Category: furniture.

You all were very kind in leaving positive comments about my first Nieman Marcus knock off nightstand.  Thank you for those!

But I knew I could do better!  So last weekend while garage saling in Lake of the Isles, I picked up another candidate for the Nieman Marcus look!

This one has more delicate features and it has some great details that I knew would be lovely highlighted in gold.  Someone had done a rather awful ‘make-over’ on it in the past.  It had a coat of drippy, shiny, poorly applied poly on it.  In fact, it looked as though they hadn’t even bothered to remove the drawer pulls, but just poly’ed right over them!

This time I did use MMS milk paint in Trophy!

And this time I added gold to all of the details, the braided trim around the top edge, the carved bits on the sides and bottom of the front and even the drawer pulls.

I staged it simply with an alarm clock and some lovely vintage jewelry in a gold rimmed bowl.

I am much happier with this version of my Neiman Marcus knock off nightstand!

Which is your favorite?

Linking up with the Making Broken Beautiful party at The Curator’s Collection.

If someone had predicted that I was going to be stenciling purple flowers on a green dresser I would have said they were absolutely cray-cray.

But never say never is a good motto!

In this case it was sort of a custom job.  When my niece, Kristine, mentioned that she wanted a dresser for her new apartment and that she wanted one with doors at the top rather than all drawers, I began the hunt on craigslist.  I found one relatively quickly, and it was just over in Stillwater so not far away.

Fits the bill perfectly, right?

It had a little flaw.  Some of the trim above the left front leg was missing.

Ken took care of that in short order.

Kris wanted green, so I lobbied heavily for In a Pickle milk paint from Sweet Pickins.  I just love that shade of fresh green, and I thought it would add a modern twist to a vintage dresser.  But no.  She wanted MMS Luckett’s Green.  I’ll admit I cringed a little.  I’ve had trouble with Luckett’s before so I was reluctant.

But this dresser was for Kris, so I decided to suck it up and get out the Luckett’s.  I mixed up my paint and started prepping.  Then I got sidetracked.  I can’t even remember what now, but something came up and it was another two days before I started painting.  I’ve certainly used two day old MMS milk paint before, so I didn’t think anything of it.  However, shortly after I began painting I noticed something strange.  The blue pigment in the paint kept rising to the top in my cup of mixed paint.  I kept stirring, and it would blend back in for a few moments, but then rise again.  To make matters worse, I noticed it was also rising to the top on the surfaces I’d already painted.  I kept painting and hoped for the best.  Unfortunately, that was a bad plan.  When the paint dried it looked like this.

Can you sort of see how the blue pigments were floating to the top?

I was puzzled, so I emailed Jennylyn Pringle, the President of Homestead House Paint Co, the manufacturers of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint.  She very kindly got back to me right away and explained that the blue pigments are lighter (in weight, not color) than other pigments, go figure, and the best way to solve the problem was just to mix a new batch.  So, I did.  Here is a comparison of how the paints looked in my cups.

See that blue film in the “bad” cup, sort of like an oil slick?  That was my problem and it just wouldn’t go away.

So, another lesson learned.  Some of the milk paints can’t be kept hanging around for two days once they are mixed!  I know there are a lot of you out there that believe that milk paint just isn’t worth the effort because of issues like this.  I will totally agree with you that it can be finicky sometimes.  I certainly have run into my fair share of problems with this paint.  However, I still go back to it over and over as my favorite.  There is just something about the end result that makes it all worth it for me.  And on the bright side, I am learning these things the hard way and sharing them with you so that you don’t have to!

Anyway, I mixed up a new batch and painted one last coat and it looked fab!

Back to the custom paint job.  My niece wanted Luckett’s Green, but she also wanted a creamy white on the doors with a flower stencil in purple.  Well, it’s her dresser!  If she wants purple flowers, that’s what I’ll give her.  I painted the insets with Fusion’s Casement and the purple was an acrylic craft paint that Kris picked out.

Kris also purchased the stencil herself.  I’m not sure where she got it, but I can tell you that it definitely was not of the same quality as the stencils from Maison de Stencils that I am used too.  It was rather warped, which made it difficult to get nice crisp lines.  But Kris is very happy with the end result, and that is all that matters!

You may have noticed that I changed out the hardware on this one.  That came right after Kris made ‘that face’ when I asked if she wanted to keep them.  You know ‘that face’, the one that says “gag me with a spoon”.  OK, maybe people don’t use that expression anymore, but you know what I mean.  When I asked her “what don’t you like about them?” in an attempt to figure out what direction to go in, she said “they look old.”  Oh boy.  That’s usually precisely what I do like about things.  Hmmm.  I wonder what she thinks about me!  I’m pretty sure I look old.

Fortunately I had these ivory ceramic knobs on hand though, and once I held them in place we both realized they were perfect.  They even mirror the shape of the stenciled flowers.

They definitely gave it a newer, more updated look.

I thought I would have trouble finding the right props to stage this one for photos, but as it turned out I had some great vintage purple and green books.  And at the last minute I threw in my potted lavender.  The purple was a perfect match.

I certainly never pictured using a green and purple color scheme anywhere else but in the garden when I potted it up last spring, but hey, you just never know.

Kris seems very happy with her new dresser, and I’m certainly happy I was able to pull it together for her.  We brought it over last night and she’ll have just enough time to get it in place before their house/apartment warming party this weekend!

Sometimes buying and selling on craigslist can be a real pain in the you know what.  For example, last week I sent inquiries on three different pieces and never heard back on any of them.  The ads are still posted.  What’s up with that?  I’d like to point out that if you don’t contact your potential buyers, it’s hard to sell your item.  Just in case that isn’t obvious for anyone else.

OK.  I got that out of my system.  And what I actually wanted to say was that this time it was the total opposite.  It couldn’t have been easier.  I contacted the seller, she got back to me right away, and as it turned out she was located less than a mile from my Wednesday night Zumba class.  Not only that, but it actually was Wednesday.  Plus the seller was fine with an 8:45 pm pick up time.  So after Zumba, my sister and I popped over there to pick it up.  The cherry on the sundae?  The seller had it all ready to go in the garage.  We basically had to carry it about 10′ from the garage to the back of the truck.  Easy peasy.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any ‘before’ shots this time.  Oh well.  I got plenty of ‘after’ shots!

This is a marble topped dresser.

Since the marble is white with grey veining, I decided I should keep the dresser in the same colors.  I painted the body in MMS Trophy and the handles and trim in MMS Grain Sack.

I got lots of great chipping on this piece.  It’s been a while since I’ve gotten some genuine chipping, so that was pretty exciting (what can I say, I live a pretty thrilling life).

I staged this with a gorgeous monogrammed linen tablecloth that I picked up at a garage sale last week.  I just love a good monogram, even though I usually have no idea what letters they are supposed to be.  I’m going with SWS on this one.  Maybe?

The hydrangeas are starting to turn for fall, so I had to throw some of them in the photo as well.  These are Limelight hydrangeas.

Before I let you go, a public service announcement for my local readers:  if you didn’t happen to notice it in the comments last week, Jody at Farmhouse Inspired in Hudson is offering a 10% discount on the Junk Gypsy paint that I used on my painted pots last week.  Check out the Junk Gypsy colors here.  I think that I am “Modern Farmhouse” …

With a little “Coastal” thrown in.

Check out the different styles and let me know which one fits you!

I saw this beautiful nightstand on pinterest a while back …

Lovely, right?

I tracked it down to its source.  Turns out it is for sale at Neiman Marcus and it can be yours for a mere $799 plus $175 shipping.  Hmmmm.  Add in the tax, and you are looking at over $1,000.  For a nightstand.  Wowza!

I guess if you have that kind of money to blow on a nightstand, more power to you!  But if you don’t, you can create a knock off.

Start with a basic French provincial nightstand.

Paint it with Annie Soan’s French Linen (that’s what I did), or you could use Miss Mustard Seed’s Trophy.  I think that would come closer to the shade of grey on the inspiration piece.  I didn’t use milk paint on mine because I didn’t want to see much of the original white and green paint coming through any chipping.

Sand, wax and add a little gold rub ‘n buff to the details, and voila!  A Nieman Marcus knock off nightstand.

In hindsight, I should have added a lot more gold to mine.  Unfortunately, it’s too late, I’ve already taken it to Reclaiming Beautiful in Stillwater to sell.  Do you think they would mind if I popped by with my rub ‘n buff and added some more gold?

I know mine isn’t quite as gorgeous as the original.  The lines on my nightstand aren’t as delicate and fine as the $1,000 version.  And I definitely don’t have as much gold.

But seriously, at $125 for mine and over $1,000 for theirs … well, at least if you bought mine you could still afford your mortgage this month too.

A while back I sent Mr. Q to a garage sale to see if there were any pieces of furniture to be had. Sure enough, there were several pieces that he thought I would like.  At the time, a storm was brewing and the rain was just starting to come down as he negotiated the deal.  As a result, he didn’t spend as much time scrutinizing these pieces as he should have.  He paid for them, threw them in the truck and hightailed it home.

By the time he pulled in our driveway it was coming down pretty good.  We unloaded things and dried them off, and then left them in the carriage house.  Later in the week when I pulled this dresser out for a closer look, I discovered that all of the drawers were firmly stuck closed!  Ugh!  It was a case of the dresser looking pretty good on the outside, but really in very bad shape on the inside.

Handyman Ken and I literally had to remove the back of the dresser and pound each drawer out from behind with a hammer.  Then Ken went to work sanding all the drawers down and making a couple of other fixes that were needed inside to make the drawers open and close smoothly.  Once again, thank goodness for Ken.

After all of that hard work, I decided this piece should be painted in a dark and stormy grey to match both the weather when we bought it and my mood when I discovered the drawers were all stuck!

I used a mix of Urban Rooster’s Smokey Ash and Dixie Belle’s Hurricane Grey.  Honestly, there was very little (if any) difference between these two colors.  I didn’t think I had enough of either one to do the whole dresser though, so I simply mixed them together.

I gave the rich grey color even a little more depth by finishing with Miss Mustard Seed’s antiquing wax.  This dresser has some very charming trim on the front.

I wasn’t sure about the hardware, but my friend Meggan convinced me to keep it.  She loved the verdigris patina, and she was certain the color would work well with the grey.

I think she was right, what do you think?

I love the combo of grey and mustard yellow, so I used one of my fall painted pots for staging (you’ll read more about those in an upcoming post).

I think this one turned out quite nice in the end, but there was a lot of extra effort involved.  In the future I think I’ll try and stick with dressers that don’t have sticky drawers!

Linking up with:  Making Broken Beautiful Furniture Party at The Curator’s Collection.

I’m pretty sure that since the very first day my mom and dad brought me home from the hospital, my big sister Debbie has been trying to boss me around.  As the typical ‘oldest child’, she likes to be in charge.  As a result, she seems a bit annoyed every time I suggest that she is my ‘apprentice’ in the furniture workshop!  Nonetheless, I am proud of her work on the hutch that she completed under my tutelage (LOL, she’s not going to like that!  It’s true though.)

Debbie needed a small china cupboard for her new apartment.  She left her old one behind in New Jersey because it had seen better days and it didn’t fit in the truck.  I assured her that we could find something cheap on craigslist and make it fabulous.  So one Saturday morning about a month ago, we sat down at the computer and found a sweet little Duncan Phyfe style piece for a mere $80!

It wasn’t in bad shape, just a little dated in appearance.  The curved glass on the middle section is quite lovely.  Debbie likes the simple lines of this piece.  I tried to sell her on something with a little more detail on the top, but she liked this better.

So we unloaded it into my workshop and she got started.  She removed all of the hardware and sanded lightly.  I cautioned her against over-sanding because this looked like it could be a bleeder.  And sure enough it was.  When you have a piece that has orange or red stain that bleeds, you want to maintain the original varnish as much as possible to keep the stain sealed in.  Your next option is to re-seal it with shellac or the Tough Coat Sealer.  In the end, Debbie was able to get by with just a couple spots of sealer needed on the outside, which she painted in Annie Sloan’s French Linen.  The inside was a different story.  That required two coats of sealer to keep the stain from bleeding through the Fusion Lamp White that she used there.  We also ended up removing the back to make it easier to paint the inside.  It also made it easier for Ken to repair one of the glass stops that wasn’t holding the glass in place properly.

So much better, right?  By the way, Debbie calls it a ‘china closet’.  I suspect this might be an east coast thing.  I’ve always called these china cupboards, or hutches.  What do you call them?

And FYI, I thought I’d leave all of the reflections in the glass rather than erasing them with some editing software.  It makes for a fun detective project to figure out what you can see reflected there.  The turquoise t-shirt and white shorts?  That’s me.  You can also see Debbie texting, my old car (I just got a new one this week!), the carriage house … and more!

I hoped that Debbie would take my suggestion and add a stencil to her cabinet, and she did.  The “Family and Friends gather here” stencil seemed particularly perfect for a china cupboard.

Debbie finished the piece using my custom blended dark wax.

She spent nearly as much on paint products as she did on the cupboard itself.  The Annie Sloan paint was $40, the Fusion paint was $20 and the Tough Coat Sealer was around $15.  But she has more than enough of each of them left to paint some chairs for her dining table … her next project.  And even at $155 this was a bargain.

Didn’t she do a great job?  She should let me boss her around more often, don’t you agree?!

Last week my sister-in-law brought me yet another great piece of furniture to paint.  Delivered it right to my door as a matter of fact.  Isn’t that fantastic?

It looks a little pink in the before photo, but that’s just a reflection from my red barn.  Really it was a sort of yellowed white with gold trim.  A sweet little French provincial desk.  Yep, it’s a desk.  You’ll see in a minute.

It was in great shape really, it just needed a little refreshing.  So that is what I did using some Fusion paint.

I painted the body in Limestone and the drawer fronts in Buttermilk Cream.  I absolutely LOVE the Buttermilk Cream.  It’s the perfect pale yellow for those of us who want a sweet, subtle, mellow yellow.  One that doesn’t scream “Wowza!  Look at me!  I’m yellow!”

I debated painting the hardware before I put it back on, but I decided to take the famous advice “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

It really worked beautifully with the yellow.

Remember that I said this piece is a desk?  Well, you pull those two little brass knobs above the top drawer and a desk top pulls out.

How slick, right?

It’s not pulled out all the way in these photos.  I think it would be the perfect size for a lap top computer if pulled out all the way.

But for my photo shoot it was the perfect spot for a vintage Boston Cook Book.

If you need a mellow yellow desk for your lap top (or your cook books), let me know.  So far this one is available.

That title really doesn’t have much to do with this dresser makeover.  I just happened to notice that the clock I used in my photos was set to 5:00 and it reminded me of the song.  I’ve had a soft spot for Jimmy Buffet ever since I lived in South Florida.  You can’t grow up down there and not turn into a Parrot Head!  My favorite Buffet songs are a little more obscure though, such as Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On …

I bought a cheap watch from a crazy man
Floating down canal
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands
It always just says now
Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And If I have trouble the warranty said
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On

Somehow I just love the idea of a watch that just says “now.”  I often need to be reminded to live in the moment.  Someone should make watches like that, don’t you think?

Alas, I don’t make watches!  But I do make-over dressers.

This is the last piece in the bedroom set I purchased a while back.  I’ve already painted the bed and the mirrored dresser, and now I’ve painted the tall gentlemen’s dresser.  Here it is before.

I decided to paint it with Miss Mustard Seed’s Artissimo, a beautiful dark blue.  Unfortunately I had a really difficult time capturing the color correctly.  This photo looks kind of awful.  It was so much better in person, I swear.

In fact it was so much better that it is already sold.  One of my favorite customers, Susan, came to pick up the Almond & Ironstone dresser and she saw this one and had to have it too!  Susan has very good taste 😉

This next photo is the only one that comes close to showing the true color.  Just squint a little and imagine this color in the rest of the photos.

Much like with the other pieces in this set, a coat of paint really brought out the details.  Aren’t those feet and the trim at the bottom to die for?

The varnish on the top of this dresser had some ‘alligatoring’.  I don’t know if that is truly a term or not, but do you know what I mean?  I wanted to save that because I love the look of it, so for that reason I chose not to strip and wax the top, but to paint it this time.  The milk paint does a great job of bringing out that look.

Ugh.  The color.  Still not good.

Well, I’m taking a look at my watch and it’s telling me that “now” is the first day of what looks to be a fab weekend.  Summer is coming to a close, but I’m going to live in the moment and enjoy every beautiful minute while it lasts.  Who’s with me?

So, I know a lot of people have asked the question “does a chippy milk painted piece continue to chip after it is finished?”  Well, I thought I would give an answer to that question based on my own experience.  Disclaimer:  these are only my own opinions based on my own experience with milk painted pieces, this is not a sponsored post.

It’s not a simple yes or no answer though (it never is, is it?)  The answer is yes, and no, and it depends.

Let’s start with the “yes” answer.  If your piece is (1) fairly chippy, and (2) you haven’t thoroughly removed all chipping paint, and (3) it gets a fair amount of use, and (4) you haven’t sealed your piece with something like poly or Miss Mustard’s Tough Coat Sealer, then yes, your piece will probably continue to chip.

An example of this is my French cane back chair.  I painted this piece back in February 2014 (here is the original post) and this is how it looked then.

As you can see in the above photo, it’s nicely chippy.  Not extremely chippy, but there is definitely some chipping.

For about a year the chair was not used much, but then I moved it into the Q Branch in January 2015 and have been using it quite regularly since then.

And here is how it looks now.

I’d say it has lost a fair amount of paint, especially on the cane back, but also on any raised areas or areas where the chair is handled a lot.

Personally I love this look!  The more worn the better, this is what I’m aiming for on pieces that I’m keeping for myself.  This chair was finished with wax, by the way.  It has not been sealed.  I haven’t ever felt like there are paint chips on the floor every day or anything like that, but over time I clearly have lost some paint.

Here, I’ll make it easier for you to see with a side by side comparison …

The cane was also painted with milk paint.  I painted this chair in the winter, so I couldn’t use my cheater spray paint method on it (I don’t like to spray paint in the house).  I’ll have to keep an eye on my new cane back dining chairs and see if the spray paint holds up better on the cane.  I suspect it will.  Maybe I will regret that down the road, because I’d be happier if my dining chairs did look this chippy and shabby.

My next example of chipping is the French Market sign in my kitchen.  This was uber chippy when I finished it.

I have it leaning on the back splash of my kitchen counter.  It also just happens to be where we lean freshly washed dishes (we don’t have a dishwasher, or as I like to say my dishwasher is named Mr. Q), and as it turns out, damp conditions will definitely contribute to continued chipping.  Here is how it started to look after being there for a few months.

I knew that if I tried to sand and/or scrape off these chips I would have barely any paint left.

So instead, I added a coat of Miss Mustard’s Tough Coat Sealer.  And it no longer chips at all.  We still lean freshly washed dishes on it with no problem.  The Tough Coat Sealer does add a little shine to the finish, but just a little (you can’t even see it in the photo).  Here is how it looks today.

It sort of ‘glues’ the chips into place.  So if you have a really chippy piece, and you want to keep those chips, then this is a great option for you.

Then there is my “Kitchen Scale” buffet.

You can see that it has a decent amount of chipping around the edges.  This piece was thoroughly sanded, vacuumed and finished with hemp oil.  I believe I got all of the loose paint off when I finished it almost two years ago.  It also gets a fair amount of use.  In the winter I store my paint inside this (some people store dishes in a buffet, I store paint!) and I constantly push it out of this spot so that I can use the spot for photo shoots of finished furniture.  So it gets manhandled fairly often.  Yet I have not had any continued chipping on this one.

So, to recap.  If your milk painted piece turns out really chippy and you don’t remove absolutely all of the flaking paint, it will continue to chip (unless you seal it with Tough Coat Sealer or something similar).  Also, if your milk painted piece is exposed to damp conditions, it will likely continue to chip (again, unless you seal it).  In addition, if your piece is going to get heavy use (like a chair that one sits in for many hours while posting on their blog) you may get both additional chipping and general wearing off of paint.  However, if you’ve done a good job getting all of the flakes off to begin with, and your piece stays in a fairly dry area, and it’s only manhandled once in a while it shouldn’t chip more down the road.

And finally, just for the record, I love the chippy look, so I generally don’t use a sealer on my pieces (I stick with wax and hemp oil).  I also don’t usually sand every last scrap of chippy paint off, because I want to see those flaky bits left behind.  To me that is the beauty of milk paint!

If you don’t love the chippy look, I’d recommend using chalk paint or Fusion paint.  Why bother with milk paint unless you are going for a chippy look?