q is for quandie

A while back my number one craigslist spotter, nnK, forwarded an ad to me for two ‘bureaus’.  We’re pretty sure that these didn’t get snatched up more quickly because they were only called ‘bureaus’.  The ad said nothing about ‘dressers’, or ‘chest of drawers’, or ‘credenza’, or ‘midcentury modern’.  If any of those keywords had been used, I’m sure these would have been long gone.  But I don’t think there are too many people out there searching for ‘bureaus’ these days.

As happy as I was to get the opportunity to make these mine, some serious sweat equity went into acquiring them.  We had to call in the big guns.  Mr. Q’s friend Gene that is.  He is the guy we call when there is going to be some heavy lifting.  In this case, these two bureaus were in the attic of a typical 1940’s style bungalow.  In other words, up a very narrow staircase with a turn at the top.  Yikes!  The seller had been sure to tell me that I had to bring my own manpower to get them out of there, so I did.  Mr. Q and his friend were real troopers getting these babies into the truck!

I only took a ‘before’ shot of one, but I have two and they are identical.  I’m fairly certain that the owner of these bought them new, tucked them up in the finished attic and has used them for storage for 50 years or so.  She mentioned that she had lived in the house since the 60’s.  They weren’t in terrible shape, but slightly beat up from years of use.  The finish was also very dried out.

I had actually been hanging onto this pair until my sister got here.  Why?  I decided to play dueling bureaus with her (insert music here)!  Since she is living with me for two months until her new apartment is ready, I decided to put her to work as my apprentice.  Her first assignment was to work side by side with me, with each of us making over one of these.  I let her pick her own colors, and I picked mine.  I decided we should work in Fusion paint because it is the easiest to use, and no topcoat is required!

To begin with, we stripped the flat raised fronts of our drawers.  Once stripped, we sanded them lightly and then used Varathane’s Dark Walnut gel stain on them.  Once dry, we each added two coats of  Minwax Wipe on Poly in satin.  Then, after sanding the rest of the piece lightly, Debbie painted hers in Liberty and I painted mine in Ash.

Here is the Ash.

 Doesn’t the wood just look so much richer in this darker stain?

And here is the Liberty.

Now, I have to tell you, my sister has never done this before!  She’s never stripped or painted furniture.  Ever.  And she did this.  All by herself.  Granted, I showed her the ropes and gave her some tips along the way.  Still, if she can do it, so can you!  So if you are someone who has been reading my blog for a while and thinking about trying some furniture refinishing on your own, dive in!  As Nike says, just do it!

Debbie is very proud of her first furniture makeover ever!  She is well on her way to finishing her next project, her $10 table and benches, so stay tuned to see those soon.

The other day one of my co-workers came to my office, pulled up a photo on her phone and said “would you by any chance want this?”

Um, yes!  Definitely.  The price was right and I jumped on it.  In case you can’t tell from the photo, this little guy is about 44″ tall.  Meant for a child’s play house I think.

I suspect it was homemade by some dad or grandpa for a lucky little girl.  The wood on the back looks like it was scrap from the packaging for a refrigerator.

The wood on the front isn’t especially pretty, but I knew that some milk paint would give it some instant vintage charm.

I gave this piece a many layered paint job.  I started with a layer of MMS French Enamel, then added a layer of Luckett’s Green, then a layer of Linen on the doors and drawer fronts, and another layer of French Enamel on the body.  My intention was to add some faux age as though this little cupboard had been painted multiple times in its life.  And here is how it turned out.

Just imagine how much fun it would be to play with this little cabinet!  Now you can see why I was so excited to find that little vintage tea set at the Linden Hills sales.  I knew it would be perfect for this piece.

I lined the drawers with some October Afternoon paper with a rocket theme.  Not so girly, true, but still fun.

I recently ordered some more vintage wallpaper from Hannah’s Treasures on Etsy.  I just can’t help myself when it comes to this stuff.  I love using it in the background when staging my photos.  Please note, I am not compensated in any way by Hannah’s Treasures, I’m just sharing it because I love it.  Also, FYI, she ships it so quickly and safely.  This stuff is a bit delicate, after all it is 70 year old paper.  But it always arrives in good condition.  I ordered another pattern that I will be using on a piece of furniture coming up soon.

As much as I love this little cupboard, I really can’t use it anywhere in my own home.  It is for sale at $95, dishes included (but not the fabulous phone)!

If no one snatches it up after seeing it here, it will likely be at the Carriage House sale!

 

Mr. Q recently brought home another tall dresser from craigslist, and once again I neglected to take my own ‘before’ shot so I am using the photo that accompanied the ad.

It wasn’t really terribly special, and the hardware was quite Ugly with a capital “U”.

I knew I could dress this one up with some stenciling though.  I decided to revisit an overall damask stencil like I did last year on this piece.

I wanted to keep it just a tad more subtle this time though.

I started by painting the dresser in one of the MMS European colors, Schloss.  It still had a rather streaky look after coat no. 2, so three coats were needed on this one.  It’s a bit lighter than the Trophy that I used last year, and really even a bit lighter than I expected it to be.  But that’s not a bad thing, I really like how pale it is.

Once the three coats of Schloss were on, I stenciled the damask pattern using a lighter grey acrylic craft paint, Martha Stewart’s Lake Fog.

I sanded and then finished with a coat of MMS furniture wax.  One thing to keep in mind when using an acrylic paint on top of a milk paint, the clear wax will darken up the milk paint but not the acrylic paint.  Before the wax went on, it was almost hard to even see the damask pattern on the drawers.  The wax darkened up the milk paint background just enough to bring out the stencil.  I love the sort of faded quality I got this time.

You can see that I used pretty cut glass knobs that add a little touch of sparkle but don’t compete with the stencil.

This dresser had a lot of damage to the veneer around all of the edges of the drawers.  I decided to just work with that and consider it part of the character.

The Schloss is a very warm grey.

My lilac blossoms opened just in time for the photo shoot!

The combination of the purple flowers and this pale grey is gorgeous.

But this shade of grey would work equally well with blue, or in an all white room.

This dresser is for sale for $225, let me know if you are interested by leaving a comment or emailing me at oakdalecarriagehouse@gmail.com.  Sorry, this one is sold.

Linking up with Elizabeth & Co. and The Painted Drawer.

Remember the gutted, legless radio cabinet that I snagged at the White Bear Lake Trash to Treasure Day?

It’s sitting on top of the sewing table at the back.  Here is a close up.

It is not made out of a pretty wood.  And the carved details look like they were added later to me.  The finish has an odd appearance.  All of which make it a great candidate for paint.

I just happened to have a few legs lying around, so I asked Ken to attach them for me.  I only had two of the prettier legs, so those went on the front, and two plain tapered legs were cut down to go on the back.

The legs looked really out of place at first, but I knew that painting them would tie everything together.

I decided to dig out one of my old favorites for this piece, Annie Sloan chalk paint in Duck Egg.

You just can’t go wrong with the Duck Egg.  I painted two coats, distressed with sand paper, and then added MMS furniture wax.

I added the last bit of my favorite vintage wallpaper to the shelves inside.

I opted to leave the cabinet backless.  That way one could potentially pull it away from the wall to put larger items inside for display, such as folded up quilts, or a stack of larger books or magazines.  I think this piece would work great as a nightstand, or maybe in a foyer as a place to drop the mail and your keys.

Not bad for a freebie, right?  And I am passing on the savings and selling this piece for a mere $55.  Ooops, sorry you missed it, this one is sold.

Remember the gorgeous set of furniture I picked up last year?  The dresser and bed were intended for a custom client who had been looking for just the right pieces for a while.

The pieces came as part of a set that also included a vanity and the seller didn’t want to break them up so I purchased all three.  The vanity has been waiting patiently out in the carriage house for a makeover ever since and I finally got to it last weekend.

Here is the winter-y ‘before’.

The vanity was in worse shape than the other two pieces.  If you look closely, you can see that the lowest round part of the leg on the far right of the photo was broken off.  There were actually 4 of these round sections broken off of the various feet.  Ken helped me glue them back on.  In addition, the veneer inside the knee hole was badly damaged on one side.  The drawer fronts also had quite a bit of veneer damage.  In other words, this piece was an excellent candidate for a paint job.

I took my inspiration for the color scheme from this beautiful nightstand that was painted by Dana at circadee.

Isn’t it gorgeous?  It’s painted in MMS milk paint in two of the new European colors, Layla’s Mint and Marzipan.  Fortunately, I had just stocked up on those two colors up at the Round Barn.

Here is my finished result.

My Layla’s Mint looks a little more green than the inspiration piece, but I still love how it turned out.  I highlighted the details on the piece in Marzipan, which is sort of an almond color.

I got a lot of great chipping too.

The hardware that came with this piece is lovely.  I debated adding some rub n’ buff in gold like Dana did on her nightstand, but in the end I just cleaned mine up and waxed them with the MMS furniture wax.  I took a side by side pic so you could see the difference a little clear wax makes.

I always love keeping original hardware whenever possible.  It just works so much better than the new stuff.  Let me take a moment to tell you about escutcheon pins.  Are you familiar?  They are the little bitty nails that hold a drawer pull like this one in place and keep it from spinning around.  You can see the little hole for the escutcheon pin on this one at that little point just below that center detail.  See it?  Often times these pins are missing on old furniture.  You can then usually see damage around the drawer pull made by the pull spinning around.  You can see that on this dresser I brought home last winter.

See those circle shaped groves around the hardware?  People will try to tighten the screw to keep the pull from spinning, but really you need to just replace the pin.

But, back to our vanity.

I love the shape of the mirror on this one.  Very unique and lovely.

Wouldn’t this piece be absolutely lovely in your dressing room?  Not lucky enough to have a dressing room?  Then perhaps in your guest room, or maybe your daughter’s room?  This one is for sale.  Ooops, sorry  you missed it, this one is sold.

I’ll leave you with one last ‘before and after’.