Category: furniture.

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!

You’ve all probably seen me mention that I don’t do custom work.  For the most part.  As a general rule.  Most of the time.

But I do make exceptions.  After all, rules are meant to be broken.

When I blogged about the chair that I purchased at the Bryn Mawr neighborhood sales, one of my good customers sent me an email and asked if she could have dibs on it (always worth a shot if you are so inclined).

It is totally her style, so I shouldn’t be surprised that it jumped out at her.  She likes ’em if they look a little french.  After all, she is the proud owner of this dresser …

And this bed …

So I asked her if she had a ‘look’ in mind for the chair.  She responded with some ideas and some photos of chairs she liked, and since her thoughts pretty much meshed with exactly what I wanted to do with the chair anyway … voila!  A custom job was born 😉

I had visions in my head of using milk paint on this chair and getting a deliciously chippy finish.  That being said, I should have known better based on experience.  Here’s why.  I was painting over existing paint.  Since I wanted to see some wood where the chair was distressed (and not that weird mustard yellow that came on parts of the chair), I sanded the existing paint job pretty heavily.  Down to the bare wood along most of the edges in fact.  That heavy sanding helped the milk paint to stick and not chip.

So, it was a trade-off, no chipping in exchange for not seeing mustard yellow.  I can live with that.

I painted the chair in Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen milk paint.  Then I sanded to distress and added a protective layer of MMS furniture wax.

The details on the back of the chair look amazing.

Ken cut a new seat for me and I upholstered it in some faux grain sack material that I purchased via Decor Steals.

I added a French stencil in black.

All this chair needed was just a little time and attention to bring it back to its full glory.

I think this chair is going to be right at home with Jen’s other fabulous french pieces, don’t you?

Sharing at Friday’s Furniture Fix and Making Broken Beautiful.

I have a small confession to make, I might have gotten a little drool on this one.  Yep, I kinda love it.

Let’s start with the ‘before’.

Not hideous, but let’s face it, that shiny, cherry finish is extremely tired.  Right?

The problem with painting over this finish is that it often bleeds through your paint, or is just plain tough to cover.  But I have the best solution for that, Little Billy Goat’s Prize Winner.

This is the most gorgeous shade of deep, rich blue.  I can’t guarantee that it always works to cover a dark stain, but I am two for two so far on this color (check out the post on the last piece I painted with Prize Winner {here}).

So, technically even though I didn’t win any prizes with this makeover, I feel like it’s a winner!

I used two coats of paint this time, and finished with Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax.

One of the saddest things about this dresser was that it came with only five of the 10 handles, and the handles are pretty fab.

They have a sort of ‘craftsman’ style vibe, don’t you think?  I love the geometric-ness of them, the circle inside ovals, with that horizontal line.  But there wasn’t much I could do with only five out of the necessary 10.  So I took them off, filled one of the holes and used some glass knobs from D Lawless Hardware instead.

I couldn’t resist using some of my lilacs in the photos of this one.

As well as my new Touring game.

If you are local and in the market for a gorgeous blue dresser, check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab to see if it is still available!

 

A while back my craigslist spotter, nnK, spotted this little mid-century dresser for me.  It wasn’t far away, and I was in the mood for a little mid-mod so Mr. Q and I went and picked it up.

I wanted to paint the body of the dresser, but leave the drawer fronts unpainted.  However, in addition to being a bit worn, I wasn’t particularly fond of the ‘pieced together strips of wood’ look on the drawer fronts.  So I decided to try using gel stain to solve both of these problems.  First of all, gel stain can be used over an existing finish, so it wouldn’t require a lot of work to spruce these up and make them look new again.  Second of all, gel stain is not quite as transparent as traditional stain, so it helps blend different grains of wood.

  Before applying the stain, I sanded the drawers fairly well with my palm sander.  Then, after wiping them down with TSP substitute, I applied Varathane’s Dark Walnut gel stain with an old t-shirt.  I let that dry overnight and the next day I added two coats of a matte poly finish.

I definitely achieved my first goal of sprucing them up, but not so sure I minimized the appearance of those strips.  Nonetheless, the drawers are definitely much improved!

I painted the rest of the dresser in Fusion’s Sterling, which is a pale silvery grey.

Once I had the Sterling painted, I realized that the original gold brass on the drawer pulls wasn’t going to work.  I solved that by adding some Silver Leaf rub ‘n buff to them.  I also gave the wooden centers a swipe with the gel stain and another swipe with the poly.  I didn’t sand them, and I wasn’t terribly particular about the application of the products, but it was just enough to give them a fresh look and to blend their color with the drawer fronts.

These were all really simple techniques that gave this dresser a fresh new look in no time at all.

What do you think?

 Anyone else in the mood for a little mid-mod?

Recently Melanie from Lost & Found Decor asked if I wanted to participate in a Fusion blog party.  For this particular event each participating blogger was asked to choose one of Fusion’s shades of blue and use it in a project of some kind.  Melanie wanted each of us to choose a different blue, and it was first come, first served.  I was hoping to get Homestead Blue, which I was going to use on a typewriter stand (was going to add a Union Jack top), but that color was taken.  I also would have been happy to get Laurentien, since I used it on that pair of vintage school desks and it’s one of my favorite colors, but that was taken.  Another great choice would have been Seaside; it was taken too!  Now I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with the remaining color choices, but I tend to be a little bit particular about pairing just the right color with just the right project and I don’t have that many unfinished projects waiting in the wings.

Fortunately, another of my favorite Fusion colors wasn’t spoken for yet, Inglenook.  And I had just the right piece for it, this lovely french provincial sideboard.  I’ve done a few french provincial pieces in this color and each one has turned out gorgeous.

I must start out by saying that this is probably one of the prettier ‘before’ pics I’ve ever shown.  This piece was very lovely to begin with, and structurally it’s in perfect condition.  The original finish was a bit worn out and yellowed though.  It was also shinier than I like.  Who am I kidding, this piece could easily have been left alone.  But that’s not what I do.  I paint stuff and give it a new look, so that’s what I wanted to do here.

First I stripped the top.  I was told that this piece is made out of walnut.  I always thought that walnut was a dark wood, but I did a little google research and discovered that walnut is one of the few woods that can range from very pale to a dark chocolate brown.  I really loved the pale color of this walnut.  To me it feels fresh and clean.  So I just added some clear furniture wax to protect it rather than adding any color using stain or a tinted wax.

Next, after sanding lightly, I painted the rest of the piece in two coats of Inglenook.  Once the paint was dry, I distressed lightly to bring out the details.  Before I put the hardware back on, I refreshed it with some gold rub ‘n buff.

And that was it.

I used some old gold frames in my photos to bring out the gold hardware.

I just haven’t been able to bring myself to part with these two frames.  I love the detail, and the fact that they are both just a little bit shabby.

The frames are joined by a gilded cage full of vintage salt and pepper shakers.

What I really wanted to do was hang some sort of gorgeous landscape oil painting on the wall above this sideboard, but oh, wait, I don’t have one of those!  I’m still regretting the one I passed up at a garage sale last summer because it was $35 and that seemed high to me (kick, kick).

But what I do have is a really gorgeous french provincial sideboard in the most lovely shade of blue.  In the end, it’s probably a good thing that many of the other blues were already spoken for!

If you have a space in your home for this gorgeous sideboard, be sure to check out my “available for local sale” tab to see if it’s still available.

Now for the fun part.  You have the opportunity to win a prize package from Fusion that includes 2 pints of any shade of blue, a brush and some Fusion Antique Glaze.  The giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada who are 18 years old and up.  You have until midnight on May 1, 2016 to get your name included in the drawing on Rafflecopter using this link:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Please be sure to visit the other five bloggers that are participating in today’s blog party as well!

Melanie at Lost & Found Decor

Tara at Suburble

Crystal at Team Sutton Designs

Susan at Homeroad

Becky at Beyond the Picket Fence

And best of luck to you in the drawing!

 

A couple of weeks ago when I purchased the pair of vintage school desks, they also came with this sweet little teeny tiny chair.

I know that rusty patina isn’t everyone’s favorite, but I like a little well placed rust.  In the case of this chair, I decided that I didn’t want to paint it at all.  I just wanted to add a little extra pop of something.

So I added some Tim Holtz rub-on numbers to the back rest, as well as just below the seat.

Then I tried to use it in the school desk photos, but it just looked a little odd tucked under the desk.

On top of the desk was not much better.  So I didn’t use these photos for my post about the desks.

Then yesterday I decided to add some stripes to the seat.  I sanded it lightly, taped off the stripes and painted them using black acrylic craft paint.  I followed up with a coat of Miss Mustard Seed furniture wax to just liven up the finish a little.

And voila, the finished chair.

By the way, this chair is a bit smaller than the typical little kid’s chair that I’ve painted.  This one is only about 21″ tall.  Here’s a photo I took to give you a better idea of the scale.

See what I mean?  Tiny.

But it sure packs a ton of cuteness into a tiny package.

My craigslist spotter, nnK, spotted this dresser for me a week or so ago and I sent Mr. Q off to pick it up.

It had a little bit of damage on the right side of the 3rd drawer down, some veneer is chipped off and the trim is missing.  But otherwise it was in great shape, aside from the finish being pretty dinged up.  It also looks like there was some water damage to the feet at some point.

For some reason, as soon as I saw this in person I thought ‘yellow’.  And luckily I already had some of Fusion’s Buttermilk Cream, which is the perfect shade of creamy yellow.  Not in-your-face lemon yellow, but a subtle dignified yellow.  This is a fairly dignified dresser, so it deserved a dignified color.

Once I had it painted in yellow, I decided to give it a little more personality with the addition of white inside the trim.  I used Fusion’s Limestone for that.

Looking at the craigslist ad, I had no idea that the top half of this dresser had a curved front.  In fact, if you look at my own ‘before’ photo you can’t really tell either.  But in person it’s quite obvious.

I thought about changing out the original hardware for some clear glass knobs, but there are 12 drawer pulls on this thing!  Even at only a few dollars each, that adds up when you need 12 new knobs.  So instead I spruced them up with a little gold rub ‘n buff.

This dresser has a formal, traditional feel so I opted not to go chippy with milk paint.  The Fusion is just so darn easy to work with in comparison with no need for a top coat, no mixing, no worries about color variations.  I did end up need three coats to get really good coverage though.  I distressed the edges just a little.

The yellow and white on this dresser reminded me of some daffodils that I used to have in my garden that were yellow and white.  I really wanted to find some daffodils to use in my photos, but wouldn’t you know it, the flower shop near me was all out.  I had to settle for yellow tulips, which paired nicely with some ironstone.

By the way, this dresser is quite large.  I think it’s often hard to tell in photos, especially in this case where I haven’t added a chair or anything to provide scale.  This baby is 52.5″ tall and 36″ wide.

So let’s take a moment to talk about lining drawers, shall we?  Are you pro or con?  I am against lining a perfectly good drawer.  In my experience, a lined drawer ends up looking shabby much more quickly than an unlined drawer.  Loose paper liners don’t last very long, while sticky contact paper can be a nightmare to remove and it really doesn’t clean very well.  So for the most part, I don’t line the drawers of my pieces.

I make an exception to that when the drawer is really grossly stained.  Or in this case, I made an exception because two of the drawers in this piece had previously been lined with contact paper and it left behind an awful sticky residue that I couldn’t get rid of.  But, like I said, only two of the drawers had this problem.  So I only lined them.

Two of the drawers have dividers in them …

And are in quite good shape.  The final two drawers aren’t divided, but also are in very good condition.  So I chose not to line them.

Is that weird?  If I were keeping this dresser, this is what I would do.  But will a prospective customer wish I had lined them all?  What do you think?  In general, are your pro-liner, or con?

Linking up with Friday’s Furniture Fix at Lost & Found Decor

and Making Broken Beautiful at the Curator’s Collection.

I suspect that unless you are homeschooling your kids, most of you would not have looked twice at the craigslist ad for these vintage desks.

But the fact that they were a pair made me immediately think ‘nightstands’.  Plus I was kind of digging their mid-century vibe.  If you look at the base, you can see that the height is adjustable, so I knew I could raise them up a bit to be the right height for next to the bed.  So one recent Friday evening date night, Mr. Q and I drove out to one of my fave Minneapolis neighborhoods, Linden Hills, to pick these up.

I debated between two different concepts for them.  I thought about going ‘industrial steampunk’ by painting them black, ‘dipping’ the legs in copper paint and stenciling some numbers somewhere.  But in the end I decided to play up their mid-century look by painting the metal aqua and leaving the blonde tops as is.  They were in really good condition, so that seemed like a no-brainer.

I started by adjusting those legs.  That ended up being the most difficult part of this project.  Those bolts had obviously not been loosened in a very long time.  Luckily Mr. Q was able to use his brute strength to get the job done.  Then I painted the base of each table in Fusion’s Laurentien.  I absolutely love this color and am just finishing off my 3rd can of it.  I’m going to have to stock up on more!

Once the paint was dry I sanded the edges a little to add some character, but I still felt like the paint job looked a little too new.  So although you don’t have to use a top coat with Fusion paint, I opted to wax these.  I started with a coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s furniture wax (clear).  The purpose of an initial coat of clear wax is to make the application of the next coat of dark wax easier to manipulate.  If you’ve ever tried using dark wax directly on a lighter paint color and it looked really streaky and you weren’t able to blend it as much as you’d like, that’s because you needed a base coat of clear wax first.

I added some rub-on numbers to the pencil tray just to add a little whimsy.

I staged some of my photos with a typewriter and of course you could use these as desks.

But really, they are just too cool for school.  I would use them as nightstands.  I just don’t have a good spot for taking photos of them next to a bed.  So if you are opposed to cookie cutter furniture and prefer unique one of a kind pieces, these are perfect for you.

This Tokyo map paper had the perfect colors to match the desks.  There is something about that combination of aqua and french vanilla that I just love.

How would you use these desks?

I mentioned a little bit ago that it has been nice enough to be back out in the photo cottage already this year.  When I said that, what I meant specifically was that I could be out there taking photos without freezing my face off.  But it wasn’t quite warm enough that I wanted to be out there scrubbing away the winter grime.  Until last week (before we had another cold snap) when I came home from work one evening and it was 62 degrees outside.  So I decided there was no time like the present to head out there with my bucket of water and my scrub brush.  And now I have a fresh clean floor.  I was so happy with it, that I tried to include a bunch of floor space in today’s photos.

All this talk of a clean floor is meant to distract you from noticing that I don’t have a ‘before’ photo of this dresser.

Drat!

I thought I had taken one, but if I did it is lost in the sea of 100’s of photos that I take every week (thus the urge to organize my photos that I mentioned yesterday).  This dresser has been patiently awaiting its turn to be made over, so it is possible that I took one some time ago and I just can’t find it!

Oh well, moving on …

I went with MMS milk paint on this one because I had a feeling it would get chippy, and indeed it did.

I mixed some French Enamel and some Lucketts Green together to make this color.  I’ll be honest, I was expecting a much lighter color based on seeing what was said to be this same combination on a piece on pinterest.  This is a good reminder to everyone that colors in photos often don’t translate to how they look in real life.

This photos of this dresser are a really good example of that.  I think the dresser looks a bit more blue in the photos than it really is.  If you are proficient in MMS milk paint colors, this color is a bit lighter and a tad warmer than Kitchen Scale.

This dresser has the prettiest drawer pulls on the lower three drawers.

By the way, I did strip the top and then wax it with Cece Caldwell’s Aging Cream.

My vintage gardening books were the perfect color to use for staging.

And I threw in one of those sweet hand sewn baby dresses that I keep just for staging furniture.

This lovely dresser is for sale.  If interested, please feel free to leave a comment requesting the details or email me at qisforquandie@gmail.com.