Category: my house.

finally.

Published on by Quandie35 Comments

You might have noticed that I never really quite revealed our entire master bedroom makeover in one complete post.  That’s because I was waiting for one last detail, the light fixture.

I waited, and waited, and waited.

I had ordered it online from Menards because I thought that since I drive right past my local Menards on my way home from work it would be incredibly convenient to just stop and pick it up when it came in.

Ha, famous last words.

It was put on back order, and then it was put on back order again, and then the store lost it and had to re-order it.  But then they found it and said I could pick it up.  Although it probably wasn’t worth the wait, and I could have found a dozen similar light fixtures elsewhere, it’s finally in place and I love it.

You might be remembering that we had a ceiling fan in this spot before, and quite a few of you recommended replacing it with another fan.  We really planned on taking that advice.  For a house without central a/c, ceiling fans are a plus.  We did buy a ceiling fan, but it met with an unfortunate accident.  During installation it fell from a great height, that being the top of the ladder, and was irreparably damaged.

We took that as a sign, and that’s when I ordered the schoolhouse light fixture.

So, after all of that, we now have a light instead of a fan, and I am calling this room done.

One other detail I didn’t really share with you yet is my choice of window treatment, or probably more accurately, lack of a window treatment.

For now I’ve opted to go with privacy film on the lower halves of the windows.  It was perfect for summer, but I’m not yet sure about winter.  It might be nice to have something ‘warmer’ on the windows for winter.

By the way, remember that cool vintage farm photo I picked up while garage saling a few weeks back?  It found a home here in our master bedroom.

It fits in perfectly.

OK, let’s recap the entire project, shall we?

The budget for this room was $1,500 and as is typical, I went way over budget.  I lost track of the spending somewhere around the $2,000 mark.  But considering that in the end we really made over all three of our upstairs rooms, that’s not so bad.  Here’s a reminder of what we accomplished.

The floors were refinished, resulting in a lovely pale natural color and a matte finish.  This was by far the largest expense of the entire project.  I’m including the total cost of all of the floors ($1,000) on our upper level in the final tally although obviously a chunk of that expense was for other rooms.

The walls in all three rooms were painted and we put in a ship lap feature wall.  The paint cost around $70 and the ship lap materials were $55.  I love my ship lap wall and totally recommend adding just one feature wall to add some fixer upper style to one of your rooms.  I have to note that this task was super simple for us because we didn’t have to cut around anything (like electrical outlets, windows or doors).

I added a pair of wall sconce reading lights from World Market at $120 for the pair.

I updated our existing nightstands with a couple of coats of milk paint.

I’m not counting this as a ‘cost’ for the project since I used milk paint that I already had on hand.

We purchased a new bed frame for $40 and an antique full size headboard that I painted black. I purchased the headboard as part of a set.  I sold the other pieces from the set at a profit, thus making the headboard ‘free’ and again I used milk paint that I already had on hand to paint it.  We also purchased new bedding at a cost of $650.  Gasp!  I know.  The second largest item in the budget.  Bedding is just so expensive, but that does include new pillows, a new feather bed, a new down alternative duvet, plus two duvet covers and pillow shams.  I also added a DIY bedskirt made from a drop cloth at a cost of $15.

I added a vintage cane back bench with a European grain sack cushion at the foot of the bed.  I paid $125 for the bench and another $69 for the grain sack.

I painted my existing clothes cupboard, again with milk paint I already had on hand.  I added two Iron Orchid Designs transfers.  These transfers came in a set of 3 for $10.  I purchased two sets so that I had two of the same design, but I still have 4 more left to use on other projects (and you’ll see a couple of them next week). 

 A lot of the miscellaneous decor I used came from other parts of the house, like my faux dress form Lula, so they didn’t add to the cost.

Or they were just things that I already had on hand, like the vintage advertisement hangers.

I debated adding an area rug to the room, but in the end the floors are so pretty that I hate to cover them up.  Also, this room really is rather large and for a rug to not look lost it needs to be a good sized rug.  Since I’d already blown the budget out of the water I decided we could live without a rug for the time being.

As requested, I’ve updated this post to include some ‘before’ and ‘after’ comparisons.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

So, it’s official.  Mission Possible was indeed possible after all.  And this time it didn’t take me three years to finish.  It helped a lot that I took an entire week off at the day job to get a lot of things done including the ship lap wall, painting all three rooms, painting all of the bedroom furniture and having the floors done.  Phew!  It was an exhausting week, but in the end it was totally worth it.  Now that we have all of the final details in place, we can kick back and enjoy our new bedroom.

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goldilocks and the three yellows.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

The other day I came across an ad on Craigslist for a vintage Jenny Lind style twin size headboard at a price that fit right into my current budget for the guest room, $40.  This one had all of the spindles in place, unlike the $5 garage sale one that I passed up a few weeks ago.

So, I sent an email to arrange to see it.  Every once in a while I find someone on Craigslist who would prefer to meet somewhere rather than have potential buyers come to their home.  This tends to be rare with furniture purchases.  After all, it can be rather inconvenient for the seller to load up some furniture to meet you somewhere else.  But I did once buy a nice cane backed chair out of someone’s trunk at a gas station.  The seller of this bed also wanted to meet somewhere and offered to let me name the place.  As it turned out, she was a young woman by herself so I commend her for being safe about it.

I asked her to swing by my office at the day job.  Since I work at City Hall, it’s pretty easy to find.  And I think she felt perfectly comfortable since the police department happens to be right there.  She showed up promptly at noon, I handed over the cash and transferred the headboard from her car to mine.  Easy peasy.

I’ve already shared the chippy cabinet painted in Homestead House’s Laurentien milk paint that’s in the room.  Yes, it’s the same name as the Fusion Laurentien I used inside my giant English cupboard and close to the same color.  Both of these paints are made by Homestead House, but one is milk paint and the other is acrylic paint.

I’ve also shared the pretty little chair that I painted in Miss Mustard Seed’s Apron Strings milk paint.  FYI, it’s also made by Homestead House.

Since the walls in this room are white, I felt like I could get as colorful as I wanted with the furnishings.  Plus, aside from the cupboard, everything in this room is an inexpensive garage sale find, so if I get tired of the colors I won’t feel bad at all about replacing a piece with something else.

So I decided to choose yet another cheery vintage-y color for the bed, one that would bring out another color in the quilt that I’ll be using.

I considered green, but ultimately I felt like yellow might just be perfect.  But what shade of yellow?

A while back the lovely people at Homestead House gifted me with some of their milk paint in several shades of yellow;  Buttermilk Cream (check out this dresser that I painted in the Buttermilk Cream), Ochre, and Garden Seed.  Since the Buttermilk Cream is the only one I’ve used before, I decided to mix up just a bit of each of the other colors and paint them on popsicle sticks to decide which one would be right for my bed.

That’s Ochre at the top, Buttermilk Cream in the middle and Garden Seed on the bottom.

Then, since I already had some paint mixed up, I decided to paint some clay pots too.  In case you haven’t already figured this out about me, I just love painting stuff.  If I have some paint sitting in front of me ready to go, I like to put it on something.

Then, since the pots were pretty plain I added some Tim Holtz rub-ons to them to dress them up a bit.

Nothing like getting a little distracted and losing sight of my original purpose.

But this little exercise did help me decide that Ochre (2) is the yellow I want for my guest room bed.  The Buttermilk Cream (1) is just a bit too pale.  Especially when compared to the other yellows.  It almost looks more like a creamy white in these photos.  But when it’s compared to white you can see that it is a very pale yellow.  The Garden Seed (3) , on the other hand, is just a bit too mustard-y.

That’s not to say that I didn’t love the Garden Seed, just not for my guest room bed.  And since I already had a brush wet, I decided to mix up some more and paint a sign.

I used the table leaf from a table Mr. Q and I picked up the other day and my Funky Junk Farmers’ Market stencil.  If you’re wondering how I gave it that two dimensional look, I first painted the stencil in a medium grey.  When that was dry, I re-positioned the stencil by just a hair and then painted it in white.  It’s a simple way to make your stenciled sign look just a tad more legit.

Well, so much for getting that bed painted last weekend.  But when I do get around to it, I’m definitely going to paint it in Ochre.

 

living with it.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

Mr. Q and I invited my sister over for dinner one Friday evening a while back, but it was all part of a secret ruse to get some help moving my giant English cupboard into the house.

We followed the advice that Marilee gave me and removed the doors from the cabinet to both lighten it up and make it easier to grab onto (thanks so much for that piece of advice Marilee, it made this so much easier).  Of course we also took all of the shelves out.  Even so, this cupboard is still big, bulky and heavy.  We used some moving straps to lift it, Mr. Q on one end, my sister and me on the other.

It actually went more smoothly than any of us thought it would.  I gotta tell you, in person the size of this cupboard is pretty intimidating.

I’d asked all of you to give your opinion as to whether I should paint the cupboard, or leave it ‘as is’.  I totally expected the majority to say I should paint it.  After all, painting furniture is what I do and also I assume why most of you enjoy my blog.  In the end I only got two votes for painting it, one of them from my sister which really surprised me (after all, I’m pretty sure she reads this blog because she’s my very supportive sister, not because she loves painted furniture).  On the other hand, several of my fellow furniture painters voted for leaving it ‘as is’ which also really surprised me.  But the really unexpected result was how many of you suggested I consider adding a lime wax finish.  Eureka!  I hadn’t even considered that, and what a great idea.

But for the moment, the advice I decided to follow is to live with the cupboard for a while ‘as is’ and see how it feels.  At a minimum I wanted to at least bring it into the room to see how it looked in place.

So far, so good.  It fits perfectly into this space and I absolutely love it.  I still have the blue rooster cupboard directly across from it next to my desk.

I was worried the room was going to look a bit cupboard-heavy with two large cupboards, but I don’t think it does in person.

Of course, the inherent danger with this ‘live with it for a while’ plan is that I’ll grow complacent.  Now that the cupboard is in place, it will be a little bit more trouble to refinish it and I won’t be as motivated to get it done.  Will I end up just leaving it ‘as is’ because it’s the easiest option?  Or will it truly be because I love it ‘as is’?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to fill ‘er up and see how well it functions for storing my many craft supplies.

Since I was transitioning from a dresser with drawers to a cupboard with shelves, I had to come up with containers for holding things.  In other words, I didn’t want to just pile my glue guns, craft paints, greeting cards and colored pencils in a jumble on the shelves.

Fortunately I already kept quite a few of my craft supplies in cool vintage tool boxes.

My glue guns and extra glue fit perfectly into the rusty aqua toolbox my co-worker Jodie gave me for my birthday last year (the same aqua toolbox that’s pictured in Vintage Holiday!).

And although they aren’t here yet, the green box and possibly one or two of the toolboxes I brought home from those lunchtime garage sales last week will probably make their way into this cupboard as well.

My unopened bags of milk paint can just line up on the shelves along with an ironstone pitcher full of wax brushes and some glass canisters full of knobs (I keep my opened bags of milk paint in an air tight rubbermaid bin to extend their shelf life, exposure to too much moisture can ruin the powder).

I’m still thinking about that lime wax that so many of you suggested, but for the moment I’m just happy to have this giant storage piece in my Q branch.  It holds so much stuff, and I know I’m going to get some great use out of it.

 

 

dinner music.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

Where do you get your inspiration?  I’m hoping at least some of you get some inspiration right here!  I get a lot of my ideas from other bloggers, pinterest, magazines, books, and from touring other people’s homes.

Sometimes my ideas take a bit of time to come together.  When I came across a big box full of player piano music at a local antique shop last fall I remembered seeing this photo on pinterest …

I loved the way Alison at the Modern Cottage Co wove the strips of player piano music to create a background, and I especially loved the discarded rolls on the floor under the buffet.  So I was inspired to purchase a few rolls.

But then I didn’t want to just copy that exact idea for a furniture photo shoot.  That just felt … well … like copying.

So I ended up using one roll of the paper to wrap Christmas gifts last year …

And I used a single roll here and there in furniture photos …

Then my friend Meggan and I were talking about my dining room makeover, which still wasn’t completed after more than a year, and she suggested that I use the rolls on my dining room wall.  If you’ll remember way back to our tour of Meggan’s house in January 2015 she ‘wallpapered’ her study in book pages from an old dictionary.  So why not do the same with player piano rolls?

Initially we were thinking this would work well on the barn board wall.  I pulled a roll out and discovered it was exactly the right width to fit between the battens.  But I really didn’t like the way that looked, it was too stripe-y with the barnwood batten between each vertical strip of paper.  Instead, I decided to use the paper on the walls on either side of my window.  Then it only took me another 9 months or so to actually execute the idea!

I was finally spurred into action by finding some additional rolls of music at Oronoco Gold Rush.  It was my sister who pointed out one that was titled ‘Dinner Music’.  How perfect for the dining room!

I really just totally went with the easiest way I could think of to adhere the paper.  Staples.

I stapled each strip at the top, a couple of times down the sides and at the bottom.  I left a bit of the paper rolled up at the top of each strip.  It will be super simple to remove when I grow tired of it, but in the meantime I’m kind of loving it.

By the way, see that ‘Charles Strand’ sign above the giant clock?  That is the original sign from Mr. Q’s great-grandfather’s store in Marine on the St. Croix, MN.  I did a little research on the Minnesota Historical Society’s website recently and found a photo from 1910 that includes the sign.

Seriously, how cool is that?

On the opposite side of the window I hung an old military photo that we saved from Mr. Q’s dad’s house and an old banjo that we saved from my dad’s things (both of our fathers have passed away) above the Belgian bench.

 So what do you think of my player piano music walls, are you inspired to cover any of your walls?  Or maybe you’d like to stock up on some rolls for future present wrapping?  I had quite a few rolls left over so I’m sending some to Reclaiming Beautiful today to sell for $4 each, so if you are local be sure to swing by there this weekend to check them out!

 

coming soon.

Published on by Quandie7 Comments

You may remember that when we had our upstairs floors refinished we also made the decision to swap Mr. Q’s study with the guest room.  Prior to this, Mr. Q’s study was in the smaller room and the guest room was the larger room.  That set up really didn’t make a whole lot of sense for us.  After all, Mr. Q uses his study nearly every day and the guest room got used about once a year.

As an added bonus, swapping the rooms gave me an excuse to completely refurnish the guest room.  The furniture from the larger room was not going to fit in the smaller room.  But I’m giving myself permission to take it slow on this makeover.  I’m taking the time to find just the right antique bed frame and just the right light fixture, both of which need to be at bargain basement prices because I’ve run out of money for this project.

First things first though, I painted the walls white (using left over paint from the faux shiplap wall in my master bedroom).  I wanted the room to be nice and bright, and I also want to be able to switch the colors in the room on a whim.  Next I added the chippy farmhouse cupboard that I painted last winter using Homestead House milk paint in Laurentien.

I had this cupboard listed on Craigslist for months and it simply didn’t sell.  I had a few inquiries on it, but somehow they always fell through.  Maybe it was fate telling me that this piece was meant to stay with me.

The sweet little crocheted dress was made by my grandmother for my mom when she was little.  I shared it here on the blog once before back in August 2014.

Yep, that’s my mom wearing the dress.

When we refinished the floors upstairs we had to clear everything out of our closets, which led to a big purge of stuff we didn’t need to hang onto anymore.  My wedding dress ended up in the trash can (it was totally yellowed and ruined), but when I pulled this little dress out of the closet I decided to display it for a while.

I had initially talked about keeping my pretty floral plates in the master bedroom, but they didn’t work in there at all.  So I moved them all into the guest room.  I had enough to fill the entire space on the wall above the cupboard.

I also moved my vintage blue typewriter into the room.

As well as some blue toy phones and a few Rachel Ashwell books.

I plan to use the chippy white stool that used to be in our master as a bedside table in the guest room.

Hopefully the rest of the room will be coming soon.  I’m keeping an eye on Craigslist for the perfect bed, I have a fun idea for a window treatment and I’m searching for a budget friendly light fixture.  Be sure to stay tuned!

bats in my belfry.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

Shortly after I brought home the giant English cupboard that I shared last week, Ken started working his magic and added bead board paneling to the inside back to cover up the particle board.

This is just cheap faux bead board paneling.  I debated adding actual bead board, but I felt it would make the cupboard way too heavy.  Plus I knew I was just going to paint it, and ultimately it would mostly be hidden by stuff on the shelves so no need to go overboard.  By the way, I suspect that the creamy color on the interior sides is the original color of the entire cupboard.

After adding the bead board, Ken moved the shelf supports on one side based on my specifications.  He also had to add new shelf supports on the other side because as it turned out there were only supports on one side of the cupboard.

 Then he cut down some 1″ x 8″ boards to use as shelves.  Two 1″ x 8″ boards side by side were a perfect fit for the depth of the cupboard, Ken just had to cut about 8″ off the length of each 6′ board.

Once that was done I painted the inside.  I decided to go with a pop of pretty color inside, even though I don’t really have this color in the room.  But since the cabinet is never intended to be left open, the only person who will see that color is me.  So why not go with a color that will make me happy every time I open those doors to put things away?

For me that color is Fusion’s Laurentien.  I really love this color.  The ladies who own Reclaiming Beautiful knew that about me when they gave me a jar of it last Christmas, and because of that I had plenty of it on hand (thanks again Monique & Susan).  Turned out that I definitely needed it for the cupboard interior plus the shelves.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but with summer coming to a close it’s starting to get dark out earlier in the evening.  When I started painting it was still light out, but by the time I was almost done with just the inside back and sides it was dark out.  As I was sitting on my stool painting the cupboard I kept seeing a shadow flicker out of the corner of my eye.  I figured it was a moth circling one of my lights because I’ve had that happen before.  The shadow looks so big, but it’s just a moth close to the bulb casting a big shadow.  No big deal.  But I kept looking up and not seeing a moth.  Finally I finished the cupboard interior, I stood up and eeeeeekkkk! a bat swooped over my head and through the door to the other side of my carriage house.

I know bats are good to have around, they eat lots of mosquitoes and so on.  I also know full well that I very likely have bats in my belfry … or is it technically a cupola?  Anyway, that thing on the top of my carriage house.  We certainly see plenty of bats in the night sky around here.

But I really would prefer they not swoop around my head while trapped inside a room with me.  Shudder.

At that point, although I had intended to continue on with painting the shelves, I found that I just couldn’t make myself stay out in my workshop with a bat for company.  So I decided to save the shelf painting for another day.  But at least I had gotten this far …

A few days later I set up an assembly line of sorts for painting the shelves (in broad daylight) and I cranked them out in no time.

So the inside is done.

I’m super excited to get it moved into place and start filling it up with stuff!

my giant English cupboard.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

For quite some time now I’ve been looking for a giant cupboard for the Q branch.  I wanted something that would mostly fill up this wall …

The dresser that I currently have in that spot is very functional, it holds lots of crafting supplies and camera paraphernalia.  There isn’t anything wrong with it, but I don’t love it.  It’s a bit more traditional than I am.  Since it was functioning well, I wasn’t in a hurry to replace it, but it’s something that has been in the back of my mind for some time.

I like the idea of being able to shove everything inside a cupboard and shut the doors leaving the room looking nice and tidy.  Otherwise I tend to pile stuff up on the dresser and it looks messy most of the time.

I’ve pinned quite a few examples of large cupboards as inspiration, like this beautiful example from Rustic Farmhouse …

And this gorgeous cupboard from Rusty Hinge …

Amazing, right?

So I’ve been keeping an eye on Craigslist for a suitable candidate.  To begin with, pieces this large are few and far between on Craigslist.  In addition, when I do find them they tend to be newer pieces that were intended to house clunky television sets in the 90’s.  But I have seen a handful that were fabulous vintage pieces, but for the most part they were way out of my price range.  And by ‘way out’, I mean over $1,500.

For example, I’ve been admiring this gorgeous cupboard for months now (here’s a link to the ad if it’s still out there) …

But the price tag is $1,800 and it hasn’t come down since I started looking at it last winter.  I suspect the buyers are holding firm.  It does have a gorgeous original painted finish.  I’m not saying it isn’t worth that much, I’m just saying that I can’t pay that much.

Then I spotted the ad for this one …

The ad was very short, it simply said “Antique English country armoire (late 18th / early 19th century) with the original lock.” And it gave the dimensions:  63″W x 17.5″D x 72″H.  But it was priced at $900, which was pretty high for me.  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  So I checked the measurements first and they were perfect for my space.  Next I contacted the seller to ask what was inside because there were no photos of the inside included with the ad.

The seller got back to me and said there were bars inside for hanging clothes, but no shelves.  However, she said there were supports for shelves, so at one time it must have had shelves.

So.  No shelves.  $900.  I decided to put it out of my mind.  It wasn’t really right for me after all.

I sent an email back to the seller letting her know that it was just too far out of my price range with the cost of adding shelves on top of the $900.  I didn’t hear back right away and assumed that was that.

But then one Saturday morning I got an email from the seller saying she would take less and asking me to make an offer.  So I offered $600.  I really didn’t expect her to go for it.  And I thought for sure she’d counter with $750, which was still going to be too high for me.  Let’s be honest, even $600 is a lot for me to spend.  I was surprised when she emailed back and said “Great!  I’ll take $600 if you can come today.  We’ve just moved and we need to get it out of our garage.”

As luck would have it, Mr. Q had already left the house for the day with his truck.  But nnK (my neighbor Karen) said her dad, Larry, was coming over with his truck and he’d probably be game to let us use it to pick up the cupboard.  Shortly afterwards Larry showed up and instead of his truck he was driving his baby blue classic Oldsmobile.  Hmmmm, that wasn’t going to work!  Next nnK suggested we borrow Ken’s trailer.  We could hook it up to her SUV.  So we called Ken next, and he said ‘sure!’   So we hooked Ken’s trailer up to nnK’s SUV, and then Ken and Larry both decided to come along for the ride too, so the four of us headed out.

As nnK says, we must have looked like one of those Shriner clown cars when we got to our destination and all four of us piled out of the car!  The sellers did look a little surprised that I had brought the entire neighborhood with me.

I headed into the seller’s garage to check out the wardrobe.  It’s an interesting piece.  It’s made out of pine and looking closely I could see that at one point it was painted (there are still traces of paint in the grooves), but it had been stripped.  Pine pieces were typically painted, so that didn’t surprise me.  And it was good news to me because if I decide to paint it, I won’t feel guilty about painting over an original finish.

It has some really cool hardware inside including this gadget used to hold one door closed …

And a huge lock mechanism …

The husband of the woman I’d been emailing with asked if I wanted to know the story behind the piece, and of course I did!  He said he was from Texas and he purchased the wardrobe from an antique dealer in Texas who regularly travels to England, buys antique cupboards, ships them back to the U.S., refinishes and repairs them and then sells them.

I always hear stories like these and wonder how in the world it is possible to buy something in Europe, ship it back here, refurbish it and still make any sort of profit.  The guy didn’t tell me how much he paid for it, but I’m guessing it had to be a lot more than $600.

While listening to the seller’s story, I was also giving the piece a thorough inspection.  The back of the cupboard was obviously a replacement.  It’s made out of cheap particle board.  Or possibly this cupboard was originally a built in and never had a back, but instead just used the wall as its back.  I wasn’t convinced that the cupboard was as old as the ad said it was (late 17th, early 18th century), but it’s definitely an old piece.  I loved the simplicity of the design.  And the size was perfect for my space.  So after much scrutiny, I said “I’ll take it” and handed over the cash.

Next came the fun part.  Loading this monster into the trailer.  In the end it took 6 people!  The seller’s neighbor came over to help too.  Part of the problem was that there just wasn’t anything to grab onto to lift it off the ground.  We ended up putting cardboard under it and then sort of sliding it out of the garage.  Once we’d cleared that space we were able to tilt it backwards with three people on each side and then lift it up and into the trailer.

We strapped it down and headed out.  I wish I’d taken some photos.  The cupboard is huge and hung halfway out of the trailer.  We took back roads all the way home to avoid traffic and high speeds.  We made just one stop at the Dairy Queen.  I’d promised my helpers some ice cream for their efforts.

So for $600, plus the cost of two malts, one blizzard and one small cone, I am now the proud owner of this beautiful antique English pine cupboard.

 Now that I’ve got it home, Ken will work his magic on this inside and then I’ll work some magic on the outside … maybe … I still haven’t decided.

What do you think?  Should I paint it, or shouldn’t I?