Category: garden.

First, an update on Wednesday’s post about the green table.  Shortly after publishing that post I realized that I didn’t want to part with the table.  If I could solve its weight problem, and put some casters on it to make it more mobile, it really would provide the perfect neutral surface for staging photos of small items outdoors.

After flipping the table over, I realized that a lot of the weight was coming from some heavy wood pieces that were attached underneath to allow you to slide the table apart and add a leaf in the middle.  Since I no longer even have the leaf, I could just remove those.  I also realized that the table had once had casters and thus already had the sockets in place to hold them.  I found 4 matching casters in my stash and just had to add them.

And just like that, my problems with the table were solved and now I’ll be hanging onto it.

Do you guys remember back in May 2021 when I contemplated putting a primitive sort of cupboard in front of the carriage house?

At the time I thought it would be a convenient spot for a potting bench, but those who commented on that post almost universally voted against it.

And P.S., after taking that photo above I realized I had the cupboard upside down.  Ooops.

Anyway, I didn’t put the cupboard in that spot, obviously, since I now have my fabulous repurposed guest bed planter there.

And FYI, the Fresh Flower Market sign that was there has moved up to the deck.

But I tucked that cupboard away for a rainy day, and although we haven’t had very many rainy days this summer, I’ve now given it a whole new look so that it can serve as the potting bench inside the potting shed.

Let’s start at the beginning.  First up I had Ken add those large casters to the bottom.  It makes it easier to move it around when necessary, plus I felt like the piece needed to be elevated somehow.  Casters worked perfectly for that.

Next up, after my usual prep of cleaning and scuff sanding, I painted the outside in a mix of 3 different shades of white milk paint.  I was trying to use up colors that I already had on hand.  I had Homestead House Sturbridge White (which was too stark white), Fusion’s London Fog (which was too creamy), and Homestead House Stone Fence (which would have been perfect on its own, but I didn’t have enough of it).  Between the three of them, I came up with a shade of white that was just right.

I got quite a bit of chipping with the milk paint on the top of the cabinet.

But none on the front.  Mostly likely something was spilled on the top in its former life, and that substance resisted the paint.  But I’m OK with that.  I like chippy paint.  After sanding well and vacuuming away any loose paint, I sealed the milk paint with two coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat.  That will help seal any chipping paint, and I can easily wipe the top down when it gets dirty.

Today’s q tip:  Always seal chippy milk paint with a clear coat before trying to add transfers over it.  Otherwise the transfer will pull off your paint, rather than the transfer sticking to your surface.

Next up I added some I.O.D. transfers to the front doors.

I used all of their Botanist’s Journal transfer (a section on either end) and then filled in the middle with some of their Ladies in Waiting transfer.

  I felt like these graphics were perfect for a potting bench!

I have to mention here that once again I ordered the I.O.D. transfers from The Painted Heirloom.  I ordered them on Saturday, and received them on Monday!  I was super impressed by the speedy turn around.  I’ve ordered from Vonda a few times and have always had great results.

Once the transfers were applied, I sanded lightly over them with 220 grit paper to distress them and give them a more faded appearance.  Then I sealed them with another coat of flat clear coat.

You may also have noticed by now that I removed the original round wooden door closure thingie from the cabinet.  I didn’t like the look of it.  Instead I added magnetic closures to each door to keep them shut, and I put some knobs in holes that were already there.

These knobs came from Hobby Lobby, but I purchased them a long time ago so I’m not sure if they still have them.

I debated whether or not to paint the inside of the cupboard.  Since I was keeping it for myself, I considered taking the easy way out and leaving it alone.  But I knew it would look great painted in Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.  I love using this warm, dark grey inside cupboards.

There’s lots of space inside this cupboard for storing extra clay pots and other gardening supplies.

To be honest, it’s not likely that I’ll do much actual potting in the shed.  It will really be utilized more for storage of gardening supplies and possibly the occasional flower arranging.

I tend to plant up most of my larger pots where they sit.  Most of them get rather heavy once they are full of dirt and plants.

With the completion of the potting bench, I pretty much have all of the pieces completed for my potting shed makeover.

But now I’m stuck.  I really should re-paint the interior of the shed, but … well … I’m not looking forward to that task.  I’m struggling with lack of motivation to get that done.  We’ll see if I get to it before the end of summer.

In the meantime, I’m cutting myself some slack (the benefit of being your own boss) and working on a few toolboxes (such as the one I shared at the beginning of this post) instead.  So stay tuned for that.

So tell me, which version do you prefer?  ‘Before’ (and upside down) or ‘after’?

I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but gosh, time flies doesn’t it?  I could have sworn that I restyled the photo cottage last summer, but turns out it was actually back in 2020.

At that time I was going back to making the shed into a ‘summer house’ and I didn’t want to actually spend any money on it, so I used things I had on hand including an old farmhouse table.

This is an old, super heavy table that I’ve had for quite a few years.  I used to use it for display at my carriage house occasional sales.

Before placing it in the ‘summer house’, I repainted the table base in Dixie Belle’s Kudzu …

and gave the top a fresh coat of Fusion’s Liming Wax.

  Even after two years in the shed it still looks great.

But now that I want to turn the space back into a potting shed, the table needs to make way for a potting bench.  So I pulled it out of there.

Then I had a little fun staging it in the garden as a spot for making notes in my garden journal.

I searched high and low for a garden journal that I liked earlier this summer and didn’t have any luck.  However, my sister will attest to the fact that I had some rather picky requirements for it.  It had to be spiral, it had to have lots of space for making notes, it had to have a pretty cover, etc., etc.  I dragged her to various shops where I hemmed and hawed over the possibilities.  Eventually I ended up going with a 18 month planner that I found at Barnes & Noble.

This will get me through next summer anyway.  I mainly want to keep track of what I’ve planted where, and when.

OK, so I don’t actually sit in this spot to write in my garden journal …

but maybe I should!  It seems ideal for such things.

If this table were slightly more portable, I’d keep it on hand simply as a photo prop.  It provides a nice blank surface for staging smaller pieces, like toolboxes or product photos.

(that’s a little ‘foreshadowing’ for an upcoming post)

Maybe I should look into adding casters to the table so I could more easily wheel it around.  I don’t know, even with wheels, this table is a bit heavy for me to be man-handling it around all the time.

But for now, this table is homeless.  So here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to list it here on the blog for local sale and if someone snatches it up, great.  And if it doesn’t sell, well, I think I’ll continue to use it for photo shoots.

If interested in the table, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

First up, I’ve drawn Deb’s name at random to win my 15 minutes of fame giveaway.  I know there are a few of you Deb’s out there, but I have been in contact with the Deb that won and she knows who she is (sorry other Deb’s!).

Continuing on with my theme of ‘projects for me’ … wait, that sounds so selfish, doesn’t it?  Me, me, me.  As a reminder, since my furniture isn’t selling so hot these days, I’m focusing my energy on finishing up items that I’ve wanted to refurbish for my own home instead of items to sell.  Some of these things have been hanging out in my carriage house for years just waiting for their moment to shine.

I finally have time to get to them!

So, one of the things I’m working on is a refresh of my photo cottage a.k.a. summer house a.k.a. potting shed.  Yep, it has been called all of those things over the years, most recently it was the photo cottage.

If you’ve been with me since way back, you’ll remember that I restyled this shed in my back yard into the ‘photo cottage’ in 2014.  My plan was to create a space where I could stage all of my furniture photos.

As it turned out, it wasn’t really suited for that.  The space wasn’t quite big enough, and at certain times of the day sunlight reflecting off the nearby red carriage house turns the lighting decidedly pink.  So a few years back I gave up on the photo cottage and lately I have been mainly using it as storage.

That led to my decision to go ahead and turn it back into a potting shed.  I’m working on a couple of pieces that will make their new home in the potting shed starting with an old wicker chair.

While considering what I wanted in the space, I knew I wanted some sort of chair in that corner shown above.  The chair in that photo has since been moved into my Q branch and is actually the chair I’m sitting in as I’m typing this.  I really like it in this space, so I needed a replacement for the potting shed.  I started surfing Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for suitable chairs and didn’t find much in my price range (super cheap) that I liked.  I did find an old, beat up wicker chair that was a possible candidate, but then I remembered!  I already had an old, beat up wicker chair upstairs in the carriage house.

Does it sometimes seem like the upstairs of my carriage house is this magical space that I can continuously pull fabulous pieces out of?  Sort of like pulling a rabbit out of a magician’s hat?

Anyway, I had this chair up there.

Way, way back I had Ken add casters to the legs on this chair and I used it as my desk chair before I gave the Q Branch a makeover and it still looked like this …

In case you’re curious, the added casters were a bit of a disaster.  Drilling the holes in the legs required for the casters ended up compromising their integrity (never a good thing), and they didn’t hold up to a lot of rolling around.

So, I removed the casters, glued a broken leg, and then gave the chair a fresh paint job using Rustoleum spray paint in Leafy Green.

I typically use spray paint on wicker because it’s so much easier to get in all the grooves with spray.

Next I reupholstered the plywood seat by adding 4 layers of batting and some fill first, then covering that with an old scrap of vintage floral bark cloth that I had in my stash.

The scrap I had was just the right size for this seat, so it felt meant to be.  I know I’m taking a step back to my old shabby chic days with this piece, but that’s OK.  I’m putting it in my potting shed, I can choose whatever makes me happy for in there … and this does.

Now, I will admit, this chair is pretty beat up.

But I don’t care.  It just gives it more character.  It shows that this chair has lived a full life, and it’s continuing to serve a purpose even if it’s showing its age a little … sort of a metaphor for my own life.

Here’s one last photo that I’m sharing specifically for Honoré who asked to see a wider photo of the carriage house with my new guest bed sign/planter in front of it.

I’m not sure if that gives you the full effect you were looking for, but there it is.

So, the chair is done and next up I’m working on a potting bench sort of piece for the shed.  I’ve got it painted but am waiting for some transfers that I ordered to finish it off.  So stay tuned for that one!

As I’ve mentioned, since furniture sales have slowed way down for me, I’m taking this time to focus on projects for myself that I’ve been putting off for a while (OK, maybe years in some cases).  Today I have a really fun one to share with you guys.  There is a bit of a long story behind this one, so you may want to refill your coffee before diving in.

Several years ago, Mr. Q and I swapped our guest room for his home office.  Prior to that, the guest room was the larger room, and his office was the smaller one.  We finally came to the realization that he uses his office every day, and we rarely have house guests.  It didn’t make sense to have the larger room going mostly unused, especially in a smaller home like ours where space is at a premium.

But switching to the smaller guest room meant getting rid of the full sized bed we were using and replacing it with a twin.  We actually traded the full sized mattress and box spring with my neighbor, nnK.  She took the full size, and gave us her twin sized versions.

That left us with a spare full size headboard and foot board (and side rails).  We stuck them up in our carriage house and there they’ve sat since 2017.

Now, you might be wondering why I didn’t sell the bed, so let’s go back a bit.  Here is the bed when it was part of the guest room.

Sorry, that’s the best photo I could find of the bed in its ‘before’ condition and it doesn’t even show the foot board, which is one of those ones that curve around the mattress.

There’s a little history behind this bed.  Mr. Q and I purchased our home around the same time that his great uncle’s estate was being divvied up.  We ended up with this bed, a matching dresser and a dining room set from Uncle Roy’s house.  This was back in 1988.  When we got the bedroom set, it was already painted.  I wanted to return it to the natural wood (that was the trend in the late 80’s), so I sent them off to be ‘dipped’.  Does anyone else remember that?  Maybe it’s even still a thing, I don’t know.  But basically your furniture is dipped in a large vat of stripper to remove the paint.

When we picked the pieces back up from the dipper, he explained that the manufacturer intended for these pieces to be painted.  This was obvious after they were stripped because they were each made out of more than one kind of wood, plus the ‘carved’ details were molded plaster, not carved wood.  So after all of that dipping, I had to repaint the pieces rather than staining and varnishing them.

Keep in mind, this was the late 80’s, I was still in my 20’s (ha, ie. a long time ago), I knew nothing about painting furniture!  So I went to the paint store and asked for help.  They explained that I should absolutely use oil based paint for durability (eeekkk! I can’t stand using oil based paint!), so that’s what I did.  I painted them in an oil based warm white.

Flash forward another decade or two.  I decided to redecorate and paint the pieces black.  I painted over the oil based paint with latex paint.  As you may be guessing, that did not hold up well over time.  That’s the reason I’m telling this rather long winded story.  It’s a cautionary tale of what not to do when painting furniture.  Do not paint over oil based paint with latex paint.  Over time it starts to peel right off, and that’s why I couldn’t sell this bed frame.  The black paint was peeling.  The only way to make this bed suitable for sale would have been to completely strip all of the paint layers and start over, and there is no way that would have been worth the effort.

So I stored it for a few years.  Last winter I thought I’d make the headboard into one of my Christmas signs (like this one).  I had Mr. Q bring it down from upstairs in the carriage house, and that’s when I drove over it.

LOL, didn’t see that coming did you?  But yep, it was leaning up against the wall in the carriage house and it fell over.  That’s where I park my car in the winter, and because the headboard is black and it was dark in there, I didn’t notice it on the floor and I drove over it.

That did a bit of damage.  So I put off working on this project once more.

And that brings me to today.  I finally had the time to work on this one, and I had a really cool plan for it.

I started with removing the plaster wreath from the headboard, and filling the giant crack I made driving over it with some of Dixie Belle’s Mud.

Next up I tried to remove as much of the peeling latex paint as I could, and then sanded the entire piece to prep it for new paint.

In an effort to improve adhesion, disguise an uneven surface, and create additional age with more layers of color, I next pulled out some Dixie Belle Sea Spray and The Gulf paint.

I mixed the two to create a brownie batter-like consistency and painted a coat of that on the headboard.

This was just an underlayer of color though, I painted over it with two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  I purposely allowed both the black and the aqua to peak through in some spots.

Then I added the Gregory’s Catalogue paint inlay from I.O.D. (for a full tutorial on using the paint inlays, check out this post).

When using a large design that comes on multiple sheets like this one, I start in the middle and work my way out adding wet paint to each section as I’m ready to place that piece.

Be sure to follow all directions with these paint inlays, especially keeping in mind that it’s best to seal them with a spray sealer first rather than a brushed on finish (the paint of the inlay is easily reactivated with a water based finish and will smear).  So once I had the paper backing off and everything was dry, I sprayed my headboard with Rustoleum flat clear sealer.  Once that was dry I also added a couple of coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear sealer over it.  Since I’ll be hanging this outside, I wanted to protect it fairly well.

Now, let’s look at what we did with the footboard.

Once again, I need to add a disclaimer here.  Since this project was a keeper for me, I didn’t go as all out as I would have if I intended to sell it.  Were I selling it, I would have asked Ken to build a proper box on the back of the foot board.  Instead I just had him add a shelf with a couple of legs at the back to support it.  My plan was to use this as a ‘planter’ by placing it up against the carriage house and putting plastic planter boxes on that shelf.

I painted the whole thing using the same process as the headboard, The Gulf with Sea Spray followed by two coats of Drop Cloth.

I then sealed the inside of the ‘planter’ with Dixie Belle’s Gator Hide.  Gator Hide is their most durable, water repellant finish.  Since I will be placing potted plants on that shelf, I know it will be getting wet so I’m giving it the best chance of holding up.

If you’ve never used Gator Hide, I will tell you that it has a bit more sheen than my usual flat finish.  Personally I’m not a fan of shine, so for that reason I only used it on the inside of this piece where it won’t show.  I used the flat Dixie Belle clear coat on the front.

If you’ve stuck with me so far, here’s where we are with this project.

I’ve hung the headboard sign on the carriage house between the doors, and placed the foot board planter beneath it.  All that’s left is to fill it up with plants.

I learned another valuable lesson here, or at least one that is worth sharing with my local readers.  Don’t go to Gertens first for your plants.  I purchased two small ferns for $14.99 ea, two white caladium for $18.99 ea, and two dark red coleus for $4.99 ea from Gertens.  Then several days later I went to Home Depot and found caladiums that were twice the size for $9.98 and a fern that was 4 times the size for $14.98.  I really wish I had checked Home Depot first!

Well, live and learn, and either way, I am loving this combination of shade plants for my foot board planter.

I’m relying on foliage for the interest and color in this north facing spot.

So, several weeks and … uh … quite a few dollars later, I have created a focal point with lots of impact at the end of my driveway.

I learned a few lessons along the way with this one; (1) don’t assume all painted furniture can be stripped and stained, (2) don’t drive over your headboard, (3) don’t paint over oil based paint with latex paint, and finally (4) check Home Depot for inexpensive plants before resorting to Gertens.

I won’t say this was an inexpensive project.  By the time you add in the cost of the board Ken added to create a shelf, the paint inlay and especially the plants, pots & potting soil, this one added up.  If I’d also had to buy the bed itself, plus all of the Dixie Belle products I used (two colors of paint, Sea Spray, flat clear coat, Gator Hide) … well, yikes!

But I sure am happy with the results.  It’s definitely a keeper.

What do you think?

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing all of their products used on today’s project.