldn’t have purchased a second one, but when I ordered a black one from a retailer online she sent me a white one instead.  When I contacted her about the mix up, she admitted that she didn’t actually have a black one, so ultimately I just kept it.

I finally used part of it last fall on this toolbox.

It worked out well on that piece, I think because it was just a small dose.

I also tried to use the remainder of that one on this case …

I applied it over the I.O.D. Rose Chintz paint inlay, and that was a bit of a fail.  I ended up sanding that down and painting over it.

Although I did keep the little “New York” bit on the side.

OK, so I think I counted 26 pieces with some portion of the Seeds transfer on them.  Yep, I’d say this one was definitely a favorite of mine.

How about you?  Did you use the Seeds transfer on anything?  Or do you have another favorite that you used over and over?  Leave a comment and let me know.

I thought I would try something a little different while off on vacation this week, re-runs!

Hey, it works on T.V., so I thought maybe it could work here.

I’ve picked out a couple of different furniture makeovers from the past to share with you guys this week.  I tried to go a ways back so it wouldn’t feel too repetitive for those of you who follow me on a regular basis.

I refurbished these mid-mod pieces back in 2018.  Wow, can you believe that was five years ago now?  Time flies, doesn’t it?

Here is how they looked when I brought them home …

I purchased these two along with a 3rd matching dresser that I painted up separately, and forgot to get a ‘before’ photo of.

I thought it was funny that the manufacturer said these pieces were ‘permanized’.

I once again tried googling “Kroehler permanized furniture” to see if I could find any info on it, but that mostly took me to my own blog post about these two pieces.  So I still have no idea exactly what that means.

After scuff sanding and cleaning, I painted this pair in Fusion’s Ash.

This dark gray works beautifully with the mid-mod style.  I don’t typically use Fusion anymore, these days I would swap that out for Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.  That’s simply because I find that a chalk style paint is more error proof than an acrylic paint.  It adheres to a dicey surface better, it distresses more easily, and if you water it down a tad you don’t have to worry about brush strokes.  On the other hand, chalk paint does require a separate top coat while the acrylic paints do not.  It’s a trade off.

I painted the inside of the bookcase portion of the headboard in Fusion’s Mustard.

I love that pop of mustard yellow next to the gray, and it’s so easy to find bedding to coordinate with that combo.

In addition to the paint, I also refreshed the hardware using some of Prima Marketing’s art alchemy Metallique wax in Bronze Age.

The bronze was gorgeous next to the dark gray.

Although I painted these two pieces to match, if I remember correctly they didn’t sell together.  I believe the dresser sold right away and it took a while to sell that headboard.

As for the 3rd piece from this set, I went in a different direction with that one.  I painted it in Fusion’s Park Bench.

I definitely went through a phase where I painted at least half a dozen mid-mod pieces in this gorgeous green.  They all sold super fast too, so it was definitely popular.

I lined the drawers on this one with some paper I’d found that was perfect to pair with the Park Bench.

 I wanted to retain the original light gold on the drawer pulls for this piece, so I just washed those with soapy water and put them back on.  But the little round knobs were a much darker brass color than the pulls.  To get a better match, I again used the Metallique wax, but this time in a color called White Gold.

This trio was not actually the first time I followed this formula.  The previous February I’d painted another pair of mid-mod pieces in the same colors.

When I went back and read the original blog post, I was reminded that this pair had sat on Craigslist unsold for weeks before I purchased them and they were very reasonably priced.  Five years ago you could still get mid-mod pieces like this pretty easily.  I feel like that no longer seems to be the case, do you find that as well?

This time the tall dresser was painted in Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.

And the credenza style dresser was painted in Park Bench.

You can check out all of the details on those makeovers here and here.

So tell me, which color appeals to you the most, the dark gray (whether it’s Fusion’s Ash or Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road) or that fabulous Park Bench green?  And what do you think of the mid-mod style, do you think it will continue to be popular for another five years or even longer?

Leave a comment and let me know.

On Friday I shared the makeover of my friend Viv’s nightstand.

I mentioned in that post that I was also working on the larger dresser that went with it.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a ‘before’ picture of the dresser.  To be honest, it was just so big and heavy that I didn’t want to spend the energy to get it set up for a ‘before’.  So you’ll just have to use your imagination knowing that this large dresser was the same wood tone as the nightstand, and initially had the same round wooden knobs.

And now it looks like this …

I followed the same process that I used on the nightstand on this dresser.  I filled the holes for the original knobs with Dixie Belle’s Mud.  Then I scuff sanded and cleaned it.  I added a base coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. just on the top, because much like with the nightstand, it had some water rings and other damage to the original finish that might have popped through otherwise.

Finally I painted it with two coats of Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.

Once dry, I sanded lightly with 220 grit paper and then finished it all with some of Dixie Belle’s Easy Peasy spray wax.

You might think that all of that took a fair amount of work and was rather time consuming, but that was actually the easy part.  For me, anyway.

The hard part for me was adding all of those drawer pulls … and keeping them straight.

I fell back on a trick I’ve learned from my handyman, Ken.  I made a template.

First, I measured all of the drawers.  I initially thought that the top two rows of drawers were all the same size, but lucky I measured, because they weren’t.  The top row drawers are 1″ shorter than the middle and bottom row.  So I have two horizontal lines on my cardboard template.  The top line is for the taller drawers, and the next line is for the shorter drawers.  I simply used the template on all of the taller drawers first, then cut that extra 1/2″ off and used it on the shorter drawers.

Unfortunately, I totally messed up when I got to the two bottom drawers.  Although I had adjusted everything for the different width of those two drawers, I completely forgot that Viv had purchased wider pulls for them.  So I drilled my holes at the same distance apart as the shorter pulls.  Ugh!

So I had to go back to the drawing board and fill those holes back in with the Mud, wait for them to dry, sand, re-paint, then re-measure everything and drill again.  Luckily I’d only done one of the bottom drawers when I realized my mistake.

And fortunately, it wasn’t too difficult to fix.

I added just a few props before photographing this one, my grandpa’s artwork, some books and an old phone.

Once again, it was fun to give this piece an updated, more modern look.

I think it turned out rather fabulous, don’t you?

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing all of their products used in this makeover.