Category: furniture.

I absolutely love to dine outdoors, how about you?

Some of my favorite travel memories revolve around restaurants with gorgeous patios such at the Indian Jewel in Prague which is situated in a courtyard that has been around since medieval times.  I also fondly remember dining at a sidewalk cafe in Copenhagen alongside the canal in Nyhavn.  All of the chairs had little wool throws on them so that you could wrap up as it got chilly when the sun went down.  Our server easily switched between English at our table, German at the table next to us and French at another which impressed me to no end.

Mr. Q and I try to dine on our own deck whenever we can.  Of course, this being Minnesota, there are only about five months out of the year when this is possible.  I did take a cue from the Danes and I have a wool throw for each chair, so that helps extend the season.

I’m always drawn to those photos on pinterest or in magazines that show a dining room table set up outdoors.  They always look so romantic.  Check out my ‘dining al fresco’ pinboard {here}.

But the reality for me is that whenever I try to plan something like that the weather doesn’t cooperate.  Last Friday I had some people over for dinner.  I had pictured a gorgeous evening on the deck, but instead we ended up inside.  Not only was it in the 90’s and awfully humid, but that weather led to the possibility for severe thunderstorms.  Somehow high winds and lightening kill the romance of outside dining.

It’s far easier to set up a dining table outside strictly for a photo shoot.  You can just wait for a lovely sunny day and get everything set up just right.

It helps if you just happen to have a freshly refinished dining room set that you want to share.

This is the completed dining set that I mentioned earlier in the week.  I’ve only pictured it with 4 chairs, but there are 8.  You saw most of them on Monday.

There are also 3 leaves.  So it can be expanded when necessary.  Mr. Q and I tried adding the leaves last night just to be sure everything worked well.  That table gets to be quite long with those leaves added!  The 8 chairs will be just right.

The client who purchased the Inglenook sideboard from me has dibs on this set.  She’s coming to see it tonight.  She’s worried that the darker wood top on this table won’t work with the lighter wood top on the sideboard.  The table top looks darker in these photos than it does in person though, so I’m hoping she likes it.

If it turns out that she doesn’t think it will work, this set will be looking for a new home.  I’ll be sure to add it to my ‘available for local sale’ page if it becomes available.  Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, my sister and I are headed out to our favorite Minneapolis neighborhood tomorrow for their annual garage sales.  The Nokomis neighborhood is where both of our parents were born and raised.  Hope I find some fun stuff to share with you next week!

Linking up with Friday’s Furniture Fix.

It’s finally summer, which means it’s time for iced tea!

And the tables that I painted recently provide the perfect resting spot for a glass of tea.

This pair of tables has been patiently awaiting a makeover since last summer.  They were thrown in as an afterthought with a pair of primitive cupboards that I purchased via craigslist.  They aren’t really something I would normally choose, but somehow I found myself loading them into my truck.

Yep, what was I thinking?  Just some basic redwood patio tables.  Oddly, the previous owner added a redwood stain over the existing chippy white paint.  This was really not a good look.

Not too long after bringing them home I decided to try a chippy milk paint finish.  I painted one green and one blue.  Huh?  What?  Why?

Yeah, neither one looked good.  So I shoved them in a dark corner of my workshop and there they sat all winter.

I finally pulled them out again and decided I needed to just do something with them.  I envisioned a sort of drift wood, beachy look.  So I pulled out some paint that Allie at Little Billy Goat sent to me to try out.  It’s a light grey and the color is called Farmhouse.

I used the paint straight out of the jar, which is a little thick, but gave great coverage.  As a result, I only need one coat!  You gotta love that.

I added a french poem stencil to the top, but I kept it very subtle in a just slightly darker grey.

I distressed them vigorously.  I like how the texture from the previous chippy paint came through.  You can also see that this was the green one.

I finished them off with some Annie Sloan wax.

These tables are perfect for taking out into the garden on a pleasant day to enjoy some iced tea and a good book.

I sent the tables off to Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater.  Hopefully they will go to a good home!

 

First things first, I drew a random name from the many people who commented on my post about vintage cameras and Jaci N. wins the free camera!  Thanks again for all of the comments.  I hope to host another giveaway soon.

Now, on with today’s post.  You know how groups of animals have specific names, like a ‘murder of crows’, a ‘troop of monkeys’ or a ‘school of fish’?  Well, with chairs a grouping is called a ‘jumble of chairs.’  OK, yes, I just made that up.  But it’s good, right?  Let’s make it a thing.

I recently acquired a jumble of chairs from my friend Sue.

I happened to have a dining room table with no chairs, and Sue happened to be getting rid of her chairs but not her table.  So it was a no-brainer to pair her chairs with my table.

Although Sue’s chairs were already white, I was using Fusion’s Limestone on the base of my table and the white of Sue’s chairs was too bright in comparison.  So I sanded the chairs a bit to give the new paint every opportunity to stick to the old paint and then I added just one coat of the Limestone to update the shade of white on each chair.

I also reupholstered the chairs with some fabric that I painted with a grain sack stripe.

There are 8 chairs altogether, but one was still being re-glued when I took these photos.

It may seem like I have six chairs that match, and two that are mismatched, but actually I have 4 pairs of 2 each.  The shield back chairs don’t all exactly match.  If you look really closely you can see that each pair is slightly different.

And of course the two with the square backs are entirely different.

But the paint color and fabric unifies them all and I think they will be perfect with the table.

I’m not gonna lie, it was quite the job to paint and recover 8 chairs.  I didn’t think I was ever going to finish!  I’ll be glad when this one is behind me.  Check back later in the week when I share the completed project including the table.

Have you heard?  Pink is the new neutral.

I’ll be honest, I had not heard this.  But when my friend Meggan was over last week, she mentioned that she’d read it somewhere.  So later that evening I did some googling.  Sure enough, I found lots of articles about the subject including {this one} from houzz and {this one} from Apartment Therapy.

Well, you all saw how much I loved the new pink from Fusion, Little Piggy, and this is a pink that I can easily see being used as a neutral.  It’s a very subtle blush pink.  After painting a small chair in it, I knew I had to go bigger.  I decided it would be perfect on this dresser that Mr. Q brought home from the thrift store for me.

This dresser was just kind of ugly.  I’m not sure, but I think that is a cut-out section of floral wallpaper that is stuck to the middle of that one drawer.  A few passes with some coarse grit sandpaper took care of that.

Next came a couple of coats of Little Piggy.

I wasn’t entirely happy with any of the photos I took in the photo cottage, so I pulled the dresser outside and tried again.

The knobs that came with the dresser seemed just a little too small, so I replaced them with some pretty faux mercury glass knobs that I had on hand.

Still not super excited about the photos of the dresser.  None of them do justice to the color, but the peonies look great.

The dresser really is very sweet, and I got such a great deal on it that I am passing the savings on to whomever purchases it.  If interested in more details, check out my ‘available for local sale tab’!

 

Thank you all so much for the great response to my camera obsession post!  I’ve given people until Friday to get a comment in to be eligible for the giveaway, so I’ll be announcing the winner next Monday.

In the meantime, remember the little folding chair that I recovered a while back?

When I posted about that chair {here} I mentioned that I had two more green chairs, and  I asked for your opinion.  Vintage fabric seat, or chalkboard?  I have to admit I was a little surprised that so many who weighed in preferred the vintage fabric seat over a chalkboard.

I really thought it would go the other way.

But the people have spoken!

Let’s start with the ‘before’, just like the aqua chair only in a spring green.

I’d been watching for some sweet vintage fabric to use on these, so when I found these pillow cases at the Linden Hills garage sales for $3 per set, I snatched them up.

I thought that pair on the top would be perfect for these chairs, and I just couldn’t pass up that pair on the bottom.

I’d guess these are from the 60’s or 70’s, wouldn’t you?  I love the colors and the daisies.  I may just hang on to this pair for my own bed.

Yep, I’m gonna keep them.

Anyway, I was all set to cover the seats with that other pair, but I also had this set of ‘his & hers’ pillowcases from Linden Hills.

Since they happened to be in the same pile as the others, I couldn’t help but notice that the green of the cross stitch was very close to the green on my chairs.  But I also thought it might be silly to have ‘his & hers’ folding chairs.  Who’s going to want ‘his & hers’ chairs?

Still, I just couldn’t help folding them up and placing them on the chairs, just to see how they would look.

Well dang, they looked so cute!

But did I really want to cut up these vintage pillowcases?  Well, I didn’t love the green and white tatted edges on the pillow cases, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to cut that off.  Plus, they had a couple of stains.  Nobody wants stained pillowcases, am I right?

Then I put the originally intended pillow case on the chair, just to see how it would look.

Not bad I guess.  But definitely not as fab and the ‘his & hers’.  That clinched it.  “His & hers” was the winner.

I don’t know if anyone out there is going to want a pair of ‘his & hers’ folding chairs, but I just couldn’t help myself.  I took these to Reclaiming Beautiful, so hopefully they will find a new home.  I think they would be darling hanging on the wall on either side of the bed.  Or maybe if you are lucky enough to have ‘his & hers’ closets, you could hang one on each door.

Aren’t they sweet?

Last week I shared the Little Speckled Frog dresser, as well as the new line of nursery colors from Fusion.  I mentioned that they sent me a few jars of different colors to play around with.  One of the colors they sent is called Little Piggy.

Now don’t tell them I said this, but I have to admit that when I first saw this color I thought “hmmm … maybe this one isn’t really for me.”  But then another one of Fusion’s bloggers, Mary from Orphans with Makeup posted an absolutely gorgeous dresser painted in this color and I realized that I had it all wrong.  She had way more vision than I.  She could see that it was going to be the most lovely pale champagne pink, and she was right.

Once I’d seen the color actually on something, I knew I had to crack open that jar of paint and try it out myself.

I pulled out this little child sized chair that I purchased at the Linden Hills garage sales …

and I painted it up with two coats of Little Piggy.

To add a little pop of interest to the chair, I stenciled the seat with my french ‘sweet dreams’ stencil.

Isn’t this the most lovely subtle pink?  It’s not over-the-top bubblegum pink, or sickly sweet cotton candy pink, it’s a sophisticated pink.

I staged it at the bend in my staircase.  I get the most gorgeous light in that spot towards evening and I wanted to capture that.

And the chair fit perfectly into that corner.

It’s probably not the safest spot for little ones to sit and sip their pretend tea while reading fairy tales from Shakespeare, but it sure looks pretty for pictures.

Since I don’t have any little ones to place in precarious positions, this little piggy chair is going to market.  I’m taking this and a few other pieces to Reclaiming Beautiful tonight.

What do you think of this lovely pale pink?

Recently my friend Donna emailed me and asked if I’d like some furniture.  She had a few random small pieces that she was going to take to Goodwill unless I wanted them.  It’s always nice when people think of me!  She and her husband (a former co-worker of mine) even delivered them to me.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

Included in the mix was a pair of small tables.

They have removable glass tops, which is kind of cool (the glass top isn’t pictured on the smaller table).  Their only flaw was that they were missing the little finials that go here …

There was a little hole that they fit into, so I could have opted to just fill the hole and go without.  I thought that would look just a little off though.  So I dug through my stash and came up with two finials that were originally used to hold a dresser mirror onto its harp.  They were the perfect size.  I just had to glue them into place.

After painting the washstand that I posted yesterday, I had just enough of that custom mixed color left over to use on the smaller table.

And it got gorgeously chippy!

The chippy-ness works on this table because it is so ornate and has such a vintage feel.  You can almost believe this is an 80 year old paint job.

People often ask me if chippy milk paint will continue to chip over time.  My answer is: it depends.  If you seal it with the Tough Coat Sealer, it shouldn’t continue to chip.  But if you just use wax or hemp oil, it will.  Go check out {this post} to see an example.  But personally I am fine with continued chipping.  It just adds more personality to the piece over time.  That’s why I chose to just use wax as the top coat on this table.  I am embracing the chippy!

When Donna gave me this table she mentioned that she pictured a stencil on the top, under the glass.  She was right, it was the perfect spot for a stencil and I just happened to have a new one that was just the right size.

I staged this little table on my front porch which is finally open for the season.  I don’t know what took me so long to get out there this year!  Usually I am out there setting it up for summer in April, and here it is almost June.

I took most of my photos with the glass top removed to cut down on glare and reflections, but the beauty of the glass top is that it will protect that chippy paint job.

But obviously you could choose to use it either way.

This little table is the perfect size for between my wicker chaise lounge and my adirondak chair on the porch, but it would also work as a small coffee table.  If I didn’t already have a fab old trunk that I use in that spot I’d be tempted to keep this there.

But I’m fond of that old trunk, so I’m planning to take this one into Reclaiming Beautiful to sell, unless someone nabs it here first!

Sometimes I am merely a copy cat.  I see something that I love on pinterest, or on another blog, and I want to do that too!  I’d like to say that I put my own spin on it, and sometimes I do, but not always.  I know that some people are quite furious when people ‘steal’ their ideas, whereas others put stuff out there for precisely that reason.  They want to inspire people, plus they realize that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I fall in that latter category, and I’m pretty sure that Miss Mustard Seed does too and she won’t mind that I copied her.  At least I hope so.

You may have seen the sweet little washstand that Miss Mustard Seed painted to bring to Lucketts.  She painted it in a custom mix of her milk paint and she thoughtfully provided the recipe (that’s kinda why I’m pretty sure she won’t mind that I copied).  I loved this color instantly and I knew I wanted to try it on something.  I was thinking more about a full sized dresser, but then while garage saling in Linden Hills I found this fab washstand …

Well, duh, it was a no-brainer.  I hadn’t really intended to completely copy MMS right down to the washstand, but this just felt like it was meant to be.

So I mixed up my paint according to Marian’s recipe; equal parts Shutter Grey, Eulalie’s Sky and Layla’s Mint.  I like to let my milk paint settle a bit before I start to brush it on.  Especially when I’m mixing colors like this.  It’s sort of like making homemade salad dressing, you want to give the flavors some time to blend together.  So while I was waiting I removed the hardware and lightly sanded the washstand.  It’s difficult to see in the photo, but this washstand had been poorly ‘re-finished’ with a coat of shiny polyurethane.  I knew that the impervious poly would give me some serious chipping.  I wanted some chipping, but not serious chipping ;-), so I sanded.

That did the trick perfectly.

I love the scalloped edge on the back trim piece.  Isn’t it sweet?  Those are the last of my lilacs, by the way.

Washstands tend to be the perfect size to use as a bedside table.  Mr. Q has a washstand on his side of the bed, while I have a small table.

They are painted in the same color and are about the same height which helps unify them.

So, if you are on the hunt for a nightstand with some chippy, vintage farmhouse style this might be the one for you.

As always, check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab for details.

It’s not often that I need to have a do-over.  At least when it comes to pieces that I am selling.  But sometimes things just don’t sell.  And unfortunately I am one of those people (maybe we all are) who like to second guess myself.  When something doesn’t sell quickly I immediately question my own choices.  Is the color wrong?  Are the details not quite right?  Is it too chippy?  Is it not chippy enough? Should I re-paint it?

Mr. Q is always quick to jump in and remind me that I just need to wait for the right buyer.  There isn’t anything wrong with my piece of furniture, it’s just waiting for the right home.  And he is usually right (yes, I put that in writing Mr. Q)!

But sometimes I want to just tweak my design a little bit to hopefully make it more marketable.

Such is the case with my big blue hutch.  I’ve been trying to sell this guy for about 8 months now.  When I finished it last summer, it looked like this.

I’d tacked vintage wallpaper behind the glass doors.  It was gorgeous paper, but somewhat fragile as vintage wallpaper tends to be.  When I took this piece into Eye Candy ReFind to sell, the wallpaper got damaged and eventually was removed.

It stayed at Eye Candy until January, and then I moved it to Reclaiming Beautiful.  At which point it looked like this.

 Nothing behind the glass.  Which is great if someone wants to display things inside.

But it still didn’t sell.  So finally I brought it home from Reclaiming Beautiful and decided to tweak it just a bit.

Since I’m so fond of my own blue hutch with the rooster feed sack behind the doors, I decided to create some faux grain sacks for this cabinet.

I started with some grain sack striped fabric that I purchased from Decor Steals.  I cut panels so that I had one stripe down the middle of each piece.  Then I stenciled each one to mimic the look of German grain sacks.

And now the cupboard looks like this.

It has such an awesome chippy vintage farmhouse look now.

Just yesterday morning Mr. Q and I moved this piece from the photo cottage into my dining room, which is where I store finished pieces until they are either sold or taken to a shop.  After we got it in place, I just stood there and admired it for a few minutes.  It really is gorgeous.  And it looks pretty amazing next to my barnwood walls.  If I didn’t already have the rooster cupboard, I would so want to keep this one.  Mr. Q calls it a ‘statement piece’ and he says that’s why it’s taking so long to sell.  You can’t just work this into your existing decor, you have to design a whole room around it.  Maybe so.  But I’m hoping this little tweak will be the magic change that helps this one sell.

If you are local and in need of a farmhouse style hutch, check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for details.

While I was on a roll with the do-overs, I also decided to revamp this little stool.

I painted this two years ago.  It has made an appearance at a couple of my own occasional sales, but no takers.  While Mr. Q is usually right about waiting for the right buyer, in this case I knew it needed to be re-painted.  The red just wasn’t working, nor was the fabric.  I had already been thinking I’d reupholster it using the same grain sack fabric I used on the blue hutch, but was debating a paint color for the base.  Then I saw {this post} by Kristin at Hazel Mae Home.  That was all the inspiration I needed to get going on my own little stool.

I loved the dark blue paint she chose for her stool, so I used my Little Billy Goat paint in Prizewinner because I knew it would be similar.

I finished the paint with a coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s Antiquing Wax because I wanted to keep the color nice and dark.

Then I reupholstered the seat with my fabric, but first I added a stencil to it using a dark blue acrylic craft paint.

And just to give you an idea of the size of this little stool …

It’s the perfect size for tucking just under a chair and using as a foot rest.

What do you think of my do-overs?  Definitely an improvement in both cases?

Welcome to Little Speckled Frog week!  “Huh, what?” you say?

Let’s start at the beginning.  You may know that I belong to a Fusion blogger group.  Many moons ago Janice from Fred & Bessie’s recommended me to Fusion (thanks again Janice!).  They sent me some of their new paint to try out, and the rest is history.  Now I occasionally participate in blog hops with some of the other Fusion bloggers.  Sometimes I ask Fusion to sponsor hat box painting parties, like I did last winter.  And sometimes they send me colors from their new color collections to try out, like the Seaside from their Michael Penney collection.  So back in February when they sent me the supplies for the hat box party, they also sent me several jars of paint from their not-yet-released new color collection, Tones for Tots.  In case you are wondering, no, they do not pay me.  However, they do supply me with free samples of their products.  Obviously I need a t-shirt that says “Will work for paint.”

The seven new designer colors are inspired by favorite nursery rhymes.

I had some fun taking photos of the paint before I ever cracked one open.

While out shopping one day with friends, I found this adorable vintage baby shirt that had the perfect colors to match the paint.

And how funny is it that this is the tag inside?

I was under strict instructions not to post anything until the new colors had been officially launched.  That gave me some time to search for the perfect piece for a nursery.  Hmmmm.  That was harder than I thought it would be.  I found one particular piece on craigslist that would have been perfect for this project, but someone got there ahead of me and it slipped through my fingers.  Finally I decided that maybe I could just work with a small dresser, not necessarily a nursery piece, but something that could be used in a nursery or a young child’s bedroom and that’s when I found this dresser.

The before photo is not terribly exciting.

It’s not hideously awful, just kind of blah.

What you can’t see in the photo is that it needed some shoring up.  I’m going to share those details in another post this week, so stay tuned for that!

Once it was repaired, I knew it needed something to add just a little more interest.  I couldn’t just paint it one solid color and call it good.  I debated just adding a french stencil I have that says “reves doux mon enfant” which would have been appropriate for a nursery piece.  I also debated adding a damask stencil to the drawer fronts.  But in the ended I opted for a stripe and I’m so glad I did.

It was the perfect solution for adding a little extra something to this dresser and also keeping it playful for a nursery.

Later this week I’ll share a tutorial on painting stripes, but in the meantime I used the new pale green color from the Tones for Tots line called Little Speckled Frog (are you starting to get why I’m calling this Little Speckled Frog week?) as the base color and I added stripes in Fusion’s Picket Fence.

I replaced the original wooden knobs with pretty glass knobs.  I like to use a clear knob on pieces like this because it lets the stripes be the focus.

One of the reasons for the delay in releasing this new color line was that Fusion wanted to have it fully tested for safety around your little ones!  Their Tones for Tots collection meets both the Toy Safety Standards of North America and the EN71-3 Certification for Europe, so you can feel good about using these paints on pieces that are intended for a nursery.  Like all Fusion paints, Tones for Tots is zero VOC, requires little prep work and has a built-in topcoat.  Let’s face it, most new moms out there don’t have a lot of time to be fussing around with a painting project.

The Tones for Tots line will be available in stores beginning May 28, 2016.  Check out Fusion’s “where to buy” page to find a retailer near you.

I had fun finding props to use for the photos of my Speckled Frog dresser, but I suspect most of them would definitely not meet those safety standards!  I used some vintage wooden blocks and this rusty old toy truck that came from my friend Terri’s uncle.

If you are local and interested in purchasing this sweet striped dresser, please check my ‘available for local sale’ tab for details.

Otherwise, please check back later this week for more details on how Ken repaired this dresser and a tutorial on painting stripes!