A Frenchie of a Different Color

I got so tired of having to move around this guy in the garage, that I finally made the effort to paint it. I got it in January,,,,,,of 2013.  

Well, I didn't want to rush it. 

 I was saving it for something special. I like the standard white. But sometimes you just have to try something different.  

"Dusty Amethyst" 

My own custom color made into chalk paint. I used 3 different shades. 

The 3rd and 5th drawers are painted and sanded. Nothing else. The top two had my black glazing and dark wax. Quite the diff eh?

And of course my signature two-tone look. 

I love the dark walnut top with this color. 

Ah, this hardware. God I hate doing lots of hardware. Each handle is
3 separate pieces. That's 30, if you don't feel like doing some math. Bad enough having to remove all of it let alone painting it with gray chalk
paint, dark wax, buffing and then silver gilding wax. Oh, and a sealer. 

I just had to add some coordinating fabric to line the top drawer! 

Purple Ikat and Velvet??? Hello??!!!!

Subway art on Reclaimed wood

I was commissioned to do two boards for a couple who saw my work somewhere (?)

lol.  They wanted it done big and using reclaimed wood.  They found a place selling the reclaimed wood so I went there and found a barn wood bonanza!! 150+ year old wood. 

Forgot to get a pic before I cut them all and pieced the board together. 

But here is a shot of the wood in raw, albeit cleaned and sanded:

                                These boards are so dense and surprisingly heavy.

They wanted these specific colors. I used milk paint on one because they have the most awesome shade of turquoise! I've used it on a lot of pieces and people just love it. The second color was a custom mixture of chalk paint.

 This is my house, not theirs.  I just propped it up to get a photo. It would obviously hang on a wall.

And here is the second one....

Another Custom Staining Decorative Top.

I've been somewhat lax in keeping my blog updated. Not because I haven't been doing anything but rather I've been doing too many things! Does anyone else start on one project, see something else that looks cool, start on that, only to get sidelined by, yep you guessed it, something else!

 I think I have furniture repurposing ADD. I have so many projects going on, that it seems like I'm just spinning in circles. I'm even making Vertical Succulent Gardens from old cabinet doors! 

(But that's another post!!)

So lets just try to stay on this track.......

This is my 3rd or 4th "painting with stain"  top that I've done. 

To see the first one with some how-to's, visit this post. 

I picked up this mid century solid mahogany piece off of CL (where else??) And while it did have a few issues, it was nothing that wood glue, clamps and some sanding couldn't fix.

Don't be afraid to grab pieces that look like this. You can usually get them at quite a discount and they are pretty easy to fix. If you are going to stain the wood, then use a stripper to get off the old finish. 

If you just plan on painting,