the bunker hill blue buffet.

Published on by Quandie26 Comments

One very blustery sub-zero day last January my neighbor nnK called me to let me know about a buffet that was listed as ‘free’ on Craigslist.  Normally I shy away from the free stuff for a few reasons.  First, they are often in rough shape and need too many repairs.  Second, I usually can’t get there fast enough to be the first in line.  Third, the people giving away stuff for free are usually not terribly accommodating … and why should they be?  After all, they are giving it away for free (I’m pretty sure my mother told me never to do that).

This time only two out of three were true.  The buffet was in pretty rough shape, and the people weren’t very accommodating.  They weren’t willing to help with the loading at all.  However, it was located right on my way home from work and I was leaving work in about 20 minutes, plus Mr. Q was available to meet me there so that we could carry it out of the person’s walkout basement, through someone’s icy backyard and to our van.  Perhaps the frigidly cold day worked in our favor because we were the first people who called and said we could pick it up right away.

And here is the piece we brought home that day.

I know some people might like this look but I find it quite hideous.  There is something about that mix of dark and light finishes that just does not appeal to me.  I knew I could make it pretty though.  But first I had to store it in my carriage house until it warmed up enough for my handyman/neighbor Ken to fix it up.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when it finally warmed up around here.  Ken came over and did some repairs to the drawers.  He and I then worked together and glued some of the feet back together.  Next I stripped the top of the piece using Citristrip.  And then after cleaning the piece with some TSP substitute, I finally got to the painting.

I painted the outside lower body of the buffet in Dixie Belle’s Bunker Hill Blue.  This is an interesting paint color.  It looks very bright in the jar, and it also looks quite bright going on.  So much so that you might be a little worried about your choice at first.

But it does dry quite a bit darker.  To tone it down just one step further, I used Dixie Belle’s black glaze over the paint (paint and glaze were provided by Dixie Belle).

The glaze was super easy to use.  I brushed it on with an inexpensive chip brush and then wiped it back with a clean cloth.

But I have to say, the look of the color really depends on the lighting.  When the light hits this color just right it looks much more like a cobalt blue than a navy as you can see in this next photo.

As you may have noticed, I changed out the knobs.  One of the originals was damaged beyond repair, plus they were kind of ugly.

I found these simple knobs at Hobby Lobby.  They were large and heavy enough so that they didn’t get lost on this big ornate piece, but I think their simple look allows the rest of the buffet to take center stage.

The insides of this piece were definitely in need of a little TLC too, so I painted them with Fusion mineral paint in Coral.

I kind of love that unexpected pop of color when you open a drawer or one of the cupboard doors on the side, don’t you?

I finished the top of this piece with Fusion’s furniture wax in Espresso.  Although I absolutely love how creamy and easy to apply the Fusion wax is, I think I may go back over it again with Miss Mustard Seed’s Antiquing Wax which is a bit darker in color.

This buffet is definitely not short on detail, but I think my favorite are those little finials that hang down from the trim below the side doors.  Aren’t they sweet!

I think this buffet has an entirely new look with its vibrant Bunker Hill Blue paint job.   I hope I’ve encouraged some of you to give this color a try.  Don’t be afraid if you think it looks a bit too vibrant in the jar, and remember you can always tone it down a bit with the black glaze or with some dark wax.

If you are local and in need of a beautiful blue buffet, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details!

ladies who lunch.

Published on by Quandie27 Comments

When I was a bit younger if you’d asked me if I wanted to be one of those ‘ladies who lunch’ I would have answered with an emphatic ‘yes’!

Who wouldn’t want to be free as a bird every day, with the disposable income required to meet your gal pals at fancy restaurants for lunch.  I could totally see my future as a lady of leisure.

But in reality I’ve pretty much had a full time job since I left school.  That was … um … egads … 37 years ago.  However, every once in a while I take a staycation and try to pretend for a week that I live that way all the time.  You know, I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I’ve been off work all of this week!

But I should have known that I’m not really cut out to be a lady who lunches.  I’m much more of a lady who skips lunch to go to garage sales!

So yesterday my friend Meggan (a.k.a. the thrift doctor) and I headed out to the Roseville city-wide garage sales for the day.  It was a total luxury for me to be able to go to a neighborhood sale that started on a Thursday!  This was the second time Meggan and I have done this sale, we did it two years ago too.

Once again we had a great time and we managed to fill up Meggan’s SUV, and in fact Mr. Q and I had to go back later with our van to pick up this pair of twin beds that I found.

Aren’t they going to be amazing with a coat of paint or two?

I also brought home a mid-century piece.

Technically I think it’s a table and it has these clever little pop out leaves that make it bigger, but I think this would work beautifully as a desk.  The blonde ‘wood’ is all Formica, and the legs are metal.  I’m debating painting the legs … maybe?  Or maybe just cleaning them up.  Either way I’ll definitely clean the piece up a bit, stage it as a desk and then see if I can flip it on Craigslist.

I also ended up with a bit more mid-century glassware.

The crazy thing is that I first purchased the set of tall glasses with a matching ice bowl at one sale, and then found the matching shorter glasses at another!

Seriously, what are the chances?  Cocktails anyone?

I mainly purchased this gorgeous Atlas for the color.  It’s the most lovely shade of green.

But it also has some gorgeous blue and green colored maps inside that would be awesome framed.

I also found this set of books that will be perfect for staging photos, or for filling up a bookshelf.

Obviously I couldn’t resist this little doll sized dresser.  It’s the perfect shade of aqua blue, and you know I’m obsessed with miniature furniture.  Since it was only $5, it had to come home with me.

As for this toy truck, the fact that it was the perfect shade of “Millennial Pink” sold me on it.  It’s missing its cab, but hey, it’s a Ford.  I can see it filled with succulents, or maybe with some pink vintage ornaments at Christmas.

I brought home a few other odds and ends as well like this sweet little copper watering can and a perfectly lovely little Oxalis plant that was only $2.50.

I also found my Lula’s sister …

She may not look like much yet, but I’ll work her over and add some vintage details.  After all, the original Lula started out in similar shape to this and now look at her.

I found a few more bits and pieces that I didn’t have time to photograph, so all in all it was another successful neighborhood garage sale.

All things considered, I think I’ll stick with not being a lady who lunches.  It’s so much more fun this way!

 

 

 

 

 

peony season.

Published on by Quandie29 Comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a couple of years or so, you probably already know that peonies are one of my favorite flowers.  They have just two downsides; first, their blooming season is way too short (I wish they would last all summer) and second, ants love them.

I have quite a few old fashioned pink double peonies.  When we purchased our house about 30 years ago there were two of these plants in the existing garden.  Since then I’ve divided them many times, shared them with friends, and moved some back to the cutting garden behind the carriage house.

They are very reliable bloomers and really don’t require much care back there.  I find that the old fashioned varieties of most plants are usually less temperamental than the newer hybrids.  I like to have these out of sight in the cutting garden because then I don’t feel guilty about cutting them all off and bringing them in the house (shaking off the ants first).

I’ve also added a few other varieties to the garden over the years.  The white are definitely the most fragrant.

But my absolutely favorite peony is this gorgeous bright pink variety that I planted about 4 years ago.  I think this is going to be the first year that I get a really good quantity of blooms on the plant.

The color of these peonies just glows from the garden in the evening.  They are so vibrant!

And I think that is exactly what drew me to Dixie Belle’s paint color called Peony.

I wonder if whoever created and named this color also has these peonies growing in their garden.

By the way, I’m faking you out a little with all of the peony photos.  They are from previous years because this year’s peonies aren’t blooming quite yet.  Although they will be soon with this ridiculous heat we’ve been having!  But even though my peonies aren’t quite here, this gorgeous paint color is!  Dixie Belle was kind enough to provide me with some of this paint for a dresser makeover I have planned.  But whenever I try a brand new paint color that I haven’t used before, I like to test it out on a smaller piece before I put it on a large piece of furniture.

So I pulled out one of the chairs that I purchased at the Tangletown sales.

It’s another bottomless chair that is destined to become a planter chair.

So why not go with a vibrant pink!

Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, first I went with Rachel Ashwell chalk paint in a pale blue which was very pretty, but then I opted to try sealing it with Miss Mustard Seed’s Tough Coat Sealer and the original stain on the chair bled through the paint.

This brings me to a good q tip.  If you aren’t familiar with this phenomenon, sometimes even though a pre-existing stain didn’t initially bleed through your paint, once you add a water based sealer over it, the sealer will draw the bleeding stain through the paint.  This can be a huge bummer when you’ve painted your piece and it looks amazing and you’re at the final step of sealing it and bam!  Bleedy stains all over the place.  I don’t really have a great tip for preventing this (unless you want to pre-seal every piece just in case, but that seems extreme to me), but if this happens to you there are a couple of options for dealing with it.  1)  seal the piece with a stain blocking sealer (like Dixie Belle’s BOSS for example), re-paint and then add your water based sealing top coat.  2)  continue on with the water based sealer and once dry paint again, and then add a wax topcoat.  Waxes will not pull the stain through like a water based top coat will.

Or, you can do what I did.  Go with an entirely different color and then seal it with wax.

Speaking of wax, you know how chairs are so much easier to paint if you spray them?  Well, when I went to wax this chair I remembered that a while back Dixie Belle had sent me some of their Easy Peasy spray wax.

It occurred to me that … duh … this stuff would be perfect for chairs!  And it was.

Simply spray it on, wait 10 to 15 seconds and then wipe away any excess.  It truly is Easy Peasy.

So I’ve tested the Peony and I love it, but you probably won’t see that dresser for a couple of weeks.  In the meantime I’ll have a lovely buffet and a couple of other fun projects to share with you first.  So be sure to stay tuned!

patina.

Published on by Quandie20 Comments

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you are enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend.  I don’t exactly know what happened here in Minnesota.  It feels like we went right from winter to summer without stopping at spring in between.  Our temperature is supposed to hit 97 today, while a mere six weeks ago we had blizzard conditions.  Seriously, what is up with that?

So, I’m curious, how many of you have come across this photo on pinterest?

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m the only one who is utterly obsessed with that gorgeous color and that amazing authentic looking chippy patina.

I pinned that photo way back in the day when pinterest was new and you had to be invited to join, does anyone else remember that?

It took a bit of digging to find the origin of the photo.  I started by following it back to whomever pinned it, but that just led back to someone’s tumblr account.  Next I checked out the watermark, aprilpizana.com and found the photographer who took the photo.  I kept digging and finally found the answer.  April Pizana was hired to take photos at Rachel Ashwell’s b&b in Texas and that’s where this photo was taken.

So it’s a Rachel Ashwell piece.  Of course it is.  It has Rachel written all over it, doesn’t it?  The color, the gorgeous floral wallpaper, the fresh flowers.  The whole shabby chic-ness of it all.

But sadly, my research did not lead where I hoped it would.  To a blog where someone listed precisely what brand and color of paint is on that dresser.  In fact, I suspect it’s an original 60+ year old paint job.  So I gave up on finding this precise color.

But then I saw the Sweet Pickins color called Patina.

It’s pretty close to the same color, right?  A bit brighter, and with a bit more blue perhaps.  So I ordered some to use on an antique Eastlake style dresser that I’ve been hanging onto for a while.  However, once the paint arrived I simply could not wait to paint something in it, and the Eastlake still needs some repair work, so I pulled out this dresser instead.

This one also needed a few repairs, but my handyman/neighbor Ken had already done them.  The main problem with this dresser was the broken top.

Ken did a great job re-attaching that broken piece using dowel pins and glue and it’s firmly in place now, but the crack is still pretty obvious even though I filled it with Dixie Belle mud before I painted.  The entire top of the dresser is warped and Ken struggled with getting it to lay flat again.

Ironically the crack is not very visible in any of the photos I took, but trust me, it is much more noticeable in person.

But I’m hoping that someone else out there will appreciate this piece despite its flaws, even embrace them because they add character to the piece.

I ended up having to put three coats of the Patina on this dresser to get good coverage, but it did start out pretty dark.

I really expected it to have better coverage than that, but I could still see streaks of the original dark color after two coats.  So three coats it was.

I sanded to distress and then used Miss Mustard Seed clear wax as the topcoat.

When I purchased this dresser I thought those knobs on it were just simple wooden knobs that I could paint.  But when I went to remove them I realized they were metal.  Very plain, boring, solid metal knobs.  Obviously not original to the dresser.  In fact, if you go back to the ‘before’ photo and study them, the scale is just a bit too small.  Luckily I have a rather large stash of wooden knobs that I’ve taken off other pieces and I happened to have 10 of them that were a better fit for this dresser.

I painted them up and I love how they look!

I didn’t do anything fancy with this piece.  I felt like it had a simple vintage farmhouse vibe and I wanted to retain that feel.  The color itself has enough impact, wouldn’t you say?

The next time I use this color I might try to mix in just a bit of a more pale, minty color to get just a little bit closer to my Rachel Ashwell inspiration piece.  We’ll see how it goes.

But for now I have to say I am loving the Patina on this dresser!

quickie garage sale makeovers.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

I was hoping to have a fabulous vintage painted dresser to share with you guys today.  And actually, the dresser itself is done.  However, I haven’t had the chance to take photos of it yet.  I could have raced through some not very well staged photos in the driveway, but this particular dresser deserves better.  I kind of love how it turned out and I want to do it justice, so you’ll have to wait until next week for that.

Instead I’m going to share a few quickie garage sale makeovers today that I’ve finished in the the last couple of weeks.

I purchased this trio of goodies at the Tangletown sales back at the beginning of May.

The vintage chalkboard was the easiest makeover.  The chalkboard portion itself was in pretty rough shape from what I can only imagine were years of abuse.

So I sanded that down with my orbital sander and repainted it with Rustoleum chalkboard paint.

You might be wondering why I didn’t use milk paint for this chalkboard and the simple reason is that I wasn’t sure it would stick to this surface.  I’m not even really sure what the surface of this chalkboard is.  The label calls it a ‘slated blackboard’, but it didn’t feel heavy enough to actually be slate.  What is a ‘slated’ chalkboard anyway?  Do any of you know?

The Rustoleum chalkboard paint worked well on this surface, regardless of what it is.

Aside from cleaning it a little, I left the frame of the chalkboard ‘as is’.  I love how worn and well used it looks.

Once the chalkboard paint was fully dry, I seasoned the chalkboard by rubbing chalk all over it and then wiping it away with a dry cloth.  Next I used one of my favorite stencils to outline some lettering and then filled it in with chalk.  I added some butcher’s string to hang it, and that was it.

While I had the chalkboard paint out, I also added some to the kid-size folding chair.

Here it is before.

In addition to turning the seat into a chalkboard, I also added some Tim Holtz number rub-ons to the chair back.

Then I used one of my favorite methods for adding a chalk drawing.  Check out my ‘how-to’ post on that by clicking the photo below:

You may recall the chair in that post hanging on the wall in my kitchen …

I just love it, so when I saw the nearly identical little chair at the Tangletown sales I knew I had to buy it and make another.

Last up is the random piece of paneling that I purchased for a dollar.  I really don’t know what this came from, but I thought it would make a great sign.

I started off giving it a paint job.

I was playing around a bit with using water and chalk paint and blending two colors into each other.

I used Dixie Belle’s Stormy Seas and Savannah Mist which work beautifully together.  I don’t think I’m ready to attempt this technique on a piece of furniture yet, but it was fun to practice with it on this paneling.

Once I had achieved a look I liked with the paint I let it dry and then added a Prima Marketing transfer.  You can find this particular transfer on Amazon.com for $10 right now.

Part of the reason I purchased this piece of paneling in the first place was because I already had this transfer and I thought it might just fit perfectly … and it did.

In fact the design of the transfer mimics the raised detail on the paneling almost exactly.

I could not have planned this better if I’d tried.

Now I just have to head to my local hardware store and figure out some way to add hangers to this piece.  It’s pretty thin so my normal options won’t work.  It’s also pretty light, so I don’t need something heavy duty.  I’m thinking some sort of adhesive hanger will do the trick.

Be sure to check back next week when I promise I really will share that dresser, and as a bonus I might also have a gorgeous sideboard that I’ve been working on finished too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

clip board art.

Published on by Quandie40 Comments

I spent part of last week digging out my carriage house workshop after the long winter.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, this is my carriage house.  I park my car on one side in the winter and store future projects on the other side.  In summer, I paint out there.

Awww, it looks so pretty in pictures.  Especially winter pictures when the red pops against the white snow.  Now don’t be confused, it really isn’t still winter here in Minnesota, I just didn’t have a summer photo of the carriage house handy.

But the reality behind the pretty photo is that the carriage house is not at all weather or critter proof.  In the winter I mostly just shove stuff in there to store it until spring because it’s far too cold to spend any time at all out there.  When the weather starts warming up again I have to sort through all of that stuff and get my workshop situated so I can bring my painting supplies back out and resume painting out there.

While doing that this spring I encountered a possum, a chipmunk and a robin inside the carriage house.  Eeeeeek!  I’m telling you, it’s not critter proof at all.  And clearly my cat Lucy is not doing her job properly.

Well, the critters will soon figure out that I am taking back my workshop and hopefully find somewhere less busy to hang out.

In addition to the possum, I also came across a stash of clipboards that I’d been acquiring over the course of last summer’s garage sale season.

At the time I thought it would be fun to paint these up and use them as ‘frames’ for some prints but I never got around to it last year.

The vintage book of Audubon bird prints I found at the Tangletown sales had some perfect candidates for the clipboards though, so I decided to whip something up.

Since the prints had a lot of shades of green in them, I decided to go with green on my clipboards.

I pulled out an old jar of Little Billy Goat chalk paint in a color called Porch Swing.  A couple of years ago Little Billy Goat sponsored a few projects with me and sent me some of their paint to try.  I loved most of it, but I was quickly reminded that I didn’t love the Porch Swing while working on this project.  For some reason the Porch Swing ends up looking weirdly splotchy for me once I add a top coat.  The first time I used it I painted an entire dresser, and ending up having to paint it over again with something else when I got this splotchy look.

In the case of the clipboards, I tried to use Miss Mustard Seed wax on the first one and it looked terrible (sorry, I neglected to get a photo).  I tried Miss Mustard Seed hemp oil on the next two and got better results, although still slightly splotchy.  So I repainted the first one (after using mineral spirits and a green scrubbing pad to remove the wax) and then used hemp oil on it also so that all three would match.

Next I added some Tim Holtz rub-on numbers to the clips.

Then I just simply added my Audubon prints and they were good to go.

These would be perfect for hanging above your potting bench.

Or maybe just hanging on the wall in a sunroom.

What a simple, inexpensive way to add some interest to your walls!

the haul from Linden Hills.

Published on by Quandie33 Comments

Another one of my absolute favorite neighborhoods, Linden Hills, had their annual garage sale this past weekend.  My sis and I got up early Saturday morning and headed out to be there for the 8 a.m. start time.

There are several things I love about Linden Hills.  First and foremost, it’s a ‘Saturday only’ sale.  Since I’m a working stiff, I can’t get to the sales that start on Thursday or Friday (unless I take a vacation day at work).  All of the good stuff at those sales is long gone by Saturday.

Second, the Linden Hills Neighborhood Council provides a listing of all the sales along with descriptions of their goods, plus a map showing all of the locations.  Both are crucial tools for a successful garage sale experience.  I always try to pick the best spot for starting out in the morning.

Third, it’s just quite simply a beautiful neighborhood full of gorgeous old homes that is a pleasure to drive around in.

Before Debbie and I headed out Saturday morning I studied the list of sales and picked out one at the southern end of the neighborhood to start at.  The description said ‘Vintage furniture, linens & books.  Some small antiques.‘, so I was optimistic.

And we hit the jackpot!

I spent just over $100 and purchased a dresser, a vintage bookcase with a glass door, a 2nd vintage bookcase, two soon-to-be planter chairs, three old books, several sets of linen napkins (I’m going to try dying them with Dixie Belle paint, coming soon) …

some green depression glass, a McCoy pot, and a uniquely shaped Atlas jar …

I’ve already added a little something extra to the Atlas jar in the form of a Tim Holtz rub-on …

 and I also purchased three vintage milk glass light fixture globes at that first sale.

I especially love the art deco wedding cake globe.  In fact, I’m giving it ‘find of the day’ status.

I have a similar style globe on the light fixture on my front porch that I also purchased at a garage sale and I just love it.

So I was hoping that this one would fit my existing bathroom light fixture, and it did!

Since I was completely unable to get a decent photo of my own bathroom light fixture (since I have the world’s smallest bathroom), I borrowed this one from the ModMercantile on Etsy.  If you absolutely love this look, you can buy a similar fixture from them for about $265.  I paid $10 for mine, bwa, ha, ha, ha (insert evil garage sale laugh here).

Anyway, yes, all of that was just at the first of sale of the day.  We couldn’t even begin to fit all of the furniture into Debbie’s SUV, so I made arrangements to come back later with our van to pick it up.  That ended up being a good thing because we filled the SUV up with other stuff as the day went on including this adorable little nightstand and another potential planter chair.

I also picked up this amazing vintage iron crib.

I just love genuine heavy vintage iron pieces like these.

The older couple I purchased it from were quite funny.  They said that they actually used this crib for their kids when they were babies and pointed out this was before people worried about silly things like safety.  They mentioned that they called it ‘the slammer’ because their kids were ‘behind bars’ and then chuckled at those happy memories of their babies in their iron prison.

I’m not precisely sure what the fate of ‘the slammer’ is going to be.  I had initially thought I would put it back together and turn it into some sort of garden bench like this example from pinterest …

but I’m missing some of the parts that hold it together so I’m not sure I can make that work.  The separate  pieces would be gorgeous in the garden with a clematis or something growing on them though.  So we’ll see.

Luckily even after all of that there was still room in the vehicle when we came across this lovely crystal chandelier.

The gentlemen selling this item said he replaced it with something that was more his style.  I was happy to take it off his hands!  I don’t really have a spot for a gorgeous crystal chandelier myself though, so I’ll most likely be selling it on.

Unfortunately by the time we got to the house with the $5 small farmhouse table there was just no way at all we could fit it in the SUV.  And I knew when I came back with the van for the pieces from the first sale of the day there wasn’t going to be any room for it either.  It hurt me a little inside to have to walk away from that table.  I hope someone else found it and is going to give it a new lease on life with some paint!

Meanwhile I finished up a sweet vintage farmhouse style dresser yesterday that I just need to get photos of so I can share that with you here this week, so be sure to stay tuned!

bottomless chairs.

Published on by Quandie24 Comments

Are you a fan of cane chairs and benches?

I love them.  I have half a dozen of them myself.

But the sad truth about cane is that it’s easy to damage.  So far the cane on two of my chairs has ripped.  And I don’t have the patience for replacing damaged cane.  So, in my opinion, cane chairs are best reserved for occasional use, not rough every day use.

I see a lot of damaged cane chairs for sale at garage sales and on Craigslist.  Sometimes they are priced super cheap, although I also see plenty of ads for pricier chairs where the seller says ‘you can easily add new cane’.  I always laugh when I read those ads.  If it was so easy to do, why didn’t they do it themselves?

I’ve come up with a few ways to work around ruined caning.  On the bench I put in my bedroom I added a cushion where there once was caning.

  On the ‘cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater‘ chair I added an upholstered seat …

Originally I planned to do something similar with a pair of chairs that I picked up last summer at a garage sale.  Don’t be confused by the snow on the ground in this ‘before’ photo.  I purchased the chairs last summer, but took this photo sometime last winter.

 I did add a seat to one of the chairs, which I then paired with the Sea Glass dressing table.

But with spring just around the corner, I decided to turn the 2nd chair into a planter chair.

But first, in case you’re not familiar, what’s a planter chair?

Here is one that I gave to my mother-in-law for mother’s day a couple of years ago.

It’s basically a bottomless chair with a hanging basket of flowers filling up the hole where the caning or other seat once was.

I love the whimsical touch they add to a garden.

Obviously these chairs are not meant for outdoor use normally.  I find that they will hold up well for 2 or 3 years if you store them in the garage for the winter, but they won’t withstand outside weather indefinitely.

But that’s OK, everything in life doesn’t have to be permanent, right?

For this planter chair I decided to go bright.  I pulled out an old jar of The Urban Rooster chalky paint in a color called Jaded Rooster but I was worried I might not have quite enough paint left for the chair so I also grabbed a small tester size jar of Annie Sloan’s Florence that was half used.

As you can see, these two are practically the same color.  One has maybe just the tiniest bit more green than the other though, so I simply mixed them together to stretch my paint a little further.

I painted two coats on my chair.  Once dry I used acrylic craft paint in Oyster White to stencil “Fleurs” on the back of the chair.

Next I sanded to distress and then added a coat of Miss Mustard Seed’s Tough Coat Sealer to protect the paint from the elements.

When I went to add a hanging basket to the chair for photo purposes, I discovered that the hole in the chair was larger than the typical hanging pot size.  So I added a couple of straps to hold the pot in place.

And ta da!  There you have it, a planter chair!

 I took this chair and another I had on hand in to Reclaiming Beautiful this week to sell.  So if you’re local and you don’t feel like making your own planter chair, be sure to stop in and see if they have any left!

spring beauty.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

One year ago today Mr. Q and I were in Copenhagen about to board our cruise ship to sail off to Norway, Scotland and England.

We had such an amazing time on that trip (to see all of my travel posts click on ‘travel.’ over to the right under ‘stuff.’).  We loved it so much that we tried to do something similar again this year.  We had a British Isles cruise all picked out.  In addition to visiting some ports in Scotland, it also stopped at several ports in Ireland, a couple of spots in England and even one port on the coast of France.

We were literally minutes away from booking it when Mr. Q remembered that he had some other obligations in May this year that meant the timing wasn’t going to work.

We next looked at the option of going later in the summer, but the price was more than $2,000 higher for the same trip.  Yikes!  We just couldn’t justify that.

Since then we have tried four more times to book a trip for this year and each one has fallen through for some reason or another.  So we decided maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.  At least for now.  Our travel agent (a.k.a. my mom) is keeping an eye out for some last minute deals, but otherwise maybe we’ll just try again next May.

But in the meantime, I’m feeling a little sad that we aren’t heading off to Ireland this month so I thought I’d re-live our last trip today by sharing some of the beautiful spring gardens that we saw.

Just before we left on our trip last year I was lamenting the fact that I would most likely miss seeing the lilacs bloom in my garden.  They last for such a short time, and sure enough I did miss it.  But in hindsight, it was really ridiculous to be worried about that.  Of course the gardens that I saw on my trip were spectacular, and I saw plenty of lilacs in bloom starting with these in Copenhagen …

And these in Stavanger …

I needn’t have worried about missing the last of the tulips either.  I saw plenty of tulips everywhere we went.  Hot pink tulips in Copenhagen …

Yellow tulips in Kristiansand …

And these gorgeous red and white tulips at Dunrobin Castle.

I’m guessing that the growing climate in Norway, Denmark and Scotland is very similar to ours in Minnesota because I saw lots of plants that I recognized and that I grow in my own gardens, like hostas and allium.

But there were a few I wasn’t sure about, like this blooming shrub in Stavanger …

I’m guessing that is some sort of rhododendron or azalea?  Does anyone recognize it?

Here’s a close up of the flowers, which grow in a cluster.

I also didn’t recognize this blooming tree I saw in Kristiansand, Norway.

And I’m not at all sure what this pretty wildflower in Flåm is, but I think it might be called Spring Beauty.

Some flowers were unique to the areas we were in, like the Scotch broom.

and the Scottish Bluebells.

Although we saw this flower in Bergen too, so I don’t think Scotland can totally claim it as their own.

We enjoyed fields of wildflowers everywhere, like this one in Flåm, Norway.

We saw huge formal gardens in the French style at Dunrobin Castle.

And a little smaller but still formal garden at the Beamish.

 And charming little kitchen gardens at the Beamish also.

You know what I just realized?  Writing this blog post is not helping.  Now I’m wishing even more that we were heading off to sail around the British Isles this week!  Dang!

Well, at least I won’t miss seeing the lilacs bloom in my own garden this year.  How about you, any fantastic summer travel plans for 2018?  I’d love to hear about them, so be sure to leave a comment so I can live vicariously through you!

I just can’t help myself.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

First a quick update.  I sold both the flip top bar and the Millennial Pink dresser this past weekend.

I had to laugh when chatting with the couple that purchased the pink dresser.  They knew all about Millennial Pink!  Apparently they are fans of John & Sherry over at Young House Love , and YHL is all about the pink.  Their beach house is painted in it.

And they even have a vintage Millennial Pink stove in their beach house kitchen.

So my Millennial Pink dresser was a big hit.  I’m sure you’ll see more pieces in this color from me this year.

But for today I’m going back to my other proven seller, Fusion’s Park Bench.  In case you are keeping track, the credenza that you are about to see is the fifth mid-century piece that I’ve painted in this color since January.  But seriously, I just can’t help myself.  These pieces are selling so well.  People are loving this gorgeous green on the mid-mod stuff.  I’m so sorry if I’m boring you with yet another one, but this is what I’m working on at the moment.  So it’s this or nothing.

I’m also going to share the non-chemical process for stripping paint off metal hardware in this post so be sure to keep reading if you’re interested in that.

Mr. Q picked up this mid-century credenza at the same time he picked up the Millennial Pink dresser.

I’m still working on training Mr. Q in the fine art of furniture purchasing.  The ad for this piece said it was in excellent condition except for the finish.  It neglected to mention that one of the drawers behind that center door was missing!  Although Mr. Q has really improved when it comes to noticing other details such as bad smells, loose joints and missing hardware, it never even occurred to him to look behind door number one to make sure all of the drawers were there.  Well, to be specific, he didn’t even realize there might be drawers behind that door.  He thought it would be shelves.

Keep this in mind if you are ever purchasing furniture on Craigslist.  Open all of the doors and drawers!

Well, no use crying over spilled milk.  I decided to ask my handyman/neighbor Ken to finish off the uppermost section as a shelf instead of a drawer.  There was already a hole cut at the back to feed electrical through, so I suspect the reason the drawer was removed in the first place was so that someone could put a DVD player in this spot so why not make it official?

Once Ken had the shelf in place, I sanded the piece thoroughly, cleaned it with TSP Substitute and then painted it with two coats of Fusion’s Park Bench.

Initially I’d planned to keep the hardware silver on this one, even though I used gold hardware on all four of my previous Park Bench pieces.  I threw the handles in some soapy water to clean them up first though and that ended up removing some paint.  Turns out they were originally an aged brass color and had been painted silver (I’m guessing with spray paint).  That nixed the idea of leaving them as is.

I’d never stripped paint off metal hardware before, but I’d heard that simmering it in a crock pot of water first will loosen up the paint leaving it easy to remove.  Well, I didn’t want to wreck my crock pot (adding ‘cheap spare crock pot’ to garage sale shopping list), so I grabbed an old crusty pot and tried simmering them on the stove.

And you know what?  This worked exceptionally well.  No dangerous chemicals required.

Here is the method that worked best for me.  First, simmer the hardware for about 30 minutes.  I never brought the water to a boil, just a low simmer.  Remove one handle at a time using tongs.  Run it under warm water until you can touch it without burning yourself (important precaution).  That only took a couple of seconds.  Finally, rub off the loosened paint using one of those green scrubby pads.

I show a paint scraper in my photo above, but using that lasted about two seconds.  The green scrubby did a much quicker, better job and didn’t scratch the finish.

Today’s q-tip:  Leave the remaining handles in the simmering water until you’re ready to work on them, just take one out at a time and scrub it.  If you pull them all out at once the paint hardens up again before you can get to all of them.  If the paint isn’t coming off easily, pop them back in the simmering water for 10 to 15 minutes and try again.

Once I had the paint off, I really didn’t like the aged brass look of the handles so I added my favorite metallic wax, Prima Marketing’s Metallique Wax in Vintage Gold.

I like to apply the wax with a q-tip, let it dry overnight and then buff it to a shine.

 So there you have it.  My latest Park Bench green mid-mod piece.

If you’re just not a fan of mid-century modern, don’t worry.  I’m moving on to some different styles next.  I have a few pieces underway in the workshop, plus I ordered some Sweet Pickins milk paint to play around with.  So be sure to stay tuned!