the flying nun washstand.

Published on by Quandie46 Comments

A while back one of my good customers told me she had an old washstand that needed a new home, and at the same time she was purchasing the french-ish bed I’d just finished.  So we did a little bartering and I ended up with the washstand and a little extra cash.

I have to confess that every time I looked at this washstand I was reminded of the flying nun.

Who else remembers the flying nun?  The premise of that show was totally ridiculous, but I bet nearly everyone watched it.  That weren’t that many TV choices in 1967.

Anyway, there was just something about those towel bars winging out from the sides that said ‘flying nun’ to me.  I considered removing them, but removing them would have left a gap where the arm of the towel bar fits into the top of the washstand.  You can sort of see what I mean in this next photo …

So after re-gluing that loose piece shown above, I decided the towel bars would stay.

I sanded everything down, cleaned it with clear water and then added two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Originally I was going to do something entirely different with it next, but after finishing the floral box that I shared with you on Monday I really wanted to try that same look on a piece of furniture.

So I pulled out another IOD transfer that I recently picked up.  This one is called Flora Parisiensis.

I’m sharing that image of the transfer because you may not even recognize it on my washstand.  I cut it all apart and created my own collage style look with it.  And much like on the box, I combined it with various pieces from other transfers, mostly Paris Valley from re.design with prima, but there are a few other bits in there too.

I started with the top drawer and mainly used the leaves on it.

Then I moved on to the cupboard doors …

I added most of the words first, then layered in the roses, then filled in with a few more wordy bits in spots.

I put the main title from the transfer on the backsplash …

but then I did a really good job covering that up in my photos with my props.

So I felt like I should take at least one photo where that shows.

At one point in its life there must have been a shelf inside the lower portion of the washstand because the supports are still in place.

But after having Ken take a look, we both agreed that adding a shelf in that spot wasn’t really terrible practical.  You wouldn’t be able to put anything even somewhat tall inside.

I had also initially considered changing out the wooden knobs.  They felt a bit oversized to me.  But as it turned out, these are threaded wooden knobs that screw right into the piece.

I’ve only seen this style of knob on a handful of pieces and I felt like they were a feature that I didn’t want to remove.  Especially the one on the cupboard door because it has a little latch on the back that keeps the door shut when you turn the knob.

How clever is that?  So simple, yet totally effective.

I really have to laugh at myself right now.  One of my mottos is ‘never say never’ because whenever I say something like “I’ll never use gold paint,” I always have to eat my words.  And here I am fresh off saying “I prefer words over florals” and look what I’ve done.

But I have to say, I had the such fun working on this piece.

And I think the florals totally draw your attention away from the flying nun towel bars.

What do you think?

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint used on this project, and to re.design with prima for providing the Paris Valley transfer.

making lemonade.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

This whole pandemic thing has thrown us a bunch of lemons, hasn’t it?  Well, you know what they say, when life gives you lemons …

Mr. Q and I weren’t able to take our planned trip to Europe this fall, so I’ve been taking a few days off work here and there and acting like a tourist at home.

One of my favorite things to do when we travel in Europe is visit open air museums.  If you’re not familiar, an open air museum is a museum that exhibits collections of buildings.  Usually they are buildings that have been moved to the location from all across a particular country or area, quite often they are being saved from the wrecking ball.

I’ve blogged about them a few times.  My absolute favorite, and the most elaborate, is The Beamish in County Durham, England.

The open air museums in the Scandinavian countries are all amazing as well.  I’ve visited Skansen in Stockholm, Den Gamle By in Aarhus, Denmark, and the Norske Folkemuseum in Oslo.

Unfortunately, nothing near me can really hold a candle to these.  I’ve shared the Gammelgården in Scandia, MN.  It’s small, but still worth a visit.

We also have another open air museum in the Twin Cities that is a bit larger called The Landing.

A couple of weeks ago my sister and I stopped in at The Landing after spending part of the day in Excelsior.

The Landing is located in Shakopee, MN.  The grounds are open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. and are free of charge.  If you want to go inside the buildings, you have to sign up (and pay for) a particular event that includes inside visits.

Debbie and I just wandered around the grounds on our visit, and we nearly had the entire place to ourselves.

There are interpretive signs at each location so that you can learn a little about it.

There is an area that represents a 19th century village and includes a church …

a cabinet maker’s shop …

a boarding house (with some fabulous galvanized tubs) …

a town hall and more.

I love the detailed trim on the town hall.

As you continue away from the village, you’ll find the 1889 farm first, then a little further out is the 1857 farm.

I confess that I coveted their little wooden cart.

Wouldn’t that be amazing with a Christmas tree in it?

I wasn’t quite as envious of their outhouse though.

It reminds me to be grateful for my tiny bathroom that seems awfully far away at night.  At least mine is heated and has electricity, and not a lot of spiders.

I was surprised to find that they had live animals at The Landing.

There were chickens, pigs and cows.

As you continue away from the village the final stop is the fur trapper’s trading post.

This building was built in 1844, before Minnesota became a state.

You know what?  I may not have been able to visit one of my favorite open air museums in Europe this year, but I made a little lemonade from the lemons being thrown at us by COVID by visiting The Landing instead.

How about you?  Are there any open air museums where you live?  If so, I’d love to hear about them.

the rose box.

Published on by Quandie38 Comments

Every time I paint a box lately I don’t bother with a before photo because I think ‘no one wants to see another painted box on my blog,’ so I don’t plan to blog about it.  Instead, my usual plan is to give it a quick makeover and then take it to Reclaiming Beautiful to sell.

And then it turns out like this …

and I realize that I really do want to share it with you guys.

Even if the bulk of you aren’t all that interested and really only want to see furniture.

But you know what?  This technique would translate well to furniture, so maybe this post does have some value for those of you who are furniture refinishers.  And in fact, it inspired me to do something entirely different than originally planned on a little washstand I’ve been working on.  I’ll be sharing that later in the week, so you’ll see what I mean.

But in the meantime, I’ll share what I did with this box.  It started out as just a plain wooden recipe box.  I painted it with Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth first and once two coats of paint were dry, I sanded the edges to distress.

Next I pulled out a bunch of transfer scraps to see what I could cobble together for this small box.  I started out with the wording, and that came from the Paris Valley transfer from re.design with prima.  Once I had the wording transfers on, I decided to add some florals so I pulled out the Redoute 4 transfer from IOD.

I have to say, I fully appreciate the irony here.  I gave up being a re.design with prima brand ambassador because they were doing so many floral designs and not enough words.  And here I am using their words, and IOD’s florals.  Go figure.

But I have to say, this rose transfer from IOD is the perfect floral for me.  The colors are slightly faded, and I love that the transfer has a distressed look with scratches built in.

That distressed look might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it definitely is mine.

By the way, if you aren’t familiar with this transfer you might be surprised to find that it’s quite large (24″ x 33″) and the full transfer looks like this …

I just used the flowers from the upper right corner.  I suspect that when I’m done with this transfer I may have a few leafy stems left over that I never use, but we’ll see.

This transfer costs around $30, but I’ve found a local retailer now so at least I don’t have to pay shipping.  I can use it on multiple pieces so that helps distribute the cost, but buying the entire transfer for one little box would be cost prohibitive in my opinion.  If I use it on four little boxes, that’s just $7.50 per box though.

I wrapped the floral design around the sides of my box.

I had to separate some of the elements and re-arrange them to make this work, like the two rose buds shown above.

I love working on little projects like these.  They are quick and easy and they allow me to test out some ideas without committing to them on a big piece of furniture.  I can also use up some scraps left over from other projects.  As I mentioned earlier, this one provided a jumping off point for a piece of furniture I’ll be sharing later in the week, so be sure to stay tuned.

But in the meantime, tell me … floral, yes or no?

 

gone paintin’ stencils.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

Remember the trip Mr. Q and I were supposed to take this year?  It was going to be a cruise round trip from London stopping at 8 ports of call in Europe.  Not only was it an amazing itinerary, but we had gotten upgraded to a mini-suite.

I have to admit, I had a feeling it was too good to be true.  Us?  In a mini-suite?  Hard to imagine.

Sure enough, along came COVID and that put an end to our travel plans.  And at this rate, I have a feeling it might be 2022 before European cruises come back.  Damn!

Well, no use crying over spilled milk and I’m sure most of you are playing the world’s smallest violin for me.  I know, I know, there are far worse things happening out there.  A missed trip is nothing.  But I have been thinking about it a little bit lately because had our trip taken place, we would have just gotten home this past weekend and by now I’d be sharing stories from our travels.

I’m mainly bringing this up as a segue to today’s post.  You see, one of our ports of call was Hamburg, Germany.  So when Daggi from Gone Paintin’ sent me some of her stencils to try out recently, knowing that I was going to miss visiting Hamburg, she included a postcard!

That’s because Daggi is located near Hamburg.  The last time I shared a link to her blog, several people asked how to translate it.  I’m really not all that savvy with techie stuff, but when I bring up her blog using google, the google translate pop up box comes up automatically in the upper right hand corner and gives me the option of translating to English.

Hopefully that will work for you guys too because Daggi’s blog is definitely worth a visit.  Her style is very similar to mine, so if you like my stuff I can almost guarantee that you will like her stuff too.  It’s like my stuff, but with a European twist.

Paint furniture with Fusion Mineral Paint in Cathedral Taupe

She painted that dresser in Fusion’s Cathedral Taupe, and I especially loved how she rusted up the handles (you should check that out in her post).  She used a European product that is very similar to Dixie Belle’s patina paint.

When Daggi contacted me a while back and asked if I’d like to try out a couple of designs from her new line of stencils, naturally I said yes.  You guys know I love a good stencil.

That brings me to the birdcage that I purchased recently at a garage sale.

The birdcage actually came with a broken plastic tray at the bottom that was held in place with some clips.  I immediately trashed the tray, prior to taking the ‘before’ photo above.  It was a little gross.

But I kept the clips because I was optimistic that I could come up with something else to use for the bottom.  Then I remembered the wooden chargers from Prima Marketing.

I’ve done a couple of different things with these (you can find them here and here), but I still had a few of them left from my brand ambassador days.

Sure enough, the largest 14″ size was perfect for the bird cage.  I tested it out and found that I could even attach it to the cage using the clips.  It was kismet.

I painted the charger with two coats of Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy first.  Then I taped off some grain sack style stripes and painted them in DB’s French Linen.  Once dry, I sanded the whole thing to distress it a bit.

Then I pulled out one of Daggi’s stencils called Getreide Müller, which apparently translates to Grain Miller as per google translate.  I stenciled the design onto the charger using Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.  I wasn’t able to fit the entire design onto the charger, so I re-arranged it a little.

While I had the Gravel Road out, I also painted the little swinging perch that came with the cage.

Once everything was dry I gave it all a coat of clear wax and then reassembled the cage using the clips.

I wouldn’t necessary use this cage for a real bird, but it would be fun to use for decor purposes.  Plus, since the bottom so easy to remove and then re-attach, you could put whatever you want inside the cage.

Like a vintage book, an old pair of binoculars and a black and white photo for example.

It’s would also be perfect for a plant since you could easily remove it for watering.

What would you place inside this cage?

You can find Daggi’s stencils in her Etsy shop (click here).  Although they ship from Germany, the shipping cost is not prohibitive and in fact is quite a bit less than I paid to have stuff shipped to me from Utah recently.  So I encourage you to check them out!

 

the sloppy drinker’s bar cart.

Published on by Quandie21 Comments

I was really rather surprised to see this fairly nice quality bar cart at a garage sale with a price tag of only $5.

The frame was in excellent condition, even the leather wrapped handle looked practically new. 

However, the wood had some fairly significant damage.

Were they using it as a plant stand?  or were they just sloppy drinkers?

Either way, it was a simple matter to flip the bar cart over and remove all of the screws that were holding the two wood shelves in place.  Well, fairly simple anyway, there were 32 screws!

I briefly considered painting the wood, but I thought that this was one of those times where stained wood would appeal to potential buyers more than painted wood.  Plus, I knew it would be quick and easy to refinish two flat, featureless pieces of wood.

So once I had the wood out of the frame, rather than using a chemical stripper, I simply sanded it down to bare wood with my orbital sander.  Next I got out my Minwax Wood Finish Penetrating Stain in Special Walnut and wiped on two coats using an old t-shirt (allowing for drying time in between coats).

I gave the Special Walnut a full 24 hours to dry before adding two coats of Dixie Belle’s Flat clear coat over it.

I went with the clear coat rather than my usual clear wax just in case the next owners of this bar cart are sloppy drinkers too.  It will provide a bit more protection against spills.

After letting the clear coat cure for a couple of days, I re-assembled the bar cart and it was done.

I guess it says something about our drinking habits that the only liquor we had on hand for staging my photos was a bottle of Cointreau.

Well, we also had some Bailey’s, but we didn’t have any of the hard stuff.  What can I say, we’re not big drinkers at our house.  Just the occasional margarita or a little Bailey’s in our coffee.

I did a little google research and discovered that this bar cart is available new at Target for $150.  But even with my makeover, I’m letting this one go for half that price at $75.

So if you’re local and in need of a bar cart, either leave me a comment or send me an email at qisforquandie@gmail.com

the palmetto mid-mod dresser.

Published on by Quandie43 Comments

 I wasn’t really looking for furniture when I was out garage saling with my sister recently, but this mid-century dresser was just too good of a deal to pass up.

Even though mid-mod isn’t really my personal style, I still enjoy working on these pieces.  Plus they are just so darn easy to sell when they’re done.  And I had an inkling that this dresser would be much improved with a simple coat of paint.

I hope I don’t jinx it by saying that, and I also hope the color I’ve chosen doesn’t make it harder to sell.

I’ve gone with a color from Dixie Belle called Palmetto.  It’s a vibrant blue green.

This was really just a basic paint job.  I sanded the surface to give it more gripping power to hold the paint, then I cleaned it with a damp rag, then I brushed on two coats of Palmetto.  I finished it up with Dixie Belle’s Flat clear coat.

Easy peasy.  Nothing fancy.  Just a huge pop of color.

Before I put the original drawer pulls back on I washed them with Dawn dish soap and then brightened them up a little with a layer of re.design with prima’s Decor Wax in Eternal.

The gold is gorgeous next to the blue green of the Palmetto.

My new Savoy camera was perfect for staging this dresser.

The green of the knobs and strap are almost a perfect match for the Palmetto.

This is one of those chameleon colors that is hard to capture in photos.  I struggled with getting the white balance just right.  Really, the color changes based on the light anyway, sometimes looking more green and other times more blue.

It was fun giving this dresser some new life using paint.  What do you think of its new look?

If any of you locals are interested, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale’ page for the details.

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing products used in this makeover.

more random garage sales.

Published on by Quandie14 Comments

As my sister and I headed to Excelsior last Friday, I had to put blinders on in order to ignore all of the garage sale signs I passed along the way.

I know exactly what was happening.  People were looking at the weather forecast (sunny and a high of 83), and then looking at the calendar (the last weekend in September) and thinking ‘crap, this might be my last chance to have that garage sale I was planning for this summer’.

I can relate, can you?  I have a long list of things I meant to get to this summer.  Like washing the windows.  Still haven’t checked that one off the list, and here it is October already.

There was no time to stop on Friday though, so I ignored all of the signs.  But when I woke up early on Saturday, I texted my sister on an impulse and asked if she wanted to check out some random sales.  Luckily my sister is pretty much game for anything, even when I wake her up with a text a 7 a.m. on a Saturday.

So we headed out.  And I managed to fill up her SUV not just once, but twice.  The first couple of sales were just a block or two away from my house, so it was easy to come back and unload.

It was lucky we’d made space in the car, because when we headed back out again I found this fabulous mid-century dresser …

Honestly, I think it’s rather ugly right now, but it’s going to look great with a paint job.

I also found this fun bar cart …

and these two never would have fit in the car with all of that other stuff.

I’ve already done a makeover on the bucket I purchased in that first load.

That just involved giving it a good cleaning, and then adding a portion of the IOD Label Ephemera transfer.

And while I was at it, I had a couple other buckets I picked up recently, so they got the same treatment.

I’ve also made over the little egg crate …

Somehow I just wasn’t digging the color combo of the original red and black design, so I taped it off and painted it solid black using Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.

Then I pulled out some mini-stencils I ordered recently from Jami Ray Vintage.

I thought these would be fun to use on a variety of smaller projects.  I used Dixie Belle’s Putty to stencil just part of the Kroger stencil over the Midnight Sky.

These stencils are pretty adorable.  My only complaint is that they are a little thick at 15 ml.  I know it seems like thicker = better quality, but I find it easier to get a crisp finish with a thinner stencil.  Especially when the design itself is really small, like on the line that says ’98 lbs. when packed’.  It was hard to get paint in there without it getting blotchy.  The stencils from Maison de Stencils are 10 ml and I prefer working with that thickness.

That being said, I’m still sure I’ll get a lot of use out of these mini-stencils!

I also painted the handle on the box in Midnight Sky.  Isn’t it funny how such a simple change can make such a big difference?

And lastly, I lined the inside of the box with re.design with prima decoupage tissue in a pattern called Grid.

The black and white grid pattern worked perfectly.

Next week I’ll be sharing the makeovers on the bird cage, the bar cart and the mid-mod dresser, so be sure to stay tuned.  And in the meantime, have a great weekend!

a thing for boxes.

Published on by Quandie24 Comments

I really seem to have a thing for boxes.  Not cardboard boxes, but wooden boxes.  Preferably old wooden boxes.

Sometimes I just leave them as I find them because they are the perfect shade of green and have a deliciously shabby patina.

But most of the time I like to give them a makeover.

My favorites are those with hinged lids like old recipe card boxes …

They are quick and easy to paint and then dress up with transfers, or stencils, or old hardware …

They are the perfect project for a rainy afternoon.

I went to an estate sale with my sister a couple of weeks back and picked up a simple wooden box with a curved lid.  I didn’t even take a ‘before’ photo of it because it didn’t feel like something that would be special enough to share here on the blog.

But then I added some paint, followed by a couple of transfers, and just like that it was transformed.

I started by giving it a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy, and then added a stripe of their French Linen down the center.  These two colors are the perfect companions.

Once dry, I sanded to distress and then added a Classic Vintage Label transfer from re.design with prima to the top of the box …

and a couple of bits and pieces from the IOD Label Ephemera transfer to the front.

If you’re still keeping track, this is the 8th piece I’ve done using just the one Label Ephemera transfer.

I didn’t stop there either.  I also used some of re.design with prima’s decoupage tissue paper to line the inside of the box.

I adhered it using Dixie Belle’s Gator Hide, which works like a charm.

Once it was all done I loved it so much I wanted to keep it.  But then I decided it would be even better to gift it to my bff.  This way I can visit it every now and then at her house 😉

So I’m curious, which of these boxes is your favorite?

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint and the Gator Hide used on this project, and thanks to re.design with prima for providing the Classic Vintage Label transfer used on the top of the box.

excelsior.

Published on by Quandie19 Comments

This past Friday was just simply too gorgeous of a day to go to work.  So my sister and I played hooky.  We hopped into my convertible VW Bug and headed for the other side of the Twin Cities.

Excelsior is an adorable little town on the south side of Lake Minnetonka.

We didn’t really have a specific plan in mind so we parked the car and headed towards the Port of Excelsior on foot.  It was pure luck that we happened upon a little wooden box that had self-guided walking tour maps inside.  We love a good self-guided walking tour.  It always makes a place a little more interesting when you know the history behind it.

Our first stop was actually the last stop on the walking tour, Palmer’s Grove.

According to the walking tour map, this spot held summer rental cottages until at least 2000.  We’re guessing that the one shown above is the only original cottage remaining.  Isn’t it adorable?  How amazing would it be to spend a summer vacation there?  From now on I think this will be how my imaginary lakefront cabin looks on the outside.  You know, the one I would have if I had a little lot of extra money.

The Excelsior Public School was built in 1899 and it’s certainly an imposing structure.

It was used as a school until the 1960’s, but now serves as an office building.

Our last stop on the tour turned out to be my favorite of the historic homes.  The Victorian style Wyer/Pearce house was built in 1885.

Originally the property went all the way to the lake and I imagine there was grand lawn that was perfect for playing croquet.  The space has been built up since then though, so we could no longer see the lake from where we were standing when I took that photo.  But maybe you can still see it from some of those upper story windows.

Before heading out of town, we popped into a few shops along Water Street and I just have to share this one with you guys.  It’s called The Country Look in Antiques.

I’ll confess, I don’t do a lot of shopping in antique stores.  Usually their prices are too high for me, and I don’t enjoy digging through mounds of stuff looking for the one or two gems as much as some people.  But this shop was styled beautifully.

The items for sale were expertly curated.  Every piece would look fantastic in my imaginary cabin, right down to the vintage croquet mallets.

I might have to pass on the buffalo head though.

In hindsight, I wish I had at least looked at the price tag on this set of Mark Twain books.  I think Mr. Q would have enjoyed having it.

And I just love the look of them!

But I was distracted by the item that I did buy …

I’ve seen these fabulous mint green Savoy cameras on pinterest, but I’ve never seen one for sale.  I paid $30 for it, and looking around online I think that was a more than fair price.  There are a few of them for sale on Etsy ranging from $40 to $60.

My sister purchased a 1970’s Life magazine with the opening of the Magic Kingdom in Disney World on the cover.

So we each came away from Excelsior with a suitable souvenir.

We headed off to a 2nd destination after shopping on Water Street, but I’m going to save that story for another day.  But how about you, did you visit any quaint little towns this past weekend?

 

the herbier cabinet.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

It becomes more and more apparent as I write this blog year after year that I am definitely a creature of habit.  And it seems as though one habit I can’t break is bringing home larger pieces of furniture, and then procrastinating on finishing them until winter is looming and I have to get them out of the carriage house.

Last year it was the Cabinet of Curiosities, this year it’s this large cabinet …

This piece was afflicted by a series of delays, mostly because I couldn’t make up my mind on how to paint it, but there was a bit of procrastination involved as well.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

One of my favorite customers alerted me to this cupboard because it was sitting at the curb with a ‘free’ sign on it in her neighborhood.  I sent Mr. Q to snatch it up, but he returned empty handed.  It was too big to fit in our Ford Transit van (delay no 1).  But my neighbor/handyman Ken offered to hitch up his trailer and go back with him to get it.

I neglected to get a true ‘before’ photo of the inside once they got it home, but originally this piece had a very heavy mirrored back.  That made absolutely no sense to me since you really could only see the lower half of your body in the mirror, and then only if the cupboard was empty.

So, the mirror came off right away to be replaced by some faux bead board paneling.  Unfortunately, 4′ x 8′ sheets of paneling also don’t fit in our Ford Transit van.  No problem, normally I would have one cut in half at the store and a half piece would be sufficient for the back.  However, Home Depot wasn’t doing custom cuts during the initial COVID shut down (delay no 2).

Luckily I have some connections.  My sister works at Home Depot.  Just not the Home Depot near me.  So we made arrangements to meet her at her store where she was able to finagle someone to cut the paneling for me.

Next up was coming up with a solution for the shelving.  Again, I don’t have a proper ‘before’ photo to show this, but the cupboard came with metal shelf brackets and shelves that were made out of cut down cheap hollow core doors.  Hmmmm.  Can you say tacky?  That stuff all went into the trash.

Instead Ken made new shelves similar to the ones he made for my giant English cupboard.

Ken also did some patching on the top of the cupboard where some notches had been cut out, I assume to make it fit around trim or something as a built-in.

I used Dixie Belle Mud to fill the seams, and now you can barely see them …

Next up was painting the interior of the cupboard.  After giving it a bit of thought, I decided I really wanted to repeat the color combo I used on the vintage medicine cabinet I did earlier this summer, which meant using Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road on the inside.  However, I didn’t have enough Gravel Road on hand to complete the job so I had to place an order (delay no 3).

The interior received two coats of Gravel Road, followed by a coat of Dixie Belle’s Flat Clear Coat.  That took some time to accomplish with painting top and bottom of the shelves, three sides and top and bottom of the interior, and allowing for drying time in between each coat.  It also took nearly a full 16 oz. of paint.

I love this dark color for showing off some ironstone.  But of course, the doors are not glass so this cabinet isn’t meant for display.  Instead it’s meant for storage, and you could fit quite a lot of stuff inside!

The next step was painting the outside.  I thought this would be the quickest step, and it really should have been.  I mixed up the same Sweet Pickins milk paint that I used on that medicine cabinet, Window Pane.  I started to paint and quickly realized that my milk paint was too clumpy to use and no amount of mixing was dissolving the clumps.  So I had to get out a strainer and strain the paint in order to use it.  FYI, to do that I just use a handheld metal mesh strainer like this one …

VINTAGE POST 1935 Wire Mesh Strainer Handheld Metal Wood Handle 2 ¾” Basket - $7.99 | PicClick

I’m sure I purchased it at a garage sale for a quarter or something like that.  I use it just for paint.

So I persevered and painted on the first coat.  I know from experience that the first coat of milk paint always looks bad, so even though I wasn’t loving the way it looked so far I kept going and added a second coat to the top of the cupboard.  And you know what?  I still didn’t like it.

At that point I was out of mixed paint and would would need to mix and strain some more to keep going.  Instead, I decided that milk paint just wasn’t going to be worth it this time.  So I cut my losses and switched to Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.

As soon as I started painting again, I knew I’d been wise to make the switch.  The color of the Sawmill Gravy is just a tad warmer than the Window Pane, and it was covering beautifully.

Two quick coats later and the painting was done.

For the final touch I decided to use the IOD Label Ephemera transfer on the doors, but naturally I did not have it on hand.  So I ordered two of them online from Jami Ray Vintage (delay no 4).

I’m sure you are wondering why I didn’t just get everything I needed all at once in the beginning, but sometimes my ideas evolve slowly over time. Originally I was planning to use a re.design with prima transfer on this piece, but in the end I just had to have the IOD one instead.

To clarify, here is what the entire Label Ephemera transfer looks like.

I’m using just parts of it on this cupboard.

My biggest complaint about this transfer is that they overlapped a bunch of the elements rendering sections somewhat unusable on their own, which drives me a bit mad.  I think they meant this transfer to be used as one big design, but as you’ve seen, I like to break it up and use the elements separately.

Since this cupboard has two symmetrical doors, I really debated whether to make them the same or put different sections of the transfer on each door.

I just couldn’t break out of my symmetrical shell though, so I made both doors the same (which meant ordering two of the same transfer).

Lucky the cupboard was free at the curb, because these transfers were $25.50 each (on sale) plus shipping.  I ordered a few more things to make the shipping cost a little more palatable, but it still adds up.

But I’ll get quite a few more projects out of the rest of each transfer as well.

You may have noticed that I painted over the hardware on this piece.

Not so much because I didn’t like them ‘as is’, but more so because I wanted them to not stand out quite so much.  This way they blend in a bit, but still have a lot of character.

So finally, after several months of stopping and starting, this cupboard is finally finished.

This is one of those times when I would really love to keep this one for myself, but the only way I could find a spot for it would be to get rid of something else.  I debated getting rid of the Belgian bed bench next to my back door, but we sit on that to put our shoes on so I think we’d miss it.  I also considered replacing my Specimens cupboard with this piece, but I really love that one too.  Plus it’s on wheels so that I can easily move it and use that spot for furniture photo shoots.  This piece is a little too heavy for that.  I’d replace my Rooster cupboard with this one, except this one is a tad too wide for that spot.  Ditto for the botanical cupboard on my front porch.

So this piece is for sale to a local shopper who can pick it up.  Be sure to check out my ‘available for local sale‘ page for more details.

Thanks to Dixie Belle for providing the Mud, Sawmill Gravy, Gravel Road and Flat clear coat used on this project.