q is for quandie

Before I get on with today’s blog post I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the kind comments that were left on my blogiversary post.  I think I need to do a similar post a couple of times a year just to remind myself that there are lots of you out there reading and enjoying my blog even if you aren’t commenting regularly.  And that’s OK.  If you want to follow along without leaving comments, no worries.  I’ll just seek out a reminder that you are out there every now and then with a giveaway!

A quick little story about that post.  I had finished up writing it at about 8 a.m. Saturday morning and I scheduled it to post at 9 a.m.  Then I went about starting my day; drank some coffee, put up some Christmas decorations and then at about 10 a.m. I realized that I hadn’t gotten a single ping on my phone indicating a comment.  I panicked for a moment.  Had I forgotten to click ‘publish’?  Or was it just that not one single person had felt like commenting?  Perhaps no one cared!  Or was it just that everyone was busy Christmas shopping instead of reading blogs?  Yes, I’ll admit, these kinds of thoughts go through my head.  I picked up my phone.  Not a single email notifying me of a comment (I get these from WordPress).  I checked my computer … ooohhhh … I had published the post and there were comments.  Every once in a while my phone loses its connection with my email account and that’s what had happened.  I just had to reboot my phone and all of the emails came flooding in.  But how ironic that this should happen that morning!

It was so nice to get so many comments, and very nice to hear from some of you who have been reading for a while and had never introduced yourselves via a comment.  Welcome to all of you, and again thank you for so many amazing comments.  If you haven’t left a comment on that post yet, be sure to do so by Friday, Dec 2 at midnight to be eligible to win!

And now, on with today’s post …

It’s official, the furniture moratorium is over!  I have a handful of small projects in the carriage house waiting their turn, but one whole side was practically empty.  So after I came back from my trip I started scouring Craigslist for potential candidates for a makeover.  I also had an idea brewing in the back of my mind for re-purposing an Eastlake style dresser mirror frame.  When I found a nice Eastlake dresser with a mirror that was available in Hopkins, I remembered that I’d also seen another nice piece that was in Hopkins.  I had passed up the first one because Hopkins is on the other side of the cities from me, but it was worth the trip for two pieces!

So on a recent Saturday afternoon Mr. Q and I headed out to Hopkins.  The first dresser we picked up was this one …

The seller was moving out of her townhome and into a condo and thus was downsizing.  She mentioned that the bed in the room was also for sale.  It was lovely, but not a piece I would want to paint.  However, I asked if the small side table was also for sale.  At first she said no, but then she thought about it and said she would sell it to me after all.  She wasn’t that attached to it and her new place is pretty small.  So it came home with me too.  You’ve already seen it in my photos with the Midnight Blue chairs.

We headed to our next stop to pick up the Eastlake style dresser.

I felt like the mirror overpowered the dresser on this piece, what do you think?

No worries though, I wanted to separate these two anyway.  I first removed the swiveling mirror.  Then I sent the frame off to Ken’s workshop along with a beadboard ceiling board that originally came from nnK’s house (she ripped out a gorgeous original beadboard ceiling in her breezeway in favor of a vaulted ceiling and she gave me all of the salvage).  Ken cut the board down to make a small shelf and two brackets at the bottom of the frame.  He also cut a piece of backer board to fit the mirror opening so that I could turn it into a chalkboard.

Once Ken was done with those tasks, I painted the frame and its new shelf with some Homestead House milk paint in Limestone.  I mentioned a week or so ago that Homestead House sent me some samples of their milk paint to try out and this is another color that I received from them.

I painted the backer board using the green chalkboard paint recipe from Allison at The Golden Sycamore (click on that link to visit her blog and read about the recipe, it’s a combo of two Miss Mustard milk paint colors and I love how it turns out every time).

Finally, I copied a Farm Fresh Christmas Tree design that I also found on pinterest, and voila!

I used a brighter white acrylic craft paint to highlight the spoon carving at the top of the frame.

After using my painters tape trick to encourage some chipping I got just the right amount of chippy-ness out of the milk paint.  That’s three coats of Limestone, by the way.  I generally find that it takes about 3 coats when covering a dark-ish wood with white paint.

I’ve been finding lately that it works well for me to add just the most sparing amount of wax to my milk painted pieces.  I don’t thoroughly wax it by any means.  I take about a dime sized dab of wax and work it into my cloth really well.  Then I just lightly wipe over the piece.  I don’t think this method is going to provide much in the way of water protection.  But since this is a frame that will just hang on the wall and get very little human contact, I think it will be fine.

I draped a cotton bole swag across the top of the frame after I hung it over my sofa.  I picked the swag up at Home Goods last year, but I bet you can find these all over this year.

I never intended to keep this piece but once it was finished I realized I just wasn’t going to be able to part with it.  I absolutely love how it turned out.

And it does fit perfectly above the sofa in my living room.

But not to worry.  I also loved it so much that I decided to make another one.  The frame I’ll use is a little bit different, but I think it will still be just as fab.  It’s over in Ken’s workshop now.  I’ll be sure to share that one with you when it’s finished too!

I’m still working with the pile of freebies that my friend Terri sent my way when her uncle passed away.  This pair of end tables was among the items she gave me.

They are very traditional and they have that 80’s sort of finish.  Just check out those shiny tops!

I kept passing them over in favor of other projects, mainly because I just wasn’t all that inspired by them.  I debated painting them a bright color, or just painting them black.  But in the end I couldn’t help wanting to give them each a union jack.

I’ve done a few union jack pieces in the past.  Every time I do one I’m reminded of how much measuring and taping there is, and how many steps it takes.  Paint a base color, wait for it to dry.  Tape and paint the white layer, wait for it to dry.  Tape and paint the 3rd layer, wait for it to dry.  You get the idea.  It’s a great project for evenings after work though because each step doesn’t take long, but you need that drying time in between.  I painted these over the course of last week.

But every time I do one of these, I’m also reminded of how much I love them.  I’m not even the tiniest bit British (well, maybe a tiny bit, I think my maternal grandfather had some ancestors that came from England), but there is just something about the design of the union jack that appeals to me.

As you can see, I chose to forgo the traditional red, white and blue in favor of shades of grey.  It tones down the design a little, and it will be easier for the future potential buyer to work neutral shades into their existing space. The base color is one of Fusion’s new colors called Putty.  The white layer is their new Raw Silk.  The 3rd color is a combination of Putty and another Fusion white called Champlain.

I like to use the Fusion paint when working with taped lines and multiple colors on one surface for two reasons.  First of all, Fusion paint won’t pull off with the tape like milk paint will (as long as your surface is prepped with some sanding/cleaning and you are sure to wait for the paint to be fully dry before taping over it).  And second, you don’t have to add wax with Fusion.  With chalk paint, I find that adding the wax topcoat tends to drag the other colors into the white.  This wouldn’t have been as big a problem with these grey tones, but if you’re using red it is definitely an issue.

I included the magazine with crisp whites and greys in this next photo to help you see that the Fusion colors I used are warmer versions of white and grey.

By the way, looking at how shiny those tops were, you might be wondering how well the paint did adhere as I was using the tape.  I debated using a coat of Fusion’s Ultra Grip on just the tops, but in the end I didn’t.  Instead I sanded them really well to rough them up.  I also gave each paint color a full 24 hours or so to dry before using tape on it.  I used the yellow Frog tape (for delicate and freshly painted surfaces) and I had absolutely no issues with paint pulling off on the tape.

After I made the decision to add the union jack to the table tops, I realized that I had the perfect replacement knobs.  It’s hard to see in the photos, but these knobs say “Regent Clockworks London” on them.

Unfortunately I only had two of them.  I had purchased them at World Market so I checked on line to see if I could buy two more, no dice.  Then I went to my local World Market to look for them, again, denied.  Argh.

I’m going to have to come up with two similar, but not matching knobs for the second table.

It seemed appropriate to stage my photos with my Perfect English Farmhouse book and an English ironstone tea set.

I think a paint job was exactly what these tables needed to give them a little more personality.

What do you think?

These tables are for sale.  For more info, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab.

This year I’ll be observing Halloween in my favorite way;  staying home, wearing comfy fleece, and watching Hitchcock’s The Birds.  I would love to say that I’ll also be handing out candy to darling little kids in costumes when they come to my door, but historically we only get two or three ‘trick or treaters’ at our house.

But meanwhile I thought I would share a quick chair makeover with you.  The legs of this chair were sticking up out of my car with that haul of stuff I showed you last week.  Here’s how it looked when I pulled it out of the car.

I needed another chair to keep in my home office a.k.a. the Q Branch so that when my sister comes over she has somewhere to sit if we’re surfing the web.

Although it was gloomy and grey this past weekend, the temperature on Saturday morning was in the low 50’s.  It felt plenty warm enough outside to paint, at least for a tough Minnesotan like me 😉

I know that some paints require a minimum temperature of 60 or so, but not milk paint.  I checked with the Homestead House people and they said that I can apply milk paint in temps right down to freezing.  It will work perfectly well, but may take just a tad longer to dry in colder temps.  How handy in my climate!

So I headed out into the carriage house and painted three coats of a mix of Miss Mustard Seed whites (Linen, Ironstone and Grain Sack) on the chair.  As is the case on most pieces I paint for myself, I would have been thrilled with tons of chippy-ness but that didn’t quite happen.

I hope that it will wear more with use over time.  Fingers crossed.

I had a little paint left over while working on this project, so I pulled out a step stool that I picked up at another garage sale this summer.  This is the only ‘before’ photo I could find.

  It was already painted white but was a chippy mess.  Especially on the top, I’d say about 80% of the paint was missing from the top.  If you look closely you can also see that the paint was totally peeling away underneath.  One of my tricks with pieces like this is to scrape off the peeling paint, give it a good sanding and then just add a fresh coat or two of milk paint on top of the existing paint.  I don’t fully paint it, I try to leave the wear on the edges alone.  But the fresh white paint gives it a cleaner look.  Shabby rather than grungy.

The stencil just adds that little extra something.

I thought it would be fun to throw in my Happy Halloween pillow and share these pieces with you today.  I don’t intend to keep the chair and the stool together as a pair, but they would work well together, wouldn’t they?

I snagged the pillow from the $1 aisle at Target (although it cost $3).  It was the last one they had at my store when I grabbed it several weeks ago.  I am betting they went really fast at that price.

So, how do you like to spend Halloween?  Painting with milk paint outdoors?  Out prowling the streets with the kiddos?  Living it up at a costume party?  Or like me, warm and cozy at home with some hot apple cider and a classic horror film?