Category: furniture.

It was definitely time for me to get my paint brushes back out and start painting some furniture.

Taking a break over the holidays left me refreshed and feeling excited about getting back into it.

I’m starting small with this antique spool table.

It was pretty wonky, but I sent it over to Ken’s workshop and he shored it up.  When Ken shores up a piece of furniture, he likes to take it apart first and then put it back together using fresh glue.  When he was disassembling this one, he found this old nail holding the top on.

I always get a kick out of it when Ken saves these sorts of finds and leaves them for me with little notes (sometimes he even types them up on an old portable typewriter).  He knows I am fascinated by these sorts of details.

I think the age of this square nail gives some indication of how old this little table is.  I’m calling it a ‘square nail’, but if you look closely it’s actually rectangular.  Truly square nails were used prior to 1800.  Rectangular nails were used from 1800 – 1880 (Chervenka).

I found a very similar table online that is dated 1840 – 1860 (and the price tag is $1,295, bwa, ha, ha, ha).  The expensive antique has some finer details than my table including some hand cut dovetails, but the style is very much the same.

Given all of that, I wanted to give this table a paint job that would feel original and of the right period for its age.  For me that means milk paint.

Milk paint has been around for thousands of years, even some early cave drawings were done with a form of milk paint; a mixture of milk, lime and natural pigments.  Oil paint was developed in the early 1400’s and became the more popular choice of paint in medieval times (Rodgers).  However, during the French Revolution (late 1700’s) some of the ingredients of oil paint became hard to find which led to a resurgence in the use of milk paint.  The various French recipes for milk paint then made their way to Colonial America and became very popular (Candee).  Had this table originally been painted, it likely would have been painted in milk paint.

Fortunately, we don’t have to make our own milk paint with a recipe these days, we can just buy the powder, mix it with water and get painting.

Just before Christmas the lovely people at Homestead House offered to have Santa put some of their new black wax in my Christmas stocking.  I asked them if Santa could throw in some of their Coal Black milk paint too because I had this project in mind.

Since this table was so dark to begin with, I knew I could get away with just one coat of black milk paint.  It could not have been easier to paint this table!  Once the paint was dry, I sanded lightly.  Then I used the painters tape trick to force some chippy spots.  Next I added a coat of black wax.

The Homestead House black wax is so creamy, it goes on quite easily.  And it has very little smell.  This is so important to me when I’m working inside my house during a Minnesota winter.  You can’t be opening up a window to air the place out when it’s below zero outside!

I like to use a brush to apply wax when I’m working with spindly pieces (like the legs on this table).  It’s so much easier to get the wax into all of the crevices with a brush.  I have a brush devoted to black wax, another for clear wax and a third for white wax.  You can clean your wax brushes with soap and warm water, but I’m a bit lazy for that.  I’d rather just have three brushes!  I’ll admit I don’t wash them after each use, but I do clean them once or twice a year.

I apply the wax with the brush and then remove any excess using an old black t-shirt to avoid leaving any light colored fibers behind.  The black wax deepens the color of the black milk paint a bit.

I had to discard the knobs that came with the table.  They were metal and one of them was badly misshapen.  No loss really, they were pretty blah.  I replaced them with two of the knobs that I picked up at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago.

Along with a few vintage clocks, I used my painted books to stage the table.

Who remembers back when I painted these?  It was way back when my blog was practically brand new.  They are also painted in black milk paint (Miss Mustard Seed’s Typewriter).

I took off for a weekend last month just to try and recall the whole year.  All of the places and all of the faces, wonderin’ where they all disappeared. – Jimmy Buffet

Jimmy Buffet didn’t ponder the question too long, he was hungry and went out for bite, ran into a chum with a bottle of rum and they wound up drinking all night.  But I thought I’d ponder it a little bit longer and skip the drinking all night part, reflecting back on the pieces I painted in 2016.  It’s always fun to look back and remember some favorites.

I painted the book page dresser way back in January 2016.

It’s painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s milk paint in Marzipan.  I used pages from an old Swedish bible to fill in spots of missing veneer and I also used them in the library card catalogue style pulls.  The aged book pages worked beautifully with the almond color of the Marzipan.

The spoon carved dresser that I painted in June definitely belongs on my favorites list for 2016.

And hey, it’s also painted in Marzipan.  Perhaps I like that color more than I realized.  I highlighted the spoon carving with a brighter white, and I really like the way it was emphasized in a subtle way.

I have to include the bed bench from Belgium on my list.  Obviously I loved it enough to keep it, so that says a lot right there.

I purchased the bench at a garage sale after my friend Meggan spotted it and sent me a text.  I wasn’t necessarily planning to keep it, and I wasn’t really looking for a bench for my house, but it turned out so fab that I knew it was meant to be.  It’s painted in a mix of Miss Mustard Seed whites (Ironstone, Linen and Grain Sack).

So far all of these pieces have a few things in common.  They are all shades of white, they are all painted in milk paint, and none of them have a significant top coat.  Huh?  What did I just say?  Yep, no top coat.

Last year I played around with not using a top coat over milk paint.  As is true with most things these days, there are all kinds of differing opinions about this.  I’d like to first point out that I am not an expert!  I think it would be more accurate to call me an experimenter instead.  As it turns out, I like the look of the lighter shades of milk paint better without a top coat.  And I’m finding that the milk paint holds up quite well without a topcoat.  It may wear a bit more, but I’m trying to achieve a worn look so that’s a bonus for me.  I will say that if you need to be able to ‘wash’ the surface of your piece you will need a top coat.  I certainly wouldn’t attempt a milk paint tabletop without a top coat.

Not all of my favorites from last year were white though.  This pretty little french desk was painted in a 50/50 mix of Miss Mustard Seed’s Trophy and Schloss.

I used a Little Billy Goat goat stick in Gold Leaf to add some gold to the details.

And not all of my favorites were painted in milk paint.  The the l.b.d., or little black dresser, was painted in Little Billy Goat’s Old Pickup.

For some reason I didn’t have high expectations for this dresser, but I absolutely loved it when it was done.  The black body paired with the pale wood top and the simple touch of the Parisian address stencil were perfect.

And just in case you thought I’d forgotten to add a little color last year, this pretty little charmer was painted in one of my favorite Fusion colors, Inglenook.

I painted several pieces in this color last year, it’s such a pretty subtle pale aqua.

So how about you, did you have a favorite among the pieces I painted last year?  Are you a fan of color?  Or white?  Or black?

Here’s to another year and hopefully lots more painted furniture!

First of all, a big thanks to everyone who left an encouraging comment on my last post.  You all have convinced me to not give up on home improvement projects in 2017, and you’ve reminded me that it’s OK to keep plugging away at them over time rather than feeling like I have to get things done in the blink of an eye.  So maybe you’ll see one of two in 2017 after all!

But in the meantime, I’m getting out my paint and going back to basics with painting some furniture starting with some projects using Homestead House milk paint.  I mentioned a while back that they gifted me with some of what I like to call their ‘house brand’ of milk paint so I’m going to dig in and start painting!

I don’t know about you, but I tend to find that paint colors in real life almost always look a little bit different than they do in photos on the computer screen.  In fact, sometimes they look a lot different.  This is something that I really struggle with when editing my own blog photos; trying to get a realistic representation of a color in the photos.  I work on getting the white balance right so that the color looks true, but I know I sometimes miss the mark.

One of the reasons that I’m so comfortable working with Miss Mustard Seed milk paint is because I’ve used nearly all of her colors before so I know exactly what they look like in person regardless of how they look in photos on pinterest.  I know what shade of blue to expect if I paint something in French Enamel for example, and I know how it’s going to change if I put hemp oil on it instead of wax.  It’s my comfort zone.

So when Homestead House asked me if I’d like to try some of their other line of milk paint I got a little nervous.  I didn’t know what these colors were really going to look like in person!

However, as I was going through their color choices I realized that some of the Homestead House milk paint colors are the same as their Fusion colors.  So far I’ve been happy to find that the Midnight Blue milk paint looks pretty much exactly like the Midnight Blue Fusion paint.  And the Limestone milk paint looks pretty much like the Limestone Fusion paint.

But the Homestead House milk paint line also has some really pretty colors that they don’t make in Fusion paint, Cartier, Craftsman, Loyalist …

I’m sure you can see why these colors appealed to me!

Before using a new color on a full sized piece of furniture, I like to mix up a small sample and paint it on a board.  Just so I have a good idea how the color looks in real life as opposed to on a computer screen.

So I mixed up 4 of my new colors to give them a look-see.

1 Craftsman, 2 Upper Canada Green, 3 Loyalist, 4 Laurentien.

Pretty, pretty, pretty, right?  I’ll be using all of them down the road for sure, but my favorite was the Laurentien.  This should come as no surprise to anyone since Laurentien is my favorite Fusion color.  I was so hoping that it would be just as gorgeous in milk paint and I was not disappointed.

So I chose the Laurentien to spruce up the little thrift store chair that I purchased a while back.

If you look closely towards the bottom of the chair, you can see that it was spray painted.  I’m guessing that the painter was running out of paint, or maybe running out of time, because they didn’t get good coverage there.  I knew that adding just one coat of milk paint would be a quick fix and help even things up.

I gave this chair a quick pass with some Homestead House furniture wax and added a stenciled number to the back rest just for fun.

You may be wondering why I didn’t get much chipping when painting milk paint over spray paint, but I actually did get a bit.  You just don’t notice it because the colors are so similar.  If you look closely at this next photo you can see the chipping on the back rest especially right under the ’19.’

See the paler blue looking spots?  That’s chipping.

Now that I have my color tests done, I’ve picked out colors for several upcoming projects so be sure to stay tuned.

If you’d like to try Homestead House milk paint yourself, you can order the paint as well as the furniture wax directly from their website {here}.  If you are feeling limited by the colors available in Miss Mustard Seed paint, this is a great way to expand your horizons a bit.  If you prefer to buy your paint in person, check out their map of local retailers {here}.  There is a map of retailers in North America, and also links to retailers in the UK, Europe and Australia.  Unfortunately for you locals, I don’t see any retailers in Minnesota yet.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we get some soon!

Before I get on with today’s blog post I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the kind comments that were left on my blogiversary post.  I think I need to do a similar post a couple of times a year just to remind myself that there are lots of you out there reading and enjoying my blog even if you aren’t commenting regularly.  And that’s OK.  If you want to follow along without leaving comments, no worries.  I’ll just seek out a reminder that you are out there every now and then with a giveaway!

A quick little story about that post.  I had finished up writing it at about 8 a.m. Saturday morning and I scheduled it to post at 9 a.m.  Then I went about starting my day; drank some coffee, put up some Christmas decorations and then at about 10 a.m. I realized that I hadn’t gotten a single ping on my phone indicating a comment.  I panicked for a moment.  Had I forgotten to click ‘publish’?  Or was it just that not one single person had felt like commenting?  Perhaps no one cared!  Or was it just that everyone was busy Christmas shopping instead of reading blogs?  Yes, I’ll admit, these kinds of thoughts go through my head.  I picked up my phone.  Not a single email notifying me of a comment (I get these from WordPress).  I checked my computer … ooohhhh … I had published the post and there were comments.  Every once in a while my phone loses its connection with my email account and that’s what had happened.  I just had to reboot my phone and all of the emails came flooding in.  But how ironic that this should happen that morning!

It was so nice to get so many comments, and very nice to hear from some of you who have been reading for a while and had never introduced yourselves via a comment.  Welcome to all of you, and again thank you for so many amazing comments.  If you haven’t left a comment on that post yet, be sure to do so by Friday, Dec 2 at midnight to be eligible to win!

And now, on with today’s post …

It’s official, the furniture moratorium is over!  I have a handful of small projects in the carriage house waiting their turn, but one whole side was practically empty.  So after I came back from my trip I started scouring Craigslist for potential candidates for a makeover.  I also had an idea brewing in the back of my mind for re-purposing an Eastlake style dresser mirror frame.  When I found a nice Eastlake dresser with a mirror that was available in Hopkins, I remembered that I’d also seen another nice piece that was in Hopkins.  I had passed up the first one because Hopkins is on the other side of the cities from me, but it was worth the trip for two pieces!

So on a recent Saturday afternoon Mr. Q and I headed out to Hopkins.  The first dresser we picked up was this one …

The seller was moving out of her townhome and into a condo and thus was downsizing.  She mentioned that the bed in the room was also for sale.  It was lovely, but not a piece I would want to paint.  However, I asked if the small side table was also for sale.  At first she said no, but then she thought about it and said she would sell it to me after all.  She wasn’t that attached to it and her new place is pretty small.  So it came home with me too.  You’ve already seen it in my photos with the Midnight Blue chairs.

We headed to our next stop to pick up the Eastlake style dresser.

I felt like the mirror overpowered the dresser on this piece, what do you think?

No worries though, I wanted to separate these two anyway.  I first removed the swiveling mirror.  Then I sent the frame off to Ken’s workshop along with a beadboard ceiling board that originally came from nnK’s house (she ripped out a gorgeous original beadboard ceiling in her breezeway in favor of a vaulted ceiling and she gave me all of the salvage).  Ken cut the board down to make a small shelf and two brackets at the bottom of the frame.  He also cut a piece of backer board to fit the mirror opening so that I could turn it into a chalkboard.

Once Ken was done with those tasks, I painted the frame and its new shelf with some Homestead House milk paint in Limestone.  I mentioned a week or so ago that Homestead House sent me some samples of their milk paint to try out and this is another color that I received from them.

I painted the backer board using the green chalkboard paint recipe from Allison at The Golden Sycamore (click on that link to visit her blog and read about the recipe, it’s a combo of two Miss Mustard milk paint colors and I love how it turns out every time).

Finally, I copied a Farm Fresh Christmas Tree design that I also found on pinterest, and voila!

I used a brighter white acrylic craft paint to highlight the spoon carving at the top of the frame.

After using my painters tape trick to encourage some chipping I got just the right amount of chippy-ness out of the milk paint.  That’s three coats of Limestone, by the way.  I generally find that it takes about 3 coats when covering a dark-ish wood with white paint.

I’ve been finding lately that it works well for me to add just the most sparing amount of wax to my milk painted pieces.  I don’t thoroughly wax it by any means.  I take about a dime sized dab of wax and work it into my cloth really well.  Then I just lightly wipe over the piece.  I don’t think this method is going to provide much in the way of water protection.  But since this is a frame that will just hang on the wall and get very little human contact, I think it will be fine.

I draped a cotton bole swag across the top of the frame after I hung it over my sofa.  I picked the swag up at Home Goods last year, but I bet you can find these all over this year.

I never intended to keep this piece but once it was finished I realized I just wasn’t going to be able to part with it.  I absolutely love how it turned out.

And it does fit perfectly above the sofa in my living room.

But not to worry.  I also loved it so much that I decided to make another one.  The frame I’ll use is a little bit different, but I think it will still be just as fab.  It’s over in Ken’s workshop now.  I’ll be sure to share that one with you when it’s finished too!

I’m still working with the pile of freebies that my friend Terri sent my way when her uncle passed away.  This pair of end tables was among the items she gave me.

They are very traditional and they have that 80’s sort of finish.  Just check out those shiny tops!

I kept passing them over in favor of other projects, mainly because I just wasn’t all that inspired by them.  I debated painting them a bright color, or just painting them black.  But in the end I couldn’t help wanting to give them each a union jack.

I’ve done a few union jack pieces in the past.  Every time I do one I’m reminded of how much measuring and taping there is, and how many steps it takes.  Paint a base color, wait for it to dry.  Tape and paint the white layer, wait for it to dry.  Tape and paint the 3rd layer, wait for it to dry.  You get the idea.  It’s a great project for evenings after work though because each step doesn’t take long, but you need that drying time in between.  I painted these over the course of last week.

But every time I do one of these, I’m also reminded of how much I love them.  I’m not even the tiniest bit British (well, maybe a tiny bit, I think my maternal grandfather had some ancestors that came from England), but there is just something about the design of the union jack that appeals to me.

As you can see, I chose to forgo the traditional red, white and blue in favor of shades of grey.  It tones down the design a little, and it will be easier for the future potential buyer to work neutral shades into their existing space. The base color is one of Fusion’s new colors called Putty.  The white layer is their new Raw Silk.  The 3rd color is a combination of Putty and another Fusion white called Champlain.

I like to use the Fusion paint when working with taped lines and multiple colors on one surface for two reasons.  First of all, Fusion paint won’t pull off with the tape like milk paint will (as long as your surface is prepped with some sanding/cleaning and you are sure to wait for the paint to be fully dry before taping over it).  And second, you don’t have to add wax with Fusion.  With chalk paint, I find that adding the wax topcoat tends to drag the other colors into the white.  This wouldn’t have been as big a problem with these grey tones, but if you’re using red it is definitely an issue.

I included the magazine with crisp whites and greys in this next photo to help you see that the Fusion colors I used are warmer versions of white and grey.

By the way, looking at how shiny those tops were, you might be wondering how well the paint did adhere as I was using the tape.  I debated using a coat of Fusion’s Ultra Grip on just the tops, but in the end I didn’t.  Instead I sanded them really well to rough them up.  I also gave each paint color a full 24 hours or so to dry before using tape on it.  I used the yellow Frog tape (for delicate and freshly painted surfaces) and I had absolutely no issues with paint pulling off on the tape.

After I made the decision to add the union jack to the table tops, I realized that I had the perfect replacement knobs.  It’s hard to see in the photos, but these knobs say “Regent Clockworks London” on them.

Unfortunately I only had two of them.  I had purchased them at World Market so I checked on line to see if I could buy two more, no dice.  Then I went to my local World Market to look for them, again, denied.  Argh.

I’m going to have to come up with two similar, but not matching knobs for the second table.

It seemed appropriate to stage my photos with my Perfect English Farmhouse book and an English ironstone tea set.

I think a paint job was exactly what these tables needed to give them a little more personality.

What do you think?

These tables are for sale.  For more info, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab.

This year I’ll be observing Halloween in my favorite way;  staying home, wearing comfy fleece, and watching Hitchcock’s The Birds.  I would love to say that I’ll also be handing out candy to darling little kids in costumes when they come to my door, but historically we only get two or three ‘trick or treaters’ at our house.

But meanwhile I thought I would share a quick chair makeover with you.  The legs of this chair were sticking up out of my car with that haul of stuff I showed you last week.  Here’s how it looked when I pulled it out of the car.

I needed another chair to keep in my home office a.k.a. the Q Branch so that when my sister comes over she has somewhere to sit if we’re surfing the web.

Although it was gloomy and grey this past weekend, the temperature on Saturday morning was in the low 50’s.  It felt plenty warm enough outside to paint, at least for a tough Minnesotan like me 😉

I know that some paints require a minimum temperature of 60 or so, but not milk paint.  I checked with the Homestead House people and they said that I can apply milk paint in temps right down to freezing.  It will work perfectly well, but may take just a tad longer to dry in colder temps.  How handy in my climate!

So I headed out into the carriage house and painted three coats of a mix of Miss Mustard Seed whites (Linen, Ironstone and Grain Sack) on the chair.  As is the case on most pieces I paint for myself, I would have been thrilled with tons of chippy-ness but that didn’t quite happen.

I hope that it will wear more with use over time.  Fingers crossed.

I had a little paint left over while working on this project, so I pulled out a step stool that I picked up at another garage sale this summer.  This is the only ‘before’ photo I could find.

  It was already painted white but was a chippy mess.  Especially on the top, I’d say about 80% of the paint was missing from the top.  If you look closely you can also see that the paint was totally peeling away underneath.  One of my tricks with pieces like this is to scrape off the peeling paint, give it a good sanding and then just add a fresh coat or two of milk paint on top of the existing paint.  I don’t fully paint it, I try to leave the wear on the edges alone.  But the fresh white paint gives it a cleaner look.  Shabby rather than grungy.

The stencil just adds that little extra something.

I thought it would be fun to throw in my Happy Halloween pillow and share these pieces with you today.  I don’t intend to keep the chair and the stool together as a pair, but they would work well together, wouldn’t they?

I snagged the pillow from the $1 aisle at Target (although it cost $3).  It was the last one they had at my store when I grabbed it several weeks ago.  I am betting they went really fast at that price.

So, how do you like to spend Halloween?  Painting with milk paint outdoors?  Out prowling the streets with the kiddos?  Living it up at a costume party?  Or like me, warm and cozy at home with some hot apple cider and a classic horror film?

A while back I was headed home on my lunch hour (I live very close to my day job office) and I happened to see a garage sale sign.  Cue squealing brake noise.

I remembered having stopped at a sale on the same street a year or so ago, and if this was the same house they had some great stuff!

Sure enough, it was.  And once again, they had some great stuff.

I came home with a carload of fabulous finds.  I shared this photo on my Facebook page at the time.  Lucky I drive a convertible!

One of the items I picked up at that sale was this metal base (that’s it in the front passenger seat too).

I think this was probably the base to an old typewriter stand.  It likely had a wood top with drop leaves on either side.  I was really drawn to the chippy paint and to these cool industrial looking wheels.

I knew Ken would make short work out of cutting a new top for it out of some scrap barn wood that I had lying around.

Sure enough, I came home from work on Monday to find the finished product waiting for me in the carriage house.

I only had to do one more thing.  The newly cut raw edges of the barn wood looked pretty fresh.

We can’t have that!  So I rubbed some antiquing wax into those fresh cuts to ‘dirty’ them up a bit.

So shabby industrial metal base meets farmhouse salvaged barn wood.

I’m showing this little stand used as a small side table, but I also think it would make a great plant stand.  I’m also thinking about using it at Christmas as a tree stand.  I could put a small tabletop sized tree on it.

What do you think?

Have you ever been on a cruise?  I’ve been on a few, but I rarely manage to make it to the midnight buffet.  I’m usually still full from dinner.  We’ve gone a few times just to look at the carved melons or chocolate sculptures.

But today I’m talking about a different kind of midnight buffet, this is a Midnight Blue buffet.

Here is where it started out.

I was rather undecided about those carved medallions.  Please share your opinion on those with me.  Are they hideous?  Or would they have been kind of fab painted?  Would you keep them, or take them off?  I really wasn’t sure.  So I decided to see how hard it would be to remove them.  As it turned out, not hard at all.  So I took that as a sign and off they came.

They left some glue behind though.  And although I tried my best to sand that off without ruining the veneer, I wasn’t totally successful.  If you look at this piece from just the right angle you can see the splotches.

But I moved on and painted the whole piece in one of Fusion’s new colors, Midnight Blue.

It is the perfect navy blue.  I’m so glad they came out with this color.  I have several chairs that I want to paint in this hue too.

I only used one coat of paint on this buffet.  I was going for a distressed look.  If I’d wanted really solid coverage I would have added a second coat.  I did sand the edges for that distressed look.

I swapped out the original drawer pulls on this piece for some grey knobs that I picked up at World Market.  I think they help give it a slightly updated look.

The top drawer of the buffet has a clever little tray inside for silverware (or whisk brooms).  I replaced the green felt liner with some navy blue fabric that I had on hand instead.

Have I ever mentioned that I have a stash of old whisk brooms?  It may seem strange, but I once saw a wreath made out of them.  So I started grabbing them whenever I saw them at garage sales and I think I may finally have enough for a wreath, but now I’m no longer so sure I want one.  The story of my life.

I particularly love blue handle on this one though.

I have a small confession to make.  Those leaves didn’t just gracefully fall on my buffet for the photos.  I raked up a pile under my maple tree and then sort of scattered them about over the buffet.  It was really kind of fun playing with fallen leaves.

If you happen to be in the mood for a little midnight buffet, this one is for sale.  Check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for updated info.