q is for quandie

I am almost done with the hutch from Buffalo (that’s Minnesota, not New York).  I haven’t put the glass back in the doors yet.  I broke two of the stops taking it out, so it’s going to be a bit putzy to fix, but meanwhile, it’s easier to take pictures sans glass anyway.

So, without further ado, here is the hutch.

As you can see, I used the colors from my pinterest inspiration as a jumping off point.  My grey is not as pale, and my interior is solid navy blue instead of navy with a damask stencil.  The grey is a 50/50 mix of MMS Trophy and Ironstone.  I pre-sanded to try and limit the chipping on this piece somewhat, but as you can see, I still got a lot of chipping.  This is so hard to predict with the MMS paint.  But, I think the chippyness works.

I replaced the plain wood knobs that came on the hutch with some vintage glass knobs that I had on hand.

The inside is painted in MMS Artissimo.  The interior was previously painted in a really unattractive harvest gold and I didn’t want that to show if the Artissimo chipped as much as the grey did, so I used the bonding agent.  I think this is the perfect hutch to show off a collection of ironstone.  The white just pops against the navy blue of the Artissimo.

I added a Paris stencil to the drawer front for that little extra je ne sais quoi.

There is the sweetest little shelf underneath the drawer with a lovely raised edge.

Here is a final before & after  (sidebar:  I won’t be putting the fretwork back in behind the glass, it was just a bit too frilly for my taste).

I have special plans for this hutch that will be revealed soon!  Stay tuned.

Hop into my time machine.  We are setting the dial way back to the 70’s.  That was when my family moved from Minnesota to Florida (yes, I came back to Minnesota, 11 years later).  I was about to go into 9^th grade, and was totally traumatized because I had to leave my BFF behind and start all over.  To cushion the blow, my mom let each of us kids decorate our new rooms.  We could choose wallpaper for one feature wall and a carpet color.  Naturally, I chose bright lime green and yellow for my color scheme.  Who wouldn’t?  It was the 70’s.

My wallpaper was very glossy and had yellow tulips with lime green leaves on a white background.  The carpet?  Lime green plush, of course.  Those of you who knew me back in the day are now smirking because you are remembering my citrus hued paradise, right?

I had one of those blonde bedroom sets with the bookcase headboard and a long low dresser.  This was when ‘antiquing’ furniture was in.  Does anyone else remember this technique?  To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how it worked, but I think you painted a basecoat color (in my case, more lime green) and then added a very streaky antiquing glaze on top.  It was all the rage, and I’m sure I was thrilled that my mom was willing to do this to my furniture.

I thought I was going to have to describe the room and hope that you could picture it because I couldn’t find any photos, but then I mentioned it to my friend Annie who was sure she had some somewhere.  She dug around and found this!

This, my friends, is Annie herself!  Back when we endlessly took ‘super model’ pictures of each other.  And yes, if you’re wondering, this is the same Annie that is in the kitchen photo.  There is my wallpaper in all its glory, and my ‘antiqued’ headboard.  Pay no attention to the Shawn Cassidy poster on the wall.  I did not kiss him goodnight every night before bed, I swear.  Isn’t my yellow swag light ‘da bomb?

Well, enough nostalgia, flash forward to a week or so ago when I picked up a dresser that is very similar to the one I had back then.  A mid-century blonde (dear lord, I could be talking about myself).

I definitely won’t be antiquing it in lime green.  But … I am thinking of COLOR.  I love what people are doing with tangerine, but am not sure how well it sells.

I also love the retro shades of green.  Not quite the 70’s lime green, leaning more towards avocado.  One point in favor of this color is the fact that I already have the paint.  I used it on ‘the Hannigan’.

Or I could return to my old standby, turquoise.  People seem to love it.  Heck, I adore most any shade of aqua.  But raise your hand if you are sick of seeing me paint stuff turquoise!

I won’t hold it against you if you raised your hand.

No matter what color I pick, I plan to crank the 70’s tunes (maybe even a little Shawn Cassidy) and sing along while I paint it and remember fun times circa 1978, compliments of Annie’s foray into her scrapbooks and several lost hours spent scanning and forwarding pics like this one of me and my dad.

Good times.  Thanks for digging these up Annie!

My idea of a perfect Friday date night involves driving around the Twin Cities with my hubby picking up furniture from Craigslist sellers.  This may not be everyone’s idea of romance, but I love it.  And he says he enjoys it too, and I’m pretty sure he’s not faking it.  We have quality one on one time in the truck while driving halfway across town.

Last weekend was no exception as we picked up three new items to work on.   However, with my sister’s visit and potentially some Miss Mustard Seed retailer training coming up, I may not have time to paint furniture for a week or two.  So, I thought I’d show you what I found and you can have fun imagining what I might do with them.

First up is the dresser that we picked up in Linden Hills.

I’d only been to Linden Hills during garage sale season, never in the winter.  I wish I had taken my camera!  There were twinkle lights in all the trees and with our recent snowfall it was the most charming winter wonderland.   Sometimes I get the history of items when I buy them.  In this case, the dresser was a family piece.  It originally belonged to the seller’s grandparents.  It was one of those pieces that everyone wants kept in the family, but no one actually wants to be the one to keep it.  He said his siblings wanted him to just store it in the basement rather than sell it, but if you had seen the staircase to the basement, you’d understand why he refused to do this.

This dresser is a beast, 26″ deep and 54″ wide.  Yet it is oddly low at 32″ which is just a tad higher than a desk would be.  It has a mirror that is 36″ tall though, so adding it would make the entire thing nearly 6′ tall.   The mirror is extremely heavy, and doesn’t seem to mount very securely.  I won’t be putting it back on.

It has this very slender drawer in the middle, only 3″ deep.  I picture it being used for linens.  I suppose you could fill it with lingerie, but it just doesn’t seem like a drawer meant for clothing.  Whatever this dresser was originally meant for, I think it would make the perfect perch for a widescreen TV.  It’s low enough to be at a comfortable height for viewing, and wide enough that a giant TV won’t look out of place on top of it.  I just need to decide what color to paint it.  I confess that once again I really want to paint it in Kitchen Scale.  What is wrong with me?  I also think it would be lovely in Artissimo.  Or maybe the new MMS color, Trophy, which is a lovely grey.

Next, we have this little French cane back chair.

I don’t do many chairs.  I find that they take twice as long to paint, and sell for half as much as a dresser.  But this one was just too fantastic to pass up, and for a while now I’ve been wanting to try some simple upholstery work to see if it’s as easy as it looks (don’t burst my bubble and tell me it isn’t).  Plus, my friend Sue agreed to help me with any sewing that might be necessary.  In addition, my reader Victoria is working on some chairs and she got me thinking about chairs again (how are your chairs coming along Victoria?).  Last, but not least, Miss Mustard Seed has several chairs in this style and I think they are seeing a resurgence in popularity as a result.  So I decided to go for it.

Finally there is this unique little hutch.  I’ll admit, I paid too much for it and we drove all the way to Buffalo to pick it up (about an hour away).  I negotiated as much as possible for a better price and the price was fair, if not a bargain.  As I explained to Mr. Q on the way home, I have a purchasing philosophy that goes like this.  About 75% of what I buy to resell needs to be bargain basement cheap, something that I can repair/repaint/repurpose and make a good profit.  However, about 25% of what I buy is just something that I think is fantastic and even if I won’t make much profit on it, I must have it!

Thing is, I have been drooling over this pale grey hutch (below) on pinterest for months now, and never thought I would find anything even remotely like it.  The one I found isn’t quite the same, but I think it can be nearly as fab.  At least I hope so.

So, that’s the line up.  My goal will be to get all of these items painted by the end of February.  Wish me luck!

I haven’t been painting with the Miss Mustard Seed milk paint for all that long.  I was determined to live without it because, let’s face it, it is pricey.  Then last summer at the Oronoco Gold Rush, I purchased a sample of Eulalie’s Sky.  Just a tiny sample, mind you.  I thought I would try it out on a picture frame, or some similar small item.  Just to see what all the fuss was about.

Then I came across the most darling little toy cupboard at a garage sale.  I so wish that I had taken a before picture of this for you, because it was in terrible shape.  The door was falling off, it had been painted black which was crackled to show white underneath.  It had giant fluorescent yellow knobs on the drawers.  Worst of all, it was $20.  In garage sale money, this is a lot.  You know about garage sale money, right?  OK, it’s just regular money, but it’s the concept that prices that would seem a total bargain at a shop are outrageous at a garage sale.  I’m pretty sure that Jeanne thought I was nuts when I picked it up to purchase.

I decided this was the perfect candidate for a test of the milk paint.  I sanded the black paint off, mixed up the milk paint and gave it a go.  If I remember correctly, I ended up doing about 4 coats of paint.  I may have definitely added a little too much water.

Isn’t it sweet?  Inside you will find my grandmother’s tiny toy tea set, and some vintage toy kitchen utensils.

I was really impressed by how easy it was to distress this paint.  No more heavy duty sanding, this just needed a light touch of hand sanding and gave these results.

P.S.  I seem to have a penchant for tiny furniture.  I also found this cute little pink cupboard at a garage sale and it works perfectly for housing my collection of washi tape in my craft room.  So, if you see any fab vintage toy furniture at a garage sale … just back off.  It’s mine.

I know it sounds cliche, but furniture speaks to me.  No, I’m not crazy, I don’t really hear voices in my head.  But I like to get a feel for a piece of furniture before I decide how to paint it.  This one wanted to be indigo.  Like the Pottery Barn catalog I showed you earlier.  This was the intended recipient of my mixology experiment.

It didn’t quite get there.  It’s a bit darker than I imagined, which is totally my fault because I finished with hemp oil and I should have waxed.  I’d even purchased the Miss Mustard Seed wax just for this piece, so why did I reach for the hemp oil?  Was I tired?  Was it that glass of wine I had with dinner?  I don’t know … but it is what it is.

You can see that I got plenty of chipping on this piece.  I also sanded off a lot more paint than I intended.  Blame that on the wine too, although the reality is you can blame it on working at night with inadequate lighting and the impaired vision of someone in my age bracket.  I have found that even with ‘cheaters’ sometimes my vision just doesn’t cut it at night anymore.

This chippy distressed look is exactly what I like, but I know it’s not for everyone.  Hopefully I will find a buyer who loves it too.

I think in the right room it would be a masterpiece.  Add some more touches of indigo in some throw pillows or bed linens.  Lovely.