Oak Coffee Table "Re"....

Hubby and I discovered this at the Goodwill. It's not very old. It used to have little "wings" on it, with hinges, so that when it was open, it was round. But, the "wings" were missing. It was also covered in peeling black paint. It actually wasn't too bad as a black piece.... but I had an idea in mind that was a little more dynamic and "shabby cottage".

I used a little get stripper to get the majority of the paint off the top, and Kevin sanded off the top for me. I helped a little bit. Here, I was starting to stain the top ("golden oak" by Minwax). I still think it would have been fine left black on the bottom, but...

I think white, being more neutral, will sell better.  I chalk painted the bottom white and lightly distressed the legs, and finished off the whole thing in a light wax. It is as heavy as all get out, being solid oak.

Pansy Ring

I have wondered what this thing was for a long time... years, in fact. There were several floating around the antiques shop when I was just an employee there.

 

Well the other day Sally told me what it was, finally!! It's a pansy ring..... 

How adorable is that?! I have never, ever seen those any where else, ever.  I think I will have to buy myself one; just because.

Also, I made this chalkboard sign this week from a door from a door off and old buffet my husband found under a pile of his junk in one of the barns:

It has a jute string at the top in case I need to hang it if I ever go on the road or something.
The shop is open, and slowly attracting customers; but it has been hard to get people to realize it's open after being closed for so long. It's going to be a lot of hard work.... but I am up for the task. :)

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone! With warm weather here, yard sales will abound; so go forth, and be thrifty!

LOL

Songbird Guitar

I pulled this out of the dumpster a couple of years ago. It is a cheap, K-Mart Christmas special type of thing, made in Japan, pretty much worthless as a useful instrument. It has been sitting around in storage all this time.

So like anything sitting around taking up space these days, it got painted. Then I did this bird design on it, which I based off a stencil I have. Then I kind of embellished it....

It was Kevin who suggested that I do some vines on the sides as well; and it turned out great. He is really developing a artsy eye from all the stuff I've shown him! He has excellent judgement on these things... who would have thought? He's such a "man's man" ..... I never would have imagined he'd have an eye for art, color, and design like he does.

The cool thing about it is ( and you can't see in these photos) that I painted the bird in short strokes and it resembles feathers.

The sad thing is, when I put the polycrylic on it, for some reason the stain on the bottom part where the strings attach bled through and made the whole part look pink-ish. :/

Oh well, it is what it is.

Sweet Turquoise Dreams

I bought this at an auction last fall, not because I wanted it, but because I felt sorry for the auctioneer who was pleading for an opening bid. Then I stashed it in my barn, after trying to sell it on CL for $20 just to get it gone. Nobody wanted it.

Fine, then. You know what that means.

(A little stencil detail)

I painted it turquoise, and added a little stenciling to break up the solid turquoisey-ness of it. It has the rails, and everything. I think it is a cute as all get out! It is for sale, and will be in our "gallery" "showroom" thingy tomorrow for opening day.

Tomorrow is our official first day, and the weather is going to be gorgeous and warming up. Fingers crossed for a few "beginner's luck" sales. :)

It's Quite Distressing.

Yikes. Old, dirty, disheveled, worn out, drab, and pretty much uuuuugly. And I'm not talking about my sofa, either. (The slip cover is in the wash.)
I've been looking at this little chair for literally years as I worked in my friend's antiques shop, where it was like something to be hidden in a corner somewhere because it was so..... yeah. 

I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out.
I had a revelation yesterday afternoon, so I grabbed it on my way out the door (paying a really low price).

It kind of happened as an accident.... I started painting it in a mixture of the blue from this post and the aqua from this post because I wanted to use up leftover paint. (I think this color is like a "covington" blue.) But halfway through, I realized that the chalk paint was not covering the uneven bumpy finish on the chair. You know how some old finished get that nasty bumpy feel? Eeeeeewwww.  SO I stopped painting, let it dry, and then decided to remove the paint, sand the whole thing smooth, and start again. (So much for "no sanding needed" with chalk paint.... pfffft.) 

But alas. When I had sanded down all the bumpy paint, I had this ultra distressed look.... and I liked it! So I finished painting the whole thing and went at it with my electric sander all over for this ultra distressed, mega beat up look. And, I covered the seat with this piece of burlap-like material I found among my stashes. It's like burlap but finer fibers.... not jute. So no stinky.

Here is the chair as displayed in my new showroom space; next to my nifty wood crate shelf thing with some white accent pieces:
 

The place is coming together nicely, and we're planning on opening next weekend with regular hours for the summer.

Yay!

Aqua Nightstand Before and After

This was actually Kevin's baby.

He picked it out at a yard sale. It was really beat up, and I confess - I would have left it. I had my doubts. And, it's not vintage - it's a modern piece by Lane. But, we're in this together, and I knew we'd be able to make something out of it, no matter how cruddy it was.

So I (we) had to scrape off the gunky ikk off the top... someone had spilled something thick and gummy on it. Then I suggested we strip it, and see what the wood was like underneath. It was gorgeous.... with a few dings and stains (which I call beauty marks). 

The corners were really chewed up so Kevin just rounded them off. After all the sanding was complete I had to re-stain the edges and corners because I wanted to distress it and natural light colored wood under the paint wouldn't show up well for distressing. (For that I used Minwax "Plantation Walnut".) I also re-stained the top in "Golden Oak", also by Minwax.

Kevin originally picked out a kind of grey-blue color, and I had chosen a dark teal-grey color; so we compromised on "Deepest Aqua" by Glidden.

When I first started painting, it looked really blue - kind of a "smurf" blue. But it turned out a really pretty turquoise as it dried, and with distressing, it really started to look better and better! I finished it with finishing wax and Polycrylic on the top.

Above you see the nightstand is displayed in our new "showroom" in my friend's antique shop. We busted our tails in the shop today moving everything around! So much heavy lifting and moving to do before the fun part.... making displays and decorating things a bit. I'll be sharing some photos soon. 

I am really thrilled with the color.... I plan on doing some more bright stuff down the road!

Robin's Egg Blue Side Table

This little table was broken when I bought it. It was part of a pretty big haul I took away from my niece's church youth group yard sale.

My super skilled husband fixed her up as good as new, and I gave her this little chalk paint makeover in robin's egg blue.

The tag is on it because.... well..... hubby and I are opening a "showroom" space in my friend's antiques shop to sell our creations! Aaaaaahhhhhh! We're totally revamping her store - which has been closed since October - and having a big grand re-opening thing in a few weeks. We're really excited. We are hoping, of course, that it takes off and that we can actually sell some of this stuff I have accumulated and piled up.

If you're in my neck of the woods, I hope you come by sometime and see me in the Milton General Store in historic downtown Milton, NC.