Xmas rush order!

So I got a phone call regarding one of my items for sale on CL from a guy who wanted to

surprise his daughter by re-doing her room. She is 19 and coming back home from school. 

I happened to have had these two guys sitting in the garage and told him I could have them done

by Sun before Christmas (This was the prior Monday, btw!) He gave me free rein on what to do, but just keeping it in the white/neutral family.. 

Sorry for the garage pics. I couldn't stage these because I literally just finished when the customer

drove up to take them home. 

Use your imagination! 

 This dresser was a American of Martinsville that I have kept pushing aside for 8 months! So glad I waited! It's a beautiful well made piece. 

I have already done the twin to this one...here.....He told me he wanted it to coordinate with the dresser.
                                            Told me to paint whatever I felt like doing.

I love the cherry blossom stencil (Royal Design Studio for the stencil and their bronze stencil creme)

and thought it would perk up the blah flat front. Their stencils are great to work with and I 

absolutely love the creme. A little goes a long way.  This cherry blossom stencil comes

in 5 different sheets so you can pick and choose how you want the branches laid out. 

The top was done in a dark walnut. 

            I made my own chalk paint using "Divine Pleasure" by Behr. It's such a pretty white.

Vintage Desk re-do w/Stencil

I found this nice little vintage mahogany desk the other day. It was a little beat up, but

nothing that I couldn't handle with sanding and wood filler and my magic! 

Xmas Wreath project

Virginia over at LiveloveDIY made this gorgeous wreath and hung it in 

front of her gorgeous mirror! Love this. Had to copy. She gives the how-to's. 

I would kill for this mirror! She did a beautiful job turning it silver.

I hate to show mine next to hers! ;(   

Oh well, it's my first. got all the bulbs at Big Lots.

$5 chair re-do!

I found this little antique dealer place down by the beach. He has all sorts of stuff. He offered this

chair to me for 5 bucks! Such a deal!!! I'm decorating my son's girlfriends bedroom in shades of gray and white and black w/accents of purple. So I figured she could use this chair at the desk I re-did.

I will post photos of the entire room next week, but for now, here is the chair.

The cushion was in great shape. 

 Did a couple coats of CeCe's in white and distressed. I have since distressed the cane

part so it's not quite so stark white.  And the purple in the photo looks quite, well, um purple. 

Like something Prince might wear. It's actually more subdued in person. Little more on the lavender

side! 

                     A little black trim to tie it into the grays/blacks in the room decor.

 I wish the guy had a few more of these!  5 BUCKS! Unreal. 

Dresser/Buffet with tutorial

The only other mahogany buffet that I redid sold within 3 days at the shop. 

White with the natural wood top sells like hotcakes around here!

I came across this ad for a dresser for sale on CL and thought it would make a nice buffet.

Have a looksee......

 Forgot to snap a before shot before I got stripping! My stripper of choice is "Soy Gel". I've raved about it in other posts. No smell and completely non-toxic! Works just as well as the chemical strippers. And clean up is with water.  Doesn't get any easier than that.  You can order it online at the Real Milk Paint co or many other sites. 

  I wasn't about to put back the drawers for the pic.  But here's what the whole enchilada looked like......

 I keep collecting pieces to do, and then pushing them aside and working on the newer stuff!! lol

I also wasn't about to move this beast inside to stage and then move it back out and load it onto the truck!  I swear, this baby must weigh 200 lbs! 

This one was off to my space at Debras Cottage in Costa Mesa.

The veneer was completely torn off this leg and badly peeling away on two the others. There were

Trying MMS milk paint on a "Stormy Day Dresser"

UPDATE Pics showing the wreath I just made. Love the colors w/the dresser...

If you've seen my other posts, you know I've done quite a few pieces with the milk paint from the Real Milk Paint Company.  I love their colors and their paint.  

But I'm always on the lookout to try different things. I found this nice old dresser

off of CL (yeah I know, surprise!) and wanted to do a lighter color. 

 First I applied some Real Milk Paint co in "Peacock". Then I used MMS "Shutter Gray" to layer 

over the top. 

Since this was bare wood, the paint really adheres. On places where 

More drip pots.....

I love making these drip pots. I start with plain old terra cotta pots, prime them (the terra

cotta is very porous and soaks up a lot of paint) and then paint. You can use

chalk paint, spray paint, latex or even milk paint.  I prefer the chalk paint and then latex. 

If you look at he "Herbs" pot below, that is a mish-mash of paint. The yellow is latex, 

the gray is CeCe's Vermont Slate and the white is also CeCe's. I like the chalk because

you can smooth it out and distress it. Latex is pretty one dimensional. 

 The red pot with the white dripsv and the black and pink is all latex. 

Beachy-Vibe Little Maple Buffet

I found this piece of, er, um,,,,,piece at a garage sale around the corner. 

It was a sad, sad little water damaged buffet. But the nice thing

about wood is that it's hardy and forgiving! 

Take a gander at this solid maple beaut...

Yes,,,that thing lying in there is the bottom shelf. The top looked just as bad as the rest of it. 

They were asking $30...I offered 20 bucks.  The two girls nearly threw it at me. 

Should have offered 5. Oh well. 

 I had a bit of left over milk paint in turquoise. I brush a bit here and there on top and then painted the whole thing with CeCe Caldwells White.

 Cutting out a new bottom shelf. 

 Filling in the handle holes on the doors

I wrapped the new bottom shelf piece with some leftover fabric

which ended up looking like this:

 I just love the way this top finished. You can see the turquoise milk paint on the raw maple.  I lightly dry brushed the white on top of it and then sanded and distressed until I was happy. The whole top got coats of tung oil and a dark wax and buffed until it was nice and smooth! Kinda has that beachy vibe.

The inside of the drawer was the only thing in decent shape. 

 Mercury glass knobs.  The mirror was my mother's. 

Partying at all my faves below plus..:My Repurposed Life , FunkyJunkInteriors,
chiconashoestring budget,betweennapsontheporch.net , my uncommon slice of suburbia, The Dedicated House , new house new home new life, Coastal Charm, The Shabby Creek Cottage, From my front porch to yours, House of Hepworths, Primitive&Proper, Funky Junk Interiors, 

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Something different.....

I actually got another one identical to this,   CL of course!

I came across a roadside rescue of a dresser from artisbeauty.net that I fell in love with! They did a phenomenal job painting their dresser.  

I hate to be a total copy-cat, but I loved everything about it!

Including the color. Karin and Katie, I hope you don't mind!!

I mixed up my own green chalk paint, since I'm up to my eyeballs in paint! 

I just kept adding colors until I liked the shade!

Printer Cabinet Finally done! RH knock-off!

So if you read the post below this one, you'll have seen that I've been working on this printer cabinet like the one being sold by Restoration Hardware. 

Jen Woodhouse over at House of Wood, had Ana White draw up some plans for her after seeing this cabinet. I liked Jen's so much, and got such inspiration from her, that I decided I wanted one too! My husband was kind enough to humor me and lend a hand. 

Here is Jen's:

Here is my finished version:

There is no sense in me reinventing the wheel, so, for the actual plans, go to Ana's site. 

For the actual step-by-step, go to Jens site. Both of these women are absolutely amazing!

 I made a few changes and will touch on those. I also made mistakes! 

If I had to build another one, it would be easier!
So please, if you plan on doing one of these, follow closely! I will save your sanity!

Wood: I wanted something different. I didn't want to use pine or douglas fir. I walked around

the lumber yard and found some rustic alder that I liked. But,,,,,They don't make 2X2's, 1X2's and 1X3's.in alder. No problem. If you have a table saw

Humpty Dumpty!! Rebuilt Antique Buffet using Milk Paint!

I so love working on antiques.

I have been looking for a piece so that I could use the most amazing

color of milk paint! It's actually the most gorgeous shade of turquoise that

I have seen and it comes from the Real Milk Paint Co. More on the color later!

The pics really don't do it justice. I used it on an earlier dresser I did here. 

Anyway. I digress.  So I spotted this piece on CL listed as a dresser.

It's actually a little buffet. They were asking way too much for it because half of it was 

in pieces! The owner said the drawer fell down the stairs. 

uh, yeah.  This is my humpty-dumpty piece. Read on! 

 Quite the mess, eh??! The right door was snapped off at the piece that attaches to the hinge.

Luckily the owner had all the pieces and I was able to sand, glue and clamp. You cant even tell

it was ever broken. Thankyouverymuch. 

The pic below is the middle drawer. All ten pieces of it.  Yikes! 

And here is Humpty all back together! 

 The mirror was in pretty poor shape. I used a stencil and some frosted glass spray to try and 

camouflage the defects. 

Campaign End Tables

Woo Hoo! I have been on the Campaign look-out trail!

Ya know how you start looking for a certain item/s and you just can't find it?

And then all of a sudden they fall in you lap!  I scored this pair of end tables from one lady

and the campaign bookcase from another.

Check out the cool hardware on top!

This is by far the ugliest yellow I think I've ever seen. 

I went with gray and the trim in black. I will show you in another post! 

or check out a sneak peek below....

                                    However, the end table........sigh....love! 

Now, what I don't love is all that tarnishy hardware. God help me. The table took all of an hour to

paint. The hardware, at least 8. Oh, I'm counting the hardware from the above bookcase.
 I haven't even started on end table #2 yet!!!