Trash to treasure chest of drawers (made from al old desk!)

Well, Michael chopped off the desk part before I could get my ‘before picture’. This was one of those smaller ’student’ desks with drawers on just one side. The top and the other side of the desk were beyond repair, so I had him cut them off and just use the drawer part for a small chest.

I took the knobs off and gave it a good once over with the orbital sander. The varnish was pretty dry and crackley, so it sanded off quite easily. Then I painted it my favorite Robin’s egg blue; and added some pretty white ceramic rose knobs.

I just LOVE this size of chest of drawers!

And here is where the turquoise decor that WAS on the red tree ended up . . .

I was a tad leery of putting the primitive tree next to two such sparkly trees, but I didn’t really have a choice!  There’s just not that much ROOM in my little store to spread the trees about.

But I do SO love how the turquoise tree and green tree look side by side!

I’ll post detail pictures of the green tree decor tomorrow.  Here are the details of the turquoise tree:

I could only get a ‘partial’ picture of the top of the tree!  The very tipy top had to be left out because the ceiling light was right behind it and washed out the picture.  (gut you can see it in the first picture) I think tree toppers are my favorite part of the tree, and almost NEVER just ‘one thing’.  This one has one of those old fashioned tall pointy bulb thingys (what ARE those called?!?!)  on the very top; then this fun spikey thingy and some small beaded floral picks with ribbon.

These big seed bead ornaments are GORGEOUS in person!

Lotsa fun old fashioned bottle brush ornaments!  Love how the light shines through the ice blue snowflakes.  OH!  And speaking of lights . . . !  After having SO much trouble with more than half of my lights burning out BEFORE Christmas last year, I was about ready to go ‘lightless’ this year on my trees!  I LOVE lots of lights on a tree, but can’t stand it when half a strand burns out and leaves a ‘bare spot’!  So I made one last trip out in search of lights that had some kind of GUARANTEE to last.  Lo and behold, the new LED lights are guaranteed to burn for 25,000 hours!!  Hallelujah!  And I found some strands of 60 at Big Lots for $8.50.  Even Costco is more expensive than that!  The ‘light’ isn’t quite the same soft glow, and actually a tad ‘bluish’ (reminds me of the old fluorescent lighting) but if they STAY LIT, I’ll learn to live with them!

How fun are those turquoise feather ornaments?!?!?  And the BIGGEST turquoise ball ornaments are ones that I hand painted!

Turquoise felt chandelier and another big handpainted ball.

I used dark turquoise bead garlands on the tree.  You can see a basket of them in the back left corner.  I only have ONE of these old fashioned tinsel garlands in turquoise.  Would be pretty to decorate a front window with.

See what i mean about the lights????

These little tree ornaments are actually supposed to be package tags!  They were just too pretty to NOT put on the tree!

And of course I almost always ‘fill in’ on my trees with some sheer ribbon bows.  It’s an easy and inexpensive way to continue your color scheme without going broke!  At home (back when I actually decorated a tree!  Now with the store I seldom get a tree up at home!) I liked to do a totally different color theme tree every year.  So the following year I’d use the bows I had made for the tree to tie onto packages, or decorate a wreath that I made as a gift. 

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The ‘pink parfait table’ tutorial

 Remember this pretty little table from a few posts back?

Here’s how we made it. 

In Michael’s dumpster divings he found this nice plywood round AND a circle (I call it a donut because of the hole in the middle).  I wanted to give the table a scalloped edge so we needed an ‘inset’ space.  But since the donut was the same size as the table top we had to do some cutting.  To try and shave 1/4 inch off the outer edge of the donut and keep it even would have been nearly impossible.  So my thought was to cut the donut into four even pieces, then cut an equal amount off each end until we got the right size.  Since the donut would not show at all once we were done, the extra cuts were no biggie.

Once we got the right size, Michael glued and screwed the donut to the underside of the table.

Michael went on a ‘bar stool binge’ a while back and we’ve got a bunch of them awaiting a purpose, so I decided to use one for the table base.  I just spray painted it a flat white.  (it’s much more TIME efficient to spray paint things like chairs and stools.  Brush painting around the legs and spindles is just a pain!)

Then Michael attached the top to the base, screwing it in from underneath.  Now I was ready to work on the top!  I gave it a good sanding, two coats of pale pink paint, then sanded to distress it.

For the scalloped edge I painted four pieces of lathe, two shades of pink (one the same color as the table) and two shades of white.

Then cut them into pieces using my scroll saw.  I just cut them ‘freehand’ because I didn’t want them to be perfectly the same.

Once cut into the rectangular sections, I ‘carved’ them and distressed them using my 1″ belt sander.  Again I did this ‘freehand’ not wanting them to be perfectly matched.

I decided to stamp a little bit of a design around the edge of the table.

Using a foam stamp and craft paint.

You can see the design much better in person than in these pictures!  This pale pink paint just does not photograph very well.  NOW it’s time to add the scallops!  I flipped the table upside down:

And just glued them along the inset under the rim of the table.

Alternating the colors.

Left it sitting upside down for the glue to set overnight.

Turned it right side up the following morning and gave it a couple of coats of waterproof matte varnish.

Had a bunch of the scallops left over so I glued them onto a couple of white shelves.

Ah-ha!  You can see the stamped design around the edge of the table better in that photo!

One thing I learned from this project is that the ‘donut’ for attaching the scalloped edge to was NOT the best idea.  It worked ‘okay’, BUT with all the scallops added, the table is a little ‘heavy’ on the outside edges and will tip if you lean on it.  Next time we make one of these we will make the inset a solid smaller piece of wood to better balance the weight of the added scalloped edge.

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Chest of drawers re-do

Got this nice little chest of drawers at an estate sale.  Someone spent a LOT of time painting this baby . . . INSIDE and out!  Even the drawers are completely painted inside!  Too bad I didn’t care for the color!

I gave it a quick once over with the sander to prep it for painting. Then  I painted it a very pale pink. Sanded for a little bit of the green to show through, and added some of the pretty ceramic rose knobs we sell in the store:

Oh so shabby chic now!

 

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Little chest of drawers re-do; princess style!

Going with a PINK theme in a good portion of the store this month (and donating a % of sales of all pink items to Race for the Cure) so, this little four drawer chest was destined to be pink.

You can’t see them very well, but the knobs have little pink roses on them.  But I had used one of the knobs on this other pink piece, so I had to use different ones on this one!

The four drawer chest wasn’t varnished, so it was really quick to paint, since I didn’t have to sand or prime it.  Just two coats of pink paint; then a quick sanding when it was dry.

With a lot of the brown showing through, I dedided brown wood knobs would best compliment it.

It matches this pink and brown shabby chair I already had in the store perfectly!   

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Outdated / updated art deco desk

I had mentioned to Michael that I saw ’somewhere’ (maybe on HGTV???) that they took an old desk with drawers on BOTH sides and cut it apart to male two bedside tables.  Told him if he ever came across such a desk REALLY CHEAP, that I’d like to try that.  I SWEAR, all I have to do is mention something and he finds it!  Here is what he brought home per that request:

Very dated green paint!  But wonderful shape and art deco detail.  I just could not bear to cut away that pretty curved and routered center piece!  Decided this piece was worthy of just a face lift and not a full body makeover.

 

Because the paint on it was SHINY, I was going to have to sand or primer it.  Decided upon sanding ‘just in case’ there were some interesting layers of paint that might be revealed.

The edges easily sanded off, but bigger surface areas, not so much!  I decided that was good enough!

Sanding away the paint really enhanced the routered detail and I decided that those details were worth enhancing in the refinishing process.

I had decided upon painting it Sophie’s favorite Robin’s egg blue, and to try and reuse the original black ‘forged iron looking’ knobs.  So, I thought I would paint the routered details BLACK to match the knobs.

I got out my trusty flat black spray paint and gave the edged and detail areas a quick spray.

That was easy enough.  My thought was that it would be easier to paint AROUND the routered details that to try and use a small brush to paint them in after.  But first I had to paint the ‘chair cubby’ part of the desk.  And I HATE that part!  In fact, I usually avoid doing desks for that very reason!

Because half of my spine has been surgically fused, I don’t do the ‘bend and reach’ thing too well.  And crouching down to paint the inside of the cubby is impossible for me.  So that means I have to maneuver the desk to where I CAN get in there and paint.  So I have to set it on it’s end.

And in doing so, I can only paint half the chair cubby and one side of the desk at a time.  So it takes me a LOT longer to complete the painting.  I have to do one coat, let it dry, second coat, let that dry; before I can flip the desk and do the other side!  But this was such a unique desk, I thought it was worth the extra work!  Can you guess how many times I bumped my head reaching in to paint inside there?!?!?

So once both sides and the cubby were done I could turn it upright and paint the top and front.  The tricky part was to not get paint inside the painted black routered detail parts.  For that, I kept my brush as FLAT as possible, so the brushes would fling their way into the routered places.

As you can see, that technique was only SEMI successful!  So to clean up the blue paint boo-boos, I used black craft paint and q-tips.

That worked ‘pretty well’, but i was going to have to touch up some of the blue paint in a few spots on the edges.  Left it overnight before tackling that.

When I looked at it with fresh eyes the next morning, I didn’t like the black paint!  It actually DE-emphasized the routering and made it just look painted on.  sigh.  So I just went ahead and painted over it all with the blue! 

Of course, now the original black knobs would not work, so I bought home some of these pretty ceramic rose knobs from the store.

And the routered part shows up nicely with it all painted blue!

This beauty is still just sitting in the workshop at home for now.  Waiting to see where there will be room for it, either at the store or in our space at Stars Antique mall.

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Pumpkins ~ plain and fancy . . .

I wasn’t planning on making any of these big ‘porch pumpkins’ (as I call them) again this year.  No specific reason other than ‘been there done that wanna try something new!’  But then a customer requested some, and as long as I was making a special order for a set of three, I may as well make a few extra.  The first picture is the custom made set, just plain orange. 

She specifically requested a tall (27″) skinny one and then two more sized however I thought best rounded out the group, and in brighter oranges.

The other pumpkins that Michael cut out for me (I draw the shape freehand onto the plywood and he cuts them with a jigsaw.  I just don’t like them to be TOO perfect!) I decided to paint in some ‘different’ colors, like the heirloom pumpkins I see in the country magazines.  Okay fine, they are colors other than JUST ORANGE, but I still wasn’t too thrilled with them.  So I rummaged through my box of foam stamps and decided to lightly stamp a design on them!

It’s kind of hard to see the designs on the bigger pumpkins in this picture, but you’ll see them in the close-ups to follow.  The small pumpkin that the design shows up best on in this picture is actually my least favorite of the whole batch.  (but just you watch!  It’ll be the FIRST one to sell!) On the rest of them I used a shade of paint just a tad lighter or darker than the color of the pumpkin so the design was more subtle.

And here’s the second set of three (because you KNOW I always have to do things in odd numbered groupings!)

For the ‘ridges’ on the pumpkins I just used the ‘edge’ of my orbital sander while I was sanding the surface.  I sanded and made the ridges BEFORE I stamped on the designs. 

The ‘curly vines’ beside the stems are made from rusty rebar tie wire, wrapped around a dowel.  Drilled a hole (1/16″ bit’) put a dot of tacky glue in to hold them in. 

Michael ‘wrinkled his nose’ at the idea of the fancy pumpkins and liked the plain ones better.  It’s not that I don’t LIKE the plain ones, I just wanted something DIFFERENT!

So, whaddya think?  Are the fancy pumpkins gonna be a HIT or a MISS???  Have you ever seen anything like them done in wood like this?  I’ve seen the ‘carved looking’ ones in resin, but mostly with fall or Halloween themes on them.  All the ‘Paris apartment’ themed stuff I’ve been doing for our booth at Stars was kind of the inspiration for these.  I may even do some in black/white for the space!  Do I dare do a turquoise one?!?!

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Vintage Abernathy Furniture Co. chest

A lot of the vintage pieces we acquire, we end up re-working or repainting.  THIS one we pretty much left ‘as is’. 

Well, we fixed it up a little bit so it was ready to use by adding new knobs (since it didn’t have enough of them) and we added a new backing since that was missing.

But we didn’t touch the paint.  The patina was just too charming.  A few spots have a tiny bit of yellow and green paint showing through the white; and the top is fairly scratched up and has a few stains.

The drawers are in perfect shape and not even the slightest hint of that ‘old furniture smell’ that is so hard to get rid of!  And here she is all prettied up with her new knobs and ready for a new home!

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Mini conservatory made from old windows

I love old windows!  Always ‘on the hunt’ for them.  Michael drags home as many as he can find too.  USUALLY we try to find multi-paned windows to just sell ‘as is’.  But in one batch that Michael got there were a whole bunch of these single paned windows.  We did a major window purging a while back and I cleaned them all up and took a big batch to both the store and our booth at the antique mall.  But not the single paned ones.  They’re just not that ‘interesting’. 

No one wants to buy an old single paned window!  Michael kept bugging me, asking me what I wanted to do with those single paned windows.  So I gave him a project!

And here it is all displayed in the store:

He used FIVE windows.  Two for the top, and three sides; leaving the back open for easier access.

It looks really neat just left ‘empty’.  But I decided I’d best fill it up lest any wee visitors to the store thought it was a fort to play in!

I wanted to embellish it a little bit to dress it up.  I played around with my box of carved wood mouldings and corners and stuff for about an hour and just didn’t like the way any of them looked on it.  I finally settled upon these resin ornaments that I just pulled with wire hanger out of.

I MUST figure out a way to put a little lit up Christmas tree in there when I decorate the store for Christmas.  (IF it lasts that long that is!)  Right now the ONLY place there is room for it is right in the middle of the floor, so no electrical outlet access.

What would YOU put inside this if you had one of your very own?  Would you change up the contents seasonally, or have a year round display in it?

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Shabby cottage pedestal candle holders

This is how these came.  They’re OKAY, I suppose, but I felt they needed more OOMPH!  There were two sets of these three.

Gave them some prettier colors for starters:

Then decided the square based ones needed some more ‘weight’, so I added an additional base piece ( a beveled wood plaque)

That smaller black one (an orphan; not part of this set) needed some additional weight too.  It got TWO more pieces on the base and ended up being painted red.

I added some metal candle plates: some painted, some not.  Sanded and distressed them so some of the white showed through, and of course, added candles!

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