simpler than simplicity.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

A while back I picked up another simple wooden tote at a garage sale.

I love that the end pieces are curved at the top rather than cut straight like so many of them.

I planned to just do my usual, add paint and maybe some transfers.

Like I did on this one …

And this one …

And this one …

And even this one …

Although technically that is an I.O.D. paint inlay, not a transfer.

So after cleaning and then painting it with some of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, I went through my transfer stash to find just the right thing.

It wasn’t until I started holding bits of transfers up against the tote that I realized the sides were really rather short.  In fact, too short for most of the florals that I had thought about using.

Then I saw my old re.design with prima Simplicity transfer, which is a black toile.  I’m not even sure if you can get this one anymore.  I know there are several other options for a toile transfer out there though, if you’re looking for one.

I had used Simplicity on the upper drawers of a dresser once.

I thought it was pretty, but ultimately it didn’t sell and I ended up sanding it off and re-doing the dresser.

Maybe that was a little bit of foreshadowing as to how this project was going to go.

Or maybe I am just doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Either way, I pulled out Simplicity and decided to try it on this tote.

It was a little tricky to get the transfer situated as one full piece, so I ended up cutting out separate elements of the toile design and adding them one by one.

It was working out fairly well, as I wrapped the toile all the way around.

But then I got to the last side, and decided that I really wanted to use the roosters …

Ummm … yeah … maybe not my finest moment.  There is just too much white space all around them.  And they are almost centered, which gives them too much importance in the overall design.

Honestly, I just didn’t like it.  At all.

You know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try again.  So I sanded it off and started over with a fresh coat of Drop Cloth!

Then I decided to go much simpler than … well … Simplicity.

I just added the word ‘SEEDS’ from the I.O.D. Gregory’s Catalogue paint inlay.

It was the perfect fit.

Also, FYI, this is the 2nd use of this inlay.  I used the full inlay once already on this piece …

So I was OK with just taking out that one word and using it on this tote.  I can still use the rest of the inlay a 2nd time (and in fact, I do have plans for it).

I will note, as I have before, that I was unable to get the inlay off this tote in one piece, so that 2nd use will be it for this one.

After sealing the inlay with some clear matte spray sealer, I used Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat over the rest of the piece.  Then, while I had it out, I also used it to apply some re.design with prima decoupage tissue to the bottom inside.

So, in the end, it’s a much simpler look.

And I really like it.

How about you?

a visit to tangletown.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

I used to love going to the Tangletown neighborhood garage sale, it was always one of my favorites.  Unfortunately, it’s one that bit the dust during Covid.  The last one was held in 2019, and they haven’t brought it back.  Such a bummer.

But last weekend I found myself in Tangletown once again, this time at Tangletown Gardens.

If you are local, and looking for some garden inspiration, this is a spot you should check out.  It would be better if you’ve recently won the lottery, because I’m not going to sugar coat it, their prices can be high.

That may be partly because they have a lot of unique offerings that you won’t find at your typical garden center, like this Tibouchina grandiflora, or Princess Flower.

They have this one planted in what I’m going to call their boulevard (a.k.a. verge, tree-belt, the section between the sidewalk and the street, what do you call it?) border.

More on those borders in a minute, but as for that Princess Flower, it was $24.99.  I did a bit of googling and found that it is grown as a shrub in tropical climates, it’s hardy in zones 9 to 11.  So clearly not here in Minnesota, meaning that we would grow it as an annual.  That’s certainly a pricey annual!

But really, despite the high prices, Tangletown Gardens provides a wealth of inspiration starting with the various planters scattered around.

You definitely aren’t going to find your traditional petunias here.  I like the use of Scotch moss in the planter above, at least I think that’s what that is.

I also like that they used birch logs in this next planter.

Of course, we’ve all seen birch used for winter arrangements, but turns out it looks pretty good in summer too.

I also like how they’ve carried over the plants in this next trio of planters to the ground surrounding them, it’s as though they’ve spilled out of the planters and onto the ground.

Let’s take a closer look at the plants themselves.

I believe that bright yellow grass is Hakonechloa, or Japanese forest grass.  The front center plant seems to be a coleus, and there is a cala lily behind it.  In the upper right of the photo is an upright fuchsia.  Have you seen these?  I actually bought one by mistake earlier this year.  I was rather annoyed when I got it home and read the tag because I wanted the trailing version for my front window box.  I ended up putting the upright version in the Gregory’s Catalogue bed planter and now, a couple of months later, I’m realizing that I really like it.  I may buy some on purpose next year.

As you can see, it’s holding its own height-wise amongst coleus and ferns.

Although the planters at Tangletown were fantastic, the star of the show for me was those boulevard borders that I mentioned earlier.

They were nothing short of spectacular.

Isn’t this a fun little plant …

I should have paid attention to what that was called, but unfortunately I did not.

They used a wide variety of plants in these borders, both annuals and perennials, ranging from your typical things like zinnias, gomphrena, celosia, grasses, and coleus.  But they also had some more unusual things like that Princess Flower I shared earlier.

They also used a plant that I’m finding is super trendy right now, Angel Wings, or Senecio candicans.  It’s the plant below with the big, silvery wings … I mean leaves.

Isn’t that gorgeous?  As I mentioned last week, I’m not typically a fan of silvery foliage because it looks like powdery mildew to me, but I might make an exception for this one.

They also used one of my new favorites, Verbena bonariensis.  It’s the tall, wispy plant with purple flowers …

I’d been seeing a lot of this plant on my favorite British gardening show, Gardener’s World, and although I looked all over for it at my usual nurseries I couldn’t find it at any of them.  I did end up finding it at the Abrahamson’s in St. Croix Falls, but I now know that I can also get it at Tangletown Gardens.

The main reason I was visiting Tangletown Gardens this time around was to look for scented geraniums.  My friend Jackie, who loves to grow plants for their scent, told me that this was the place to find them.  And she was right.

They had quite a number of different varieties.

I know it’s weirdly confusing, but the flowers most of us call geraniums aren’t true perennial geraniums at all, they are pelargoniums.  Basically geraniums are perennial plants like this one (also called Cranesbill) …

or this one (Geranium macrorrhizum, or Bigroot Geranium) …

Pelargoniums are annuals usually grown for their flowers, or in this case, their scent.

In my opinion, most scented geraniums are not grown for their looks.  They tend to look a bit spindly, and their flowers aren’t usually very impressive.  So keeping that in mind, I chose both of the ones I purchased strictly by smelling them.  Scented geraniums come in lots of different scents like apricot, chocolate mint, rose, peppermint and nutmeg, but I chose two that both have a lemon scent.

First up is Pelargonium ‘Mabel Grey’.

And the 2nd one I chose is Pelargonium ‘Prince Rupert’ variegated.

I’ve placed these on the tiered plant stand that I found at the Fridley garage sales (after giving it a quick coat of black spray paint).

It’s sitting in between my newspaper roller planter of succulents and my galvanized tub herb garden.  You may remember that I mentioned having chosen a couple of the herbs for their scent as well; lemon verbena and lavender.

Our outdoor dining table is right next to this, and this is often where I sit to have coffee in the morning.  Mr. Q and I frequently eat dinner out here too.  These scented plants are best enjoyed up close and personal.  I find that you have to brush against them to release their fragrance, so this is the perfect spot for them.

Although they were priced just a little higher than what I would normally pay for an annual at $7.99 each, I plan to over-winter them as houseplants.  I hope to get many years out of them.

So tell me locals, have you been to Tangletown Gardens?  Or have any of you grown scented geraniums?  Leave a comment and let me know.

some mid-summer garage saling.

Published on by Quandie25 Comments

Last Thursday I headed out with opK (that’s oar painting Karen) to check out some garage sales in neighboring Stillwater.  But before we got to the garage sales, we stopped off at a vintage sale that I’ve been to off and on over the years.

In fact, I even shared a couple of blog posts about it back in 2016 and 2017.

They always have awesome vintage stuff, although I don’t usually buy much.

This time around I picked up some pretty bark cloth fabric from the ‘bargain tent’.

I thought this would be perfect for upholstering the seat on the vintage child-sized green wicker chair that I picked up a while back.  The chair is the perfect shade of vintage green and I loved the authentically distressed arms, so I didn’t paint it.

After soaking the barkcloth in some oxy-clean and letting it dry in the sun, I ironed it and then stapled it over some batting and a thin plywood seat that Ken cut to fit the chair.

This thing is so stinkin’ cute you guys.

I really struggled to come up with a way to show the size in my photos, it’s only 22″ tall, 18″ wide and 16″ deep.  The best I could come up with was adding a typically sized step ladder into the photo.

I also purchased a set of metal plant i.d. stakes.

I used to have a handful of these and earlier this spring I decided that they’d be perfect for labeling my herbs, but I couldn’t find them anywhere.  I then shopped around my local nurseries and hobby stores looking for more, but didn’t have any success.  So I was happy to find some at the barn sale.

The tricky part about these is finding a good way to add a plant name temporarily, but not so temporarily that it washes off in the rain.  I’ve discovered that painting them with some of Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky, and then writing on them with a chalk pencil tends to work out great.

You’d think that the chalk pencil would wash off, but it really doesn’t.  Of course, we’d also have to actually be getting some rain in order for that to be a problem.

After checking out the barn sale, we headed to a few garage sales in Stillwater.  I didn’t find a whole lot, but I seemed to find just one thing to purchase at each sale starting with this enamelware coffee pot.

It’s missing the glass percolator thingie from the lid, but that makes it perfect to use as a vase.  It also has some sort of really heavy crust built up inside it.  I’m not sure what that’s all about, but for that reason I chose to add a glass vase to hold the water and flowers.

After adding one of the French Labels from re.design with prima to the pot, I filled the glass with water and placed it inside the coffee pot.  All that was left was to fill it up with some flowers from the garden.

At another sale I picked up a small, vintage rake for $2.

It’s quite petite, but I’m not sure it’s small enough to have been a child’s toy.  I could have left it yellow, I’m not totally opposed to the rusty patina.  But I’m not a big fan of yellow, so I decided to paint it green.

I painted it with a coat of chalk style paint first, to help my milk paint stick.  Then I painted it with Sweet Pickens In a Pickle.  Once the paint was dry, I sanded lightly to distress the edges, which brought back some of that yellow.  Then I gave the entire rake a coat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

This rake could be purely decorative, it would look great just hanging on the wall like the pair of kid sized tools I have in my potting shed.

But it also would be totally functional.  I have a small rake like this that I use to pull leaves out from between perennials in the garden.  It’s super handy.  And yes, this rake is for sale if any of you are interested (check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details).

At the next sale I purchased this little metal conversion chart.

When I turned it over, it still had the original Hearth & Hand logo on the back, and the Target price tag of $7.99.  But I really thought it was cute, and I found a spot for it hanging in front of my cutting board in the kitchen.

Last, but not least, I picked up this … thingie.

Do you know what it is?  The newspaper is a clue.

When I first glanced at it, I thought it was part of a ringer washer (it has a crank on the other side).  But that definitely wasn’t right.  Whatever it was, I thought it would make an awesome planter.

It didn’t have a price tag on it, so I asked the proprietor ‘how much?’ and he said $3.  Sold!  He also told me that it was a newspaper log roller.  These were once used to roll newspapers into logs for the fireplace.  Sure enough, I googled it and there are plenty of them out there.  I even found a YouTube video on how to use it.

After hitting up the garage sales, we stopped off at Abrahamson’s Nurseries and I picked up a few plants to put in it.

After giving the roller a good cleaning and then protecting the wooden handles with some clear wax, I even went so far as to plant them up.

But I quickly realized that even though it looked great initially, most of those plants would grow much bigger and totally envelope the newspaper roller.  In addition, I don’t think the roller holds enough dirt to keep them happy.

So I pulled them all out and filled it with succulents instead.

I hesitated before doing so because succulents have to be brought inside for the winter here, and this ‘planter’ will be difficult to water without making a mess.  I may just pull the succulents out in the fall and put them in regular pots to save them over the winter, we’ll see.

But for now, I love the way they look and thus I’m calling this my find of the day!

Not bad for 3 bucks, right?

I’m curious, what would you have picked as the find of the day?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a front window box fail.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

As you may know, I have a window box along the front of my house.  Here’s a picture of it from last year.

At 11′ long, it ends up taking quite a few plants to fill it with annuals every spring.  Not to mention mums for fall …

and evergreens for winter.

I find that there are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to filling window boxes; at one end you have the gardener (not naming any names here) who plants exactly the same thing in their planters every year without fail.

Then there are gardeners like Erin from the Impatient Gardener who can’t stand to do the same thing every year and thus tries something new each spring.

I think I fall somewhere in between.  When I find something that works I like to stick with it.  But I also don’t want to fall into a gardening rut.  So this year I decided to step outside my comfort zone and experiment with some new things in the front window box.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the resulting combination is a bit of a fail.

Before I start listing the plants for you, I’ll point out that this window box faces north and is in full shade which limits the plant options considerably.

My starting out point was a Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein that I found at the Amish nursery in Wisconsin that nnK and I visited in spring.

I’ve grown this plant as a house plant in the past, but had never put it outside in a planter.  These plants were just loaded with gorgeous purple flowers when I saw them at the nursery so I thought they’d add a fabulous pop of color.  And actually, they did look great for about 6 or 7 weeks, but lately the blooms have petered off quite a bit.  After doing a bit of research I learned that temperatures above 80° will cause that.  So … maybe not a great choice for an outdoor planter in summer.  They also haven’t grown much, so they are getting swallowed up by some of the more vigorous plants.

My next ‘mistake’ was taking the advice of a random stranger at the garden center who suggested that Dusty Miller would be a great companion to the Streptocarpus.

I hadn’t grown this plant in forever.  I can remember planting it in the ground way back when I was new to gardening.  So when she suggested it, I thought ‘why not?’  After all, I’m experimenting with some new options.

But I have to say, I don’t really love it.  It’s doing great, but I think I’m just not a fan of ‘silver’ foliage.

Which leads me to my next plant choice, Dichondra Silver Falls.

I’d been hearing about this plant on various gardening vlogs lately and I needed something to tie in with the Dusty Miller, so I gave it a shot.  I will say that it is also performing exceptionally well, I mean, just look at it (photo above).  It clearly loves this spot.

But again, I don’t love that silver foliage.  You know what I think it is?  To me it looks like these plants have a bad case of powdery mildew.

I also opted to add a second pop of color with a couple of Amstel Netja Dark begonias.

An Amstel begonia is a cross between a tuberous begonia and a wax begonia.  Again, I hadn’t grown begonias in years.  I’d never had good luck with them in the past, I tend to overwater them leading to root rot.  They are rather picky about not sitting in wet soil.  But these newer varieties are improvements over those I planted in the past, so why not give it a shot.

And once again, I was drawn in by that gorgeous color.  It’s always tricky to find a plant that will bloom reliably in the shade.

Although these have done fairly well with continuous blooms for color, they also haven’t really put on any additional bulk.  Much like the Streptocarpus, they aren’t holding their own against the other plants in the box.

I did put a couple of old favorites in the window box too including a Dark Eyes fuchsia.

These always do really well in this north facing location.  They tend to be messy plants, dropping those flowers all over the place, so I wouldn’t use these in a spot where they would hang over a deck or patio.  But there is a garden beneath this window box and the flowers all fall down under the plants below.

Finally, I also planted some Diamond Frost Euphorbia in the window box.

It always makes a great filler, but this year it is quickly taking over and almost smothering the other plants.

So, in the end, I’m calling this year’s front window box a bit of a fail.  Although most of the plants look rather pretty up close, in combination and from a distance they just look rather anemic to me.

I don’t think I would repeat any of them, except the fuchsia.

I would use the euphorbia again too, especially if I ever decide to do another all white and green combo like the one I did in 2014.

That one included the euphorbia along with white impatiens, a white caladium, some jester ferns and some ivy.  And it was one of my favorites.

It was a fun one to transition into fall too.  I simply pulled out the impatiens and added white mums and pumpkins, and some flower heads that were turning green from one of my hydrangeas.

I have to give the award for ‘most spectacular combination’ in a window box to this one from 2021 though.

That combination of coleus, sweet potato vine and lemon coral sedum just pops.

There were some white New Guinea impatiens in that mix too, but as you can see they got rather swallowed up as well.

In the end, I learned some valuable lessons from the choices I made for this year’s window box.  I think next year I may try another all white combination again.  In the meantime, I may try to salvage this year’s combo by pulling out the Streptocarpus and the begonias and replacing them with something else.  We’ll see.

But how about you?  Have you learned any lessons from garden fails?  Leave a comment and let me know.

big projects and little projects.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

You may have noticed that I didn’t have a blog post on Monday, or on Wednesday (maybe someone noticed?).  As it turned out, for the last week or so I had a number of irons in the fire, but nothing that was both completed and felt blog-worthy.

The first big project was fixing/replacing a section of our very rickety privacy fence.

Last winter the 24′ section that was 3′ tall behind my fern bed toppled over.  It was pretty well disguised by the ferns that grow tall enough to hide it, but here’s a photo that will give you just a hint of what it looked like.

Those ferns tend to die back early, so it was time for some sort of solution.  We debated just pulling out that section and going fenceless there.  That option seemed pretty reasonable when looking at the area in summer when the ferns are taller than the fence was anyway.

But that’s only good for about 3 months out of the year, for the rest of the year we needed something to block the multiple vehicles in the neighbor’s driveway.  Luckily I have some really awesome neighbors who are good at DIY, and have lots of tools, and access to cheap labor (high school kids who need a little cash).  So all of that added up to replacing that 3′ tall section of fence with a 6′ tall section instead.

It was still a big job and took about two days to complete.

The other big job I’m working on is painting that hutch that I purchased a few weeks back at a garage sale.

I have it mostly painted, but I’m waiting on some supplies for finishing it up, so it’s kind of at a standstill for now.

Meanwhile, I did squeeze in a couple of smaller projects in between the bigger ones, such as this cutting board.

It was a fun little project, but there is really only so much you can say about painting a cutting board, so it didn’t seem worthy of its own blog post.

I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage, then I added the artichokes from I.O.D.’s Melange paint inlay.  Then I felt like it needed just a little something more, so I added the ‘Albert Ruoff’ and the ‘1842.’ from one of the 8″ German Grain Sack stencils from ellen j goods.

Another small project I completed this week was this pair of shoe forms.

I purchased these at a garage sale quite some time ago … dare I say several years ago?

If these had a really cool original patina, I would have left them alone.  But I thought they could be improved with a paint job.  So sometime last year I painted one of them in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and one of them their Midnight Sky.  Then I attempted to add some transfers, but instead of the transfer sticking to the paint, the paint stuck to the transfers and pulled right off.  I suspect that these forms had been ‘spruced up’ with some kind of oil or wax before I purchased them, thus causing adherence problems.

So I ending up pushing them to the back of the shelf where they sat for the last year or so.

But I pulled them out recently and gave them both a good sanding.  I thought the one that was originally painted in Drop Cloth looked pretty good, so I simply added a crown and some small wording from a Tim Holtz transfer.

Wouldn’t it have been more fun if that transfer said ‘non-collector’??  LOL.

I decided to paint up the 2nd one in a similar way.  So I gave it two coats of Drop Cloth, and then sanded heavily to distress.  I followed that up with another crown and some wording.

I also added a little number to the heel.

And there you have it.  Two big projects, and two small projects.

Hopefully I’ll have a few more fun things to share with you guys next week, so be sure to stay tuned!

a hint of lime.

Published on by Quandie13 Comments

I’m not gonna lie, Hint of Lime Tostitos are one of my favorites.  Especially paired with a mango salsa.  I also love adding a hint of lime to my Diet Coke.

But today I want to talk about a different kind of lime, a vibrant pop of chartreuse foliage in the garden.  It’s a great way to brighten up a shady area, as well as a good way to add interest to a perennial border that doesn’t have much blooming currently (like mine).

One of my favorite perennials with bright lime green foliage is ‘Gold Heart’ Dicentra spectabilis, or bleeding heart.

That photo is a couple of years old, bleeding heart blooms in the spring so mine is not currently blooming.  But I actually grow this one for the foliage rather than the flower, isn’t it fabulous?

Lamium, or dead nettles (which is an awful name and that’s why I never call it that), is one of my favorite lime green ground covers.  It’s practically evergreen, even here in Minnesota.  It pops up in the spring looking green as the snow is melting all around it.

There are many different varieties of lamium with varying leaf colors including some pretty white and/or silver versions like the Pink Pewter or the Sterling Silver.  There are also a few varieties that I really don’t like at all, like the one called Yellow Archangel.

I don’t know the precise variety of the one shown above because it was a hand-me-down from a fellow gardener, however, I do also have a patch of the Lemon Frost variety in one spot that I purchased at a garden center.

It leans just a bit more towards lemon rather than lime.

One characteristic common to pretty much all of the plants that I’m mentioning in this post is that the more sun they get, the yellower and brighter their foliage.

Golden Creeping Jenny, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’, is a good example of that.  I took this next photo at the St. Anthony Park garden tour a couple of weeks ago.  The creeping jenny in the lower left of the frame gets quite a bit of sun.

My creeping jenny is in full shade, one of the shadiest areas of my shade garden in fact, and I wouldn’t even call it lime green at this point.

So that’s something to keep in mind with all of the plants I’m sharing today.

I do have a couple of shrubs that fit into my ‘hint of lime’ category.  The first is a Morden Golden Glow Elderberry.

Laura of Garden Answer recommended elderberry as a good substitute for Japanese maples.  They have a very similar leaf structure, but are much hardier in cold climates like my zone 4b garden (they are hardy in zones 3 to 9).  The photo above was taken when I first brought the plant home from the garden center.

I ended up planting it in a fairly shady spot, and the color is definitely less yellow or more lime now.

The second shrub on my list is the ‘Tiger Eyes’ sumac.  Unfortunately, my 8′ Tiger Eyes died back to the ground last winter.  If you plant one of these in our area, you’ll find that it is one of the last plants to break dormancy.  Every spring I wonder if mine is dead, and then it eventually sprouts new leaves.  But not this year.  So we cut it back to the ground.

But I’m happy to report that it has sent up some big new shoots, so all is not lost.

A big bonus to this one is that the leaves turn a vibrant orange to red in autumn, it’s fantastic for fall color.

Unlike most of the plants I’ve mentioned, the sumac is not a shade loving plant.  Mine gets a bit of shade from the carriage house and thus has always shot out nearly perpendicular to reach the sun.

There are lots of fabulous annuals with lime green foliage too.  Last year I had Wasabi coleus and Lemon Coral sedum (far right) in my front window box.

Lime green paired with deep purple foliage is always a great combo, like this sweet potato vine paired with a dark purple Oxalis.

I’ve left the most obvious example of lime green foliage plants for last, hostas!  You know I love ’em.  And there are lots and lots of options for lime green in hostas.

One of my favorites is the ‘Sun Power’ hosta.

This one positively glows in the garden.

I have a smaller solid lime colored hosta in multiple spots in my garden.  Once again, this was a hand-me-down plant, probably from my friend Sue, so I don’t know the name of it.

But over the years, many divisions have given me about 20 of them scattered throughout my shade gardens.  They create the perfect background for the spotted Pulmonaria ‘Raspberry Splash’.

Of course, there are also many, many options for variegated hostas that can add a hint of lime to your garden.  Sunset Grooves is a smaller one that has a lovely pop of chartreuse in the middle of each leaf.

Of course, the latest hint of lime I’ve added to my garden is an  Aralia cordata ‘Sun King‘.  After seeing so many of them at the garden tour I attended a couple of weeks ago, I had to get one for myself.

It’s small right now, but I’m hoping it will grow to fill in that space entirely.  I’ll be sure to keep you all posted on how that works out.

In the meantime, my sister and I are headed out to another garden tour today, this time put on by the South Saint Paul Garden Club (thank you Jayne for the heads up on this one).  One of the gardens featured belongs to my old friend Jackie, I toured her garden for you guys here on the blog back in 2018 (you can see those posts here and here).  So I’m really looking forward to getting another tour of her garden and others today!

So tell me, what’s your favorite plant for adding a hint of lime to the garden.  Leave a comment and let me know!

my new favorite neutral.

Published on by Quandie20 Comments

Remember the antique washstand that I brought home from the Nokomis neighborhood sale?

Well, I’ve been working on it for weeks!  Somehow it always seems like there is something else I need to focus on first.  But I’ve been chipping away at it, a little at a time, and it’s finally done.

I started with a few repairs that involved gluing some joints.  I also had to thoroughly scrub this one inside and out because it was filthy.  Next I stripped the top.  It took a couple of applications of CitriStrip to get that dark stain off.  Once it was gone, I sanded the top smooth and then stained it with Varathane’s Sunbleached wood stain.

I’ve used this stain a few times on various pieces and always love the way it turns out.

If you’re a fan of the sun-bleached look of raw wood, but you don’t like how adding back a topcoat darkens the wood back up again, then you may want to try this stain.

After letting the stain dry for 24 hours, I added two coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat over it to protect the top.

As much as I know that people are loving the raw wood look these days, and that top looked fabulous, I just couldn’t bring myself to tackle stripping the entire piece.  There is just so much elbow grease involved no matter how you do it.

So instead I decided to ‘neutralize’ the base with some of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.

Step aside Drop Cloth, this color is slowly becoming my new favorite neutral.

Last year I used it on my potting shed floor (as I mentioned in Wednesday’s post), then I used it on Annie’s dresser …

and then I used it on the Farmers Market bookcase …

And of course I used it on the trunk on my front porch.

And now I’ve used it on this washstand.

I love that this color has a little more depth than the Drop Cloth (although, don’t worry, I do have another piece that I’m going to paint with Drop Cloth soon).

I opted to swap out the round knob that was on the door for a wooden one, which I also painted.  Then I also went ahead and painted the drawer pulls.

Since I was aiming for a more neutral sort of look, I wanted to blend those pulls in with the body a bit.

Next up I lined the two lower drawers, and the cupboard area, with some scrapbook paper.  Since scrapbook paper is 12″ x 12″, it works out great if your drawer/cupboard is that size or smaller.

I doesn’t work so well if your drawer is quite a bit wider, and also has a curvy front, though.  So instead of lining the top drawer, I freshened it up with a coat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

Finally, I couldn’t just leave this piece totally plain.  So I added a small stencil to the cupboard door.

This is one of the small 8″ x 8″ German Grain Sack stencils from ellen j goods, and it fit the opening perfectly.

I have to tell you that I initially stenciled it using Drop Cloth, but found that was too much of a contrast.  I wanted a far more subtle look so I sanded that down, repainted the door, and then tried again using some more Dried Sage that I lighted up a tad with Drop Cloth.

Perfect!

I top-coated the painted areas of the washstand with Big Mama’s Butta from Dixie Belle.

I have to say, I definitely lightened this one up.

What do you think?  Do you prefer the lighter version?  Leave a comment and let me know.

This piece is for sale locally, so be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page if interested.

 

 

a summer porch refresh.

Published on by Quandie30 Comments

Last Friday I mentioned that we’ve been doing a lot of furniture shuffling around here lately.  So, while we were on a roll, I decided to give the front porch a refresh.

As much as I have loved the look of the wicker chaise lounge on the front porch (and I have to confess it has been out there for over 30 years!), I haven’t found it comfortable for a few years now.

I used to sit there and read in the evening, but my back just won’t tolerate that for long anymore.  So as a result, we never sit out there these days.

So when handyman Ken made another of his fabulous Adirondack chairs for me, I decided to use it in that spot.

They may not look it, but these chairs are super comfortable.

So as much as the chaise looked better out there, the Adirondack is the better choice if we actually want to use the space.  Yep, I’m going function over form for this one.

In case you’re wondering about the paint on the chair, it’s Rust-Oleum spray paint in Heirloom White.  These chairs can be rather tedious to paint (and trust me, I’ve painted many of them, many times), so I took a short cut with the spray paint.  Plus, the 2nd chair that was already out there was also already painted in Heirloom White.

After putting the new chair in place, it occurred to me that it was time for a makeover on the trunk that sits between the chairs.  Here’s how it started out …

I added that stencil way back in 2015 (you can read about that here), but I had grown tired of it.  Plus that original chippy white was just too bright of a white for me.  I like warmer shades of white like my favorite Dixie Belle Drop Cloth, or even the Heirloom White spray paint.

I did first consider painting it black, but I already have a couple of other touches of black out there that tie in to the floor such as the throw pillows that I purchased from H & M several years ago.

And the black cupboard.

Last week I said that I was going to sell it, but after this refresh I’ve decided it needs to stay.

I also considered painting the trunk with straight up Drop Cloth, but in the end I decided to darken it up just a tad so I mixed in a little bit of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.  You may remember that I lightened up the Dried Sage with some Drop Cloth when I used it on the checkered floor in my potting shed last summer.

As a sidebar, I am really loving the Dried Sage lately.  You’re going to see another piece painted in this color later this week.

But back to the trunk.

After painting it with my custom mixed color, I added a design from the I.O.D. Melange paint inlay to the front.

Isn’t that pretty?

After sealing the paint inlay with some matte spray sealer, I sanded the trunk well to bring back that chippy, worn look.  I followed that up with a topcoat of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

I love how it turned out.

What do you think, was this an improvement for the trunk?  And how about the form over function question?

Would you have gone for adding a more comfortable chair that you’d actually use rather than a piece that you thought looked better?  Leave a comment and let me know.

As always, thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the Dried Sage paint and Big Mama’s Butta used in this makeover.

it won’t hold water.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

I purchased this galvanized bucket at my friend Lisa’s occasional sale.

I was mainly drawn to it because of its unique oval shape.

But I pretty much love old galvanized buckets in general, regardless of shape, and have several myself.

Back in the beginning, let’s call it b.f., ‘before transfers’, I used to stencil on them.

I still have one of those French Market buckets serving as the trashcan in our bathroom.

Sometimes they were painted first, and then stenciled.

And then I discovered transfers.

Most of the buckets I’ve kept have wordy transfers added to them, like this one …

I use them for flower arranging, or for containing a small Christmas tree.

However, it seems that when I leave them unpainted and just add words they don’t sell very quickly.  So perhaps it’s just me that likes them that way?

The painted ones, on the other hand, tend to fly off the shelves.  This one originally just had some wording and it never did sell, so I painted it and added a transfer and it sold quickly …

So I decided to go ahead and paint the oval bucket in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Then, rather than adding a transfer, I thought it would be fun to try an I.O.D. paint inlay this time around.

I added a section from the Melange inlay that has three wildflowers in a row, at least I think they are wildflowers.

Wait a minute, upon review, no they are not wildflowers …

That one seems to be a hyacinth, so let’s go with just ‘flowers’.

Some previous owner of this bucket added drainage holes to the bottom so that it could be used as a planter.

So it definitely won’t hold water.

But I added several coats of spray sealer so that it could be potted up with plants and used outside or in.  Wouldn’t it look great filled with herbs?  Or even just simple geraniums?

I went ahead and filled it with whisk brooms for my photo shoot, because, well, why not?

You wouldn’t have to use it for plants.

I’ll be bringing this one into the shop, so we’ll just see how well it sells with a paint job.

What do you think?  Do you prefer the painted buckets over those with just words over the galvanized metal?  Leave a comment and let me know.

a summer garden tour.

Published on by Quandie16 Comments

Good morning from the garden!

I was so excited when I saw that the St. Anthony Park Garden Tour was taking place this year.  This tour is put together by the St. Anthony Park Garden Club and usually takes place every other year, however, like so many things, it was halted during Covid.  So it has been 4 years since the last tour.

St. Anthony Park is a neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota.  I’ve gone to their neighborhood garage sales many times over the years, and the last time I did that was back pre-Covid as well.

The neighborhood was developed in the late 19th century as a streetcar suburb (ie. you could commute to the city via streetcar) for the wealthier residents of Minneapolis/St. Paul (wikipedia).  It’s full of large 100 year old homes and each one is unique (unlike more modern developments).

Last weekend my sister, niece and our friend Annie all joined me for the tour.  There were 11 gardens in total, but I’m just going to share some of the highlights with you.

The first garden we visited was really colorful.

Isn’t that a pretty combination of sedum and heuchera?

The back yard slopes down into a ravine and is filled with flowering plants that are bursting with yellows, reds, oranges and purples.

There is also a little pond that is guarded by a very colorful frog.

In contrast to that fairly wild look, this next garden was somewhat formal and very tidy, and I absolutely loved the house itself.

I’m not normally a fan of the combination of grey and black, but it was certainly working on this place.

I also came away from this house with an awesome idea for making some supports for my peonies.

I spent a bit of time this spring searching for attractive peony cages that weren’t too expensive (since I have about 10 peonies), and I came up empty handed.  But these would be fairly simple to make.  They are just furring strips, 2″ x 2″ strips on each corner and 4 wooden finials.  My sister and I are going to attempt to make some of these for our gardens.

The next garden I want to share was the most difficult to get to because it involved heading up this staircase.

This is the path between the street and the house.  However, there is an alley behind the house and I’m betting that the homeowners barely ever use this staircase, especially not in the winter!

But these home owners definitely took advantage of their sloped location, because here’s what they also have out behind the house.

That stunning waterfall was worth the hike up that staircase.

I totally coveted the iron planters in this next garden.

I have to admit that I probably won’t ever have the real thing in my garden, but instead I’ll just stick with my faux rusty urn planters.

If you’re into a more modern look for your planters, the pair flaking this porch should be right up your alley.

And just take a moment to admire that porch, especially that twisted wrought iron railing on the steps.

One of the gardens had an interesting combination of ground covers planted in a small bed.

It certainly is a pretty combination of creeping jenny, sweet woodruff, ajuga, dianthus and I’m not sure what that plant with the silver foliage in the back is.  It almost felt like this was a spot where they were testing out different ground covers to see how they would do.  It was a fairly small area, and as you can see the plants have totally filled it out.  Now they are probably going to start fighting for space.

I wanted to be sure and share this clematis with you guys …

The home owner was fairly sure that this is a Betty Corning.  I just planted this variety in my own garden, and I am hoping it will be as prolific as the Roguchi that I planted last year.  If this one is any example, I think it will be spectacular.

I’ve saved my favorite garden for last.  First, lets just check out the house.

Aren’t those windows fabulous?  See what I mean about all of the houses in this neighborhood being totally unique?

But the real showstopper for me was the sloped front border which is divided in half by the sidewalk.  I chatted with the owner of this garden, Shawna, and she explained that the two sides are meant to be mirror images of each other.

They are filled with shade loving plants chosen for their beautiful foliage colors, textures and shapes.

Shawna also explained that she gardens year ’round, which is quite the feat in Minnesota.  She brings many of her rex begonias and other plants indoors for winter.  She also told me that her indoor plant real estate is limited, so she also just takes cuttings from many of her plants and propagates new plants for the next year that way.

You can certainly see why she wants to save them.

In addition to these beautiful plants, she also had some really lovely copper garden ornaments scattered here and there.

And isn’t that carpet of sedum alongside her dry creek bed just fantastic?  Let me get you a little closer to that …

We all really enjoyed the tour, it’s always inspiring to see what other gardeners are doing.  I’ve been keeping an eye out for other garden tour possibilities in my area, there used to be lots of them (again, pre-Covid) and so far I haven’t seen too many coming back.  If any of you locals know of any, please leave a comment and let me know!

But before I let you go, I want to share what I’m calling the ‘plant of the day’.

That honor goes to the Aralia cordata ‘Sun King‘.

Ironically, somehow I didn’t manage to get a decent photo of one, even though I would say that almost every garden we toured had one … well, more than one actually.  They were everywhere.  I borrowed this photo from the internet so that you can get a good look at this plant.

I had seen it more than once recently on gardening YouTube videos (sorry, can’t remember which ones exactly), so when I saw them in these gardens they really jumped out at me.

The ‘Sun King‘ was the 2020 perennial of the year, and I can see why.  It provides a vibrant pop of chartreuse in a shady garden.  It grows 4′ to 6’ tall and wide.  It dies back to the ground in winter, but is fast growing and fills out quickly in the spring.  It’s hardy in zones 3 to 9, so can easily handle my zone 4b.  It’s also deer resistant.

One of the gardeners I spoke with mentioned that the color is definitely brighter if it gets some sun, but it will grow in full shade.

So now I’m off to figure out the best spot in my garden for the one I found at Abrahamson’s Nurseries in St. Croix Falls (but if you locals are looking for one too, don’t count on them, my neighbor and I bought the last two that they had!).

Do you have garden tours where you are?  Leave a comment and let me know!