flippin’ the flip-top.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

A couple of weekends ago nnK (that stands for ‘new neighbor Karen’ because when she moved in across the street we already had a Karen next door.  Granted, that Karen died a couple of years later and now there is just one Karen, but nnK stuck) called me and said there was a huge garage sale a couple of blocks away, did I want to check it out?

So I jumped in her SUV and we headed over there.  It was about 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon though, so my expectations were low.  Usually by then all of the good stuff is gone.

I was wandering around the sale, which truly was huge, when nnK flagged me over to look at a mid-century piece.  She’s a big fan of mid-century modern and she knows I’ve been doing more and more mid-mod pieces lately.

It wasn’t really ‘me’, but I could see the appeal for mid-century lovers, so I bought it.

It’s a flip top bar made out of walnut with a black melamine surface that is exposed when open.  It’s in great condition and even has the original casters.

Initially I was going to paint it with my favorite aqua, Fusion’s Laurentien.  But then I did a little research and found the exact same piece on 1stDibs where it sold for $2,450.

Now I take the prices on 1stDibs with a grain of salt.  I’m not sure who the people are who are paying that much for stuff.  I suspect they are all designers in places like New York City or L.A.  People who have wealthy clients who don’t bat an eye at the cost.  I certainly can’t get those amounts myself.

Nonetheless, seeing the piece listed there and also knowing that the finish on mine is in really good condition made me realize I probably shouldn’t paint it.

So I decided to simply flip the flip-top.

I cleaned the piece well first, and then freshened up the finish with some of Miss Mustard Seed’s hemp oil.

Then I staged some photos using some of the fab mid-century props I found while out garage saling last weekend.

I can’t decide which is my favorite prop, the fake ice cubes or the atomic themed glasses.

I’m not generally a flipper, but I have flipped a few mid-century pieces in the past like this  American of Martinsville pair.

I also flipped these two mid-mod pieces.

When I come across pieces like these and they are just staring me in the face and daring me to flip them … well, how can I resist?

tangled up in Tangletown.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

Last weekend my sister and I packed pretty much everything we love about summer into one weekend; garage sales, patio dining, gardening, and ice cream.

We started out at the Tangletown neighborhood garage sales.  This neighborhood got its name from its windy, curving streets.  Most Minneapolis streets are laid out in a grid pattern, so Tangletown stands out because it’s not grid-like at all.  I have to admit, those very structured grid-like streets in other neighborhoods make garage saling easier.  Numbered streets go one way, named streets go the other and are in alphabetical order … Aldrich, Bryant, Colfax, Dupont.  It’s so simple to find your way around in those neighborhoods.  Tangletown is a different story.  We found ourselves tangled up in Tangletown quite often, driving past the same intersection multiple times before realizing we’d gotten turned around again.

But that’s OK because it’s a very pretty neighborhood full of gorgeous houses.

We didn’t mind doing a little sightseeing.  In addition to the beautiful homes, we also stopped at the Washburn Water Tower to get a closer look.

The original water tower in this location was built by Cadwallader (seriously, can you imagine that name?  did they call him Cad for short?) and William Washburn in 1893.  It was replaced with this art deco version in 1932 which is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

The tall ferocious looking dudes with the swords are the eight ‘guardians of health’ that protect the water supply.

After checking out the water tower and hitting all of the sales in Tangletown we stopped off at a local restaurant, Wise Acre, for lunch.  I have to admit we mainly picked this spot because it had patio seating.

The atmosphere was fantastic, the service was friendly and made us feel right at home, but I’m not gonna lie, neither of us really cared for the ‘farm to fork’ style food.  We probably ordered the wrong things, or perhaps the simple fact is that we just aren’t hipster enough for this place.  The fries came with a homemade beet ketchup … yep, you read that right … ketchup made from beets.  It pretty much tasted just as you would expect it to, like beets.  It worked on the burger, but not so much on the fries.

After lunch we drove home, unloaded our garage sale finds and then headed off to my favorite spot to buy my summer annuals, Country Sun Farm in Lake Elmo.  Debbie and I both found lots of gorgeous flowers and we filled up the SUV again.

Buying garden supplies is exhausting work, so we headed to Nelson’s Ice Cream in Stillwater next.  I didn’t manage to get my own photo, but I found this one online which pretty much shows the average serving size of ice cream at Nelson’s.  This was much more our style than the beet ketchup.

I went with the Blueberry Cheesecake and Debbie chose Peppermint Stick, both of which were amazing.

The next morning we got up and headed to the Bryn Mawr Festival of Garage Sales.  And Festival really does belong in the name.  They have all of the ingredients required for a festival; live music, food trucks, portable toilets and lots of people.

I didn’t come home with much from either of these neighborhood sales, but I did find another amazing vintage ironing board that I plan to turn into a sign.  The woman who was selling it mentioned that her daughter found it in the attic of the house she recently purchased.

I love that the label shows shows someone ironing while seated.  Hey, even if you can’t stand for long periods of time you can still do the ironing with this adjustable ironing board.  How convenient!

I also found some mid-century barware and some faux ice cubes that I plan to use for staging a piece of furniture that I’ll be sharing on Friday.

I also brought home a couple of piles of miscellaneous small stuff.

I found some odds and ends to turn into signs or chalkboards.

Well, technically this one already is a chalkboard.  But I’m going to see what I can do to refurbish it.

I suppose the fact that I chose the fake ice cubes as the ‘find of the day’  speaks volumes about my finds (or lack thereof).

 But then again, the ice cubes really are realistic and I’m going to have so much fun using them for staging future furniture photos.

All in all, it was an awesome kick off weekend for garage sale season 2018.  I hope you’ll stay tuned to see what I do with some of my garage sale finds.

the millennial pink dresser.

Published on by Quandie33 Comments

Have you heard of Millennial Pink?  Did you know it was a ‘thing’?

As is typical for me, I am only just discovering this trend while the cool kids are already saying it has to go.

Seriously, I am never on top of these things.

But before we get to the Millennial Pink, I first have to admit with some embarrassment how I learned about it.  You see, I have a secret guilty pleasure.  I watch the Trackers on YouTube.  I can hear many of you now asking, ‘um, who?’

Tim & Jenn Tracker are YouTube vloggers.  They live in Orlando, Florida and they mostly vlog about the various theme parks in that area including Disney World.  I came across them while looking for Disney info prior to our trip down there last October.  I started watching a few of their vlog posts and bam!  I was hooked.

I really can’t explain why.  Of course, I enjoy watching their excursions into the parks.  And I love that they share insider tips as well as honest reviews of everything from the food to the rides.  They share the real thing, not doctored up versions designed to look good on camera.  But I have to confess that I also sometimes watch their vlogs about shopping at Target, or cutting up left over pizza, adding it to eggs and frying it up in a pan to make ‘pizza eggs’.

They are just so darn adorable!  Somehow I now feel like I know them and am invested in their lives.  So I’ll admit it, I’m a vlog lurker, and apparently so are about 364,000+ subscribers to their YouTube channel.

And this brings us back to Millennial Pink.  Lately Tim & Jenn (see?  it’s as though we are on a first name basis) have been frequently mentioning Disney goods that are available in Millennial Pink, especial the Mickey ears.

So the last time this came up, I turned to Mr. Q  – because, oh yes, he sometimes indulges in this guilty pleasure with me, even though he’d rather poke his eye out with a sharp stick than go to Disney World – and said “what is this Millennial Pink they keep talking about?  Is it just a Disney thing?”  So he googled it for me and said, “I guess it’s just a color thing, and it applies to home décor too.”

Who knew?

Well, probably everyone but me … and Mr. Q.

Obviously the next step was to paint something in Millennial Pink so I could be one of the cool kids, so I started keeping an eye out for just the right piece.

And then I found it …

a beat up mid-century piece that I thought would look amazing in Millennial Pink.

Luckily I already had a jar of Fusion’s English Rose on hand.  I hope they don’t mind that I took the liberty of renaming it just for this post.

Before I started painting though, my handyman Ken and I shored up the base of the dresser because it was a little wobbly.  Ken is one of those people who like to do things the right way.  So we removed the base, re-glued and clamped the cross piece, and then once that was good and sturdy we re-glued the base back onto the dresser.  Now it’s rock solid.

Once again, the top of this mid-mod piece was plastic laminate so I painted that with a coat of Fusion’s Ultra Grip and let it dry overnight before moving on to the rest of the painting.

It took three coats of the English Rose to get good coverage on this one.  I’d already used about 1/4 of my jar of paint on something else, so it took every last bit of paint I had left to complete the job.

I used Prima Marketing Metallique wax in Vintage Gold to add a little glam to the original drawer pulls.

If you haven’t tried this stuff you should.  I use a q-tip to apply it, wait overnight for it to dry and then buff with a clean cloth.  Easy peasy, and it looks amazing.  It’s also super affordable (it’s available online for about $6).

It comes in a tiny little tin, but a little goes a very long way.  I’ve barely made a dent in mine and I’ve used it on countless knobs.  I much prefer the packaging of this version over others like Rub ‘n Buff.  The tin it comes in has a screw on lid that is easy to open and close tightly, so your wax doesn’t dry out.  I had nothing but trouble with those little tubes that the Rub ‘n Buff comes in.

I pulled out some vintage mid-century wallpaper, some aqua and cream pottery and my cream colored Remington Ten Forty for staging.

Isn’t this dresser much prettier in pink?

Let’s talk for a moment about the (pink) elephant in the room.  You may have noticed that I seem to be doing more mid-century pieces these days.  That’s because I’m finding that mid-century is selling really well for me while many of my more farmhouse style pieces are taking a bit longer to find the right buyer.

I feel like I’m walking a bit of a thin line between producing pieces that will sell and producing pieces that my blog readers want to see.  I hope that most of you enjoy seeing the mid-century makeovers even if it isn’t quite your thing.  There are going to be more of them to come, I brought home two more mid-mod pieces last weekend.  But don’t worry, I’ll still mix it up with some of the chippy, farmhouse style pieces that I love.  And hopefully they’ll start selling a little better now that the weather has improved here in Minnesota.  I did sell both the spring fling dresser and the indigo desk this past weekend, so I think that’s a good sign.

That being said, what do you think of Millennial Pink?

This dresser is available for sale, so if any of you locals are interested check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.

april blizzards bring may flowers.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

It seems hard to believe that just a couple of weeks ago we had blizzard conditions.  But then spring seemingly arrived overnight, which is typical here in Minnesota.

And that means my other two favorite seasons have finally arrived as well.

Gardening season and neighborhood garage sale season!

This weekend my sister and I are heading to both the Tangletown neighborhood sales and one of my favorites, Bryn Mawr.  Keep your fingers crossed that we find lots of goodies.

But first, to get in the spirit of things I pulled out a couple of garden themed garage sale finds from last summer to give them a quick makeover.

Normally I don’t paint my galvanized watering cans, but this one had a bunch of orange paint spilled on it that was not very attractive.  And the tall metal flower bucket was just not quite doing it for me in a dry brushed red.

The flower bucket got three coats of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Linen.  Once dry, I sanded it to distress and then added one of the Iron Orchid Designs ‘French Pots V’ transfers.  Once that was in place I very lightly waxed the entire thing with Miss Mustard Seed clear furniture wax.

Although I did wash both the bucket and the watering can with soapy water, I did not sand them at all prior to painting.  I find that milk paint tends to adhere well to galvanized metal pieces liked these that have a dull finish.

The watering can got two coats of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Flow Blue.  Then I also sanded it to distress and added a coat of Miss Mustard Seed clear wax to bring out the richness of that gorgeous blue.

By the way, I went with Flow Blue because I had a bit of it left over from painting the desk I shared on Monday.

Remember I said that all I bought at Junk Bonanza were some magazines?

  One of them was the new Flea Market Style gardens issue.

If you enjoy adding junk-tastic finds to your gardens, you should be sure to pick up this issue.  It’s pretty fab.

It’s still too early to actually start planting here in Minnesota, and not much is up in the garden yet.  However, I have plenty of scilla in my gardens.  Scilla is a tiny bulb and it’s always one of the first things to come up and start blooming here.  It will even fight its way through the snow if necessary.  It multiplies rapidly, deer and other critters won’t eat it, and it can withstand very cold winters.

However, as with all things, there are two camps of thought on that.  What sound like great qualities to me are exactly the qualities that others say are bad.  They consider scilla to be a invasive pest, taking over areas where native wildflowers once flourished and becoming impossible to control.

I’m kind of bummed that I even came across that info online, because I love seeing the scilla come up every spring as the first sign of life in the garden.  Now I’ll just feel a little bit guilty about enjoying it every year.

By the way, I added that graphic to the clay pot using Fusion’s transfer gel.  I don’t think I ever blogged about that, or if I did I can’t find it now (which is why that ‘how to’ page is going to be so handy!)

So, how about you?  Are you excited about gardening/garage sale season?  Got any great neighborhood sales near you this weekend?

 

 

the ‘how to’ page.

Published on by Quandie67 Comments

Off and on this past winter I’ve been working on a new page for my blog, the ‘how to’ page.

I thought it would be convenient to have one spot where readers can more easily find posts on specific products or techniques.

Over the years I’ve shared lots of tutorial posts, but there wasn’t a convenient way to go back and find them.

Now you can just go to my ‘how to’ page and simply click on a photo collage (like the one above) and a link will take you directly to a post with all of the details about that product or technique.

Take a look at the page and let me know what you think.  If you have any requests for a specific how-to, leave me a comment and I’ll try to add it in the future!

the indigo desk.

Published on by Quandie29 Comments

I don’t know about you guys, but I try to use good judgement when making purchases via Craigslist.  However, I definitely don’t always manage to do so.  It feels so awkward to say ‘no’ to someone, so sometimes I end up buying a piece that I really shouldn’t.  I’m working on that skill though.  It can be really frustrating to take the time to go look at a piece, then get there and find that it’s not at all as advertised.  So if the piece is going to need tons of work and it isn’t priced accordingly (ie. dirt cheap), I’m learning to just walk away.

This happened to me a couple of months ago with a dresser.  It was priced right at the top of my price range.  That would have been OK if the dresser had truly been in ‘excellent’ condition as stated in the ad.  I was in the market for a piece that just needed painting.

However, in reality the piece was what I like to call a humpty dumpty (check out this post about the original humpty dumpty and you’ll see what I mean).  It would have required lots gluing and clamping to put it right.  So I didn’t buy it.  After looking the piece over and pointing out that it was not structurally sound, I simply said “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to pass on this dresser.  Thanks for your time.”

  That being said, nearly a year ago Mr. Q and I drove all the way out to Minnetonka to pick up two pieces from separate sellers.  I don’t normally drive that far to buy pieces anymore, but in this case I was able to arrange to pick up two things in one trip.  Plus the prices were really low on both pieces.

One of the pieces was this desk.

Obviously I was mainly drawn in by those cup pulls!

This was an interesting situation because the seller wasn’t actually going to be home.  They left the desk on a covered porch and asked me to put the money under a flower pot.  I know, it sounds crazy, doesn’t it?  This was not the first time I’ve made arrangements like this though.  There are still a few trusting people left in the world.

You’d think with that being the case it would have been super easy for me to just walk away after getting there and finding that the desk was quite a bit smaller than I pictured and the veneer was in really poor condition.  I could have just left the desk there on the porch and moved on.  But somehow I felt obligated to buy it since the seller had hauled it out there for me, and trusted me to show up and leave the money behind.  Plus after driving so far I didn’t want to go home empty handed.

So my next logical step was to shove the desk in the corner of my carriage house and try to ignore it for nearly a year (imagine that said with the proper amount of sarcasm) .

But I was finally tired of seeing it out there, so when it warmed up last week I pulled it outside and attacked the chipping veneer with my putty knife.  I basically just chipped off all of the loose veneer and then sanded heavily.  It would have taken ages to remove ALL of the veneer and this desk was just not worth that amount of labor.

While I was chipping veneer, I also stripped the top of the piece (with Citristrip) which is basically constructed of 3 solid wood boards (no veneer, thank goodness).

As I was working on the piece I noticed something kind of fab on the inside.  The desk must have been partially constructed out of old wooden storage crates.

Isn’t that kind of cool?  My favorite is the backside of this drawer front.

I’m guessing that this piece was homemade and it was cobbled together with spare bits of wood that the builder had on hand.  As I was working on this piece I began to realize that it really did have a lot of charm.

Originally I had envisioned this desk in chippy white milk paint.  After my semi-disastrous outcome the last time I used milk paint, you might think I would shy away from using it again.  But no.  I know that situations like that are the exception and not the rule.  I still love the results I get from milk paint 99.9% of the time.  However based on the size of the desk I decided it should have a more kid friendly color rather than white.  So I pulled out some Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Flow Blue and mixed it up.  I probably could have gotten away with one coat, but I had plenty of paint mixed up so I added a second for good measure.

Once I had the paint on I was so happy I’d changed my mind about that white.

I also realized that I loved the contrast between the rich deep color of the Flow Blue and the pale wood top.  So rather than add stain or a dark wax to the top I simply waxed it with Miss Mustard Seed’s clear furniture wax.  In fact, the entire desk has a finish coat of the clear wax.

Then I cleaned the cup pulls with soap and water and put them back on.

If you’re wondering whether or not the chipped veneer is noticeable, it definitely is.

But I think that just adds to the rustic charm of this piece.

This desk is definitely too small to be used as a desk by an adult.  But it’s perfect for a kiddo.  Wouldn’t it be fun in a boy’s room?

But it also could be used as an alternative to a traditional bedside table.  It’s just the right height for that.

I have to admit, this desk turned out way better than I expected.  When I started work on it my goal was to just get it done and then move on to another piece.  I totally was not expecting to completely fall in love with the result.

Hopefully someone who needs an indigo blue kid-sized desk will fall in love with it too.

Be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page if interested!

 

a bit loony.

Published on by Quandie20 Comments

Way back when I first used the Iron Orchid Designs transfer called “Seed”, the one that I used on the linen press dresser last Friday, my sister noticed that it says “Richardson & Gould’s” on it.  See it?  At the top …

Our maternal grandparents were named Richardson, so that really appealed to her.  So I definitely wanted to make something for her for using that transfer.

Although we’re keeping an eye out for the perfect piece of furniture for a particular spot in her kitchen, that hasn’t come along yet so instead I decided to makeover a garage sale box that I purchased last summer.

The box was a bit ‘loony’ to start out.  What can I say, Minnesotan’s love their loons!

After sanding the box lightly and wiping it down with some TSP Substitute, I made quick work of painting over the loon with some Fusion paint in Midnight Blue.

I painted the box inside and out.

When painting a box with a hinged lid like this with Fusion paint, be sure to leave the box to cure a bit with the lid open.  If the paint is even a little bit tacky and you shut the lid it will pretty much seal shut.  Another lesson learned the hard way.

My sister loves this dark navy blue color.  I knew from prior experience that the charcoal grey IOD transfers would not work over a dark color, plus I’d been wanting to try the white IOD transfers so I ordered the smaller version of the Seeds transfer in white via Etsy.

Once the paint was fully dry, I placed my transfer over it to see how it would fit.

I did have to trim a little bit of the design off the bottom.  I’m saving that piece for another project.

Once I had my design placed where I wanted it, I rubbed the transfer sheet with a the popsicle stick type tool that comes with it, made sure all of the design was well adhered, and then pulled away the backing.

I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about the white transfer.  It definitely did not look as crisp as I was hoping it would.  I tried the trick of sanding it slightly, but that didn’t really help and might even have made it worse (and I also sanded the edges of the box to distress while I was at it).

I have seen photos of pieces with the white transfer online that definitely look much better than mine.  I’m wondering if the white transfers have been improved upon since the one I purchased from Etsy was manufactured.

But the important thing was that my sister loved the box when I gave it to her for Christmas, so that is all that matters right?

I’ll definitely try again with the white transfers.  Maybe they look better over black, or over a more matte finish.  I’ll have to experiment one more time and let you know how it goes.  But in the meantime, have any of you used the white transfers?  What was your experience with them?  Any tips you want to share?

 

 

Saturday morning coffee.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

It finally feels like spring is here, and you know what that means?  Garage sale season is coming!

Since I have a 9 to 5 day job, I have to do all of my garage saling on Saturday mornings.  So I only have a few more Saturdays that I can spend lounging about with a cup of coffee and my favorite books and magazines.  Starting the first weekend in May I’ll be getting up early and heading out to hit the sales.

So this past Saturday morning I took some time to chill out, enjoy the sunshine streaming in through the windows and get some photos of the coffee table I just finished up before my sister and I headed out to Junk Bonanza in the afternoon.

I purchased this table way back in January, brrrrrr ….

and I’ve basically been working on it in bits and pieces since then.

I’ve refurbished a few of these tables in the past.  Usually I remove the drop leaves and turn them into signs and then use the table without the leaves as a desk.  I have one in my Q Branch and Mr. Q has one in his study as well.  I also have one on my front porch with casters on it that I use for staging close up photos of random small stuff.

Although I still removed the leaves and turned them into signs, this time I decided to try something different with the rest of the table.  With the help of my handyman Ken, I converted it to coffee table height.

Since I wanted to keep the detail on the lower part of each leg, I removed all of the legs and then Ken cut them down from the top and re-attached them to the table.  I neglected to get a photo of that before I added a coat of paint, so you’ll see that in a minute.  But before I painted, I stripped the top of the table.

Since it was winter in Minnesota, I had to do this inside my house.  I like to use Citristrip for that simply because it’s safe for indoor use.  I like to avoid using any toxic chemicals inside the house, and I try to keep sanding to a minimum inside as well.

Here’s the top after cleaning off the stripper.

Once that was done, I flipped the table over onto some horses and started painting the base.  I began with a coat of Fusion acrylic paint in Inglenook or maybe that’s Little Tea Pot.  To tell the truth I did this part so long ago I don’t remember!

The existing finish on the table was pretty shiny, so most likely milk paint would not have adhered well without a lot of sanding prep work.  Since I wasn’t in the mood to sand those legs (ie. was feeling lazy), I used Fusion for the first coat of paint instead.

Next I applied some of the Homestead House Salad Bowl Wax to various spots as a resist, and then added a coat of Sweet Pickins’ In a Pickle.  You can see the spots where the wax resisted the milk paint.

Next I added more Salad Bowl Wax to other spots to resist my final paint color which was Miss Mustard Seed’s Shutter Gray.

After that dried, I sanded lightly to distress and then added clear wax.  Here is the result.

After that it was time to flip the table back over and work on the top some more.  I started by sanding the stripped wood with 220 grit sandpaper.   Then, looking at the wood closely, I realized that I didn’t like the color of it.  It still had a bit of a yellow/orange cast to it.  What I wanted was more of a washed out, driftwood sort of look.

So I decided to white wash it using watered down Dixie Belle paint in Drop Cloth (see this post for more detail on white washing).  I just used one coat of watered down paint.  One that was dry, I sanded lightly, wiped away any dust and then added a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

I felt like the piece looked a little too fresh and new at that point so I pulled out Dixie Belle’s new Grunge Gray wax.  Dixie Belle sent a can of this wax my way to give it a try.  I used to make my own grey wax by mixing black and white wax, but this is so much easier.

As with all colored waxes, if you want a heavier application of the color you can apply the wax directly to your bare wood (or over a painted surface).  If you want more subtle results wax your surface with clear wax first.

When using a new product for the very first time, I always recommend testing it on an old board like I did with the Grunge Gray wax.  That way you can get a feel for how it looks and the best way to apply it before you get it on your piece of furniture. 

I already had that coat of Dixie Belle clear wax over my white washed table top so I got a more subtle result from the Grunge Gray wax.

I really worked the Grunge wax into the creases on the edges of the table.

I ended up with a table top that has that sort weathered gray appearance of a piece that has been left out in the elements for a while.

 It makes a great spot for a little Saturday morning coffee, don’t you think?

If any of you local readers need a spot to enjoy your coffee (sunshine not included), be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.

lighten up already.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

You’ve probably heard the terms ‘cerused’, ‘lime waxed’, ‘pickled’ or ‘white washed’.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wondered what the difference is between them.

Well, I did some slapdash online research and today I’m here to clear that up for you.

First of all, all of these treatments are designed to lighten up the look of a wood surface without covering up the grain.  They just achieve that in different ways.

How to ceruse or lime wax wood.

Let’s start with ‘cerused’ or ‘lime waxed’.  These two are basically the same thing.  According to gohaus.com:  Back in the 1500’s, the French invented a technique of filling in the grains in oak beams and paneling with a toxic paste derived from lead. This was initially done to help prevent rot in oak beams. … Today that stylish finish is still called limed oak in Europe and here in the US we call it cerused wood or cerused oak.

Oak is the best wood for a cerused or lime waxed look because it has an open grain that gives the best effect, however you can use this treatment on other woods like pine or maple.  You just won’t see quite as much definition in the grain.

Instead of using a toxic paste derived from lead (ewwwww), I recommend using a much more environmentally friendly white wax such as the Miss Mustard Seed or Homestead House white wax (same thing, different labels).  I know there are other manufacturers of white wax out there (if you have a favorite, feel free to share that info in a comment), but be sure to pay attention to the ingredients of your wax before using it indoors or without gloves.  To read more about the safety of wax products check out this post.  I like that fact that the Miss Mustard Seed and Homestead House waxes don’t contain any aromatic hydrocarbons (cancer causing particles that are present in some other brands of wax).

To prep your surface for lime waxing first strip off any existing finish.  I like to use Citristrip for this, but if you’re a sander instead of a stripper you can go that route too.  If you use a chemical stripper be sure to neutralize the surface with some vinegar water afterwards and then rinse with clear water.  Either way, you want to be sure to completely remove any previous finish.

The next step is to raise the grain of your wood.  The recommended technique is to use something called a bronze brush to brush the wood in the direction of the grain.  You may be wondering, why not just your basic steel brush?  That’s because steel particles that might be left behind can cause oxidization in your wood which will show up as black streaks over time (read this article for more detail).  By the way, did you know that the same is true of using steel wool on wood furniture?  I have a feeling that someone probably used either a steel brush or steel wool on a dresser I worked on a few months ago.

I don’t happen to own a bronze brush though, and I don’t want to invest in one just for lime waxing.  So I read somewhere that you can scrub your wood with a green 3M scotch pad and a little water to get a similar effect.  Also, this step is optional.  The purpose of raising the grain is to give the wax more spots to get stuck in, ie. to emphasis the grain more.  If that’s not a big deal to you, you can just skip this step.

Next work the wax into your wood.  You can use a wax brush or a cloth for this.  Start with a circular motion to get the wax worked into the wood.  Follow up with a clean cloth moving with the grain to remove any excess wax, switching to a clean section of cloth as it becomes clogged with wax.

And that’s it.  Pretty simple, right?  It’s kind of hard to go wrong with this technique.  Since the wax is a protective top coat in itself, you avoid the extra step of having to add a topcoat.

You can mix white wax with clear wax if you want less white.  You can add a second coat of white wax if you want more white.

I used the Homestead House white wax on the top of this table.

 

How to white wash or pickle wood.

White washing or pickling gives a similar look but is done with either watered down white paint or a commercially made white wash or pickling stain.  According to my research, white washing and pickling are very similar treatments but not exactly the same thing.  When a piece is white washed, the stain or paint is applied with the grain and is best suited for woods like pine.  When a piece is pickled, the stain or paint is applied against the grain and this treatment is best suited for oak.  Personally I think that’s a rather fine distinction and that most people use these two terms interchangeably.

The prep process for white washing or pickling is the same as for lime waxing, and once again you can choose to raise the grain or not.

For the next step you can either use a white washing or pickling stain, or watered down white paint.  If you plan to use watered down paint, I recommend preparing your solution and testing it on a spare piece of wood first.  Actually, wait a minute, I recommend testing the stain first too now that I think about it.  The ratio of paint to water is going to depend somewhat on how opaque you want it to look so a little experimenting before you start your project will really pay off.  You can use any kind of water based paint for this technique, I like to use chalk paint.

Next liberally apply the stain or watered down paint to your piece with a brush allowing a minute or two for it to soak in, then use a rag to wipe away the excess.  You’ll go through a lot of rags, so be sure to have them on hand and ready to go.  I used heavy duty paper towels when I white washed my cedar dining room table.

As you can see, white washing tones down the orange color of the cedar but still allows the characteristics of the wood to show (the knots and grain).

Once your paint or stain is fully dry, sand your piece with a fine grit sandpaper.  Finally with this method you’ll also need to add your protective top coat of choice.  I used Miss Mustard Seed’s clear furniture wax on my table.

You can read more detail on the white washing process I used on my dining room table here.

I hoped you’ve learned a thing or two about white washing v. lime waxing today.  Check back later on Wednesday when I’ll share a piece where I used both techniques together.  Sort of.  In the meantime, be sure to pin this post for future reference!

 

the spring fling dresser.

Published on by Quandie41 Comments

We’re still recovering from the ridiculous amount of snow we got last weekend, but things are looking up weather-wise here in the Twin Cities, we might even hit 60 by Sunday.  I am suffering from a very serious case of garage sale withdrawal, so I’m chomping at the bit for some spring!

I thought I would nudge it along a little bit with a spring fling in the form of a garden themed dresser.

I shared the beginning of the journey of today’s dresser with you guys on Wednesday.  This dresser just insisted on being something other than what I first imagined.  After several failed attempts to salvage a milk paint finish, I threw in the towel and decided to start over again.

As a reminder, when we last left the dresser it looked like this.

The first thing that you have to understand is that any remaining chippy paint is going to leave a texture on the surface of the dresser if you just paint over it.  In addition, whatever you put over that remaining paint may ultimately chip off as well.  The adherence of your final paint layer is only as good as the adherence of what is under it.   So the first thing I had to do was make a choice between just sanding off the loose chips, or doing a heavier sanding and removing all of the milk paint entirely.

I went with with the former.  I used my orbital sander and a 120 grit paper to remove as much of the chipping paint as I could knowing that the remaining bits of paint would add some texture to my piece.

There were several ways I could have proceeded from there that most likely would have worked well.  I could have stuck with my original milk paint plan and simply added bonding agent to my paint to make it adhere to the surface of this piece better.  Unfortunately, I had already used up almost an entire bag of both the Homestead House Texas Rose and the Miss Mustard Seed Linen.  I did not have enough of either color left to start over with them (and I also don’t happen to have any more bonding agent on hand either).

Another option would have been to paint a base coat of acrylic or chalk paint over the entire piece and then add a layer of milk paint without bonding agent.  The chalk or acrylic paint would have adhered to the dresser, and the milk paint would have adhered to the chalk/acrylic paint.  Again though, I didn’t have enough of the Miss Mustard Seed Linen paint to go that route.

So I decided to just move on to chalk paint, and to switch up my color scheme a bit as well.  I started with an undercoat of two green shades of Dixie Belle paint, Kudzu and Mint Julep.

I wanted the Kudzu (the darker green) to show through some distressing on the edges, but I didn’t have enough Kudzu to paint the entire piece.  Since I hadn’t gotten all of the milk paint off the piece, I knew I would have some texture from what was left and an undercoat would show when I sanded those areas too, so I wanted to have a shade of green there as well.  Luckily I also had a bit of Mint Julep on hand.

In the end, I decided to paint the inside drawers in the Mint Julep as well.

And I’m so glad I did because it adds the prettiest pop of color when you open the doors.

But before I got to that, I painted two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth (paint compliments of Dixie Belle) over the exterior.  Drop Cloth is a warm off-white.  Then I added one of my absolute favorite Iron Orchid Designs transfers (transfer compliments of Prima Marketing) to the front of the piece.

You can sort of see what I mean about the undercoat of green coming through in that photo above, right?  By the way, you can order this transfer online at Scrapbook.com here.  When I looked last night it was on sale for $17.99, which is a great price.

The thing that I really love about these furniture transfers is that they are sized for furniture.  I love the way this one fills up the entire front of the dresser (this is the large version of this transfer, there is also a smaller version available and you can see it on this piece).

And in fact, the large transfer was actually a tad too long so I cut off the “1871.” and put it on the trim at the back of the dresser top.

This is the 4th time I’ve used the larger version of the transfer and each time I have absolutely loved the results.  You can see the other three pieces here, here and here.

Once I had applied the transfer, I waxed this piece with Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Wax over both the Drop Cloth and the Mint Julep Dixie Belle paint, as well as over the transfer.  Yes, you can definitely was over a rub-on transfer.

By the way, I almost forgot to mention.  This dresser came with a key!

It’s really quite rare to have the key, and locks that still function.

Do you ever wonder about these old pieces with locking drawers?  It seems like all of the pieces from this era had them.  What did people lock up in them?  Money?  Their last will and testament?  Their secret diary?  Their hidden stash of chocolate?  Today it seems laughable that you would lock something up in a drawer and feel like it was secure, doesn’t it?

I swapped out the original wooden knobs for some pretty glass knobs.  I buy these knobs in bulk from D Lawless Hardware.  I am exaggerating only slightly when I say ‘in bulk’, but I do order them by the dozen so that I always have them on hand.  I also buy three different sizes.  This is the middle size, or 1 1/4″.

I love using the glass knobs on pieces with the transfers because they disappear a bit and don’t interfere with the detail of the transfer itself.

Here’s one more look at that pretty pop of mint green on the inner drawers.

And there you have it.  It may not be milk paint, but I still think it turned out beautiful in the end.

 If you need a garden themed linen press dresser and you live near the Twin Cities, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ page for more details.