q is for quandie

carriage house preview.

Published on June 10, 2015October 11, 2017 by Quandie21 Comments

I often struggle for words when someone asks me to describe my sale. If they give me a blank look when I say “occasional sale” then I try to explain what that means. Obviously, it’s a sale that is held only occasionally (or in our case, only twice a year).

vintage sale

But how do I describe my sale specifically? Well, of course, it takes place in my Carriage House.

the carriage house

It’s not fancied up like a shop or anything. 99.9% of the year it is just my workshop and where I park my car. Every year I tell myself that I should paint the walls inside, but I never actually do. I try to vacuum up the cobwebs and wash the windows, but that’s about it. Honestly, everyone is in and out so fast that it hardly seems worthwhile to paint those walls when I could be painting furniture.

Enough about the location, what about the stuff?

Of course, we have some painted furniture. That’s a given, right?

Desk painted in MMS Flow Blue.

cottage stripes title

We also have some straight-up vintage. These yellow suitcases are only $6 each.

vintage yellow luggage

The clocks are $8.

clocks

We group our vintage wares by color, just because it looks so pretty that way. If there is a particular color group that you are drawn to, remember this … green, yellow, blue, red, aqua is all on the left side of the Carriage House (as you’re facing it) …

vintage green

vintage red

Black, white, silver and earth tones are on the right side. The black and white scale is $18, isn’t it fab? I love the black and white combo. No promises on this one guys, I may not be able to resist its siren’s call.

vintage black and white

In some ways the sale is simply a curated collection of really fab vintage finds. You don’t have to scour every Minneapolis neighborhood garage sale to find them yourself, we have them all right here.

vintage train case 2

vintage train case 1

And then we have some upcycled vintage, the Adventurer suitcase is $38.

oh darling angled

How about some pretty vintage linens turned into throw pillows for $12 each?

pillows in a basket

We still have stacks of both white and floral vintage platters. Consider buying a white one and adding your house number to it with a Cricut (or just number decals from Home Depot) like I did with mine.

house number plate

At our June sale we also like to have lots of garden stuff including perennials. For a reminder, Sue’s yard looks like this.

Sue's brick path collage

So as you can imagine, she has plenty of lovely perennials to divide. I’ve potted up a couple myself too. She’s also brought over some great vintage garden tools and other garden ornaments.

Or how about some painted pots to fill with annuals?

painted pots

A chalkboard bucket for $8 to plant your herbs in.

herb bucket

Some lavender.

lavender

After I put together the vintage hose reel “sign” in my first picture, I almost decided I should keep it as future sale signage.

vintage sale

If it doesn’t sell, I might do just that. But it will have a price tag on it. It would be fantastic for a grad party, birthday party or garden wedding. Or just put it in the garden with a happy message on it. Jeesh, now I’m talking myself into keeping it again!

Nearly everything you’ve seen in these pictures is available at the sale. I have to say ‘nearly’ because some of the staging items used in the furniture pics are not for sale. And of course my house number platter is not for sale, but you can create your own with one of our many platters. Everything else will be there though, and I hope you will be there too!

As a reminder, the Carriage House sale takes place tomorrow evening and Friday during the day.

It looks like we are going to have rain, but I have several tents to keep things fairly dry. And a little rain never hurt anybody, right? Let’s all embrace our inner pluviophile.

rain

Once it’s over, I plan to take a much needed break to dry out. It will involve sleeping in, taking naps, reading a book, or perhaps just drinking a cocktail on the deck. That should last about a day probably, but don’t panic if I don’t have any new posts for a bit. Truly, I need a break. But I’ll be back soon with some fun projects I have been saving up so I could devote some time to them. Stay tuned!

another do over.

Published on June 9, 2015June 8, 2015 by Quandie8 Comments

Way back last year sometime I got this pair of mirrors from a friend.

mirrors before They looked prettier in this picture than there were in person. Of course, I painted them and then they looked like this.

Mirror painted in Annie Sloan Louis Blue and Old White

But they were really heavy. I wouldn’t have wanted to attempt to hang them on my plaster walls. Not that I’m keeping them, but if I don’t want to hang them, I imagine no one else will either. So I decided to remove the mirror and make them chalk boards instead.

I just have Ken cut some fiber board to size. Then I paint it with chalk board paint (not to be confused with chalk paint), and secure it back in the frames. Easy as can be.

Now they look like this.

chalkboard do over

And they are much lighter.

Now these I would be willing to hang on my wall. I’m not going to, because I don’t have a spot for them, but you could! They will be available at the Carriage House sale, as will the union jack suitcase.

sue’s stuff.

Published on June 8, 2015June 7, 2015 by Quandie4 Comments

A while back I promised to share a settee that my friend and Carriage House co-host, Sue, made over, and here it is.

sue's settee 1

Sue and her husband came by last night with all of her larger pieces for the sale. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have gotten pictures of all of them before it got dark, but I missed the boat on that.

But I did get a few shots of the settee.

sue's settee 2

Don’t you just love that Cafe Paris fabric on the back?

sue's settee 5

The detail on this piece is amazing.

sue's settee 3

If you remember the tour I gave of Sue’s home last summer, you’ll remember that she is a big fan of white. This is the buffet in her dining room.

dining buffet

So it was no surprise when she and her husband pulled up with a truck full of mostly white furniture (there was a little grey thrown in too). It makes for a perfect combination with my somewhat more colorful pieces.

If you know me at all, then you will know I had to wipe away a little drool when I saw this little baby coming off the truck.

sue's cupboard 2

I really wanted to just walk this one straight in my front door.

sue's cupboard 3

This little darling is only about 33″ tall. How cute would it be sitting on the counter top in a kitchen, or on top of a low dresser?

Did you notice the fab detail of that curved drawer?

sue's cupboard 4

You could also use it in a craft room and fill it up with crafting supplies. Or hang it on the wall in your bathroom and fill it with toiletries.

I staged it with another little set of play china.

sue's cupboard 1

Both of these fabulous white pieces will be at the Carriage House sale, along with a few more.

Hope you can swing by and see them in person!

cooking with wine.

Published on June 5, 2015June 4, 2015 by Quandie15 Comments

wine quote

Both my sister and nnK are now rolling their eyes and saying “yeah, right, like she cooks at all.” True. It’s more that I sit and drink a glass of wine while watching them cook. I’m not much of a cook, but I still find the quote amusing.

And I thought it worked well with my sideboard turned wine cabinet.

Remember the sideboard? I brought it home from Linden Hills.

Linden Hills 2015

The lower drawer appeared to be a replacement, so I decided why not just remove both drawers entirely? I thought about doing another TV cabinet like this one that I did last year.

2014 spring blog14

But then I decided it would be fun to change it up and make a wine cabinet instead. Naturally my handyman Ken helped me out with the wine bottle racks, and like usual he seemed to finish them overnight. Didn’t he do a great job?

wine rack

You can get a dozen bottles of wine in this baby. The glasses can go in the cupboards on the side; glasses for white on one side and red on the other. What?! You don’t have specific glasses for white and red? For shame. You’ll have to get them if you own this cabinet.

I painted this with a mix of Cece Caldwell chalk paint in Beckley Coal and Miss Mustard Seed’s Typewriter. I originally finished with hemp oil, which is what you see in all of these photos, and in fact I took the photos right after it was freshly oiled, so you are seeing a lot of shiny spots in these pictures. However, the next day I found that the oil had really absorbed into some spots more than others. Specifically the raw wood that was used for the wine rack, plus the sides, which I had stripped of some separating veneer. You can see the problem in this photo. The raw wood seems to have totally absorbed the oil leaving a very matte finish.

wine oops

So I then went over those with some Miss Mustard Seed antiquing wax and they look much better. Unfortunately it’s been rainy ever since, so I don’t have a photo to share.

This piece came with some really hideous ceramic knobs that had to go. I pulled out a number of different options to replace them. I tried some new knobs from Hobby Lobby, but they just looked out of place. In the end, I decided on these vintage brass pulls that came off an old dresser.

I like that they pop a little next to the black and the shape of them mimics the design on the door. Plus they have the right amount of age to match the rest of the piece.

Someone, I won’t name names, accused this poor buffet of having chunky thighs! Wasn’t that mean?

wine cabinet

They aren’t chunky, just zaftig. I kind of love them.

This will be the last piece of furniture I finish before my sale next week. I’ve had to dismantle my workshop in favor of setting up for the sale. I haven’t decided on a price for this one yet, you’ll just have to show up at the sale to see what it is!

coming soon!

Published on June 4, 2015October 11, 2017 by Quandie2 Comments

The Carriage House sale is just one week away! I hope you’ve marked your calendars, scheduled a baby sitter, taken time off work, or whatever else it might take for you to be there!

Here is a sampling of some of the items that will be available.

The Oh Darling suitcase.

oh darling angled

The Family and Friends chalkboard.

chalkboard on wall

Storage with Style boxes.

storage with style

Lucky is a State of Mind shelf.

lucky shelf 4

Faux french hatboxes.

hatboxes

Painted shoe trees.

Orphaned hankie drawers.

orphan drawer tops

The union jack desk.

vintage school desk with union jack design

The fun cupboard.

little cabinet 1

A pair of trashy chairs.

chairs

The bohemian rhapsody desk.

Desk painted in MMS Flow Blue.

And so much more! This is just the tip of the iceberg!

Take note: no one, and I mean no one, gets in before 5 pm, but as soon as the clock strikes 5 it’s every man, woman and child for himself! Also, we do not accept personal checks. Credit cards are accepted for purchases over $50 only. So hit the cash machine on your way over!

garden beds.

Published on June 3, 2015June 2, 2015 by Quandie14 Comments

Who remembers this bed from spring 2014?

workshop bed

It needed a lot of work! One of the legs was broken off the headboard. The veneer was coming off everywhere. The foot board needed to have its topper reattached. So, in true Quandie fashion, I kept pushing it to the back of the line because it needed so much help. After two years of that, I finally got it finished.

Bed painted with Annie Sloan Duck Egg

In the end, after getting help fixing all of its problems, I gave it a simple paint job with Annie Sloan’s Duck Egg.

bed corner

It is structurally sound now because Ken did a bang up job repairing the leg. I ended up removing all of the veneer from the bottom trim on the foot board, but you’d never know it with it painted.

The bed has side rails and bottoms slats that go with it. I just love a curved foot board, don’t you?

antique bed painted in Annie Sloan Duck Egg

And since we’re already in the garden, I thought I would share a quick tour of what’s blooming this week in Minnesota. Some of my favorites are in full bloom right now, like the Allium. I never grew these until I saw then in nnK’s garden a few years ago. Did you know they are bulbs? If you want some in your garden next spring, plant them this fall. They are as simple to plant as tulips. I add a few more every fall. They mostly die back to the ground a month or so after blooming, so plant them among other plants that will hide the leaves as they die back, such as hostas or peonies. You can see that mine are planted among the peonies here.

allium

This photo doesn’t really show how tall and statuesque the Allium really are.

The irises are also starting to open up.

iris

As much as I love the flower, I’m not as fond of the plants themselves after the flowers are done. They tend to look a little messy in the garden. I’ve been slowly reducing the number of irises in my gardens. I gave away a bunch of yellow ones last year and I’d be happy to give away some more. If any of my locals readers would like some, let me know.

A bunch of my woodland plants are blooming now, the Columbine and the Anemones.

blooming collage

I added some Sweet Woodruff to the garden last year, and that is looking fab.

sweet woodruff

Like pretty much everything else in my home, I buy a lot of my plants at garage sales. There are a number of ‘pros’ to doing this. First of all, you know you are getting a plant that does well in your area. If it’s growing so well that the seller has enough to divide, it must grow well in your area. Second, I find that divisions from someone’s garden tend to establish faster than nursery plants. Maybe that is just my imagination, does anyone else find this to be the case? And third, of course, they are much less expensive!

However, I will caution you to do a little research into plants before you add them to your garden. You’ll also find that many of the plants being sold at garage sales are invasive. Sweet woodruff is one such plant. I’ll keep an eye on it, and try to keep it in check. I don’t mind if it fills in a large chunk of my shade garden though. Perennial geranium is another such plant. It is the sea of purplish blooms that you can see behind and to the left of the bed in a couple of photos.

Some more of my favorite hostas are looking really lovely right now as well. Here is my newest addition, Dream Weaver.

hosta dream weaver

And one of my all time faves, June.

hosta june

And I’m fairly certain that this one is Liberty, but the tag has gone missing.

hosta liberty

And in case you were wondering, my annuals did survive the cold snap we had just after they were planted. I’ve added my own wordy plate to one of my galvanized boiler window boxes.

grow plate

Coming soon in the garden; peonies, clematis and then roses. But let’s not rush things, shall we?

Meanwhile, the garden bed is for sale at $225. If it doesn’t go sooner, it will be available at my upcoming sale. Please note, this is a full size bed. There is no such thing as an antique queen or king sized bed, these sizes weren’t manufactured until the mid-1950’s. But if you like to snuggle up close with your significant other, or if you sleep alone, a full might be perfect for you. Otherwise, it’s a great size for the kids or the guest room. You guests won’t be comfy enough to overstay their welcome.

Sidebar: Remember the dueling mid-century bureaus? My sis painted one, and I painted one. Well, Debbie is gloating all the way to the bank as hers sold already and mine remains on craigslist! Drat! She wins!

eat your words.

Published on June 2, 2015June 2, 2015 by Quandie33 Comments

If you have been following me for a while, you may remember that prior to my fall sale last year I was trying to convince people that there were lots of fun things to do with pretty plates, besides eating on them. Despite my efforts, my big stack of pretty floral platters and plates still sat untouched after the sale.

plates

Even with woefully low prices on them of $3 and $4.

So I am giving them one last chance at a new life.

I saw this idea at the 2011 Bachman’s Idea House. I borrowed this photo from pinterest, but it originated on Itsy Bits and Pieces, and you can read more about the Bachman’s Idea House there. But anyway, this idea totally struck me at the time and I’ve been wanting to try it myself ever since.

Bachmans idea house

So I dug out my plates and platters, my Cricut machine and some vinyl. I picked a quote and started cutting.

plates with words

I learned a trick to keeping your letters straight a while back. You cut them on the ‘kiss cut’ setting, then you place a piece of painters tape over the letters before you remove them from the backing.

cricut trick step 1

Then you use the tape to pull the letters away from the backing, but keeping them all in a straight line and evenly spaced. Carefully place them onto your surface, in this case a platter.

cricut trick step 2

Pull the tape away without taking the letters with it. This can be a little tricky, so go slowly. Also, a tip, make sure your tape is smaller than your letters. If your tape overlaps your letters entirely, it’s difficult to get it off without also removing the letters.

cricut trick step 3

And voila! Straight letters.

cricut trick step 4

So I used a couple of different fonts to write one of my favorite gardening quotes on my pretty floral plates. I added some plate hangers and hung them on the Carriage House.

plate quote on wall

I love how they turned out!

plate quote

If you have a stack of mismatched vintage china and a Cricut machine sitting around, you should make one of your own!

Since I had the Cricut machine warmed up, I kind of went a little Cricut crazy. I added a simple word to a small enamelware saucer that can be tucked into a planter.

cricut enamelware grow

And then I filled an old flour sifter with succulents and added a word of encouragement to that as well.

cricut flour sifter

And finally, I used white vinyl to add some words to this old globe.

cricut globe

I hope to get a few more things ‘Cricut-ed’ before my sale next week so if you can’t make your own, come to my sale and buy one of mine!

Linking up with the Thrifty & Vintage Finds Party at Dagmar’s Home.

hale, page and diamond lake.

Published on June 1, 2015May 31, 2015 by Quandie5 Comments

My sister and I ventured out to the Hale, Page and Diamond Lake neighborhood garage sales on Saturday. The listing showed nearly 100 sales!

hale page

We really had trouble finding them though. I know that sounds crazy, and we didn’t expect it at all. But many of the sales were in alleys and they didn’t have any signs! I’m sure people felt like since they were on the map, they didn’t need a sign. I’m here to tell you, au contraire people! A sign at the end of your alley is still super helpful. Especially if there isn’t a lot of foot traffic. We peered down so many alleys trying to figure out if there was a sale down there. We’re sure we didn’t hit even half of the sales.

But we still came home with some fun stuff. The super tall plant stands are mine. They are really unique and I liked the height. I’ve already found homes for them, one on the deck and one in the garden. The little sleigh is my sister’s. She plans to paint it red and use it to decorate her apartment balcony at Christmas time. I suggested she put a small tree full of twinkle lights in it. The two metal corner shelves are my sister’s as well. They were $3 each! For that price, how could you pass them up? They will tuck into corners in her new apartment and hold plants or books or whatever.

I snagged some french cheese plates and a little glass cloche.

dl french plates

And some vintage jars and kitchen utensils.

dl jars and vintage kitchen items

I’m calling this lovely vintage radio my find of the day.

dl find of the day

I just loved the vintage look of it. Can’t you just picture a family gathered around this radio listening to news from the front during WWII? Or maybe a sweet young couple dancing to some Glenn Miller on the porch on a sultry summer evening?

It wasn’t a super bargain at $20 (in garage sale terms), but I had to have it. I think it will definitely make its way into some future furniture photo shoots. But in the meantime, I’ve made a home for it in the cupboard on my front porch along with all of my old cameras.

dl radio

After Debbie and I gave up on trying to find more sales, we popped over to Stillwater to get some more annuals for my planters. We ended up in Rose Floral which unbeknownst to me has a huge selection of fairy garden supplies. My fairy garden needed a new look for this year, so I purchased a few new plants and a sweet little pergola.

fairy garden 1

After revamping the fairy garden a bit, I remembered that I purchased some fairy lights for it a while back, so I dug them out and strung them in my little tree. Here is a shot I took a little later in the evening to try and get the lights to show up.

fairy garden 2

For those of you who are new to my blog, my fairy garden is in a cracked bird bath. It no longer holds water so I decided it would make an excellent fairy garden container. You can see what it looked like last year here.

I do have a fairy in residence. Can you see her there in the very front hiding under the hosta?

fairy in the garden

The rest of my weekend was spent prepping for my upcoming Carriage House sale! I worked on a couple of fun projects that I’ll share with you over the next few days, so stay tuned!

perfectly sweet armoire.

Published on May 29, 2015June 1, 2015 by Quandie16 Comments

I’ve been using a lot of blue lately, both in my own home and in pieces I paint to sell. I love blue, and blue is hot right now. But there is still a warm place in my heart for green.

armoire staging

When Mr. Q brought home this charming pint sized armoire, I knew I wanted to put some vintage wallpaper on the door.

armoire before

I didn’t have a piece that was large enough, so that is what prompted me to place an order from Hannah’s Treasures on Etsy recently. I debated going with a more distinctly juvenile pattern, but in the end I thought I would do something just a little more versatile. This armoire would be perfectly sweet for a baby girl’s nursery, but could also grow with her into her teens.

armoire 1

I added a two color paint job to match the wallpaper. The entire armoire was first painted in MMS Luckett’s Green milk paint, and then all but the knobs got two coats of Linen. This time I tried a Vaseline resist (adding a little Vaseline to spots you want to distress after painting the undercoat) and it worked fantastically well.

armoire closeup

When this piece first came to me, it needed to have the back and the bottom replaced. It had gotten some water damage at some point. So Ken replaced both. Now the inside is practically all new, so I didn’t paint it.

armoire 3

It has a sweet little slide out bar for hanging tiny clothes like these gorgeous handmade baby dresses.

baby dresses

My Carriage House sale co-host, Sue, has a stash of these beautiful dresses and they will be for sale at the Carriage House sale ($10 each). The hand stitching on these is a work of art. I think they would be lovely hung on a wall in a child’s room, like this pin from Cedar Hill Farmhouse.

cedar hill farmhouse

I also staged the armoire with the last of the lilacs. They go so fast. I wish they lasted longer.

armoire lilacs

What do you think? Didn’t it turn out perfectly sweet?

perfectly sweet armoire painted in MMS milk paint.

This armoire is for sale at $245. If you are interested in it, or in the baby dresses, leave a comment or email me at oakdalecarriagehouse@gmail.com.

And in case you are wondering how I managed to crank out all of these pieces lately, I have to mention that I took a couple of days off at the day job last week. I’ve got just a couple more to finish up before the Carriage House sale, which takes place on Thursday, June 11 from 5 pm to 7 pm and Friday, June 12 from 9 am to 2 pm.

Linking up with Finding Silver Pennies.

bohemian rhapsody.

Published on May 28, 2015May 27, 2015 by Quandie16 Comments

I’ve been seeing a lot of bohemian style out there lately, how about you? Apartment Therapy has this to say about bohemian style: A true Bohemian room should look like it’s been furnished over decades of globetrotting and a lifetime of creative scavenging and upcycling. Follow the link to read their full article, but I’ll emphasis point no. 3, if you’re lucky enough to have actual furniture, it should be distressed. Amen to that!

I was feeling decidedly bohemian when I decided to go with a distressed saturated blue on this desk.

Desk painted in MMS Flow Blue milk paint

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Mr. Q and I picked this desk up a while back. It was another craigslist buy.

desk before

It’s gorgeous, but up close it had some issues. There is some trim missing on one of the drawers, and there are a few nicks and chips in the veneer. There was even this big chunk of veneer missing on the side, and it appears as though someone attempted to sand the rough edges, doing a lot more damage in the process.

desk side patch

You get the idea, it is a lovely piece, but a good candidate for painting because of some damage.

The desk sat patiently waiting for inspiration to strike. I had a couple of plans for it that got scrapped. One involved leaving the drawer fronts in the original finish and just painting the body of the desk. Another was to go black. But then the idea of bright blue stuck. To balance the bright blue color, I decided to leave the top unpainted. I stripped it, then used Varathane’s Dark Walnut gel stain on it. This desktop is a walnut veneer by the way. I finished with a Wipe on Poly with a satin finish. The top is now really lovely.

Desk painted in MMS Flow Blue.

Isn’t the original hardware on this one pretty? I didn’t do anything to it, just put it right back on.

As for the paint job, this is the same technique I used on my own Rooster cupboard. I painted a base coat of MMS milk paint in Artissimo. Then I added two coats of MMS Flow Blue. This one is finished with hemp oil though (I used dark wax on my cupboard).

You can see some hints of the darker Artissimo in spots.