q is for quandie

At the same lunch time garage sale where I found the drop leaf table, I also purchased this possum belly table.

At the time I didn’t know it was called a possum belly table.  The seller told me it was called a “Minnesota cabinet”.  I had never heard that term before and I was unable to find any sources that referred to them with that name.   But I did find lots of info about possum belly or baker’s tables and that is exactly what this is.

Usually there would have been a hutch/cupboard type top that sat on the table, and that combination of items was the pre-cursor to the Hoosier cabinet.

The possum belly drawers on the bottom would have held flour and sugar.  Normally they were lined with tin to keep rodents out (ewww).  I didn’t take a very close look at the drawers on my table when I purchased it.  It wasn’t until I got it home and pulled the possum belly drawers out that I realized they were in pretty poor condition on the bottom.

In fact, most likely unusable in the condition they were in.  I’m not a big fan of having furniture that is ‘just for looks’, so I knew that making these drawers functional again was going to be step number 1.

Fortunately, once again I was able to call on my amazing handyman/neighbor Ken!  I showed him the drawers and explained that ‘back in the day’ when Ken was a young man (I always give him a really hard time about being older than the hills, and luckily he finds it amusing instead of annoying) these drawer bottoms would have been made of tin.

That was all it took to get Ken’s mind thinking on the problem of how to fix them!

I can’t really give you a lot of detailed instructions on how Ken accomplished this.  I just consider him the furniture fixing fairy.  I go to work at the day job and come home at the end of the day to find completed fixes.  I know that he was able to find pieces of sheet metal that were already the approximate size needed.  He only had to cut a few inches off the end of each piece.  I also know that he used carpet nails to attach the sheet metal to the drawer frame.

The sides of the drawers are still the original wood.

The next step was to paint the base and drawer fronts in Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen milk paint.  I was happy to get just the right amount of chipping.  Not too much, but just enough to look authentic.

As I mentioned earlier, the top of this piece appeared to be unfinished when I got it.  It’s possible that it’s a newer replacement, but I really think it originally had a sheet of zinc over it.  If you look at the above picture you can see that there are little tack holes all around the perimeter of the top.

I decided to just sand my top down a little to smooth out the wood and then wax with Cece Caldwell’s Aging Cream.  It turned out gorgeous!

Like most of the possum belly tables I saw online, mine also has a cutting board that pulls out.

Finally, I needed to replace the hardware since it didn’t come with any.  Most of the photos I’d seen of these possum belly tables show cup pulls.  I just happened to have a set of 4 that my father-in-law gave me when he changed them out for something newer (horrors!).  When I got them, they looked like this …

In other words, nothing special.  I came up with a brilliant plan to paint them copper with the Fusion metallic paint.  But once I saw the drawers with their new sheet metal bottoms, I realized I needed to stick with just one metallic look so I repainted them in Fusion’s Brushed Steel.

And finally, the end result of all of this …

With holiday baking season almost upon us, couldn’t you use a possum belly table in your kitchen?

This one is available.  If you are local (Twin Cities) and interested in it, leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you with details.

Linking up with:  Finding Silver Pennies

My house is not large.  Just in case you hadn’t noticed.  It’s also old, built in 1904.  Back then, unless you were building a mansion like Glensheen, rooms were not that big.  My house was originally a farmhouse, so definitely not a mansion.  So, it’s no surprise that my living room is a modestly sized room.  Not only that, but one wall has a large arched opening that leads to the piano room …

and another wall has a large arched opening that leads to the front hallway …

Leaving the wall with windows, built in book cases and radiator and a second wall with just one window (it’s behind the sofa, just out of range of this photo).

By the way, these are all old photos, I have’t actually decorated for Christmas already.

One the positive side, all of the these open archways make the space feel open and light, but on the downside, furniture placement is a challenge.  Sometimes in summer I’ll move the sofa in front of the radiator, but putting a giant piece of furniture in front of your heat source isn’t the greatest plan for winters in Minnesota.

In the past, since it’s typically just Mr. Q and I hanging out in the living room, our sofa and chair combo has worked out great.  I get the sofa and Mr. Q gets the chair for movie viewing.  But now that my sister and niece have moved to town, we need more seating.  We can all squeeze in on the sofa, but that’s a little too touchy-feely for us (and my sister always gets annoyed when I try to touch her with my feet, which of course means I do it frequently).  However, I don’t have a lot of space for more seating.  So I have been on the hunt for a smallish side chair that would be at least somewhat comfortable.  I also didn’t want too spend much on it.

When I came across this barrel cane back chair on Craigslist, I wasn’t quite sure about it.  The price was definitely right at $40 though.  I also noticed that it would be a simple staple job to re-upholster it, always a bonus!  But still, it did have that 70’s – 80’s vibe that I’m not too fond of.

Whenever I’m looking at a piece and can’t decide whether or not it can be helped with paint, I generally then head to pinterest to see if I can find some examples.  Bingo!

This chair, by the way, is priced at $699 at Horchow.com (bwa ha ha ha).

Anyway, dang!  It’s pretty cute, right?  As it should be for $699!  Especially with all that chippy-ness going on.  All my chair needed was a chippy paint job and new fabric on the seat and it too could look this good, for a mere fraction of the price!

I started by removing the seat.  It was just screwed on from the bottom like most dining room chairs, but in an interesting twist it had this row of piping at the front.  It was held in place by staples …

I ripped that off and kept it, not sure at that point if I was going to re-cover it and put it back on, or just go without.

Next I sanded the chair lightly and cleaned it with TSP substitute. Then I used my spray paint trick on the cane back first, and then painted the rest of the chair using Miss Mustard Seed’s Linen.  Since this chair was for me, I wanted plenty of chipping.

And I got it, along with some crackling too!

For the seat, I purchased some heavy linen upholstery fabric and painted on a blue grain sack stripe using my favorite skinny tape (some girls have skinny jeans, I have skinny tape).

I used acrylic craft paint and a stencil brush to stipple the paint on.

I decided the chair didn’t really need that length of piping trim along the front, what do you think?

I do think it needs a small pillow to really be comfortable though, so I stole one from my patio chairs for now.

It was such a beautiful day last Saturday when I finished the chair that I couldn’t help taking advantage of it and staging these photos outside.

My “Boo” pumpkin is a fake, FYI.

I think it looks pretty good for a fake though.

But, back to the start of our story.  I purchased and revamped this chair to provide additional seating in my living room.  Here it is in place and just in time since I’m having my sister and niece over tomorrow night.  We are going to have a barrel of fun watching scary movies and eating Halloween candy (since I always buy some, but seldom actually get any kids at the door).

Here is a fun ‘aerial’ view of the living room (taken from the front hall stairs).

This chair has to sort of float in the room, the back is fully visible from the piano room.

Luckily it looks good from all angles!

At least I think so, what do you think?

Sharing at:  French Country Cottage and The Curator’s Collection

Who remembers way back in January 2014 when my blog was still fairly new, and I posted about the trend towards gold?  I mentioned how I couldn’t imagine ever being drawn to using gold again, having lived through it once in the 80’s.  However, I also knew myself well enough to say “never say never.”  Let’s face it, tastes change … or shall I just admit that I am fickle?

Now here it is almost two years later and I’ve got a stash of gorgeous metallic paint from Fusion’s new Matthew Mead Studio Metallics line.  What is a girl to do?

Find a chair to paint, that’s what!

So I found this chair on craigslist and sent Mr. Q off to pick it up.

I would have preferred a chair that wasn’t already painted, but I really liked the details on this one and the price was right.  Plus sometimes I’m just not patient enough to wait for the exactly perfect piece to come along.

I removed the seat and sanded the life out of this chair with my palm sander.  I knew that when I distressed it later I wasn’t going to want to just see that white under it, so I tried to get most of the edges back down to the wood.  Then I started painting.  It took three coats with the Pale Gold Fusion paint to get that white covered up.  I might have gotten by with two coats if I was painting over a darker wood.  By the way, the first coat really looked like crap.  So if you are going to do some experimenting with this paint, don’t panic if it doesn’t seem to cover at first.

After three coats, here is how the chair looked.

Not really a look that works for me.  A little too bright and too clean.  I like things that have a bit more age to them.  So I sanded the edges and then added some of Miss Mustard Seed’s dark wax.

Ahhhh, so much better.  The wax highlights the texture a bit more giving the gold more depth.

Now remember, this is Fusion paint, so you don’t have to wax it if you don’t want to.  But in this case I was waxing to get a certain look, not to protect the finish.  If you are wondering if the wax goes on the same, I would say that the Fusion paint is less ‘absorbent’ than milk paint or chalk paint so the wax goes on a little more smoothly, if that makes any sense.  It doesn’t soak in as much.  Clear wax also doesn’t alter the color as much with Fusion as it does with the other paints.  It’s also easier to work with the dark wax because you can buff it back out more easily if you over-apply.

With the painting done, I moved on to the chair seat.  I tried a number of different fabrics that I pretty much hated with the gold.  I finally decided to go with a faux grain sack look.  I used some drop cloth material and painted on some grain sack stripes and then added a stencil.

I think that the more rustic look of the faux grain sack provides a nice balance for the gold paint.

I’ve staged it with an old Swift’s Silver Leaf Brand bucket that I bought at a garage sale a few weeks ago.

And some old gold frames …

So, what do you think?  Do you need a touch of gold in your life?

This chair is available if you are local.  Leave me a comment if you are interested in getting the details.

Sharing at:  French Country Cottage and The Curator’s Collection

Remember the Humpty Dumpty dresser?  All the kings horses and all the kings men may not have been able to put it back together again, but Ken was!

Well, I thought I would add another fairy tale piece to my line up, so I’m calling this one the Pinocchio hutch.  You all know the story of Pinocchio right?  The puppet that wanted to be a real boy.

Well first of all, this was one of those Craigslist transactions that wasn’t quite a smooth as it could have been.  The gal selling it was only available during strange small windows of time.  Between 11 and 1 on Thursday, for example.  In the end, I had to send Mr. Q on his own.  When he got there, the seller said she wouldn’t be able to help load it, and it was on the 2nd floor of an apartment building without an elevator.  Egads.  That might have been something she should have mentioned in advance, do you think?  Fortunately, she also had another buyer coming at the same time for a sofa, and he was a nice guy.  Mr. Q helped with the sofa, and then he helped with this hutch.

The piece was advertised on Craigslist as an ‘antique hutch’.  It looked pretty fab in the photos, but I’ll admit I was a little suspicious of the ‘antique’ part.  Of course, some people think that items from the 1970’s are antiques now.  For the record, if we’re talking furniture, they are not!  If this was a car, you could get away with calling it an antique, but furniture needs to be at least 100 years old to be ‘antique’ and this one definitely isn’t.

I had also asked the seller if this piece was real wood before sending Mr. Q, and she assured me that it was.

Had I been with Mr. Q when he picked this up, I would have nixed the purchase.   Why?  Because it was made out of that … well … I’m not really knowledgeable enough to know what this stuff is called.  It’s definitely a thin veneer of something on top of what is likely a cheap wood or possibly even particle board.  I’m not sure what that veneer is made out of, but it doesn’t feel like real wood, it doesn’t look like real wood, and it doesn’t hold paint like real wood.  It’s not quite the same as a plastic laminate though.  So what is it?  Does anyone know?  I think some of the veneer might be real wood, but a lot of the parts definitely are not real wood.

So anyway, yes, this hutch is akin to the puppet that wanted to be a real boy!  It wanted to be real wood, but most of it just isn’t.

The biggest problem with this sort of material is that it doesn’t hold on to paint like real wood does.  So, had I been there, I would have said ‘no’ to it because it is a lot more work to paint than is practical for me (which is not to say that it can’t be done!)  But since I wasn’t there, and Mr. Q thought it looked pretty good, it came home with him.  Fortunately, it does have some good lines.  I love the simple triangular pediment at the top, and the details on the sides of the bottom.  It has a very classic appeal.

Flash forward several months.  With winter just around the corner, I knew I had to get this one done while I could still work on it in the unheated Carriage House.  I also decided this was an ideal opportunity to try Fusion’s Ultra Grip primer.  Please follow this link to Fusions’ own blog post about this product if you want to read the details about how it works.

I decided I should probably follow all of the rules on this one, just to be sure I was getting the best end result possible.  To begin, I sanded everything … which seemed to take forever.  There are nine shelves!  Sanded top and bottom.  Three drawers.  Hutch top inside and out, plus a base.  Once sanded, I wiped everything down with TSP substitute.  Next I painted a coat of the Ultra Grip on everything.  Then I had to wait 12 hours.  Which in my world really meant the next day.

Meanwhile, I removed the chicken wire from the doors.  It was coming loose in spots anyway, so I knew we (and by we, I mean Ken) would have to remove the stops to fix that anyway.  It was easy to coat the chicken wire with some off-white spray paint once it was removed.

OK, so once the Ultra Grip had met its official drying time, I next painted two coats of Fusion’s Limestone on the outside.  Yep, two coats did the trick.  I had to wait for the Limestone to be completely dry before moving on to the Inglenook for the inside of the cabinet.  Why?  Because I was using tape to get a clean line where the Limestone met the Inglenook in some spots.  I then painted two coats of the Inglenook on the inside of the hutch, and on all of the shelves.

Are you tired yet?  This was definitely one of those projects that takes a lot of time, but most of it is spent waiting for things to dry.  Painting one side of each shelf took about 5 minutes, but then I had to wait several hours before adding a second coat.  Then, another several hours before flipping them over to repeat the process on the other side.  Have I sufficiently driven home the point that this was a much more lengthy process than usual for me?

So, after all of that, here is the finished product.

A massive improvement over the original.  At least I think so.

I changed out the hardware to try and add some more charm.  I used glass knobs on all of the drawers, but I couldn’t use them on the cupboard doors because they lie flush against the dividers that are behind them and the glass knobs have a screw with a nut that extends out the back side of a drawer or door.  So for those I used some cool vintage brass knobs that I had in my stash.

While writing this post, I kept waffling about what I should call this piece.  I settled on hutch, but technically this is a desk!  Yep.  It has a pull out desk top.

As I was staging it for these photos, I realized this would make an awesome scrapbooking station.  You could keep all of your supplies in it, and then just pull out the desktop when you are ready to create!

The shelves are adjustable, which can be handy.

If not being used as a scrapbook station, this could be used in the kitchen filled with your ironstone collection and cookbooks.  Or put it in your study where you can put your computer on the pull out top and write your memoirs.  So many possibilities for this piece!

As for the Ultra Grip, so far it is looking really good.  I have inserted and removed the shelves several times and that hasn’t resulted in a single scratch.  I slid books onto and off of the shelves, and ditto, no scratching.  The desk top slides in and out of place, and no scratches have resulted from that either.  Of course, only the true test of time and regular use can really tell, but so far I am impressed with the how the paint is adhering.

This hutch/bookshelf/desk is for sale.  If any of you local readers are interested, leave me a comment and I can get back to you with the details.  And FYI, it does come apart into two separate pieces for easy transport.

I’ve mentioned this table in a couple of posts now.  I picked it up at a garage sale on my lunch hour.  Well, technically I purchased it on my lunch hour, but sent Mr. Q to pick it up later in the truck.

It was a little wonky when I got it.  Two of the legs were wobbly, plus the top of the table had a big gap in the center.  I suspect it used to have some leaves for making it bigger, but those were long gone.  So Ken took it over to his workshop to shore it up.  He is a fan of taking a piece completely apart and then putting it back together the ‘right’ way.  With glue and pegs.  And that is what happened with this piece.  He took it all apart and then put it back together again.  It couldn’t be sturdier now.

I already posted about having Ken permanently remove the leaves, which became Farmer’s Market signs.

My original plan for the table was to paint just the base and leave the top as is.  I thought the finish looked fairly good.  Rustic and beat up, but in a good way.

So, I painted a base coat of MMS milk paint in Boxwood, then added two coats of Shutter Grey on top of that.  I should mention at this point that my preferred method of painting table bases is to flip the table upside down on some horses and paint it that way.  When I had the painting all done and I flipped the table back over … well … I just wasn’t loving the way the original finish on the top worked with the paint.  It was too orange-y and too shiny.  That meant I had to strip the top after all.  So I carefully stripped it with some citrus stripper.  Once stripped, I sanded it down and add a coat of clear wax followed by a coat of MMS white wax.

I really prefer the lighter colored top with the Shutter Grey on the base.

I also think the way the table is put together with mismatched grain on each plank of wood is very charming.  There are still a few dings and gouges that show the age of this piece, and the original casters are still in place.  They work quite well too.

This is another piece that would work great as a desk, or even as a large bedside table

How about it?  Any of you in need of a desk?  Or a table?  This one is available.