Category: 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.

About this time last year I posted about a vinyl stool that I painted with chalk paint.  Remember that post?

At the time I promised to report back on how well the painted vinyl holds up over time, so here I am one year later checking back in with this chalk painted stool.

Here is how the painted stool looks today.

It has gotten a lot of use.  Not only do I sit on it while painting, but nnK (my neighbor across the street) likes to pop over to chat occasionally and when she does she often sits on this stool while I’m working.  She frequently comments on how well it has held up.

Keep in mind that I used this stool while painting, so it does have some paint drips on it now.  It also has gotten a little dirty.  So after taking the photo above I used a warm damp washcloth to scrub it clean, then I added a fresh coat of wax.

It’s good as new.

I am nothing short of impressed at how well the chalk paint has held up on vinyl.  And nnK is so impressed that she brought me two similar stools to paint for her.  They both started out in this rather ugly color that she liked to call ‘baby poop brown’.

She wanted dark blue instead, so I went with the Little Billy Goat Prizewinner.  I cleaned the vinyl with TSP substitute, then painted two coats of Prizewinner.  Once dry, I waxed them with Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax.

Try to ignore that bit of pink reflection on the blue stool.  I should know better than to try and take photos anywhere near my red carriage house in the late afternoon.  The sunlight reflecting off the red always results in an unwanted pink glow.

So to recap, one year later, thumbs up on painting vinyl with chalk paint!

When we moved into our house nearly 30 years ago, the carriage house came with three built in workbenches.  Kind of overkill for us.  One of them sort of stuck out into the space in an awkward way.  Despite the fact that every winter I had to angle my car just so to fit it inside because of that one bench, a bench that I never used except as storage and display space for my sale, it never occurred to me that we could just rip it out.

Duh, right?

I can’t really explain it, but I tend to be guilty of this sort of blindness when it comes to the carriage house.  I just never think about the fact that I can alter it to suit my needs.

After the light bulb went off in my head about removing the bench, I had a second revelation.  I have ship lap behind that bench.  In fact that whole side of the carriage house has ship lap walls!

Huh?, you say.  How is it possible that she has ship lap and didn’t know it?  Must be the blonde hair, right?

Of course I knew what my walls looked like, but I’ve had these walls for nearly 30 years.  The ship lap revolution is fairly new, I’d never even heard of that term until I started watching Fixer Upper last year.  Apparently I had ship lap before Joanna Gaines made it cool.

Down came the work bench and up went some white paint.  And then it struck me that I had effectively removed a big chunk of shelving that had previously displayed quite a few of the ‘smalls’ at my sales, thus giving me a legitimate reason to do some craigslist surfing.  I needed a hutch of some kind to ‘replace’ the shelving for display, and preferably a piece that I could then sell leaving plenty of space in my carriage house for the car this winter.

It only took me a few minutes of searching before I found this amazing piece …

It was located just a few miles away and the price was reasonable.  Really, I would have purchased this one even if I didn’t need a display piece for my sale.  In order to secure the purchase, I had to run over and buy it on my lunch hour then return later in the evening with Mr. Q and a truck to pick it up.

By the way, I have a little trick that I use when I do that.  Maybe you know this one already.  Here’s what you do, take a drawer with you after you pay for it.  I learned this tip from a friend who had a piece of furniture sold out from under her at a garage sale.  Even though she had paid for it, when she went back to pick it up later in the day it was gone.  If you take a drawer, it’s pretty hard for the seller to sell to someone else.

Anyway, I decided that Annie Sloan’s French Linen would be perfect for this hutch.  However, when I pulled out my can of paint I realized it was only about half full (or for you pessimists out there, it was half empty).  I knew I’d need more paint than that, so I improvised.  I pulled out a half can of Cece Caldwell’s Young Kansas Wheat and I mixed the two together to create a mostly full can of paint.

I tried to come up with a creative name for this color.  Young Kansas Linen?  French Kansas?  Young French Linen?  French Wheat?  Hmmm, that has a ring to it.  I googled French Wheat just to see if anything would come up only to discover that there are currently some serious problems with the wheat crops in France.  Who knew?  But I didn’t find any paint colors called French Wheat.

The color turned out lovely.  French Linen is a warm greige on its own and the Young Kansas Wheat is a warmer  beige-ier color.  Thus I give you French Wheat …

And there are those ship lap walls that are now white.  If I had better lighting in the carriage house, this might become my new photo staging area!

As it was, the lighting was a serious challenge and I’m not entirely happy with any of the photos I took.  But this is the best you’re going to get.  After moving this piece multiple times while working on it, I am totally not in the mood to try and move it somewhere with better lighting just for some photos.  It is seriously heavy and awkward to move.

By the way, you are looking at the preliminary set up for the Carriage House sale here.  All of the items pictured are for sale; the chippy white chairs ($18) and windows, as well as this cute little chalkboard hanging from a knob.

Lucky thing I didn’t try to stretch my half can of French Linen, because I used every last drop of paint on this piece, so nearly a full quart sized can.  I did need two coats of paint to get good coverage.  And that was without painting the inside of the bottom section and the inside of the middle section.  These sorts of pieces can be deceiving.  There is a lot of painting when you’re doing the outside, plus the insides of two areas, plus shelves, plus the inside of the ‘secretary’ drawer.

Oh, didn’t I mention that this is technically a ‘secretary’ desk?  Yep, it is.

That upper middle drawer flips down and becomes the the writing surface and there is a little drawer and cubbyholes inside.

Let’s talk about the grain sack doors.  If you look back to the ‘before’ photo you can see that the two middle doors originally had a chicken-wire-ish metal mesh instead of glass.  It wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t great.  I tried painting it, but still didn’t much care for the look of it.  So instead I decided to go with grain sack inserts.

I am absolutely in love with this look.  I’ve done it a few times and I love it every time.

This time I used authentic grain sack, but still added the ‘1902’ stencil.  I think the mended spot is absolutely charming.

If you aren’t a fan of things that show their age, you are probably reading the wrong blog … and I’m not necessarily referring to just the furniture.

I’m going to give up on trying to come up with a non-grainy, white balanced, clear photo of this hutch now and just leave you with this last picture …

And then remind you that you can see this French Wheat hutch in person at my upcoming Carriage House Sale if you live anywhere nearby.