Category: furniture.

Every once in a while I wonder to myself ‘is painted furniture going out of style?  and if so, what will I do?’ and then I feel a little panicky.

First of all, our whole house is full of painted furniture …

I certainly can’t replace it all.  Or at least not all at once.  And would I even want to?

I still really love my own pieces of painted furniture whether they are ‘in style’ or not.

But the bigger question is ‘what about my hobby?’  I call it a hobby because I haven’t come up with a better word to describe what I do here.

/ˈhɑːbi/ (plural hobbies) ​an activity that you do for pleasure when you are not working.

‘Hobby’ doesn’t really quite do it justice, but based on the Oxford Dictionary definition, it does fit.

Hobbies have come and gone from my life over the years.  One of the first hobbies I took up after we bought our house way, way back in 1988, was making stained glass windows.  I wasn’t going to be satisfied with just making those little doo-dads that you hang inside a regular window, I wanted to make full blown windows.  But you have to start somewhere, and I did start with making those suncatcher type things.  And after I had developed some still very rudimentary skills, I made the window that is in our piano room.

But I eventually grew bored with that hobby and I moved on to cross stitch.  Who else remembers the hey day of cross stitch?  I even belonged to a club, the Stitch and Bitch club.  We spent weekends at a friend’s cabin listening to the oldies station and stitching and bitching away.

But cross stitch went out of style and I replaced it with scrapbooking.

I loved scrapbooking.  But after years of doing it, I have 30 or so scrapbooks in the guestroom closet that I rarely ever look at.  And really, scrapbooking has gone out of style too, although on occasion I still enjoy creating scrapbook alternatives like the index cards …

Painting furniture and otherwise refurbishing vintage finds has really stuck with me though.  I started this particular hobby way back in the 90’s when the shabby chic movement was all the rage.

Back in the day I painted everything in the Rachel Ashwell palette of white, pink, pale green or pale aqua.  And I did all of that lettering by hand!  Isn’t that crazy?

Eventually I moved on and added more saturated colors into my work, like Miss Mustard Seeds’ Kitchen Scale.

Sometimes I cringe now when I look back at some of the pieces I painted in the early days of my blog though.

I mean really?  What was I thinking painting those trim pieces white?  I want to go back and paint them in the same color as the rest of the dresser so that they blend rather than pop now.  And by the way, that is Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Artissimo on that one.

But even though I’m cringing when I look back at some of my earlier work, what I’m also realizing is that my style has definitely evolved over the past 25 years.

Ahhh, so much better without that contrasting trim, don’t you think?

And stencils are so much better than my old hand painted lettering.

Yes, these pieces are still painted, but they are painted in a more current style than those shabby chic pieces from two decades ago.

And I’ve gradually leaned towards leaving more things unpainted, like knobs, and tops …

or even an entire chair …

So in the end, maybe it doesn’t really matter whether or not painted furniture is going ‘out of style.’  We can all just continue to grow and let our styles evolve naturally over time.  That’s my plan anyway.  How about you?

As I shared last week, or was it the week before?  I don’t know, time flies so quickly these days it feels like the weeks all blend together.

Anyway, as I shared, I decided to take this bench back to the drawing board.

Again.

It started out as a bed, then it became a bench, and then it sat unsold for about 9 months.

I decided it was either the color, the transfer, or the price.  But I reduced the price and it still didn’t go.  Let me take a moment to reflect on that.  In all of my years of selling furniture I have found that lowering the price on a piece that isn’t selling almost never makes a difference.  My prices tend to be on the lower side anyway, so if a piece isn’t selling it’s not usually because of the price.  That being said, I do charge more for these benches because I pay Ken for the materials and for his time to turn them from beds into benches.  So I tried lowering the price, and still, no sale.

Ken thought the problem was those posts sticking up above the seat level on the front corners though.  Those has always bugged him, and he really wanted the chance to try something different.  So he brought it back to his workshop and cut the posts off the front corners, tapered the remaining top of each post to make it look more natural, and then replaced those two outer boards on the seat.

I do prefer this look over the old one, it’s definitely a little less fussy.

Next up I sanded off the transfer.

Today’s q tip:  when removing a transfer from something, you do have to fully remove it before painting over it.  Otherwise you will see an outline through your new paint.  I have found that the quickest solution is to put an 80 grit paper on my orbital sander and go to town on it.  I have tried using mineral spirits and that didn’t work for me.  After lots of elbow grease with a 3M scrubby pad saturated in mineral spirits, it still didn’t remove the transfer fully.

So, I sanded the transfer off, wiped away any dust and gave the bench a coat of Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.  I had decided to just go back to basic black, which I know sells well.  And you know what?  I can’t really say why, but black just wasn’t working on this piece.  So once again, I decided to pivot (because that’s the trendy thing to do now).  I pulled out the Dixie Belle Drop Cloth and covered up that black.

The warm, almost creamy but not quite, off white shade of Drop Cloth just really does it for me.

The bench felt a little too plain without anything on that big framed rectangle on the back though, so I decided to add a fairly simple black transfer.

This is a section from a newer re.design with prima transfer called French Specialties.

The top section fit the space perfectly.  It went on super easily.  I love the ‘Paris 1889’ part in the middle.

It wasn’t until I was applying clear wax over it that I noticed a problem.

Do you see it?  Let me give you a minute.  I sort of gave it away in my blog post title.

Yeah.  It says the same thing three times over.  Top curved line, and bottom two lines.  Cakes and pastries, cakes and pastries, cakes and pastries.  What the what? Not that I don’t love cakes and pastries, and I’d be OK with the top curved line, and just one of the bottom lines.  But those two bottom lines did me in.

All I can think is that because the wording is French, I just simply didn’t take the time to ‘read’ the transfer.  I was too busy looking at the overall layout, admiring the fonts, thinking the scale of the design was perfect for my piece.  And frankly, assuming that the wording was vetted by re.design with prima.

Once you’ve seen it, you can’t un-see it, am I right?  Or maybe it’s just me.  Am I too particular?  Are any of you not bothered by the repetitive lines?

Since I’d already waxed over it, the process of removing just one of the bottom two lines becomes much more complicated.  If only I’d noticed before waxing.  I could have sanded one line off, touched up the paint, and moved on.  But with wax on it, and because those lines are fairly close together, I’m not sure I can successfully sand off that section and blend the touch up paint into the waxed areas that remain without damaging the rest of the transfer.

So tell me, what are your thoughts on this?

Would you …

a.  List it for sale as is because it’s just not that big of a deal and only neurotic perfectionists like myself are going to notice.

OR

b.  Try to remove one of those cakes and pastries lines from the bottom by sanding and hope that you can blend the repair seamlessly.

OR

c.  Shove this bench in the corner for 30 days while the wax cures and hope that you can paint over one of those lines without sanding (see q tip above before choosing this option!).

Leave me a comment and let me know what you would do!

Even after more than 25 years of refurbishing vintage furniture, I don’t always know exactly which pieces will sell quickly, and which ones won’t sell at all.  Somehow I still sometimes manage to get it wrong when making decisions about the new look for a piece.

In general, I find that pieces painted in a neutral color such as white, black, dark navy or grey sell really quickly.

While pieces painted in a less neutral color tend to take longer to sell, and sometimes don’t sell at all.  For example, I originally painted this bench in a smoky pale blue …

I thought the transfer was really pretty, and had the perfect message for a foyer.  And although the color wasn’t quite neutral, it also wasn’t really bright.

But it did not sell.  I gave it 9 months, and then decided to re-paint it in my favorite Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.

And it sold right away.

Sometimes the pieces painted in neutrals don’t sell either though.  For example, this dresser did not sell despite its white paint job.

This one really surprised me, the white pieces usually sell easily.  Was it the toile transfer on those two upper drawers?  I loved it, but clearly it was not everyone’s cup of tea.

After months of trying to sell it, I ended up sanding off the toile and adding an IOD transfer over the entire front of the dresser instead.

And once again, it sold fairly quickly.

But there are always exceptions to the neutral color rule, my mid-mod pieces painted in Fusion’s Park Bench green have always flown off the shelf.

And even this vintage piece painted in a vibrant green milk paint (Sweet Pickins In a Pickle) sold, although it did take a little bit longer than the neutral pieces.

I do think that you have to get to know your own geographical area and what will sell best in your neck of the woods too.  I suspect that the floral pieces may do better in the south, while here in the upper mid-west, people are a little more conservative.  I’m not sure if conservative is the right word, but we’re maybe just a bit less frilly (correct me if I’m wrong about that Southerners).  So whenever I add a floral transfer to a piece, I always assume it will take a little longer to sell.

The exception to that rule is this one though …

That’s the Rose Celebration transfer from re.design with prima.  I’ve only used it twice, but both times the piece sold really quickly.

Then there was this piece …

For the life of me, I couldn’t sell this piece with the mirror attached. Generally, I find that it’s more difficult to sell a dresser with a mirror than without.  I think it’s because dressers are so much more versatile without their mirrors.  They can be used in a dining room, or a living room as a TV stand, or in the laundry room or home office.  You’d think buyers could just take the mirror off, but I think most people are reluctant to dismantle a piece like this.

But not me.  With my handyman Ken’s help, I removed the mirror and replaced it with some trim that I painted to match.

And that was all it took to get this one to sell.

Finally, I also find that certain pieces of furniture sell faster than others.  Dressers, nightstands and washstands are the easiest to sell for me.

Things like hutches, cabinets, buffets and chairs usually take a little longer.

And then we have desks and benches.

Desks have just never been a quick sell for me.  Perhaps it’s because people don’t really need desks anymore, or at least not in the traditional sense.  Still, I am a bit surprised that I haven’t found a buyer yet for this one …

At this point I plan to paint a mirror to match that can be hung on the wall behind it to turn it into more of a vanity/dressing table.  Then I’ll restage my photos and try again.  Maybe that will help, maybe not.  I will really be bummed if I eventually have to paint over it.  I absolutely love the IOD transfer I used.  I may have to figure out a way to keep it myself if I can’t sell it.

The benches that Ken makes out of old bed frames always take longer to sell as well.  Maybe it’s because I have to charge more for them to pay for the materials and for Ken’s time.  Some of them sold fairly quickly though, like this one in basic black …

Some of them took a fair amount of time to sell, but did eventually go, like this one …

and this one …

And that brings me to this piece.

This one started out as a bed frame.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a 3/4 sized bed (the original owner swore it was a twin, but I should have measured myself).  Once that little detail came to light, I sent the pieces over to Ken’s workshop to be turned into a bench.

I thought he did a brilliant job of re-working that footboard, but Ken was not happy with how it turned out.  He didn’t like the fact that the footboard had those corner posts that stuck up on either side of the seat in the front.  I thought that would be OK though.  It was already mostly painted in Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy and had the Cosmic Roses transfer from re.design with prima on the back.  I’d done this combo before, on this dresser …

and it was a success.  So I touched up the paint here and there and listed it for sale.

But this bench just hasn’t sold.  Is it the color?  Is it the floral transfer?  Is it those posts sticking up in the front?  Or is it a little bit of all three?

I’m not really sure.  So I’m going to change all three.  Last week it once again went back to Ken’s workshop.  He cut off the tops of those posts in the front, then he replaced the two outer boards on the seat.

Now it’s back in my workshop.  I’ve sanded off the transfer and am now giving some more thought to its new look.  Any ideas?  I’ve very tempted to just paint it black.

For those of you who also paint furniture, what do you find sells best in your area?  Do you have a magic formula that works every time?  Leave a comment and share your experience with the rest of us!

One of my readers offered me this little cabinet a while back.  She’d planned to give it a makeover herself, but never got around to it and finally decided to give it up.  Hey, it happens to all of us, right?

If you look at the top, right side of the cabinet, you can see that this piece was formerly a built-in.  There isn’t any trim on that side because it was up against a wall.  So the first step with this piece was to have my handyman Ken work some of his magic on it.

He wasn’t aiming for perfection, I just wanted him to add a little bit of balance to that side of the cabinet.

So he added a 1″ x 2″ board to the side to ‘match’ the other side, and then he moved that tiny bit of trim (with the arrow pointing to it in the photo above) from the back of the cupboard to the side instead.  He also added a little piece of filler wood behind it so that there wasn’t a gap.

Then he added that little triangular piece of wood under the 1 by 2 to sort of fake your eye into not noticing the lack of trim there.

I used some of Dixie Belle’s Mud to hide some gaps too.  Then I painted all of the new wood in Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean.  I did that because I knew I wanted to paint this piece in milk paint, and milk paint over raw wood looks a bit different than milk paint over finished (or painted wood) and I didn’t want that area to stand out.

I mentioned that last week’s spooky furniture was inspired by the Kabinet & Kammer book.  I’m often inspired by things I see in decorating books, and today’s piece is another example of that.  This time my inspiration comes from Patina Farm by Gianetti & Gianetti.

Specifically, this cupboard in Patina Farm …

I love that smoky blue grey color, along with the really worn and distressed look of that cabinet.

I thought that I could probably recreate that look using Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Aviary.  So I mixed up the rest of the Aviary paint I had on hand and started painting.

I really cut it close with the paint.  I’d already used some of the package of paint on both my sister’s trunk and a small chair, so I had less than half left.  Luckily I was aiming for a massively worn look because that helped disguise the fact that I didn’t really get perfect coverage with just two coats on paint on this piece, but that was all the paint I had left.

It was enough to give me the look I wanted though.

After painting the outside, I distressed heavily (by sanding with 220 grit paper) and then added a top coat of clear wax.  I ultimately decided not to paint the inside.  I think the smoky blue color works well with the tone of the warm wood interior, and with the door shut you really don’t see much of it.

I did clean it up a bit inside using Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta though.  This time I used their new scent for fall called Flannel.  It smells pretty much just like men’s cologne, so if you’re looking for a more masculine scent, this is it.  It would be perfect for freshening up the drawers of a gentlemen’s chest of drawers.

This cupboard would be a fun piece to tuck into a narrow spot in your home, and as you can see it looks great with some ironstone inside.

Although this is usually where I tell locals that they can check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details, but this sweet little cupboard is already spoken for!

Just a heads up to those of you who look for my blog posts on the regular, my sister and I are flying out later today to visit our mom.  We’ll be gone all of next week, so I’ll be taking a little bit of a blog break.  But I’ll be back with another post on October 4, so be sure to stay tuned!

Last year I shared a cute little chair that I gave a little bit of a spooky makeover to using a stencil.

I thought it was super cute, and it sold right away.  So I thought I’d give it another shot on a larger chair.

I purchased this pair of chairs thinking I’d save them for a similar treatment for Christmas (paint and a stencil) …

But recently I decided to try the Notice of Decommission stencil on one of them first.  If it doesn’t sell, I can always sand it down and paint it again for Christmas.

I started by cleaning the chair, scuff sanding it lightly and then painting it in Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.  I added the stencil using their Putty.

Next I sanded to distress and added a coat of clear wax.

And that was it.

Wouldn’t this chair be cute in your foyer, or on your covered front porch, for Halloween?

Since I loved the results on the chair, I decided to go out on a limb and use the same stencil on this little chest of drawers that I picked up at the White Bear Lake Trash to Treasure day.

I say I’m going ‘out on a limb’ because I really don’t know if a piece of furniture like this will sell with a slightly spooky theme.  But again, if it doesn’t sell I can always start over with fresh paint.  After all, that’s the beauty of paint.

It appeared as though this piece had been painted with spray paint, and it was starting to peel in some spots.  So I sanded more heavily than I normally would, I had to remove that spray paint almost entirely.  Your paint job is only as good as the surface under it, so painting over peeling paint doesn’t do anything to stop the peeling.

I then gave this piece a fresh coat of the Midnight Sky as well.  Then I decided to add a little depth to the piece by stenciling some designs using a slightly darker black with a tiny bit more sheen.  For that I used Dixie Belle’s Silk paint in Anchor.

I wasn’t entirely sure how this would work out, but I love the result I got.  It’s kind of subtle, and maybe even a little bit ghostly.  I used the Dixie Belle Harlequin stencil for the diamonds and the damask pattern is a stencil from re.design with prima.

Next I added my Notice of Decommission stencil, again in the Putty.

I sanded to distress, and topcoated with clear wax.

I had removed the original drawer pulls when I prepped this piece, and I decided not to put them back on because they would have covered up too much of the stencil.  So I went through my stash and found 4 black glass knobs.

The silver bolts that hold the knobs in place were a bit too jarring in the middle of the black knobs, so I painted them with the Midnight Sky first and then added a quick coat of Prima Marketing’s Bronze Age Metallique wax.  That warmed them up perfectly.

I staged my photos of this piece with Sean Scherer’s Kabinett & Kammer.

If any of you are familiar with that book, you’ll understand why.  The overall aesthetic leans slightly towards the dark and mysterious.

Even my use of the black metal strong box was inspired by this book.

I’m hoping that someone out there appreciates this style and will want to add a unique little chest of drawers to their home.

What do you think?

Both the chair and the chest of drawers are for sale.  Be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details if interested.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the paint used for these makeovers.

A couple of weeks back one of my blog readers offered me a free cupboard and when she was dropping it off she also offered me this little metal stool.

So, I thought, why not?  I knew it would be a fun little project to give it a new look.

I started by sanding it well.  It had peeling paint in some areas, especially underneath, so I wanted to get rid of that.  As I was sanding I could see that this stool had been various colors in the past including red, and yellow.

I debated going with red myself, but I find that red is a bit of a tough sell for me.  So instead I decided to go with my favorite Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.

Continuing to keep it fairly neutral I used Dixie Belle’s Putty to add a grain sack style stripe to the seat …

And to add a Jami Ray Vintage Grain Sack Mini stencil to the back …

I sanded the edges to distress, and then I gave it all a top coat of clear wax.

For the finishing touch, I purchased new rubber feet.

I found these at my local Menards for $1.49 for all 4, and the color matched the Drop Cloth perfectly.

Hopefully this more neutral version of the stool will fit perfectly in someone’s kitchen.  Maybe even yours?  If you’re local and can pick it up, that is.

Overall, it was quick and easy to go from outdated peach to farmhouse neutral with just a little paint.

What do you think?

Thank you to Dixie Belle for providing the paint used on this project.

A while back my sister, niece and I took a Friday off work just for the heck of it.  We visited a few cute shops, had lunch at a fabulous spot in Stillwater (Brick & Bourbon where the whiskey & cola shaved beef was amazing), and ended up at Selma’s in Afton for some ice cream.  And all along the way we stopped at garage sales whenever we saw a sign.

We actually started out at a barn sale that we’d gone to last year as well.  It was one of the first sales I made it to last year after all of my regular spring neighborhood sales were canceled.

I bought a handful of things at the sale including this cool vintage camera to add to my non-collection (“non-” because I’m in denial that I collect anything) …

I get a little chuckle out of the ‘miniature’ name.  Here’s a comparison of this one to my truly miniature vintage camera …

The Falcon is about 5″ across.  For its day (1939), I’m betting it was considered quite small though.  I really just choose the additions to my non-collection based on looks.  I couldn’t care less about things like value, or how rare something is.  In this case, I loved the graphics around the lens.

I also picked up the frame to a dresser mirror at the barn sale.  It was pretty beat up, filthy dirty and the mirror was long gone.  But the price was right, so I grabbed it.  Unfortunately, once again I neglected to get a before photo.  Drat!  You’ll just have to use your imagination.

I cleaned it up, re-glued the joints, and as I was contemplating what color to paint it I realized that I kind of liked the look of the original dark stain.  So I decided to try something a little bit different this time around.  Instead of painting the frame, I gave it a light sanding to remove any loose bits of finish and then I refreshed it with some of Dixie Belle’s No Pain Gel Stain in Walnut.

I’d used this stain before on more of a bare wood surface, but this time I just wiped it right over the lightly sanded original finish on this frame using an old t-shirt.

This is the moment when I really wish I had a ‘before’ photo so I could show you the difference.  It was more of a subtle sprucing up rather than a dramatic change.

Gel stain sits on the top of a surface rather than soaking into it like traditional stains.  For that reason you can use it over an existing finish without removing every trace of the original top coat.  In this case it just sorted of blended everything a bit.

Once I’d let the gel stain dry for a couple of days (it’s an oil based product and takes longer to dry than water based products) I added part of re.design with prima’s Somewhere in France transfer to the bottom.

Then I used clear wax over the entire frame to give it a tiny bit of sheen.  I followed up by adding a piece of hardboard in place of the mirror.  I turned that board into a chalkboard simply by painting it with Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky, then sanding it with 220 grit paper and not adding any sort of top coat to it.

And there you have it …

What do you think?

Are you on board with my decision to leave this one unpainted?  Or would you have preferred to see it painted?

I really enjoy taking something that many people would have thrown in the burn pile and turning it into something worthwhile again.  It’s so satisfying.

I think it would be perfect for a kitchen or dining room.  You could write your menu on the chalkboard when entertaining.  Or maybe you could just keep your grocery list on it.  If I had the wall space, I’d keep it myself.  But since I don’t, it’s for sale.  If any of you locals are interested, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying the No Pain Gel Stain and Midnight Sky paint, and to re.design with prima for supplying the Somewhere in France transfer.