q is for quandie

Every once in a blue moon someone I know offers me free furniture.  They know that I refresh old furniture, and they just want to get rid of something.  I’m sure those of you who regularly re-do furniture have experienced this phenomenon.  It’s awesome.

Last Saturday a friend dropped off this piece.

Not terribly exciting, but kind of sweet and cottage-y.  I knew it would be much better without those drawer pulls.  I know that some people like this style pull, but not me.  I had just stocked up on clear glass knobs, and I knew they would bump up the ‘cute factor’ on this piece.

I took my color inspiration from this sweet white and yellow dresser painted by Janice at Fred and Bessie’s.  Seriously, how darling is this little number?

So, I pulled out my chalk paint.  I had to do a little custom mixing to get just the pale yellow I wanted, and to be honest the first time around the yellow was too pale for the white stenciled numbers.  So I darkened it up a bit and tried again.  And voila!

Dang, but it is cute!  Thank you Janice for the inspiration!

Since my piece had very little detail going for it (unlike the darling dresser that Janice painted), I knew I needed to jazz it up somehow.  I’m a long time fan of the numbered drawer look, so I went with that.  The stenciled numbers help distract from the grooves and dings from the old drawer pulls too (they are there, trust me).

I got these stencils from Maison de Stencils, you can order them here.  I used the 6″ by 6″, but they come in a smaller size as well.

I have to tell you that my skills with a drill have come a long way.  I’ve been studying Ken’s technique, and I feel like I did a pretty good job getting these new knobs in place.  However I did not make a template, and I know Ken would have.  I also definitely need a new drill, mine is crap.  I just can’t get the bit tight enough anymore.

I cheated a bit inside the drawers.  You see, I am not a fan of lining drawers.  Not only do I find it putzy to do, but I also feel that a couple of years down the road most types of lining look terrible.  I prefer to leave my drawers unlined, unless they are really awfully stained.  So, sometimes I just put pretty scrapbook paper in drawers and leave it loose.  The future owner of the piece can decide if they want a more permanent solution.  And that is what I did here.

That is October Afternoon paper, a company that I adore, which also happens to be local.  Check them out if you haven’t seen their stuff before!

When it came time to stage this baby, I was at a loss at first.  I don’t decorate with much yellow myself, so I didn’t have a lot of yellow props to choose from.  Plus, I felt like this piece is obviously perfect for a nursery, yet I don’t have anything particularly ‘baby like’ on hand either.  I was so wishing that I had snagged one of the fab vintage baby dresses that my friend Sue had at one of our last Carriage House sales, then I could have copied Janice’s idea and hung a baby dress from a knob.

Sue, do you have any left?  Let me know.  Maybe I need one to keep in my prop stash.

But anyway, the more I thought about it, the more things occurred to me … like I had some darling vintage baby shoes that I stashed away for the Carriage House sale.  And some of my vintage tablecloths had the right yellow in them.

Adding the green scale and a blue chair in the same pale tones worked well too.

So, there you go.  A good example of what a little paint and some new hardware can do for an old dresser.

Anyone need a darling little dresser for a nursery, or maybe a child’s room?  Or … really, this would be cute in a sun room or anywhere else that you just need a pop of cheery pale yellow.

I think the end of the year is always a good time to reflect on what we did over the past year, and think about what we want to accomplish over the next.  One of my biggest accomplishments for 2014 was salvaging over 65 pieces of furniture!  First of all, let me say, even I think that is just plain crazy!  Seriously.  How in the world did I manage that?  Well, we’ve already established that I get a lot of help from Quandie’s cast of characters.  But, aside from that, I also have it down to a science.  I think it saves a lot of time when you know the products you are working with, the steps it takes to renovate a piece of furniture and you have all of your tools and supplies handy and ready to go.  I can also crank them out much faster in the summer when not only can I have 3 or 4 pieces going at once in the Carriage House, but I can work until 9 or 10 pm after coming home from the day job and still have plenty of light.  Things slow down in winter when I only have the space to work on one piece at a time, and photo shoots are relegated to weekends which is the only time I’m home during daylight hours.

To be fair, there are those who might also suggest that I don’t have much of a social life, which just might be true.  I also have a husband who does most of the cooking and cleaning.  And let me also point out, I have 4 mile commute.  Never underestimate the value of living close to your place of work.  I have a solid extra one to two hours per day compared to some of my co-workers who commute longer distances.  Of course, there is also the big one … no children.  That’ll free up some time.

But really, when it comes down to it, my real secret is that I just simply love rehabbing furniture.  I get excited about each new piece.  On weekends I will wake up at 7 a.m. and jump out of bed with anticipation.  I will exhaust myself with a 12 hour marathon of painting, and still have to force myself to put down the brush at the end of the day.  In the end the answer is, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

So, here it is the end of the year, and we’ve established that I have lots of projects under my belt for 2014, so how about we all pick a favorite?

I’m not sure that I can narrow my choice down to just one though.

I love the way this stenciled dresser turned out, and the crystal knobs worked perfectly without distracting from the stencil.

But the black magic dresser was also one of my faves.  I love the little mirror on the back, and the contrast between the black paint and the wood details.

This yellow dresser was also one of my faves.  Love the yellow and white together.

The minty fresh vanity was also a favorite of mine.  I loved how the custom mixed MMS milk paint turned out, and the little unexpected pop of vintage wallpaper inside the knee hole.

Then there was the first piece that I used vintage wallpaper on, the linen press.  This one, by the way, was my top viewed post of the year at 1,503 views.

Yep, I can’t pick just one.  That would be like picking a favorite child.  Let’s call these my top 5.  And now it is your turn, and I expect more from you.  I expect you to just pick one.  Check out my ‘fab furniture’ tab and pick out your favorite for the year.  You can choose from any of them, not necessarily just my five faves.  Please leave me a comment saying which one is your favorite, and maybe something about why you picked it.  I’m going to draw a random comment and send some sort of stash of goodies (yet to be determined) to the winner (deadline to get your name in is Friday, January 2)!

And one last thing as we draw a close to 2014.  Thank you so much to each of you who followed my blog in 2014, and even those who aren’t following, but just randomly reading along.  And an even bigger thank you to each of you who took the time to leave a total of 2,282 comments, and especially my top five commenters (hmmm, not a real word apparently) Victoria, Ginene, Darrielle, Terri and my sis, Debbie!  You guys rock!

Happy New Year everyone!  See you next year!

Mr. Q and I picked up this dresser the eve before Christmas Eve, and it couldn’t have gone more smoothly.  I was taking a bit of a leap because the craigslist ad for this one had one tiny, dark picture that just showed about half of the dresser, and one line of text that said “Old dresser for sale.”  And that was it.  But the price was right, and it was only about 20 minutes away, so we went for it.

I love these kinds of CL transactions.  I show up on time (I always try to show up on time), the seller is waiting for me, the dresser is empty and ready to go (in this case, already sitting out in the breezeway), I look it over, the drawers work, the hardware is all there.  I hand over the cash, we load it up, and are heading back home, all literally within about five minutes.  Slick.  And I came home with this.

It was in fairly decent shape, but the finish on the top was looking pretty rough.  There are a couple of spots with veneer problems too.  Definitely nothing that a little paint and wax can’t fix though.

I knew right away that this was the perfect candidate for milk paint.  It needed a chippy, distressed, authentic farmhouse finish.  For some reason I really felt like going with a lighter color on this one.  I’ve done a lot of black lately, and maybe because it has been so gloomy here, I just needed to lighten up.  So I decided to mix up another batch of the mint green milk paint that I used on the minty fresh vanity last summer.

I think it helped create the perfect vintage look for this one.

I considered highlighting some of the detail with white paint, but once I had it painted I realized that I prefer the way the design looks all in one color.  It reminds me of a butterfly.

  The top had to be stripped, even if I was going to paint it.  There were numerous water rings whose outlines would have shown through the paint.  Once I had the finish stripped, the wood was so pretty I decided to just wax it with the CeCe Caldwell dark wax.

This was my first effort at stripping something other than just a flat surface (because of that detailed back piece), and I was very happy with the result.  You probably don’t remember this, but one of my New Year’s resolutions for 2014 was to work on my stripping skills (ha!) and I feel like they have come a long way this year.

Are you digging my vintage wallpaper background?  I have to chuckle a little, but just last week my friend Sue and I both admitted that we have a problem in common.  We both tend to hang onto our favorite ‘supplies’ rather than using them.  Do you do that?  Sort of hoard those things that really speak to you, even though you just keep them stored away somewhere?  This wallpaper is one of those things.  I really love it, so I hesitate to actually use it on something.  The color was perfect for behind this dresser though, and I’m still considering using it to line the drawers … except I’m not sure I can part with it.

In fact, I would prefer not to part with this dresser either.  In case you haven’t noticed, this is exactly my style.  Vintage, with a little bit of curvy feminine detail.  Just enough chipping to look aged without being over the top.  Yep, I love it.  But, there is no room in the inn, so this one will have to be sold.

Oh, one last thing, did you notice the original drawer pulls?  Their shape mirrors the shape of the raised detail on the upper two drawers.  I had to keep them for that reason, even though I considered replacing them with clear glass knobs.

So, what do you think of a little fresh wintergreen for brightening up some otherwise rather dull winter days?

While moving all of my painting supplies indoors for winter, I noticed that I had several small jars of the same (or very similar) color.  None of them would paint an entire piece of furniture though.  So it occurred to me to just mix them all together.

Two of these were sample size pots of different brands of chalk paint; the Americana Decor paint is from Home Depot (yep, did you know they are carrying a chalk paint now?) and the Cottage Paint (bottom, back) is from our local Hirschfields.  The Annie Sloan can just had a tiny bit left in the bottom.  I mixed all of these together in a Talenti gelato container.  Not only is their gelato delicious, but the containers have a fab screw on lid and work great for mixing and storing paint in smaller quantities.  I can’t really think of a better excuse for eating banana chocolate swirl gelato, can you?

Once I had these all mixed together, I had more than enough for a dresser.

I bet you don’t even recognize this one.  It’s Humpty Dumpty!  Remember him?  He started out like this…

And then Ken fixed him up to look like this…

Finished, he looks like this …

Now for the choices I made, which were inspired by several comments left on my first post about this piece (thanks CJ, Victoria and Darrielle).  First, I stripped the top using a non-toxic (less toxic?) citrus stripper.  When I decided to do this, I wasn’t sure if I would follow it up with some dark Java gel stain, or just wax.  After removing the old finish, I knew that I didn’t want to go as dark as the Java, so I pulled out a sample size pot of CeCe Caldwell’s Dark Aging Wax.  It is a rich brown color, compared to the MMS antiquing wax, which leans more towards black.

I sanded the top lightly by hand with 220 grit sandpaper, and then rubbed on the wax.  The wax added a beautiful richness to the top of the dresser without going too dark.  See…

Gorgeous, right?

I really debated the color and brand of paint for this one.  I seriously considered the MMS Artissimo.  I’ve done a couple of Eastlake style dressers in it, and they both turned out lovely.  Then, I thought maybe MMS Boxwood, mainly because I thought the dark green would be festive for the Christmas season, and fun to stage with some red and green holiday stuff.  In the end though, I decided to go with a color that I know sells really well.  And why wouldn’t it?  It is a beautiful color.

After painting the body of the dresser in my mixed up paint, I decided to go ahead and paint the hardware.  Darrielle was right, since I had all of the hardware I should make it work rather than replacing it.  And Victoria reminded me that painting the hardware was a good option.  Once I covered the brassy gold color with paint, the hardware was actually quite pretty.

I also decided I had to come up with some keyhole escutcheons as CJ suggested.  The holes for the original escutcheons were just too large to ignore.  Unfortunately I only had two matching escutcheons, not three.  So I improvised by adding a number plate to the top drawer.

Yes, I know that escutcheon is crooked, it’s not permanently adhered yet.  I had to get some pictures done while I could, so I just slapped them on temporarily.  We literally had a 20 minute window of sunshine on Christmas Eve, and otherwise have had nothing but gloomy overcast days for what feels like weeks.

This dresser has the pin and cove dovetail joints that I’ve talked about before, so this piece likely dates to the late Victorian period (late 1800’s).

Ken pulled out all the stops when he put this dresser together.  He even reattached the top using dowels and glue.  The next time he does this for me, I should really get pictures of that process to share with you.  But, my point here is that this dresser is now as solid as can be.  It does not wiggle or jiggle in the slightest.  The drawers slide as smooth as silk. This dresser can easily last someone another 100 years now.  So if any of you local readers need a beautiful Duck Egg blue dresser, let me know!  This one is available.  Sorry, this one is sold.

I’m returning to milk paint on my next dresser, which I hope to get painted this weekend.  Check back next week to see it!