Cute little step-back cupboard

Found this cute little ‘Barbie-doll’ size step-back cupboard a few weeks ago.

Unfinished wood, so just a good dusting and it’ll be ready to paint.

Oops!  Okay, maybe a little bit of sanding inside the doors before I paint it.

The knobs are easily removable too.  This will be a quick make-over!

A couple of quick coats of my ‘new blue’ paint, and a little bit of hand sanding.  I re-used the original knobs ‘as is’ since I didn’t have any others that were small enough, and they suited the new look just fine.

I painted the insides of the doors, but not the entire inside as it was too small to get my hand and a brush into.

It has been taken to my booth at Stars, along with LOTS more ‘new blue’ items.

LOVE this color combination!

ANOTHER Re-made make-over

So, if stuff site in my booth TOO long without selling, I bring it home and re-make the make-over.

Such was the case for this simple little table.  THIS ^ was actually it’s THIRD make-over!  Originally it was the largest in a set of nesting tables that I bought new 20 years ago.  They were primitive/rustic style and I think this one was blue.

After a few years I sanded off the blue and stained it hunter green, to match literally EVERYTHING else in my house, which was also hunter.

When I’d tired of the hunter green, I changed my decor to Americana with a lot of red,white and blue.  At which time I painted the top of this table to look like an American flag.

Just before we closed our shop, I had tired of the Americana primitives and sold most of them in an estate sale via the shop.  Somehow this little table go left behind, and it has come in handy over the years.

In my most recent downsizing though, it HAD to go; at which time I did the above black and tan Paris chic make-over.  It has been in my booth for at least 6 months and not sold, so I brought it home and made it over YET again!!

But WHAT color do I try next???  I primed the whole thing black and it sat in my garage for quite a while as I pondered my options.  Ah-HA!!  Everything I’ve painted my ‘new lighter blue’ has sold quickly!  There’s my sign!

And here she is, in her fourth (and hopefully FINAL, incarnation!).  Plain and simple, light Robin’s egg blue over a black base-coat and distressed.

I love that, even after so many times being painted and sanded and repainted and sanded again, some of the grain pattern still shows in the distressing!

Painted and distressed the legs to match the top this time.

Will wait until after Christmas, and possible even until Spring, to take it to my booth at Stars.  Just depends upon when I NEED to add more furniture.

I also painted this chunky wood footstool the same color; but without the black base-coat.

And this cute little stool that already had a coat of white on it.

I almost always end up using the little stools that I take to Stars to ‘prop stuff up on’.  But they still always sell really well.

Ready to go and just ‘waiting for spring’!

Up next on my ‘paint blue list’ is these two bar stools. . . . IF my son and new daughter-in-law decide they don’t want them.

More of the ‘new blue’

Well, I guess the customers at Stars prefer the ‘new blue’ too!  Everything I painted that color has already sold!  Here’s the rundown:

You’ve already seen this piece in the previous post, but here are the details of it.  It was originally a plain dark pine stain with round wood knobs and sat flat on the ground.

I added some wood feet, because . . . . . I like stuff with feet!

Just sanded off the original varnish, painted it my new blue and sanded again to distress.  The plain wood knobs HAD to go! (although if you MUST re-use the original knobs, you CAN paint them)

I found these gorgeous bubble glass knobs at Home Goods a while ago.  I NEVER go out and buy specific knobs for a specific project.  I buy them when I find them at the right price and always have a stash of them to select from.  The old original knobs get added to the stash as well.  These just happened to have one knob missing; so only five instead of a set of 6 . . . and consequently at a reduced price!

I lined the drawer with some vintage post card wrapping paper.

And decided to line the shelves too.

I must have made the ‘right choices’ because it sold from my space at Stars in just over a week!

I also painted this old wood chair my ‘new blue’ and distressed it.

Here’s what it looked like when I bought it.  Gotta LOVE it when you find pieces that don’t need a lot of prep-work’!

The chair sold right away also.

Painted this pair of end tables with the new blue as well.

The tops were pretty badly chipped and scratched, so I did have to sand them quite a bit before I could paint; but the legs were pristine!

Love this little cut out detail on the fronts of them.

And the ‘shapely’ legs.

No two pieces will ever distress exactly the same, so don’t even bother trying to get them to perfectly match.

As long as each has a comparable AMOUNT of distressing; they will still look like a ‘matched pair’.

 I almost always price everything ‘individually’, makes the clerks job much easier and saves them and ME time.  Because IF you price items as a ‘set’ you can BET that half the people who look at it will want to know if they can buy just ONE!!  Then the clerk has to take time to call me and ask IF I will break up the set and what would the individual prices be . . . . and 9 times out of 10, the customer will NOT buy even one of them!!

So, save everyone involved a lot of time and trouble and price items separately.  UNLESS you absolutely insist that they be sold as a set.  In which case, BE SURE to make a note of that on the price tag.

For example I found a pair of matching twin size chenille bed spreads.  Chenille is always hard to find and I have NEVER found two that match.  So, since this is such a rear find, I want them to be sold together, so the new owners can really enjoy their ‘rare’ vintage find.

So, all of these items sold within WEEKS of putting them in my booth.  Now I need to find more stuff to paint.  And that ‘might’ involve bringing some of the ‘white stuff’ currently in my booth home to RE-paint!   Haven’t been finding much furniture lately on my thrifting adventures.

Healing, House / Kitty sitting and My ‘New’ Blue

My hand is healing nicely, but I still can’t really DO much of anything with it.  Nearly impossible to write, but I can now hold my coffee cup with my right hand and eat with it.  Still can’t reach with it (like to open the frig) or turn it (like to turn a door knob or key in a door.)  Even have to use my left hand to turn the ignition key to start my car!  Stitches come out on Monday and I’m eager to find out how soon I’ll be able to really USE my right hand again.

Needless to say, I am not doing any ‘creating’ while my hand heals and I am getting VERY restless!!  It was nice to get out my house for five day and house and KITTY sit for some friends while they took a little vacation.  It was fun having kitties to play with again.  This is the first time in 25 years that I have been ‘pet-less’.  My new place is really just too small for even a kitty though.

 In the weeks before my surgery I got as many painting projects done as I could; AND I switched over to a new shade of blue.  Trying to achieve more of a Robin’s egg blue this time.  In the picture above, the credenza is painted with the new blue and the small shelf on top of it is my old blue.

Whaddya think of the new color?

Trash to treasure: desk ends with NO top ~ New stuff at Stars

Michael found these at the ReStore, pretty cheap since they were ‘topless’.  He just added tops from his stash of birch plywood.  Parts of one old desk turn into two night stands!

They were missing knobs too.  Re-painting them white would have been easiest.  But I prefer to distress the white furniture a bit, so a DARK undercoat works best for that.  So I painted these my signature aqua blue.

Had some nice cast iron knobs in my stash, which worked perfectly on these.

They have gone to our space at Stars; priced at $59.00 each.

Just painted up this cute vintage curio shelf in the same color; which is also in our space at Stars.

The above little wood ‘treasure chest’ (Michael built it from scratch) had been painted a dark black /blue; but didn’t sell.  Took it home for a makeover, and now it’s beachy blue!

Beach signs at Stars.

They almost look WHITE in this photo for some reason, but those are aqua frames mixed in with the black ones.

LOTS of beachy blue furniture AND accessories in our space at Stars.

Another HALF table

Legs are in perfect shape.  Top pretty scratched up.  Gave the top a good sanding, using orbital sander with COARSE paper.

Painted this one at the same time as yesterdays chair.  I always try to work on at least 2 projects at a time.  While I’ve got the paint out, I may as well!

It’s amazing how LIGHT affects the color of painted items!  It almost looks WHITE in this photo I took inside.  It sat in this spot for several days while I pondered whether or not to give it a coat or antiquing glaze.

Was thinking the glaze would bring out the pretty details in the legs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But then I had the table sitting next to the chair and liked how they looked together, so I decided NOT to add the glaze.

This table will be going to the upcoming fall show.

Ahhhhhhhhh. . . . . .

That’s what this color makes me feel:

And as you can see here, I’ve been doing a lot of ‘ahhhhhhhhhing’ lately!

These are the newest pictures of our space at Stars in Portland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said, NO such thing. . . .

 . . . as too much Robin’s egg blue!

Here it is ‘before’.

And after!

Distressed along the edges.  AND I just found another smaller ‘but very similar’ to this one table that I can ‘nest’ underneath it.  They will be going to an upcoming trunk show.

A couple of ‘quarter round’ shelves.  Michael makes these from reclaimed wood.

A little wall sconce shelf and a few frames.

This is the biggest frame ‘before’.  It looked better this way, which is actually upside down; because there was a ‘notched’ edge on the front.

This is the ‘right way’.  The picture would have set on the FRONT of the frame, instead of ‘back inside’ as with most frames.  It just didn’t look quite right to me like this.

So I rummaged through my wood embellishments box and found these.

Just enough to soften those hard edges.

Weekend painting marathon

Actually had some DRY weather over the weekend.  Hallelujah!  Got caught up on some big painting projects in time for the spring show next week.

WOW!  Looks a bit ‘too blue’ all grouped together here; but will be spread out at the show, and accessorized with whites, tans and various shades of blue.

Kind of hard to tell in this picture, but the knobs on the dresser are a slightly lighter shade.    You can see the two different blues better in the first pic. 

Can barely tell the difference in this pic, but it’s a really nice contrast in person.

Painted NINE of these wood panels.  Wall space for displaying hanging items is always limited at the shows.  These will be assembled into three, three-piece tall triangle towers for hanging signs etc on.  For ease of transport, they will be assembled AT the show with zip ties.

Corner shelf newly constructed by Michael.

Vintage little corner shelf and peg rack.

Small corner shelf and two benches, newly constructed by Michael.

Coffee table from a recent rummage sale.  Sanded the top and spray primed the legs.

Distressed with an orbital sander.

Decided to distress the little corner shelf and the frame too.

Colonial style door crown repainted to shabby blue.

LOVE the look of assorted weathered textures!

Ran out of daylight for getting this child size table finished.  Got two good coats of paint on, now I need to add some sort of design to the top.

Got a few nests put together yesterday.

 

60 second wicker basket stand makeover

I think I picked this wicker basket stand up last summer.  Was thinking on what I wanted to do with it.  Perfect size and height for a beside the couch project basket to keep sewing projects in that I want to pick up and work on while I watch TV.  Alas, my kitties would surely make it their new favorite napping spot, so I guess I’ll gussy it up to take the the spring show next month.

BAM! Finished up a quick dry brush paint job in about 60 seconds.  Seriously!  I was working on a little dresser and had my brush loaded with this turquoise paint, so I just grabbed the basket and used up the last little bit of paint on my brush and slapped it on this baby.

This frame was on my other work table with the black base coat drying.

So I went ahead and gave it a quick DRY BRUSH coat of the turquoise paint too.

The nice rough texture of this frame lends itself well the dry brushing.  BUT, you can achieve the same look on a dry brushed smooth surface with a little practice.  (the secret is to have your brush VERY dry IE: very lightly loaded with paint)  Dry brush painting gives you a weathered, peeled away paint look without having to sand!

And while I had the turquoise paint out, I went ahead and painted this little wicker stool; again using a dry brush technique.  You can see the little dresser behind the stool.  That’s the project that started all these other turquoise projects!  Gotta love a day without rain in Oregon!