q is for quandie

Normally I don’t do custom work, but if you’ve read my blog for long then you know that I like to break my own rules all the time.  And I’ve broken this one a few times.

A very nice woman named Andrea purchased the spoon carved dresser from me a while back.

Remember that one?

It was so pretty.  And when Andrea bought it she asked me if I would be willing to paint another one to match.  Ironically, if you read back to the post about that first one I mentioned that I’d custom mixed the color because I ran out of MMS Marzipan and I had to stretch my paint out by adding some other whites.  So I explained to Andrea that I didn’t think I could match the color exactly, and that I don’t often do custom work.  But … all of that being said, I do love painting these spoon carved pieces and I was willing to give it a shot if she was OK with not getting an exact match.

So Andrea kept her eye out for another spoon carved dresser that she liked and when she found one she sent it over to be painted.  Here is how it turned out.

Although I used what I thought was close to the same mix of Marzipan, Linen and Ironstone, the color on this one is a bit lighter than the other.  Andrea had mentioned that if I couldn’t get the color quite the same, she’d prefer I went lighter rather than darker.

I used the same straight up Ironstone to highlight the spoon carving.  It doesn’t stand out quite as much on this piece, I think partially because there isn’t quite as much contrast between the colors but also because the spoon carving details are smaller on this one.

I really struggled with staging this dresser for photos.  I didn’t necessarily want to cover up the spoon carving that is at the middle back, but I tried putting various objects on the hankie drawers and leaving the middle empty and that just always looked odd.  I tried using a really pretty transferware pitcher and some vintage books.  Nope.  I tried adding a suitcase into the mix.  Nope.  I tried using several ironstone casseroles.  Still, no dice.

So finally I just filled my large ironstone bowl with a floral arrangement and called it good.

I just used flowers that were available in my yard; some Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea (they are just barely starting to show a hint of pink), some hosta flower stalks, some sedum flower clusters that haven’t opened yet and a sprig or two of variegated ivy.

Andrea picked up her dresser earlier this week and she loved how it turned out.  Phew!  I’m always a little bit relieved when custom jobs go well.

Ahoy matey’s, today I have a pirate desk to share with you.

You are probably wondering what makes it a pirate desk, right?  Well, it had a peg leg when I bought it.  You can’t see it in the ‘before’ photo unfortunately, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  See those curvy feet (well, as much as isn’t covered by grass)?  Well, the back right one was missing and the previous owner of the desk just nailed on a chunk of 2 x 4 instead.  That explains why the price on this desk was ridiculously low.  Well, that and the numerous spots where veneer was chipping off, and maybe all of the dings too and that one mismatched drawer pull.  Yep, this baby had a few flaws.

But it was especially unfortunate about the foot because otherwise the back of this desk is finished, meaning it could be floated in a room with the back facing out.  But certainly not with a 2 x 4 foot.

So after I brought this one home I called Ken to come over for consultation (which involves him going out his back door and crossing over though my backyard to my workshop).  He looked seriously skeptical as I stood there saying I was quite confident that he could come up with a fix.  Ken may not have faith in his abilities, but I do!

I told him it didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to blend a little bit.  He hemmed and he hawed, and then he studied the other feet, and then he went home and thought about it for a while.  Then when I came home from work a few days later he had done this.

Ken, being a bit of a perfectionist, was not entirely happy with it but I thought it was amazing!  I knew once I got it painted you wouldn’t even notice that it was different from the other feet.  It certainly beats a 2 x 4!

I decided to go with Little Billy Goat’s Prizewinner on this desk.  I really love this blue!

To deepen the blue a bit, I used Little Billy Goat’s new black wax as a finish.  I had only used the black wax on top of black before, so I wasn’t sure how it would work over a color, but it worked perfectly over the Prizewinner.

Did you notice in the ‘before’ photo that there was one mismatched drawer pull on the lower left hand drawer?  I find it odd that the previous owner chose to put the mismatch on that drawer rather than the upper middle.  Duh.  That fix is a no brainer.  I was able to use all of the original pulls on the side drawers and I just added a coordinating knob from my stash to the middle drawer.

I also added a little Paris, France stencil just to give the desk a little extra personality.

Remember I posted a week or two ago about finding some chairs to use with desks?  Then my sister-in-law brought over this chair.

Seemed like kismet, so I painted it up to match the desk and I added a pretty faux grain sack seat.

But guess what?  It doesn’t quite fit under the desk.  Argh.  However, not all desk chairs have to be tucked in, right?  For example, my own desk chair does not fit under my desk because it has arms.

By the way, in case you’re wondering how that replacement foot ended up blending in once painted, check it out.

Be honest, if I hadn’t told you about it would you have even noticed?  Can you even tell which one it is?

I did go ahead and paint the back because with Ken’s faux foot, I think this desk would be perfectly fine facing out.  This way whomever purchases the desk will have options.

I actually did two different photo shoots.  I started out in the photo cottage, but I wasn’t super happy with any of those photos.

So then I pulled it out into the driveway where I staged it simply with a cream colored vintage typewriter and some Reader’s Digest books.

I picked up the books at a garage sale because the colors were so pretty.  I knew they would come in handy for furniture photos.

I almost forgot.  I have one more thing to take care of before this desk is available.  I need to line that middle drawer.  I have to admit though, I’m a little drawn to the graffiti art that I’ll be covering up.

How about you?

 

I was planning to wait until tomorrow to post this one, but an expected turn of events has my mom coming to town, and then she, my sister, and I will hop in the car and drive to South Dakota for the weekend.  I’ve been told I have to show up at my sister’s place at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning.  Gack!  We’ll be on the road for about 4 hours and quite honestly to a city girl like me it feels like we are out in the middle of nowhere on that drive.  Farm fields as far as the eye can see.  Spotty cell service at best.  So I decided to share this one today instead!

This sweet little vanity was part of a bedroom set that I picked up a while back.

I thought it had some great potential, but it badly needed an update.

Since a dressing table is definitely a feminine piece of furniture, I decided to go all out girly on this one and paint it pink.  So I pulled out Fusion’s Little Piggy.  In case you are keeping track, so far I have painted a small chair, a dresser and now this vanity and bench all from the one 16.9 oz jar of paint and I still have a little bit left.

The Little Piggy is a classy pink, not an obnoxious bubble gum pink.  I popped out some details by highlighting them with Fusion’s Limestone.  I also added a stencil to the front in Limestone as well.  This was the first time I stenciled using Fusion paint and it worked out quite well.  I just made sure that my stencil brush was ‘dry’ by blotting it on a paper towel after dipping it in the paint.

I swapped out the knobs that came with the vanity because they were just sort of blah.  These cream colored knobs from Hobby Lobby work much better with my color scheme.

I recovered the bench in some fabric from a beautiful bark cloth curtain panel that I purchased at a garage sale earlier this summer.

I dug out one of my hatboxes for staging …

Wouldn’t this piece be perfect in a young girl’s room?  Or maybe an older girl’s room too!

If you have the perfect spot for this sweet vanity, be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale’ tab to find out if it’s still available.

Due to my unexpected weekend in South Dakota, I’m not at all sure if I’ll find stuff to post about next week but hopefully I can come up with something.  I hope you’ll stay tuned!

Do any of you remember the black Eastlake dresser that was in the spot where I now have the Belgian bench?

I call it the owl pull dresser because of these fantastic drawer pulls.

I painted it many moons ago, before I had a blog.  I wrote a blog post about it back in December 2013 where I shared the unconventional method I used to achieve this finish.  It was one of those situations where a mistake ended up paying off.

Basically after deciding to paint the dresser black, I got out the black spray paint.  In my original blog post I mentioned ‘satin’ spray paint, but thinking back I’m pretty sure it was flat black spray primer.  I spray painted the whole thing and then let it dry for about 30 minutes.  My original plan was to spray prime it black, then paint it with black latex.  However, once it was dry to the touch, I realized that I’d gotten really good coverage with the spray and maybe I could skip a step and not bother with ‘real paint’.  I thought I could wax it to add a bit of sheen to the flat primer and then call it good.

Not a bad plan, or so I thought.

Back in those days I was using Johnson’s paste wax.  Here is how Johnson’s describes their product: “Cleans and polishes floors and furniture, restoring, revitalizing and leaving a shine.”  Specifically take note of the word “cleans”.  The Johnson’s paste wax contains deodorized naptha which is a solvent, otherwise known as white mineral spirits.  I’m no chemist, and I could be totally wrong, but I think that might be the cause of what happened next.

As I started to work the paste wax over the painted surface, the primer started to soften up and combine with the wax.  I was basically wiping it right off with my cloth.  Yikes!

But wait a minute … hey … it looked kind of cool.

So I kept going.  I just worked the wax enough to remove some paint until I had a look that I liked.  Then I stopped.  This was a very messy process.  I went through a few rags that had to be tossed and my hands were totally blackened by the end (I know, I should have worn gloves!)  I then left the dresser alone for several hours before going back and buffing with a clean, dry cloth.

Here we are three (or maybe it’s four) years later and it still looks great.  I don’t know if I could recreate this finish in the same way twice though!

Did I mention that the mirror glass was missing when I purchased this dresser?  My original plan was to just remove the mirror frame and call it good.  But it is such an amazing frame, right?  It adds a lot of presence to the piece.  So I turned it into a chalkboard instead.

To stage it up for some fresh photos, I added a huge ironstone bowl (thanks again for that Skip) and my grandmother’s 1909 class photo.

My grandma, Carrie Moe, is the 2nd from the left in the front row (dark dress).  Sadly there are a couple of scratch marks over her face, and yes, they look intentional.  I don’t know if she scratched over her own face or if one of her siblings did it to annoy her (that sort of behavior might run in the family).  A few of the children are holding Norwegian flags.  My grandma was born in South Dakota but I’m guessing that the area where her family farmed mainly consisted of Norwegian immigrants.  You know, I’ve always assumed this was a class photo but now that I look more closely there are an awful lot of men in the photo (and no women).  That can’t be right.  I wonder what the group really represents.  Do any of you have any ideas?

At this point you might be wondering why I’m blogging about the owl pull dresser again today.  Well, it needs to find a new home now that it has been replaced by the bench.

So just in case any of my local readers needs a gorgeous black dresser, I thought I’d post it here.

For us this dresser was the perfect piece for next to our back door.  I kept hats, scarves and gloves in the upper drawers, and shoes in the lower drawers.  The hankie drawers were perfect for sunglasses and car keys.  It would also be awesome in a dining room filled with table linens and the good china.  It would also be fun to use as a coffee station don’t you think? You could easily put your Keurig between the hankie drawers, there is space to run the electrical cord through under the chalkboard.  Fill the hankie drawers with your K cups.  Perfect!  Of course, one could just use it in a bedroom too.

If interested, please be sure to check the ‘available for local sale’ tab for current information.

Do you remember the bench that I picked up at a garage sale last May?  Also scouted by my friend Meggan, I might add.

The sellers said that it was made out of a bed that their parents brought over from Belgium.  Although it was gorgeous ‘as is’, the finish on the bench seat was ruined.  It looked as though someone kept house plants on it, lots of water damage.  I could have opted to strip and re-stain that bench seat, and I might have gone that route if I wasn’t going to keep it.  But I did some measuring and I discovered that it would fit perfectly into the spot just inside my back door.  Which is exactly where we need something to sit on when putting on our shoes.  As much as I love the warm look of a beautiful wood piece in a room with white walls and ceilings, my room has red barn wood walls, dark wood floors and a wood plank ceiling.  That’s a lotta wood, none of which I plan to paint anytime soon.  This bench would be kind of lost among all of that wood.  Also, you might remember that I am on a mission to lighten up that room with white furniture.

So, I decided to paint it.

I held my breath the entire time just hoping that I would be doing it justice.

I used my own mix of Miss Mustard Seed whites to create Farmhouse White.  I found the recipe on The Ironstone Nest blog.  It’s equal parts Ironstone, Linen and Grain Sack.  It would have made more sense to just buy Farmhouse White, but I had plenty of the other three colors in my paint stash already so why spend more money?

The only thing I did to prep my piece was to go over it with a damp cloth and some TSP substitute.  I didn’t sand it at all.  I wanted plenty of chippy-ness.  I was willing to take the chance that all of the paint would just chip off, in which case I would have had to start over.  But I also didn’t want to totally eliminate any possibility of chipping altogether, which sometimes happens when I pre-sand.

I also painted a small test patch on the back of the bench before I started.  I wasn’t sure whether or not I would get bleed-thru on this piece and I wanted to know that before I was committed to the white paint.  But it was fine.  I started painting at the top, but when I got down to the bench seat, guess what?  Yep, it was a bleeder after all, but just the seat.  I’m assuming the seat was added when the bed was made into a bench and therefore it had a different finish than the rest of the piece.

After just a couple of swipes of Farmhouse White on the seat, it was obvious that I needed to do something about the bleed-thru.  Out came my secret weapon, Shabby Chic Clear Primer.

I gave the seat just one coat of the Clear Primer.  Once dry, I painted over it with my homemade Farmhouse White and no bleed-thru.  Problem solved.  However, take note that the seat did not chip like the rest of the piece.  The Clear Primer will give the paint a great surface to stick to, thus eliminating chipping.

I ended up doing three coats of Farmhouse White on the bench to get good coverage.  I did two coats one day, then came back the next day and added the 3rd.  Normally when you’re going to get chipping on a piece you’ll see the paint lifting before you get to coat number 2 or 3.  With this piece I only saw two little spots of lifting paint.  I was a little bummed at that point, thinking I wasn’t going to get the chippy-ness I wanted.

It wasn’t until I started sanding that this chippy-ness in all of its glory showed up.

The sides of this bench have some lovely details, don’t you think?

I am so happy with how my bench turned out!

Can you see my little photo bomber in the picture above?  Behind the left side of the bench?

That’s Lucy, my cat.  She absolutely insisted on being included in these photos.

I would call her away between shots, and then she would just meander right back over there.

Anyway, this fab bench has found a new home in my dining room.

I think it works beautifully mixed in with all of that dark wood.

You may remember that I started a dining room makeover last summer.  Here we are a year later and I still haven’t finished it!  Somehow my own projects always come last.  Here’s what I’ve done so far.

Replaced my black waterfall buffet with a Welsh cupboard full of ironstone …

Replaced brown leather Parson’s chairs with painted cane back chairs with feed sack seats …

Painted the cedar dining table that Mr. Q made …

Swapped out some IKEA hanging lights for this …

And now I have the bench.

Still on the to-do list, strip wallpaper (there is wallpaper behind that bench), replace the window (we’ve theoretically got that in the works) and come up with something fabulous for the giant blank wall.  Hopefully I’ll get the rest of it done before another year comes and goes.  I know I’m not the only one who takes this long with a makeover project though, right?  And I have to say, I think the bench was worth the wait.