q is for quandie

A while back one of my regulars, Suzy, emailed me because her neighbor had a headboard and foot board at the curb with a free sign on it.  She thought it might be something I’d like and she was willing to pull it off the curb and save it for me if I wanted it.

Here’s the photo she sent me.

Naturally I said yes.  Mr. Q and I drove out to Hudson, Wisconsin that evening to pick it up.

Although it was a bit plain looking (especially compared to that gorgeous bed I finished earlier this month), to me it looked like the perfect blank canvas for something creative.

However, the bed didn’t have its side rails.  There are kits that you can buy to add modern metal rails to a vintage headboard and foot board, so I was going to go that route.  But then I gave it a little more thought.  I’ve always admired benches that are made out of beds (in fact, I have one myself), so I wondered if my handyman Ken would be willing to turn these two pieces into a bench.

So I called him over for a consultation.  I showed him some examples on pinterest.  Then we took a few measurements and came up with a plan.  We made an agreement to split the profits equally on this piece since it would be about as much work for Ken to build the bench as it would be for me to finish it.

Then we carried the pieces over to Ken’s workshop (he lives just next door).

A few days later Ken called me and asked if I wanted to come over and take some photos of the bench building in progress (Ken’s workshop is so neat and tidy compared to mine).

So far Ken had cut the foot board down and attached a section to each side of the bench.  There was about a 15″ section of foot board from the middle that wasn’t used.  Then he built a framework for the future seat of the bench to rest on.

He attached it with screws.

The next day Ken called again to say the bench was ready to go!

We had discussed the type of seat I wanted, planks that were perpendicular to the back of the bench and were varying widths.

I had considered doing some sort of upholstered seat, but in the long run I felt like a wooden seat was a better option.

Ken also added that trim board under the seat along the front.

Now it was my turn!

I sanded the headboard and foot board portions of the bench and then cleaned it all with just a damp rag.  Then I painted the entire thing with Fusion Mineral Paint in a color called Putty.

This is a great pale neutral greige sort of color.

Once the paint was fully dry, I sanded the edges of the headboard and foot board portions of the bench to distress.  If I had wanted to also distress the new wood seat, I could have stained it to match the older pieces before I painted so that the wood wouldn’t have looked quite so new in the distressed areas.  But I skipped that step.

Next came the pièce de résistance.

I added one of my favorite Prima Marketing furniture transfers to the bench.

I was careful to get the design centered and level, but otherwise it was very simple to apply.  This is the Specimens transfer and I’ve seen it online for as low as $14.39 from Scrapbook.com.

I didn’t use the entire design.  There was a little chunk in the middle that I left out.

By the way, I had to laugh when I started editing these photos.  My boots look positively huge in most of them.  Yes, I have giant feet.  Size 11 to be precise.  Maybe I need to buy some adorable size 6 boots the next time I’m at the thrift store just to use as a prop for photo shoots like this one.

Those are Limelight hydrangeas on the bench.

I’m going to try and pull together a blog post about the various hydrangeas that I have before the summer is over, but suffice to say the Limelight is one of my favorites.

I’m going to share a separate blog post about the pillows too.

So you’ll have to stay tuned for that!

So what do you think of our french bench?  I know Ken is really proud of the work he did on this one.  He enjoyed the challenge of taking something that was no longer useful (without its side rails) and creating something functional out of it.

Ken makes things functional and then I make them pretty.  We make a dynamic duo.

If I didn’t already have an amazing bench, I’d definitely be keeping this one.  But, I do.  So this one is for sale while it lasts.  If you are local and interested in more details, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale page‘!

Thank you to Fusion Mineral Paint for supplying the paint for this project, and Prima Marketing for supplying the Specimens transfer.

A couple of weeks ago nnK (my neighbor across the street) purchased this mid-century modern dresser via Craigslist.

Once she got it home though, she asked me if I wanted to buy it from her and paint it.  I’m not sure why she decided not to keep it herself.  Perhaps because the finish was in kind of disgusting condition.

Sure, it looks OK in that photo, but here’s a close up that gives you a better idea of how gross it was.

Can you see all of that grime on there?  It had also been written on a few times and had plenty of scratches and dings.   All of this is by way of saying that often a piece can look pretty good from a distance in the ‘before’ photo while up close and personal it looks pretty bad.

As nnK handed the dresser over to me she suggested I paint it in Fusion’s Park Bench, my favorite shade of green for mid-century pieces.  But I’ve got a different piece that I’m currently painting in Park Bench, so I told her I wanted to paint this one pink.  She wasn’t too thrilled with that idea.  In fact, at first she tried to tell me that I could paint it any color but pink.

However, I’m pretty sure that she knows me well enough by now to know that once something belongs to me, I’ll do whatever I want to with it.

So I handed her the cash for it, and then I painted it pink!

Well, technically, first I sanded it down and cleaned off all of the grime with some Krud Kutter kitchen degreaser.  Then I painted it pink.

This is Fusion’s English Rose, but I prefer to call it Millennial Pink (simply so that I can jump on that bandwagon since it’s so popular right now).

I used some Brasso to clean up the original hardware and it shined up quite nicely.

My Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea is covered in flowers this year, so obviously I had to use some of them to style these photos.

The flowers start out white and gradually turn pink over time.

The colors in the hydrangea were a perfect match for the colors in the caladium that I have in one of my window boxes, so I had to add a sprig of that too.

Thank you to Fusion for providing the paint that made this makeover possible.

I have another mid-mod piece in the works this weekend, but I also have another piece I’m working on that is much more ‘me’.  So be sure to check back next week!

Oh, and remember, if you are local and in need of a Millennial Pink mid-mod dresser, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

So here’s the truth.  July was a complete bust as far as selling furniture is concerned.  I sold one piece in the entire month, and that was a small table that sold at Reclaiming Beautiful.

I’m not gonna lie, lack of sales is the biggest drain on my creativity.  Sounds mundane and prosaic to depend upon sales for the motivation to get creative, but that’s just how it works for me.

I also tend to start questioning the entire thing when nothing is selling.  Should I give up on the furniture painting hobby completely?  Or am I just painting the wrong pieces?  Is vintage farmhouse style out already?  Should I switch over to entirely mid-mod?  Maybe it’s my color choices.  Should I forget about shades of blue and move on to green?  Should I just paint everything black?

Ugh!

I suspect the answer is a combination of things, but mostly the fact that July is typically just a slow month for furniture sales.  People are spending time at the cabin or taking family vacations, not decorating.

Nonetheless, I decided to make a concerted effort to add a few more mid mod pieces to my line up because the mid-century stuff was selling really well for me for earlier this year.  My friend Sue forwarded a Craigslist ad to me for a 3-piece mid mod bedroom suite, so I contacted the seller and made arrangements to pick it up.

This past weekend I got started on the headboard and the tall dresser.

I wonder how many of you are looking at those photos and thinking yuck!

I have to admit, after I brought these home and took a proper look at them I was sort of thinking I’d made a mistake too.

But paint can perform miracles.  You’ll see.

Although I’m normally not a fan of matching suites of furniture for any room, I decided to keep these two pieces together and paint them as a pair.  I was thinking they’d be perfect for a kid’s room.  They have a bit of a masculine feel to me, so I chose to paint them in Fusion’s Ash (thank you to Fusion for supplying me with the paint).

Let’s just jump right to the ‘after’ and then I’ll share the details of how I got there.

Amazing difference, right?

And here is my little secret.  This makeover was incredibly simple.  I prepped the pieces by removing the hardware, sanding them lightly, cleaning them with Krud Kutter Kitchen Degreaser, and then rinsing with clear water.  Once they dried out, I started with one coat of the Ash.  I almost could have gotten away with just one coat but there were a couple of spots that needed some additional touch up so I added a 2nd coat of paint.

The beauty of Fusion Mineral Paint is that it doesn’t require a top coat.  There is no additional step after prep and painting.  Ta da, you are done.  Well, unless you count putting the hardware back on.

Once the Ash was dry, I taped off the inner cubbies on either side of the headboard and painted them with Fusion’s Mustard.

I know not everyone loves Mustard, although it does pair beautifully with this dark grey (and corn dogs), so I only painted the two sides.  The sliding doors can be pushed to each side creating a solid dark grey piece.

Or, slide the doors to the middle for that pop of Mustard.

I took that photo from a fairly low position which makes those holes for electrical wires look kind of obvious.  In person they aren’t noticeable at all.  They do make it convenient for an alarm clock and a phone charging station though.

The beauty of the sliding doors is that you can move them around any way you like.

The dresser is also painted in Ash.  The insides of the drawers were in pristine condition and there was no need to line them, or paint them Mustard.  Maybe that’s because this dresser was permanized by the world’s largest furniture manufacturer!

Ha!  I don’t know what ‘permanized’ means, but I suspect the real reason that the drawers are so clean inside is because they were all lined with paper.  Not sticky, gross, contact paper but just sheets of loose paper that came right out.  Nice!

 Have you noticed that the knobs and pulls on this piece look just a little bit different in the ‘after’ photos?  Scroll back up and check them out again in the ‘before’ photo.  See?  They were a bright, shiny gold.

To tone them down a bit I sanded them to give them some tooth, and then I coated them with Prima Marketing’s art alchemy Metallique wax in Bronze Age.

This color looks gorgeous next to the dark grey and gives the hardware a more industrialized or masculine look.

I’ve got some of this wax to give away, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  I’ll try to get it on the schedule for next week, so be sure to keep an eye out for that post.

By the way, the forest fires out west were creating a bit of a haze for us here in Minnesota last Saturday morning when I took these photos.  We were under an air quality alert and that haze definitely affected the quality of the light in my photos.

Anyway, there you have it.  A mid mod makeover that took about one day to accomplish.

Now let’s see if it sells!

If any of you local readers need a mid-mod dresser and headboard, be sure to check my available for local sale page for more details.

It’s the darkest hour
Of the darkest night
It’s a million miles
From the morning light

Anybody else remember that song by Gary Moore, Midnight Blues?  I’m probably dating myself again.  Well, if you’re in the mood for some bluesy guitar riffs check it out on YouTube.

But if you’re in the mood for some bluesy furniture, stick with me.

Let’s start at the beginning with a ‘before’ photo.

If you’re paying attention to details in the photo you might guess that I brought this dresser home last spring before there were any leaves on the trees.  But actually I brought this dresser home in spring of 2017.

I initially wanted it for its mirror frame.  I turned that into a chalkboard way back then, but I’ll be darned if I can find the blog post about it!  I’ve done so many that they are all starting to blend together in my mind.

But anyway … that left the dresser.  Which then sat in my carriage house for over a year.  I hate storing furniture that long.  It’s not good for the furniture.  My carriage house is damp, stinky and full of critters like spiders and mice and possums, oh my!

However, as you can see from the photo, this one was already in terrible shape so I suppose another 16 months or so in storage didn’t do too much additional damage.  I finally pulled it out a few weeks ago to get started on it.

First my handyman Ken had to do some work.  The top of the dresser had split its seam, so he took it off and repaired it with glue and dowel pins.  Then reattached it to the dresser.  Ken wasn’t entirely happy with the repair because he wanted the seam to be invisible.

I try to explain to him that I like the rustic look.  As long as the piece is sturdily glued and isn’t going to fall apart, I’m happy with a non-perfect look.

Once the repair was done, I stripped the finish from the top, sanded it down and then waxed it with Miss Mustard Seed’s Antiquing Wax.

I painted the rest of the piece with Homestead House milk paint in Midnight Blue.

I’d say this color is certainly a million miles from the morning light.  It’s the most gorgeous deep, rich, navy blue.  The color of darkest night.

You might be wondering why I chose the milk paint version of the paint rather than the Fusion acrylic version of the paint, because both come in Midnight Blue (and if you didn’t already know this, Fusion Mineral Paint and Homestead House Milk Paint come from the same company, as does Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint).  However, I wanted a more aged looking finish on this dresser.  Something that looked more authentically old to match the age of the dresser itself.

Plus, there was quite a lot of texture left on this piece from the previous finish.  I could have sanded that down to bare wood, or stripped it, but I like the look of that texture.  Especially with milk paint.

I also wanted to distress the piece and that is easier to do with milk paint.  You can do it with Fusion, but it just doesn’t have quite the same look and it takes just a little bit more elbow grease (or pre-treatment with Homestead House Salad Bowl Finish, but that’s another subject altogether).

After two coats of the milk paint were dry, I sanded with 180 grit paper and then added a coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s Hemp Oil to give me the darkest version of the color.  Hemp oil will give you a deeper, darker version of your milk paint color while wax will leave the color a little bit lighter.

Also, keep in mind that most water based sealers like the Miss Mustard Seed Tough Coat or The Real Milk Paint Co’s Finishing Cream may look cloudy or streaky over dark colors and neither product is recommended for use over deep, dark colors like this one.

The final obstacle in the makeover of this dresser was the drawer pulls.  Looking at the before picture you might be tempted to think that the originals were pretty fab and could be put back on.  However, in reality they were pretty beat up; bent out of shape, rusty and crusty.  Plus one was missing its bail.  I wanted to replace them with some brass cup pulls but I had a heck of time finding just what I wanted at a reasonable price.

I found what I thought was a great option on Amazon until I realized they came in a five-pack.  Ugh.  A five-pack?  What are they thinking?  Who needs an odd number of pulls?  Well, maybe for a kitchen I suppose.  But I would have had to order two packs at around $25 each and then would have had 4 left over.  I may have been able to use 4 pulls down the road, but who knows.

So instead I ended up with these pulls from Target.  These came in a six-pack which was perfect.  They were $27.99 plus tax.  They also happened to fit the existing holes from the original hardware.

The drawer bottoms for this piece weren’t in really awful shape, but they did show some signs of their age.  So I opted to line them with some fabric that I purchased at a garage sale a couple of years back.

I didn’t have enough of either fabric for all three drawers, so the top drawer got the paisley and the bottom two got the coordinating stripe.  To line drawers with fabric I simply cut the fabric to fit and then use some spray adhesive to hold it in place.  If the future buyer wants to remove it down the road, it will be easy for them to pull it back out and clean off the adhesive residue.  It comes out much more easily than contact paper or, heaven forbid, paper that was decoupaged into place.

I think it goes without saying that this piece was definitely improved.

The cup pulls give it an updated feel.  It’s all spruced up and ready for a new home.

If you are local and need a Midnight Blue dresser check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details!

I’ll be sharing the rest of the tour of Jackie’s garden on Wednesday this week, so be sure to stay tuned.

Please note that Homestead House provided the milk paint used on this dresser, but all opinions are my own.