Category: garage sales.

these are some awesome finds.

an old favorite.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

Last weekend one of my favorite neighborhoods, MacGrove, was having their neighborhood garage sale.  They joined forces with Summit Hill and Highland Park as well.  So all in all there were over 100 homes participating with garage sales.

My friend opK and I headed out on Friday morning to see what we could find.

I’ll admit that we ended up driving around in circles half the time.  Although the organizers of the event published a list of the participating sales that included info on whether the sale was in the alley or the front yard, and whether they were open on Friday & Saturday or just Saturday, they did not publish a paper map.  Instead they used an online map created with Google My Maps.

So, go ahead, call me stuck in my ways.  But I prefer a paper map.  One where I can cross off the sales that we’ve already been to.  And I’d also prefer that it be color coded with one color of dots for sales open on Friday and another for sales only open on Saturday.

We spent a fair amount of time heading towards a dot on the Google map only to discover it wasn’t open on Friday.  We also spent a fair amount of time circling back to a sale we’d already been to because there was no way to mark them off.

Sometimes an old school paper map really is better.

That being said, we did find a few fun things while we were out driving in circles.

The prices were really quite good too.  The most expensive thing I purchased was this old ironstone wash bowl at $15.

I have an idea for turning it into a birdbath.  I’ll be using the scoop for potting soil.

The next highest priced item was another vintage sled for my stash that was $10.

I’ll dress it up for Christmas.

Everything else I purchased was $5 or less including this set of vintage books …

this cool old blue bottle …

and this set of cannisters.

I also scored a watering can for just $2.

I’m not sure if I’m going to dress that one up with paint or a transfer, or just leave it alone.

I’m giving ‘find of the day’ status to some dollhouse furniture that I purchased.

While I’m not sure I’ll even use the tall cabinet, I just love the little plant stand.  I’m currently working on putting together a few things for the dollhouse porches (there is an upper porch and a lower one) and this plant stand will be added to that pile.

I don’t often find dollhouse items at garage sales, but not only did I get those pieces, but I found this one too.

I was hoping it would fit in the foyer of my dollhouse, but unfortunately it’s too wide.  I’ll still paint it up at some point though.  Just for fun.

I also purchased this little doll sized cupboard at that same sale.

I really just felt like it needed to be rescued from a bad paint job.  It will be another fun one to make over.  I may save this project for winter though, just because it would be easy to work on indoors.

So, although I didn’t find anything especially ground breaking at MacGrove this year, I did come home with a few fun projects.  Is there anything in my haul that you would have picked up?  Leave a comment and let me know.

the $4 desk.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

Boy oh boy, it felt good to work on an actual piece of furniture again!  It has been awhile.

You may remember that I found this shabby, primitive desk at a garage sale a couple of weeks back, and I only paid a whopping $4 for it!

It was definitely in rough shape.  And it got even rougher after I dropped the drawer on the pavement while loading it up in the car.  It broke into more pieces than I would have thought possible.

The desk itself was super wonky too, it definitely had some loose joints.

So the drawer went to Ken’s workshop to be repaired, and in the meantime I glued up all of the joints and now the desk feels quite sturdy.

I had initially thought I would try to salvage the original chippy paint finish by just cleaning it really well, but after spending about 15 minutes cleaning just one 3″ x 3″ section I decided that was going to require way too much effort for minimal results.  It would be so much easier to just paint it, and then distress it back again.

I really liked the original color, which was sort of a pale blue-green, so I decided to stick with a similar palette.  After going through all of my paint looking for a suitable candidate, I pulled out one of Dixie Belle’s new colors called Olive Wood.

It definitely doesn’t have as much blue in it as the original color, it’s more of a pale grey green rather than a blue green.  It has that perfect primitive vibe though, and I thought it would work beautifully on this desk.

I prepped the piece for paint by giving it a scuff sanding with 220 grit sandpaper, followed by a good cleaning with TSP substitute.

I followed that up with two coats of Olive Wood.  Once dry, I sanded with 220 grit paper again to distress the edges and smooth out the finish.

You’ll notice that I didn’t paint the top.  In fact, I didn’t do anything to the top except give it a good cleaning.

I think that the scratches and ink stains speak to a life well-lived for this desk.

Plus, if I haven’t already mentioned it, I plan to hang onto this desk to use as a display piece for the Carriage House Sale.  So the only person who has to like the end result is me.

Once the drawer came back from Ken’s workshop, I removed the old knobs (one was broken in half) and found a different pair of wood knobs to paint up and add.

As a final touch, I added one of the paint inlays from I.O.D.’s Floriography collection to the front of the drawer.

After a quick spray with Rust-Oleum matte spray sealer over the inlay, I gave the entire desk a final topcoat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

I love how it turned out, a sweet, rustic, slightly primitive writing desk.

It will be perfect for displaying other items for sale at our next Carriage House Sale, although I’ll probably pop a price tag on it just in case someone is in the market for a simple desk.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing their products used on this desk.

a garage sale triathlon.

Published on by Quandie5 Comments

Can I call it a garage sale triathlon if I went to three different neighborhood sales in one weekend?  I’m going to say yes.

My friend opK and I started out this past Thursday at the Spring Lake Park citywide sales.  They provided a fantastic map that made it easy to find all of the sales.  I believe there were about 30, and we found all of them!

It was definitely a good day for toolboxes and ‘statues’.

I had chosen the first sale of the day from their list of sales because the description included ‘statues’.   Well … that cherubic guy on the far right is from that sale.  Not sure I would call that a statue.  Here’s the official Oxford definition of statue, “a carved or cast figure of a person or animal, especially one that is life-size or larger.”

These definitely aren’t life-size, and they are also pretty dated looking, right?  But I plan to use Dixie Belle’s Patina Paint to give them the rusty look which I’m betting will really improve them.  You’ll want to stay tuned to see whether or not I’m right about that.

The toolboxes were fairly plentiful in Spring Lake Park too.

I came home with three of them for less than $10 total.  I recently ordered some of the newest I.O.D. transfers, plus another of their Rose Botanical transfers.  I’m looking forward to using them on these toolboxes.

I’m also going to use them on this box once I get it painted.

I also picked up a couple of vintage tablecloths.

And an old shop stool.

I plan to paint that up just like the small stool I painted last fall.

Stay tuned for that project as well.

On Friday opK and I headed to the Bayport citywide sales.

We found the most stuff at the very first sale we stopped at.  They had a lot of antiques at very reasonable prices.  Granted, many of the items were not in great shape.  For example, I purchased this desk for a mere $4.

Now, I should point out that the drawer was in working order when I bought it.  But then it fell out while we were trying to load the desk into the car and broke into a bunch of pieces.  Ooops.  I’ve already sent it over to Ken’s workshop, he’s good at putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I’m going to give this desk a mini-makeover, and then I intend to use it to create displays for my occasional sale.

I also found a sled at this sale, I’m always on the lookout for reasonably priced sleds.  I often see them priced at $50 and up, and I pass those by.  But this one was only $12.  It will get a makeover for the Christmas season.  opK found a sled for me a couple of weeks ago too.  So now I have two waiting in the wings.

I also purchased a really pretty vintage gold framed mirror in Bayport, and another mirror with a lovely old black painted frame at a sale we passed on the way home.

Finally, on Saturday my sister and I headed to the Nokomis neighborhood sales in Minneapolis.  We always try to get to this one because it’s the neighborhood where our parents grew up.

But honestly, much like a lot of the Minneapolis sales, this one has gotten a bit too popular.  The sales that do have vintage items tend to have really high prices on them.  I saw quite a few lovely things, but they were all priced too high for me.

In the end I only made two purchases.  I bought some white and purple bearded iris from one seller, and I bought a pair of faux pumpkins from another.

I plan to give these a rusty makeover too, like the ones I did last year.

In the end, I’d call Nokomis pretty much a bust except that I did get to see my grandmother’s peonies (and if you didn’t read about that on Sunday, you can find it here).

Oh wait, I almost forget.  I also picked up a small bucket from someone’s ‘free’ pile at Nokomis.  I’ve already given it a makeover with the newest I.O.D. paint inlay called Floriography.

This was a bit of an experiment for me.  I didn’t want to paint the bucket because I liked its worn patina.  So I simply used a coat of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat in place of paint when applying the inlay (you can find full paint inlay instructions here).  Otherwise I followed the usual procedure.  As you can see, it turned out great!  I plan to do more of this in the future for sure.

Speaking of buckets, I also added one of the new I.O.D. Home Sweet Home transfers to another bucket that I found a while back at a garage sale.

Both buckets are perfect for big bouquets of peonies fresh from the garden!

So I’ve made a start on some of my upcoming projects, but I have lots left to work on.  I’d better get out to the workshop and get going on some of them!

the flower market tote.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

Remember the wood tote that I picked up while garage saling a couple of weeks ago?

Well, I’ve given it a quick makeover.

I started by cleaning it well.  While doing that I noticed that there was some sort of oily looking stain on the inside bottom of the tote.  So I gave just that bottom two coats of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss, just in case that stain wanted to bleed through my paint.

After letting that dry for 24 hours, I painted the inside of the tote in Dixie Belle’s Kudzu.

And so far, so good.  No oily bleed thru.

Next I painted the outside in their Drop Cloth.  Once that dried, I taped off some grain sack style stripes and painted those in the Kudzu.

I followed that up with adding just a portion of Dixie Belle’s Flower Market stencil.

Here’s the full stencil …

I taped off everything except the “Flower Market” wording for my tote.

I then gave the entire tote a vigorous sanding to age it up a bit.  I finished it all off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta in the Fresh & Clean scent.  If you haven’t tried this product, I describe it as halfway between hemp oil and wax.  It comes in 5 different scents, plus an unscented version.  I think I like the Orange Grove the most.  The Fresh & Clean is a little bit more subtle, and … well … fresh and clean smelling.

Next up I filled the tote with a load of lilacs.

I came home from the Brandywine Valley to find my lilacs in full bloom, and since then we’ve been having very cool weather (as low as 38° one night this week) so the blooms are sticking around a bit longer than usual which is nice.

Those purple lilacs are the Albert F. Holden variety, FYI.

But you wouldn’t have to fill the tote with flowers.  You could display lots of things inside, like pretty china and a lovely vintage floral tablecloth.

or maybe some books.

Speaking of books, I am planning to include ‘a year at Brandywine Cottage’ in an upcoming giveaway.

I just need to get that pulled together.  Some of you may know that I used to always bring something home from my travels to give away here on the blog.  But I looked back and I haven’t done that since my Amsterdam trip back in 2023.

I’m really slipping, and time is flying by so fast!

But, stay tuned.  At the conclusion of my posts about our trip to the Brandywine Valley I will have a giveaway that includes that book.

As far as the tote is concerned, I’ve put it in the pile of merch that I’m gathering for my upcoming occasional sale.  And that’s coming up awfully quickly as well!

If you’re local, be sure to save the date!

garage sale season is here.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

Yay!  Garage sale season has finally arrived!

Here Minnesota we tend to have about six months between garage sale seasons.  We can sometimes find one or two sales in October, and last year we even got lucky and found a sale in early November.  But that was a fluke.  We then don’t see any more garage sales until the season kicks off the last weekend in April.

In other words, we have a long, dry season with little to no garage sales.

But when it finally rains, it pours.

There were no fewer than 37 neighborhood/city-side sales to choose from this past weekend including the 100 Mile Garage Sale that runs along The Great River Road.

So my friend opK and I stocked up on small bills (no one wants to make change for a $20 when you’re only spending $3), and planned a garage sale marathon.

We started off on Thursday when our city plus the two adjacent cities were all having city-wide sales sponsored by the Lions Club.  There were 3 or 4 garage sale signs on every street corner.

This area can be hit or miss.  Last year we didn’t find much at all.  But this year I came home with a decent haul.

I couldn’t pass up the vintage camp stools.  They’d be perfect for a cabin.

As would the minnow buckets.

They would make cute vintage planters for out on the dock.

The title of this book alone made it worth the 25 cents I paid for it …

and I’m looking forward to giving the wood tote a makeover.

The guy I purchased the vintage lumber yard apron from said that this particular shop was under the Earl Street Bridge in St. Paul and that it was torn down some time ago.

I also found a sled that was within my price range, so that will go in the pile for a Christmas makeover.

I picked up this rather cool looking birdbath.  I don’t think my photo does it justice.

I’m planning to have a garden theme for my upcoming occasional sale at the end of May, so once I clean this up a bit it will be added to my inventory for the sale.

Those of you who are local should pencil it in if you haven’t already.

Day 2 of our garage sale marathon was a bit of a bust.  I’m blaming it on the weather.  It was only in the 40’s and a bit overcast, drizzly and breezy.  Not a good combination.

We started out in what is typically one of my favorite neighborhoods, Tangletown.

I must give them a lot of credit for putting together a fantastic map of their sale locations.  Their map clearly showed the name of each street, each sale location and whether or not it was open on Friday (some were only open on Saturday).

It was super easy to make our way around to each sale location.  Unfortunately, a few of the sales that were supposed to be open weren’t actually open.  I’m sure the proprietors took one look at the weather and thought ‘nope, I’m not going to sit out there all morning in that!’ and I can’t blame them.

Here is the rather sad look at what I found in Tangletown.

We’d made it to all of the available sales by 10 a.m. so we moved on to another city-wide sale north of Minneapolis.  Sadly, it wasn’t much better.

We ended up at one sale that promised ‘vintage’ items.  And she did have vintage items.

Quite a lot of them as a matter of fact.

But she definitely didn’t have garage sale prices.

This cookbook may be listed somewhere on eBay for $80, but it’s also listed at AbeBooks.com for $13.60 and on Etsy for $15.  I’d be willing to bet that no one was willing to pay $50 for it at a garage sale.

We also stopped at an ‘estate sale’ that pretty clearly wasn’t an estate sale, but just a regular ol’ garage sale.  I did find something to buy there though, this figurine.

She’s a bit stark in her coat of bright white (does anyone else immediately think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding here?) but I plan to give her a rusty patina using Dixie Belle’s Iron Patina Paint (you can see how I did that once before here).

Day 3 of our garage sale extravaganza dawned beautifully sunny.  At 8:30 a.m. it was already warmer than it had been all day the previous day.  We had two classic Minneapolis neighborhood sales to choose from, Linden Hills and Bryn Mawr.

We ended up in Linden Hills simply because they had more sales listed than Bryn Mawr.

I wouldn’t say it was the best garage sale haul ever, but I found a few fun things.

I picked up several pairs of vintage ice skates that I’ll put away to work on for next Christmas.

I’d noticed a significant shortage of furniture on the first two days, so it was fun to actually find a piece of furniture that I wanted to work on.

That pretty curved door on the front will be the perfect canvas for a transfer of some kind.  I’m looking forward to giving this a new look.

I scored some lovely vintage linens on day three too.

And lastly, I picked up this metal banker’s box.

I’m calling it the find of the day simply because I love these metal boxes.  I aspire to one day have a row of them in stacks like this example in Kabinett & Kammer by Sean Scherer.

I’ve got three of them now, so we’ll see if I ever get there.

It was awesome to be out hitting the garage sales again.  I’m looking forward to doing a lot more of it this coming summer, how about you?

a visit to sin city.

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

I’m back from my latest visit with my mom.  For any of you readers who may be new here, my mom lives just outside Las Vegas, Nevada and I am just outside St. Paul, Minnesota.  So a visit with my mom is usually a great way to get away from cold weather.  The typical temps in her area in early April are in the upper 70’s or low 80’s, which is about perfect.

Unfortunately, they were having above average temps this year.  The day we arrived it was 97°.  In fact, the first 4 or 5 days were in the upper 90’s and then it ‘cooled down’ to the upper 80’s on our last two days.  I was definitely not acclimated to that kind of heat!

We still managed to get out and about a bit despite the heat.

My mom lives just around the corner from her local Goodwill store, so I always try to get in there to see if I can find any goodies that will fit in my luggage.

I did come home with a few things this time around.

OK, I admit, it doesn’t look like much.  But I’m looking forward to giving these items a makeover.

My sister and I also decided to check out a few garage sales on Saturday morning, but as per usual they were pretty pathetic.

I guess throwing a bunch of unmarked boxes of stuff on your driveway counts as a garage sale in Nevada.

Also, everything is generally no more than 10 to 20 years old or so.  Certainly nothing that would qualify as ‘vintage’.

I think that speaks to the fact that the population in Henderson, NV grew from approx. 175,000 people in 2000 to nearly 350,000 today.  In other words, most of those people moved to the area within the last 25 years.  And apparently they bought a lot of cheap decor when they did.

For those of you who always comment on how awesome the garage sales look around here …

I get it.  We are lucky to have some pretty darn good garage sales in the midwest.

After stopping at a few different sales, my sister and I gave up and decided to head to a ‘vintage & craft market’.  Quite honestly, that was equally as bad.  Unless you happened to be in the market for some bedazzled horseshoes, in which case it would have been perfect for you.

I’m always suffering from massive garage sale withdrawal in early spring as I wait for our season to start in May, so I tend to be optimistic about the sales near my mom even though I’m always disappointed.

We also decided to spend a night on the strip this visit.  It has been more then 10 years since we’ve been down to the strip and it has definitely changed.  We ended up strolling down the LINQ Promenade.

This is an outdoor shopping area that leads to the High Roller, which is the Las Vegas version of the London Eye (if you’re familiar).  According to my online research the Las Vegas version is 170′ taller than the London Eye, and it did hold the record as the tallest ‘Ferris wheel’ in the world until it was surpassed by the one in Dubai.

By the way, if you look closely at the sky in that photo above you can see the lines for the Fly LINQ zipline.  People were whizzing by overhead, which was a bit freaky.

I will also say that this area had a stronger aroma in the air than Amsterdam … if you know what I mean.

Some things on the strip haven’t changed much.  Caesar’s Palace still looks the same.

As does New York, New York …

and Paris.

You can also still see the fountain show at the Bellagio.

Speaking of the Bellagio, that is where we stayed for our one night on the town.

The view from our room on the 19th floor was amazing.

It was fun to watch the fountain show from there, especially at night.

But otherwise there isn’t much to recommend about the Bellagio aside from its fairly central location, and the conservatory (which I’ll be sharing on Sunday).  The hallways and rooms are feeling a bit tired, and were also a bit smelly.  The hallway carpet looked quite dirty to me.  Considering that we paid $485 for one night’s stay, I expected something a bit nicer.  While there are quite a few restaurants to choose from within the hotel, most of them are also quite pricey.  The buffet is $75/person for dinner and the prices go way up from there.  So if you want a quick bite to eat at a reasonable price, you have to walk somewhere else.

That’s probably not a big deal for most, but when you’re there with your 84 year old mother who uses a walker, it’s a bit of a problem.

We ended up having to leave mom at the hotel with a take-away sandwich while my sister and I walked across the street to Ole Red where we enjoyed some live music with our dinner.

That was an unexpected bonus since the band was really pretty entertaining, and we had a ring side seat.

All in all, it was a nice visit.  But as always, I’m happy to be home again.  I’ve got a few projects to get going on, and I think I’ll even be able to get out in the garden this weekend.  So be sure to stay tuned to see what I get up to!

a swiss cross stool.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

Back in early November my friend opK and I found a couple of garage sales to check out on an unseasonably warm-ish Thursday.  I didn’t find much to buy, but I did bring home this metal stool.

The sale I found it at really wasn’t your typical garage sale.  It was held in someone’s garage, but they had a lot of antiques and the prices were more akin to a shop rather than a garage sale.

But that being said, this stool was one of the few bargains they had at $10.

I was really drawn to the industrial look of the casters, but I didn’t love the primer grey spray paint job that someone had given it.

It was a bit blah.

So after a good cleaning, I sanded the seat top to remove any flaking paint and rust.  Next, after wiping away any remaining dust with a damp cloth, I gave the stool a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss in clear.  It will inhibit any future rust, and also improve the adhesion of my paint.  I like to use the clear version when I’m planning to distress a piece.  I definitely don’t want to see white underneath when I spot sand to distress it.

Next up I painted the stool in Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.  Then I taped off a Swiss cross, and painted it in Drop Cloth.

I used those holes in the top of the stool as a guide for centering my cross.  I also used a carpenter’s square to get my angles right.

I didn’t want the stool to look freshly painted, so I used some 220 grit sandpaper to sand back the paint in areas that I thought would be naturally worn over time.

This is where that clear Bonding Boss comes into play.

I finished the stool with some of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

Now, you may have noticed that this stool is kinda short.  It’s not really the right height for sitting on it at a table, and of course it’s definitely not bar stool height.

Initially I thought that the height would make it perfect to use as a plant stand for a taller Norfolk Island Pine that I have.

But I quickly realized that there wasn’t much point in that Swiss cross design on the top if I was just going to put a plant on it.

In the end, this stool is really the perfect height for me to sit on while cleaning out lower cabinets, or while digging through my stash of scrapbook paper that I store on a lower shelf.  So for now I’m just going to hang onto it.

What do you think of this simple makeover?  Leave a comment and let me know.

 

garage sale finds.

Published on by Quandie12 Comments

My friend opK and I headed out to the Inver Grove city-wide garage sales last Friday and I found a nice little pile of goodies.

I will say that we stopped off at quite a few of what I like to call ‘you should have gotten a dumpster’ sales.  It always boggles the mind what some people will take the time to set out for a garage sale.  Things like previously worn bras, or stained Tupperware.  I also saw lots of the things that I sent to Goodwill as part of my Swedish Death Cleaning, like cut glass serving bowls and such.

But luckily there were 66 sales to choose from in a semi-concentrated area, so we were able to quickly move on from the stained Tupperware sales (as opK likes to call them) and continue looking for gems amid the rubble.

Let’s take a look at what I brought home.

First up, I found a small black vintage suitcase.

I plan to add a stencil to it for Christmas.  Is that weird?  I’ve done a handful Christmas suitcases in the past, and they can be hit or miss as far as selling them goes.

But I rather love them, so I think I’ll give it a shot.

Next up, this fabulous toolbox.

This one has already been painted and I think the patina on that existing paint job is pretty sweet.  However, it has some stains that I don’t love, so I may just add a quick coat of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth to clean it up.  I’m planning to paint the interior as well, and will probably add some transfers to the exterior.

I snatched up this crystal doorknob at one sale.

I’m not sure yet whether I’m going to actually put it on one of my doors, or take it apart and add bottle brush Christmas trees like this …

Over the years I have replaced the majority of our door knobs with either black or white enamel knobs, but I still have a couple of plain brass knobs on some closet doors in the bedrooms, maybe I’ll switch one of those out for crystal.

I couldn’t resist this minnow bucket

It looks great for fall with the addition of a simple potted mum.

The price was right on this watering can … or is it technically an oil can?  I’m not sure.

Either way, I plan to dress this one up and will likely hang onto it for the next Carriage House sale.  FYI, I’m leaning towards having my sale in mid to late May next year and giving it a garden theme.

I was amazed to spot this next item in someone’s ‘free’ pile.

Won’t that be a fun makeover?  Stay tuned for that!

I also nabbed this kid sized chair, mainly because I love the color.

I’m not at all sure what I’m going to do with it though.

I found some fantastic vintage ornaments at one of the last sales we visited.

The seller told me that they’d belonged to his mother’s grandmother or some such thing (sorry, it was a bit of a convoluted tale) and he estimated they were 100 years old.  One of the boxes has a small label that says “Poland A 346 S 1 doz” on it, so I’m sure these are at least pre-WWII.

There were three broken ones out of 2 dozen, so that wasn’t too bad.  I have replaced the broken ones with others from my stash, cleaned up the boxes and then nestled the ornaments in some Tim Holtz tissue paper.  I plan to sell these at the shop this holiday season (unless someone wants to snatch them up sooner).

It took the last of my cash to buy them, but I think they were worth it.

Find of the day status goes to this next item from that same sale.

It wasn’t a bargain at $15, but I still snatched it up.  I very rarely find these toppers anymore, even at antique stores.  Although this isn’t the prettiest one I’ve ever seen, it will be a great addition to my non-collection that I display in a painted toolbox for Christmas.

All in all, I’d say we had a pretty successful day at the Inver Grove sales.

Which find would have been your favorite?  Leave a comment and let me know.

the rose botanical cupboard.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

I popped over to my friend Amy’s garage sale last Friday and came away with some fun stuff!

Some of you may remember when I shared a tour of Amy’s house back at Christmas 2021.

I absolutely love her style, and find it really inspiring, so be sure to check that out if you haven’t seen it.

First up I purchased this pair of kid-sized wooden schoolhouse chairs from Amy.

I plan to dress these up for Christmas with paint and stencils like others I’ve done in the past (here, here and here).

I also purchased this amazing Mill Work sign.

At 8′ wide, it’s pretty large, but I’ve always been looking for something like this to make an impact on the large blank wall of barnwood paneling in our dining room.

Finally, I grabbed a few different cupboard doors to turn into signs including this one.

I loved the crackled paint and that vintage glass knob.

I wanted to keep the crackle, but clean things up a bit. So I gave it a good scrub, and then just applied one coat of Dixie Belle’s Putty.  Once dry, I sanded over it to reveal the crackle and some of that original white.

After vacuuming up the dust, I added a couple of roses from the I.O.D. Rose Botanical transfer set.  After those were applied, I finished everything off with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

It was a super simple makeover, yet quite satisfying.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know.

the tangletown cabinet.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

Remember that fabulous hanging cabinet that I picked up at the Tangletown neighborhood sale?

It’s time to share its makeover.

After giving it a good clean, and removing some nails that were sticking out of the sides (I assume they were once used to anchor it to a wall somehow), I gave it a coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss.  That finish looked like one that would possibly bleed thru my paint, so better safe than sorry with a clear blocking primer like the Bonding Boss.

Unfortunately, I neglected to get a ‘before’ photo of the inside of the cabinet, but it was painted in a butterscotch pudding sort of color.  And somehow, that color really appealed to me.  So I opted to try and replicate it using Dixie Belle’s Mojave.

The cabinet actually has a metal back, I’m not sure what that material is … maybe zinc?

If any of you are familiar with this sort of thing, leave a comment and let me know what you think.  And also, please note that I added that picture hanging wire just so that I could hang this cupboard for photos.  It would need to be mounted on the wall much more securely in its new home.

But anyway, I love the rusticity of the metal back.  It definitely shows the dents and dings from years of use.  I sort of dry brushed the Mojave over them on the inside of the cabinet, trying to leave behind some of the original character.

I love the way this color works with the stack of books I used for staging my photos.

As for the outside, of course I painted it in my favorite Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.  I didn’t even think twice about it.  After giving it a good sanding to distress the edges, I added a little section of the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer to it.

It fit that space perfectly!

As most of you know, that transfer has been retired and it’s getting harder to find.  There are still a few out there though, so you should snatch one up soon if you ever want to use it.

I finished up the outside with a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax to protect it, but the Mojave Silk paint on the inside has a built in top coat so no need for wax.

This little cupboard was probably originally mounted over a sink, or possibly even just over a washstand.  It would be perfect for a small powder room.  It would also be fun in the kitchen filled with dried herbs and spices.  Or you could hang it in the foyer so you could check your hair just as you’re heading out.  So many possibilities!

This little cabinet is for sale.  I’ve listed it on my ‘available for local sale‘ page, so check there for further details.  If it doesn’t sell sooner, of course it will go into the pile of merch for my upcoming sale.

And speaking of my upcoming sale, I managed to miss an error in my original ‘save the date’ notice.  We will be open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday (not Sunday).

Here’s the corrected version.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for supplying their products used in the makeover of the tangletown cabinet.