Category: furniture.

Bigger is better?

Before we get into today’s post, did you notice I made some tweaks to the blog?  Wordpress announced a new and improved version of my blog ‘theme’ way back in January, but I never took the time to look at it until now.  With this new theme, my page is wider, my photos can be larger, my fonts are larger … everything is just BIGGER!  I think that’s a good thing, but what do you think?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion.

I’m still exploring some other possibilities with this new theme, so don’t be surprised if you see a few more changes here over the coming weeks.

On with today’s post!

I’m a fan of color blocking, how about you?

I like it in clothes, and I also like it in decor.  In fashion, color blocking is described as pairing blocks of different colors together.  It usually refers to pairing bright colors, so maybe I should call this ‘toned down color blocking’ because rather than using bright colors I used the muted tones of Fusion’s Algonquin and Limestone on this bed frame.

This bed came to me as part of a set.  I split it up since I’m not much of a fan of ‘suites’ of furniture.  The dresser and vanity have already been painted and all that was left was this bed.  It was in great shape and has the side rails and the slats meant for holding the box spring and mattress, but it wasn’t particularly pretty or interesting.  It was just rather dull.

So I decided to give it a slightly more modern vibe with some toned down color blocking.

First I painted the entire bed in Algonquin, which is a lovely sort of greige color.  The I simply measured and taped off a wide stripe down the center of the headboard and foot board and painted that in the Limestone.

I distressed the edges a little with sandpaper.

Both my sister and my neighbor, nnK, asked me if I was going to put a stencil on the headboard, but I thought that would be too much.  I like that this bed has a subtle sense of style.  It could be dressed up or down with different bedding.

It is for sale.  It is a full/double size bed, so a great candidate for a kids room or a guest room.  Unfortunately vintage beds in anything larger than a full are pretty much unheard of since queen and king sized beds weren’t really around until the 50’s and 60’s.

By the way, have I mentioned that my Limelight hydrangea is absolutely GIGANTIC this year?  Bigger may not be better in this case.  I plan to prune it down a bit this winter to keep it in check!

When I was a kid my mom sewed most of my clothes and she whipped up some really cute things.  I can remember going through a pinafore stage in grade school.  I loved those pinafores and my mom made several for me.  They had made a come-back in the 60’s people, so don’t judge.  My mom also made matching halter-tops for me and my bff.  My bff’s mom made some for us too.  We loved matching!

My mom tried to turn me into a seamstress.  When I was in my early 20’s and broke, she helped me sew some wool suits for my office wardrobe.  I still get a little itchy remembering those wool pieces that weren’t lined.  I probably should have tried some less ambitious projects because in the end I just got frustrated with how much work was involved and the ‘sewing thing’ just didn’t take.

Although I have absolutely no interest in sewing clothing, every once in a while I do wish I had the sewing skills and equipment necessary for upholstery work or even just for sewing simple pillow covers or curtains.  Obviously I don’t wish it badly enough to do something about it though.

Instead, I find ways to cheat!

I suspect that the cane chair that I brought home from a garage sale a few weeks ago originally had a loose cushion for the bottom.

It would be preferable to replace it with another cushion because that would give it a softer, more comfortable seat with some give.  But since I can’t sew, I decided to add an upholstered seat similar to those on your typical dining room chair.  I started by having Ken cut a base out of plywood.  He cut a cardboard template to get the size and shape right, and then just used that to cut the plywood.  Then I added a bunch of layers of thick batting and covered it with a feed sack that I picked up at a garage sale (out of the free pile, believe it or not!).  I stapled the feed sack on and voila.

It’s perhaps not the perfect solution, but it works for me.  I only spent about $6 for this chair.  The chair frame was $3 at a garage sale, the grain sack was $0, the plywood seat base was a little less than $3, the batting and the paint were items I had on hand but of course they would add to the cost if you had to buy those supplies.

By the way, I painted the rest of the chair using Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Linen.

I got a little chipping, but I’m hoping that over time the chair will wear and get even chippier.

What do you think of my cheater chair?  Not bad for $6, right?

Normally I don’t do custom work, but if you’ve read my blog for long then you know that I like to break my own rules all the time.  And I’ve broken this one a few times.

A very nice woman named Andrea purchased the spoon carved dresser from me a while back.

Remember that one?

It was so pretty.  And when Andrea bought it she asked me if I would be willing to paint another one to match.  Ironically, if you read back to the post about that first one I mentioned that I’d custom mixed the color because I ran out of MMS Marzipan and I had to stretch my paint out by adding some other whites.  So I explained to Andrea that I didn’t think I could match the color exactly, and that I don’t often do custom work.  But … all of that being said, I do love painting these spoon carved pieces and I was willing to give it a shot if she was OK with not getting an exact match.

So Andrea kept her eye out for another spoon carved dresser that she liked and when she found one she sent it over to be painted.  Here is how it turned out.

Although I used what I thought was close to the same mix of Marzipan, Linen and Ironstone, the color on this one is a bit lighter than the other.  Andrea had mentioned that if I couldn’t get the color quite the same, she’d prefer I went lighter rather than darker.

I used the same straight up Ironstone to highlight the spoon carving.  It doesn’t stand out quite as much on this piece, I think partially because there isn’t quite as much contrast between the colors but also because the spoon carving details are smaller on this one.

I really struggled with staging this dresser for photos.  I didn’t necessarily want to cover up the spoon carving that is at the middle back, but I tried putting various objects on the hankie drawers and leaving the middle empty and that just always looked odd.  I tried using a really pretty transferware pitcher and some vintage books.  Nope.  I tried adding a suitcase into the mix.  Nope.  I tried using several ironstone casseroles.  Still, no dice.

So finally I just filled my large ironstone bowl with a floral arrangement and called it good.

I just used flowers that were available in my yard; some Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea (they are just barely starting to show a hint of pink), some hosta flower stalks, some sedum flower clusters that haven’t opened yet and a sprig or two of variegated ivy.

Andrea picked up her dresser earlier this week and she loved how it turned out.  Phew!  I’m always a little bit relieved when custom jobs go well.

Ahoy matey’s, today I have a pirate desk to share with you.

You are probably wondering what makes it a pirate desk, right?  Well, it had a peg leg when I bought it.  You can’t see it in the ‘before’ photo unfortunately, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  See those curvy feet (well, as much as isn’t covered by grass)?  Well, the back right one was missing and the previous owner of the desk just nailed on a chunk of 2 x 4 instead.  That explains why the price on this desk was ridiculously low.  Well, that and the numerous spots where veneer was chipping off, and maybe all of the dings too and that one mismatched drawer pull.  Yep, this baby had a few flaws.

But it was especially unfortunate about the foot because otherwise the back of this desk is finished, meaning it could be floated in a room with the back facing out.  But certainly not with a 2 x 4 foot.

So after I brought this one home I called Ken to come over for consultation (which involves him going out his back door and crossing over though my backyard to my workshop).  He looked seriously skeptical as I stood there saying I was quite confident that he could come up with a fix.  Ken may not have faith in his abilities, but I do!

I told him it didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to blend a little bit.  He hemmed and he hawed, and then he studied the other feet, and then he went home and thought about it for a while.  Then when I came home from work a few days later he had done this.

Ken, being a bit of a perfectionist, was not entirely happy with it but I thought it was amazing!  I knew once I got it painted you wouldn’t even notice that it was different from the other feet.  It certainly beats a 2 x 4!

I decided to go with Little Billy Goat’s Prizewinner on this desk.  I really love this blue!

To deepen the blue a bit, I used Little Billy Goat’s new black wax as a finish.  I had only used the black wax on top of black before, so I wasn’t sure how it would work over a color, but it worked perfectly over the Prizewinner.

Did you notice in the ‘before’ photo that there was one mismatched drawer pull on the lower left hand drawer?  I find it odd that the previous owner chose to put the mismatch on that drawer rather than the upper middle.  Duh.  That fix is a no brainer.  I was able to use all of the original pulls on the side drawers and I just added a coordinating knob from my stash to the middle drawer.

I also added a little Paris, France stencil just to give the desk a little extra personality.

Remember I posted a week or two ago about finding some chairs to use with desks?  Then my sister-in-law brought over this chair.

Seemed like kismet, so I painted it up to match the desk and I added a pretty faux grain sack seat.

But guess what?  It doesn’t quite fit under the desk.  Argh.  However, not all desk chairs have to be tucked in, right?  For example, my own desk chair does not fit under my desk because it has arms.

By the way, in case you’re wondering how that replacement foot ended up blending in once painted, check it out.

Be honest, if I hadn’t told you about it would you have even noticed?  Can you even tell which one it is?

I did go ahead and paint the back because with Ken’s faux foot, I think this desk would be perfectly fine facing out.  This way whomever purchases the desk will have options.

I actually did two different photo shoots.  I started out in the photo cottage, but I wasn’t super happy with any of those photos.

So then I pulled it out into the driveway where I staged it simply with a cream colored vintage typewriter and some Reader’s Digest books.

I picked up the books at a garage sale because the colors were so pretty.  I knew they would come in handy for furniture photos.

I almost forgot.  I have one more thing to take care of before this desk is available.  I need to line that middle drawer.  I have to admit though, I’m a little drawn to the graffiti art that I’ll be covering up.

How about you?

 

I was planning to wait until tomorrow to post this one, but an expected turn of events has my mom coming to town, and then she, my sister, and I will hop in the car and drive to South Dakota for the weekend.  I’ve been told I have to show up at my sister’s place at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning.  Gack!  We’ll be on the road for about 4 hours and quite honestly to a city girl like me it feels like we are out in the middle of nowhere on that drive.  Farm fields as far as the eye can see.  Spotty cell service at best.  So I decided to share this one today instead!

This sweet little vanity was part of a bedroom set that I picked up a while back.

I thought it had some great potential, but it badly needed an update.

Since a dressing table is definitely a feminine piece of furniture, I decided to go all out girly on this one and paint it pink.  So I pulled out Fusion’s Little Piggy.  In case you are keeping track, so far I have painted a small chair, a dresser and now this vanity and bench all from the one 16.9 oz jar of paint and I still have a little bit left.

The Little Piggy is a classy pink, not an obnoxious bubble gum pink.  I popped out some details by highlighting them with Fusion’s Limestone.  I also added a stencil to the front in Limestone as well.  This was the first time I stenciled using Fusion paint and it worked out quite well.  I just made sure that my stencil brush was ‘dry’ by blotting it on a paper towel after dipping it in the paint.

I swapped out the knobs that came with the vanity because they were just sort of blah.  These cream colored knobs from Hobby Lobby work much better with my color scheme.

I recovered the bench in some fabric from a beautiful bark cloth curtain panel that I purchased at a garage sale earlier this summer.

I dug out one of my hatboxes for staging …

Wouldn’t this piece be perfect in a young girl’s room?  Or maybe an older girl’s room too!

If you have the perfect spot for this sweet vanity, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab to find out if it’s still available.

Due to my unexpected weekend in South Dakota, I’m not at all sure if I’ll find stuff to post about next week but hopefully I can come up with something.  I hope you’ll stay tuned!

Do any of you remember the black Eastlake dresser that was in the spot where I now have the Belgian bench?

I call it the owl pull dresser because of these fantastic drawer pulls.

I painted it many moons ago, before I had a blog.  I wrote a blog post about it back in December 2013 where I shared the unconventional method I used to achieve this finish.  It was one of those situations where a mistake ended up paying off.

Basically after deciding to paint the dresser black, I got out the black spray paint.  In my original blog post I mentioned ‘satin’ spray paint, but thinking back I’m pretty sure it was flat black spray primer.  I spray painted the whole thing and then let it dry for about 30 minutes.  My original plan was to spray prime it black, then paint it with black latex.  However, once it was dry to the touch, I realized that I’d gotten really good coverage with the spray and maybe I could skip a step and not bother with ‘real paint’.  I thought I could wax it to add a bit of sheen to the flat primer and then call it good.

Not a bad plan, or so I thought.

Back in those days I was using Johnson’s paste wax.  Here is how Johnson’s describes their product: “Cleans and polishes floors and furniture, restoring, revitalizing and leaving a shine.”  Specifically take note of the word “cleans”.  The Johnson’s paste wax contains deodorized naptha which is a solvent, otherwise known as white mineral spirits.  I’m no chemist, and I could be totally wrong, but I think that might be the cause of what happened next.

As I started to work the paste wax over the painted surface, the primer started to soften up and combine with the wax.  I was basically wiping it right off with my cloth.  Yikes!

But wait a minute … hey … it looked kind of cool.

So I kept going.  I just worked the wax enough to remove some paint until I had a look that I liked.  Then I stopped.  This was a very messy process.  I went through a few rags that had to be tossed and my hands were totally blackened by the end (I know, I should have worn gloves!)  I then left the dresser alone for several hours before going back and buffing with a clean, dry cloth.

Here we are three (or maybe it’s four) years later and it still looks great.  I don’t know if I could recreate this finish in the same way twice though!

Did I mention that the mirror glass was missing when I purchased this dresser?  My original plan was to just remove the mirror frame and call it good.  But it is such an amazing frame, right?  It adds a lot of presence to the piece.  So I turned it into a chalkboard instead.

To stage it up for some fresh photos, I added a huge ironstone bowl (thanks again for that Skip) and my grandmother’s 1909 class photo.

My grandma, Carrie Moe, is the 2nd from the left in the front row (dark dress).  Sadly there are a couple of scratch marks over her face, and yes, they look intentional.  I don’t know if she scratched over her own face or if one of her siblings did it to annoy her (that sort of behavior might run in the family).  A few of the children are holding Norwegian flags.  My grandma was born in South Dakota but I’m guessing that the area where her family farmed mainly consisted of Norwegian immigrants.  You know, I’ve always assumed this was a class photo but now that I look more closely there are an awful lot of men in the photo (and no women).  That can’t be right.  I wonder what the group really represents.  Do any of you have any ideas?

At this point you might be wondering why I’m blogging about the owl pull dresser again today.  Well, it needs to find a new home now that it has been replaced by the bench.

So just in case any of my local readers needs a gorgeous black dresser, I thought I’d post it here.

For us this dresser was the perfect piece for next to our back door.  I kept hats, scarves and gloves in the upper drawers, and shoes in the lower drawers.  The hankie drawers were perfect for sunglasses and car keys.  It would also be awesome in a dining room filled with table linens and the good china.  It would also be fun to use as a coffee station don’t you think? You could easily put your Keurig between the hankie drawers, there is space to run the electrical cord through under the chalkboard.  Fill the hankie drawers with your K cups.  Perfect!  Of course, one could just use it in a bedroom too.

If interested, please be sure to check the ‘available for local sale’ tab for current information.

Do you remember the bench that I picked up at a garage sale last May?  Also scouted by my friend Meggan, I might add.

The sellers said that it was made out of a bed that their parents brought over from Belgium.  Although it was gorgeous ‘as is’, the finish on the bench seat was ruined.  It looked as though someone kept house plants on it, lots of water damage.  I could have opted to strip and re-stain that bench seat, and I might have gone that route if I wasn’t going to keep it.  But I did some measuring and I discovered that it would fit perfectly into the spot just inside my back door.  Which is exactly where we need something to sit on when putting on our shoes.  As much as I love the warm look of a beautiful wood piece in a room with white walls and ceilings, my room has red barn wood walls, dark wood floors and a wood plank ceiling.  That’s a lotta wood, none of which I plan to paint anytime soon.  This bench would be kind of lost among all of that wood.  Also, you might remember that I am on a mission to lighten up that room with white furniture.

So, I decided to paint it.

I held my breath the entire time just hoping that I would be doing it justice.

I used my own mix of Miss Mustard Seed whites to create Farmhouse White.  I found the recipe on The Ironstone Nest blog.  It’s equal parts Ironstone, Linen and Grain Sack.  It would have made more sense to just buy Farmhouse White, but I had plenty of the other three colors in my paint stash already so why spend more money?

The only thing I did to prep my piece was to go over it with a damp cloth and some TSP substitute.  I didn’t sand it at all.  I wanted plenty of chippy-ness.  I was willing to take the chance that all of the paint would just chip off, in which case I would have had to start over.  But I also didn’t want to totally eliminate any possibility of chipping altogether, which sometimes happens when I pre-sand.

I also painted a small test patch on the back of the bench before I started.  I wasn’t sure whether or not I would get bleed-thru on this piece and I wanted to know that before I was committed to the white paint.  But it was fine.  I started painting at the top, but when I got down to the bench seat, guess what?  Yep, it was a bleeder after all, but just the seat.  I’m assuming the seat was added when the bed was made into a bench and therefore it had a different finish than the rest of the piece.

After just a couple of swipes of Farmhouse White on the seat, it was obvious that I needed to do something about the bleed-thru.  Out came my secret weapon, Shabby Chic Clear Primer.

I gave the seat just one coat of the Clear Primer.  Once dry, I painted over it with my homemade Farmhouse White and no bleed-thru.  Problem solved.  However, take note that the seat did not chip like the rest of the piece.  The Clear Primer will give the paint a great surface to stick to, thus eliminating chipping.

I ended up doing three coats of Farmhouse White on the bench to get good coverage.  I did two coats one day, then came back the next day and added the 3rd.  Normally when you’re going to get chipping on a piece you’ll see the paint lifting before you get to coat number 2 or 3.  With this piece I only saw two little spots of lifting paint.  I was a little bummed at that point, thinking I wasn’t going to get the chippy-ness I wanted.

It wasn’t until I started sanding that this chippy-ness in all of its glory showed up.

The sides of this bench have some lovely details, don’t you think?

I am so happy with how my bench turned out!

Can you see my little photo bomber in the picture above?  Behind the left side of the bench?

That’s Lucy, my cat.  She absolutely insisted on being included in these photos.

I would call her away between shots, and then she would just meander right back over there.

Anyway, this fab bench has found a new home in my dining room.

I think it works beautifully mixed in with all of that dark wood.

You may remember that I started a dining room makeover last summer.  Here we are a year later and I still haven’t finished it!  Somehow my own projects always come last.  Here’s what I’ve done so far.

Replaced my black waterfall buffet with a Welsh cupboard full of ironstone …

Replaced brown leather Parson’s chairs with painted cane back chairs with feed sack seats …

Painted the cedar dining table that Mr. Q made …

Swapped out some IKEA hanging lights for this …

And now I have the bench.

Still on the to-do list, strip wallpaper (there is wallpaper behind that bench), replace the window (we’ve theoretically got that in the works) and come up with something fabulous for the giant blank wall.  Hopefully I’ll get the rest of it done before another year comes and goes.  I know I’m not the only one who takes this long with a makeover project though, right?  And I have to say, I think the bench was worth the wait.

My friend Meggan is a master thrifter.  I’m not sure what qualifications are required for that title, but whatever they are, she has ’em.  A while back she texted me from the thrift shop with a heads up on a sweet desk.  It had been marked down and she could tell it had potential.  Luckily Mr. Q was available that day, so I sent him right over to nab it.

Its biggest problem was that it was GRUNGY!  Someone had treated this poor thing like crap.  It was also missing a couple of handles as you can see.  That’s OK, I didn’t love them anyway.  But otherwise it was structurally sound and the drawers open and close as smooth as silk.

Oddly enough, each drawer had 3 holes for hardware …

… which leads me to believe that the original hardware had been swapped out at some point anyway.

I started by stripping the top of the desk and while that was percolating, I filled two holes on each drawer just leaving the center hole.  To accomplish that I always put a piece of painters tape over the back of the hole so that I don’t loose any filler out the back, then I fill with wood filler.  In this case I used Elmer’s Wood Filler in Mahogany.  I let the first load of fill dry, then went back and topped off each hole.  Once dry again, I sanded to make it smooth.

Remember last Friday when I mentioned that my sister said she preferred stained and poly’ed over rustic and waxed?  Well, she was looking at the Dragonfly dresser and this desk side by side when she said that.

You can’t blame her for preferring this look, it is gorgeous.  This is Dark Walnut gel stain topped with a matte finish wipe on poly.

I seem to paint a lot of desks black.  I’m not sure why that is except that they always turn out so fantastic.  There is just something about pairing black paint with a wood top on a desk that appeals to me.  This time I used Little Billy Goat’s Old Pickup (which is the name of their black).  Here’s a funny side story.  Whenever I try a new brand and/or color of paint, I always go to pinterest first to see if I can find any finished pieces in that brand and color.  So I entered “Little Billy Goat Old Pickup” into the search field on pinterest, and here is what I got.

Bwa ha ha, kinda literal, huh?

What I did not get was any sort of photo of furniture painted in this paint.  I want to change that, so could y’all please pin some of these next few photos for me?

I want to mention that this is just one coat of paint.  I’ve talked before about how the Little Billy Goat paint goes on thick if you don’t water it down a little.  Sometimes it works great to just leave it thick and get away with one coat.

Next thing I want to mention is that this paint distresses extremely easily.  I just use fine sandpaper for my distressing, but you can also use a damp paper towel which will take the paint right off.  Keeping that in mind, you definitely have to top coat this paint with either wax or a sealer of some kind.

This time around I used a new black wax that Little Billy Goat will be adding to their product line up soon.  I don’t have all of the details about this product yet, so I was just kind of winging it.  I applied lightly with a rag, waited a couple of minutes and then buffed with a clean old sock.  It went on quite easily.  I felt like it didn’t require nearly as much elbow grease as some of the other waxes on the market.

  The black wax sort of reminded me of shoe polish in appearance.

I will warn you though, it does have that chemical-ish smell that I’m not too fond of.  This is one that I would reserve for use in my outdoor workshop, or a well ventilated room.

That being said, I loved the results of the black wax over the black paint.  It gave me a deep, rich black color.

The level of sheen is contingent upon how much you want to buff it.  I’d say I stopped at a mid-point.  If I had kept buffing I could have gone shinier, but for me this sheen is perfect.  I will definitely continue using this black wax on my future black pieces.

There was no getting out of lining the drawers on this one.  As I mentioned earlier, the previous owner had not taken good care of it.  Which was too bad because some of the drawers were in good shape and the wood bottoms were lovely, but others were a mess.  So I lined all of them.

When it came time to put some knobs back on, I checked my stash and I had 4 of these Hobby Lobby knobs that were a perfect fit.

Luckily I was able to find 4 more at my local store since I needed 8 of them.

I’m beginning to realize that I should be picking up single chairs when I see them at garage sales so that I have some to pair up with desks.  I don’t have a chair to go with this desk. I used my super chippy farmhouse chair for staging some of the photos, but it’s not quite the right partner for the desk.

Note to self:  buy chairs!

Note to you:  buy desk (that’s not very subliminal is it?)!

It has been a busy, busy week here!  Two home tours on two different blogs and now to cap it off, a furniture makeover.  All to be followed by some serious napping time this weekend I think.

I’d forgotten just how long ago I picked up this pretty little dresser until I dug out the ‘before’ photos.

Hmmmm.  No leaves on the trees, brown grass and last year’s hydrangea blossoms still on the bush.  This had to have been April, if not earlier.

I’m not sure my ‘before’ photo captured it, but this dresser had a really ugly finish on it.  It looked like one of those ‘antiquing’ finishes.  You remember ‘antiquing’ from the 70’s, right?  It was weird.  All I know is that it had to go.

I followed my usual m.o.  I stripped the top and then waxed it.  I used Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax instead of a tinted wax.  I love the pale wood top, and I’m happy with leaving all of its imperfections as is.  My sister took a look at it and declared that she prefers when I stain and poly the tops.  That’s OK.  There are lots of different opinions out there, I’m just hoping that there are potential customers out there who like the rustic patina of this top as much as I do.

Next I painted the body in the Real Milk Paint Co. milk paint that Reclaiming Beautiful is now carrying.  This time I chose a color called Dragonfly.  Just for fun I snapped a ‘behind the scenes’ photo for you guys while the paint was still drying.

This is my preferred method of painting lower pieces like this one.  I find it difficult to sit on the floor for too long, or to bend over for too long, so I hoist the furniture up onto the horses and this way I can reach everything with ease.  It also makes it so much easier to paint the feet.  Sometimes I stand while painting and sometimes I use my painting stool.  It is far easier to sand and wax things at this height also.  And yes, I did finish this one with a coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s furniture wax.

Here is the finished dresser.

I am officially in love with this color and with the perfectly distressed finish I got using the Real Milk Paint Co. paint.

The Dragonfly is a gorgeous rich blue green.

By the way, those are my Endless Summer hydrangeas and that is the sum total of blossoms that were on it this year.  So sad.  And yes, the pink and the blue came from just the one bush.  I know that supposedly the acidity in the soil determines the color, but it seems odd to me that one bush has differing levels of acidity in different branches.  What do you think?

Anyway, I got plenty of chipping on this piece, which I think works perfectly with the age and style of it.

I discarded the knobs that came on the dresser.  I’m quite sure they weren’t original to the piece, they had a sort of tacky 70’s vibe.  These gorgeous glass knobs from D Lawless are much better suited.

I’ll be sharing a more in-depth tutorial on using the Real Milk Paint Co. paint on the Reclaiming Beautiful blog in a week or two.  It’s going to include a giveaway of some of the products I used.  However, the giveaway will only be open to those who can pick up the prize in person at their shop in Stillwater, so you locals might want to keep an eye out for that.  I apologize non-local readers, first you had to suffer through not being able to go to the barn sale, and now you miss out on a giveaway.  I’ll try to make it up to you down the road somehow.  But for you locals, if you don’t already follow me on the Reclaiming Beautiful blog, you should pop over there and do so (by clicking here).  If you follow by email you’ll get an email every time I post something new.  I promise you won’t be inundated with numerous emails since I only post over there 2 or 3 times a month and that way you’ll be sure not to miss the post.

Meanwhile, this lovely dresser is available to the first person that wants to snap it up.  For more details, check out my ‘available for local sale’ page (click on it just below my logo at the top of this page).

This dresser came to me from my friend Cecelia.

When Mr. Q picked it up, the top was separated from the bottom.  That was probably one of the easier fixes that Ken has had to deal with for me.  One of these days I have to write a blog post about the cool little tool that he uses for reattaching tops like this.  Next time he does that I’ll have to try and get some photos of the tool and the process.

The strange thing about this dresser is how discolored that middle drawer is, it really kind of jumps out at you.  I really don’t know what would cause this phenomenon.  If any of you have any ideas, I’m all ears.  IMHO, this ‘flaw’ made it a good candidate for a paint job and I love using milk paint on these old pieces. The shop in Stillwater where I occasionally sell my pieces, Reclaiming Beautiful, just started carrying a line of milk paint from The Real Milk Paint Co.

I picked out Peacock based on the sample sticks they have in the shop.  For me the hardest part of using a new brand of paint is getting to know the colors.  You can look at photos of the colors online all day long, and somehow the color always looks different in person.  The plus for me with Miss Mustard Seed milk paint is that I know exactly what all of her colors look like in real life.

But I also have to admit that I’m getting a little bored with the MMS colors.  It’s time for a change.

So after stripping and waxing the top of this dresser (with Cece Caldwell’s Aging Cream), I mixed up some Peacock.  It mixed up pretty much exactly like the MMS milk paint that I’m used to.  The only slight difference I’ll note is that it foamed up a little more than I’m used to.  The Real Milk Paint Co has a product called Anti-Foaming Agent that I’m going to try next time.  But I didn’t run into any trouble with the foaminess, I just let the paint settle a bit before I started working with it.

This color is deep, rich blue green that almost looks black in low light.  It leans a little more towards green on my piece than on others I’ve seen it used on.  I wonder if that is because there was a lot of red to the wood underneath.  Milk paint can be a little more transparent than other paints, so the color you are painting over can make a difference.

I also used hemp oil as my topcoat and that really changed up the color.  It brought out a lot more green, and darkened it up quite a bit as is typical of hemp oil.  By the way, the Real Milk Paint Co has a hemp oil in their line, but I used MMS hemp oil because I already had it on hand.

The hardware on this dresser is just stunning, isn’t it?

You can also see the green of the color a little better in that last photo.

I was hoping for more chippiness, but it eluded me once again.  Next time I’m going to try another product from this line called Chippy Paste.  Have any of you heard or it, or used it?  I’ll be sure to let you all know what I think of it when I try it.

I used an old copy of Moby Dick in staging this piece.

The colors on it worked perfectly with the Peacock.

Funny though, it wasn’t until I was editing the photos for this post that I noticed the sea horse motif on the cover.  See it? Isn’t that cool?

Have any of you tried the Real Milk Paint Co milk paint?  If so, let me know what you thought of it.  I’ll be trying out a few more of their colors soon.

As usual, please check my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details if you’re interested in purchasing this dresser.