Seeking inspiratioin

Every so often even “I” need some inspiration.  (tis true!)

 While perusing for dresser painting ideas on Better After,  (which is ALWAYS a good source!)   I came across this great collection of salvaged/updated pieces from one of the featured artists.  Take a peek!

This little dresser I just picked up is a PERFECT candidate for a ‘unique make over’.  The single drawer pulls make it easy to ‘work around’ .  Pretty much a blank canvas.  I just can’t decide WHAT to do?!?!?  OR if I’m even BRAVE enough to do a ‘wild’ paint job?!?!

This idea popped into my head as I drifted to sleep the other night.   For the knobs I’d use some BIG oval wood plaques, and make them into letters for the painted on number words.  I just got a totally “WTH?!?!?!” look from Michael when I asked him what he thought.  I’m not convinced I’ll like the asymmetry of the numbers on the drawers.  Might be too unbalanced for me.

I can ALWAYS just paint it white or beachy blue; change out the knobs.   It would sell instantly.  Little dressers always do.  But I’m kinda itchin to do something different too!   Better sleep on it a few more days.  But we’re SUPPOSED to be getting a stretch of warm and sunny days and that’s PAINTIN’  WEATHER in these parts.   So I can’t put it off for TOO long!

Last summer I broadened my painting repertoire with what I called my ‘Cabana stripe collection’.  Remember this big boy???

It sold surprisingly FAST.   I had so much fun painting all the striped pieces, and everything sold quite well.  I have one little shelf (like on the dresser above) and a folding table left over from then.  So I COULD bring back the stripes this year, but I really yearn to do something NEW.  (new to me at least!)

Any thoughts?  And new trends you’ve seen that I may have missed and should give a go???

 

Seeing STRIPES!

I’ve been wanting to try painting stripes on furniture for a while now. 

This little TV tray revamp finally gave me the courage to give stripes a try:

The top to this TV tray was beyond repair, so I had Michael build me a new, larger top out of some cedar boards.

There wasn’t room in my booth at Stars to open it up; but here you can see that the new top IS much larger than a typical TV tray.  Michael just had to move the ‘end stops’ out farther to accommodate the larger top.

The thing that has ‘scared me’ about trying stripes thus far is getting them perfectly spaced.  Seems like SOOOOOOOOOO much work!  Measure. Mark.  Tape.  Measure.  Mark.  Tape again.  With THIS project I already had two perfectly spaced lines since we used three pieces of wood.  So from there I was just able to ‘eyeball’ my tape lines.  Not bad for a first attempt, eh?!?

NOW I want to paint stripes on EVERYTHING!!!  This chair was one of my very first make overs; back when it wasn’t really even a ‘thing’.  I found the chair in the dumpster corral at my apartment and dragged it home.  Don’t have a before picture or even an after picture of its first re-do.  I had covered the seat and made a skirt out of some pretty yellow and pink rose material.  And it promptly became the cats favorite napping spot, underneath the skirt!

I’ve re-dome quite a few chairs of late;  getting NEW foam cushions and fabric.  But they haven’t sold very well and I think it’s probably because of the price.  But DANG!  New foam for the seats is EXPENSIVE!  Even at half price it’s spendy.  So I decided for this re-do to NOT pad and cover the seat so I could price it lower and see if it sells better.

And I decided to paint stripes on the seat so it wasn’t so plain.  Again, I just ‘eyeballed it’ when applying my painters tape for the stripes.

I considered also striping the back, but that might be TOO much, so this is it for now.  Do the stripes look too terribly not perfect to you?

Victim number 2 of my painting stripes binge; a little 3 drawer chest from the thrift store.  Little chests like this ALWAYS sell almost instantly; so it will be interesting to see if it goes as quickly with the stripes.

This baby required some SERIOUS sanding before I could paint it.  See all that carving on the top?!?!

I painted the whole thing aqua, then added white stripes; then sanded to distress.  

You can even see a little bit of the yellow which was under the original white.  Again, with this one, I didn’t ‘measure’ my tape lines for the stripes.  I started my first tape line across the center where the knob hole was, then added one more strip of tape above and below.

Stripe victim #3 is a sturdy (Heavy!) oak end table.  Gave it a good sanding, painted aqua, then the white stripes; then sanding to distress.

On this one, I did measure to find my center for my first tape line; then eyeballed it from there.

The distressing really hides any imperfections.  I think I’ll call these my ‘Cabana Collection’. 

They will ALL be going to Stars as soon as I have room for more new stuff.