Getting the best of both worlds, paint and stain

It's all over the internet, in magazines and more and more in peoples homes.  This beautiful combination of refinishing wood tops and painting the bottoms.  This is personally my favorite look,  because you get the satisfaction of stained wood and all the wonderful choices of color in paint!  Miss Mustard Seed herself has used this time and time again and always does a gorgeous job of mixing the two.  I do believe I read somewhere it was her who started this fabulous trend.  For me, it all started with my dining room table and chairs.  This past summer, we were getting ready to move back to our home state of Illinois.  Not only was I house hunting for home in Illinois from California, yeah I know crazy, but I was also hunting for a new/old dining room set to refinish and refurbish for when we did move.  Let me back up a bit more.  While living out west, I had visited a new shop near us that refurbished furniture called Knot too shabby in Glendora California.  And yes,  I know that shop name is similar to my shop Knott So Shabby.  I won't deny it.  Since the day I saw that name on  the sign in the window,  I loved the sound of it.  It sums it up, little shabby but very chic, I think! Now, when we were trying to come up with a shop name, all I could think of is where it all started for me and how I fell in love with the idea of refurbishing furniture from the get go.  Michelle is the owner of that shop and I owe it to her for introducing me to the style of shabby chic.  In fact,  it's also where I learned all about Annie Sloan Paints and Waxes.   So yes, I admit her shop name was an inspiration for mine and I'm proud of it:) But to be honest, it was my teenage daughter who actually nominated Knott "So" Shabby, and we love it.

The table that inspired me to refurbish mine,
from Knot too shabby in Glendora, California

This is Miss Mustard Seed's work with Refinished Top
and Painted Bottom,  LOVE it!

Ok, now back to the topic!  We had a solid oak table with 8 chairs that we had bought in 2000.  This set was the standard country style table on two pillars with matching chairs.  The chairs one by one broke from one of the kids tipping it over one to many times.  I think of the 8 original chairs, we only had 5 left.  I finally talked my husband into trying sell the chairs on craigslist and buy 8 new/used one to refurbish.

Our simple oak chairs.  Nobody wanted them on Craigslist or my garage sales,
 so I eventually refurbished them,  will post about that one soon:)

What I wanted to do was something that I had seen at Michelle's shop.  She had refinished a table top and painted the bottom and chairs to match.  I certainly couldn't afford her set so I decided to paint the lower half of our table and 8 new/used chairs and refinish the top of our oak table.   My husband wasn't on board at first until I took him to the shop and showed him what I meant.  He agreed it look nice and gave me the go ahead.  At this point my experience with stripper was pretty limited, so my wonderful husband as handy as he is, sanded and sanded and sanded some more on that oak top until it was as smooth as a baby's bottom.  After a few coats of the dark walnut stain, and 4 coats of polyurethane, we achieved the look I was going for.  I painted the bottom of the table and chairs with a mix  of Annie Sloan's  Duck Egg and Paris Grey. After  distressing them,  I used a mix of clear and dark wax to give them that used and loved shabby look!

Sorry, this is the only picture I could find of my set.
6 chairs were alike and the 2 end chairs are different,
but blends well because they match in color.

The set was perfect and we enjoyed it for a few months until we started thinking about hauling it across country and did we really want to do that since I could find and refurbish another set when we get there? We agreed to sell it and I listed it on Craigslist and in my Etsy store.  I honestly didn't think it would sell in my Etsy store because of it's size I couldn't ship it.  But, low and behold not only did I sell the set in 3 days from my Etsy store and the coolest part was that it was to a Hollywood celebrity!  Yes, believe it or not, I sold my refurbished dinning set to Amanda Madano aka Willa Ford.  After back and forth texting and emails, she arranged to pick up the set and much to my surprise she herself and a friend drove a Uhaul to my house. We loaded it up and just like that all those hours of painting, waxing and staining were gone.  It actually broke my heart a bit to see the Uhaul truck drive away.  I remembered all of the times my family sat around that table for birthdays, holidays and every meal for the last 12 years, but as one chapter ends another one opens.  We have since then bought and refurbished another set and are just in LOVE with it.....for now:)

Fun with French Typography

Last week I posted different ways of transferring graphics or pictures on furniture.  With the vintage liquor cabinet, I used the projector transfer method because it was such a large area.  I did more research on other methods because as much as I love using the projector to transfer onto furniture, I was looking for a simpler way for smaller pieces.  The Citrasolv method looked like it would work.  With this method, you simply print out your image on a laser printer, not ink jet, and lay it flat on the surface and then ever so lightly with a cotton ball soaked in the Citrasolv solution, wipe the image backing and it transfers the image to the furniture.  By the way, Citrasolv is a all natural cleaning or de-greasing solution that is usually sold at natural food stores.  I didn't have any on hand and didn't want to run all over the place looking for it, so my research continued.  Next, I found a blogger who used the woodworkers transfer tool.  I apologize to the blogger for not remembering you if you read this,  please let contact me with your info so I can give credit.  As per her blog, I bought this tool from Amazon called, Wall Lenk L25TT Woodworker's Transfer Tool.

The Woodworker's Transfer Tool

I was very excited when I received it in the mail.  I ran out to the workshop to give it a try on a tea cart top I had painted ASCP Old White and wanted to put a French Graphic on.  I read the directions and it directed me to have my image Zerox copied and place down on surface, which I did.  Then you were to slowly move this tool around in circles around the image to transfer it.  When I placed the tool down onto the paper, it immediately burned through the paper!  Ok, so read the directions again and tried again this time pressing down ever so lightly.  After a few rounds, I lifted a corner of my paper to find that it was melting to the paint and pulling it up.  Very disappointed, I put the tool away for now until I could do more research on it.  I was still on a mission to find a somewhat simple way of transferring, when I found on Graphics Fairy Blog a tutorial on way to transfer images onto furniture.  I found the Citrasolv and projector method and then saw a method of an iron on method using a product called TAP.

French Typography from Graphic Fairy, this is the reverse image view which she provides for you, very nice!

You can buy this on Amazon as well and I did!  When it arrived, I just finished a set of mid century side or coffee tables using ASCP CoCo and had the idea of trying a French Typography on the top.  I went to my favorite graphic image blog The Graphics Fairy Blog, because it is free of course, but also because she has so many cool graphics.  After finding the perfect one, I read the instructions on the back of the TAP iron on sheets and went to it.  Fail, fail, fail!  I'm sure it was just me and how I applied it because I've read so many wonderful reviews on the product, but when I ironed my image down on the chalk paint it did peel up the paint.  Now I will try using this method again, however maybe just on bare wood, not painted.  Back to the drawing board it was.  After thinking a while about all of these ways and what I've read, I remembered how wet the ink was when I printed out a image onto  transparency paper for the projector.  Would it work if I did a reverse image, print it out and lay it down on the painted surface.  Well you don't know if you don't try right? So I did, and IT WORKED!!

 Yes, success.  I used the same French Typography image from the Graphics Fairy, and it looks amazing on the 2 vintage mid century end tables!  Don't get me wrong, the other methods work I'm sure, but not for me on this particular project.  

So, after all the research and trial and error, I'm very happy with the results of these 2 mid century side tables that went from plain Jane's to OOH LA LA!

Hope you enjoyed, these adorable tables can be purchased at my shop in Columbia Illinois at 235 N. Main Street or in my viewed on my For Sale Page!

Transfering the Projection Way

I am always in bliss when I see graphics on furniture.  The way it gives each piece such character is just so appealing.   There are many ways of transferring images onto furniture.  Some people like to stencil, iron on, hand paint or by using the overhead projector.  Personally, I am more of a freehand kind of girl, but some of that old French Typography graphics as gorgeous as it is can be intricate and would be quite difficult to simply look and paint it.   At least for me that is!  So,  I've been experimenting with different ways.  The Graphics Fairy blog has some amazing graphics or clip art for FREE, my kind of place! She has everything from vintage images to DIY crafts.  I have use it many times for iron on transfer for pillows and lavender sachets.

THE ROMAN CLOCK GRAPHIC I USED FROM GRAPHIC FAIRY:)

So my latest project was my husband's grandfathers liquor cabinet or bar.  This piece is probably from the 1960's I'm guessing by the style in the front and the hardware.  It was originally a very dark walnut stain, which my husband and I thought was way to dark for our style.  So about 10 years ago my husband took on the time consuming job of stripping, sanding and staining it in a lighter walnut color.  It was much better, although  I've secretly had  thoughts of painting it for some time now

(I know shocker, right?).  Not to mention at that time painting it was  just out of the question in my husband's mind!  Fast forward to today, and my husband I believe,  has finally jumped on the wagon when it comes to  painting furniture, yay!

My Dining Room,  with all of it's painted goodness.  I did refinish the top on the table,
 so that you  get the best of both worlds. (Inspiration, Miss Mustard Seed)

Now what to do with this piece.  It has very somewhat geometrical style doors on the front which I'm not crazy about, so I wanted to do something that would kind of take your eye away from that.   It is a bar of course so a pretty pink or light green wouldn't fit.  The top is a black laminate so refinishing that was out of the question.

Black and white, that was it!  Now what for an image?  Something big of course, but needed to be unique and go with the theme of the bar.   After looking at The Graphics Fairy Blog,  I found a really cool Roman Clock,  perfect!

These are the doors of the cabinet with one coat of Annie Sloan Old White
and the black is Miss Mustard Seed's Typewriter.  Of course, I should have a before of the whole
piece, but I'm a little impatient and started before taking a before shot.

The cabinet took 2 coats of paint and a lot of trimming up, but I was finally ready for the graphics.  You can print an image right from  The Graphic Fairy's blog onto a transparency sheet, and then line up your image onto the piece of furniture the way you feel looks right.  You may need to adjust the size a bit as well.  

It's best to start from the left and move right or vice verse if
you are left handed just so that you don't smear the paint.
I love this picture because my 3 year old
daughter took it with my cell phone, my little helper:)

The graphic I used didn't have the hands on it so I printed that out separately and of course better time to have it set other than 5 o'clock, perfect for a bar don't you think?!  Two hours and a bad cramped hand later, I had a wonderful vintage liquor cabinet that went from boring to fabulous with lots of character.

And there you have it!  A gorgeous and functional  conversation piece:)

I left the inside natural.  It looks nice against the black and white, I think.

Hope you enjoyed, now go paint something!!

French Grain Sack Settee

You know that piece of furniture you bought at a great price thinking oh yeah that will look great when I do this or that?  Or,  that won't take much to redo that piece, and then you stick it in a dark corner of your garage  and drape a sheet over it because in the back of your mind you know it's going to be more work than you think or maybe you just can't remember  what that "great" thing you thought of when you bought it.  Well here is the fabulous find that I had to have!

An antique settee that was not that attractive in a worn out  blue upholstery and drab wood stain

In the my store, I always try to have a Dining Room Set available in the middle of the floor and one at home ready to refurbish right? Well, after the French Country Set sold and then a few weeks later, the harvest table, I realized maybe that was a unrealistic goal to have for the store.  First let me explain that these dining room sets sit underneath a glorious antique crystal chandelier,  my pride and joy!  I  scored it for really cheap on EBay and it traveled from Pennsylvania to California and then to Illinois and is still just as perfect as it was in its younger years! So, I got to thinking last week, what can I put under the chandelier but would look great in from of the faux fireplace which is nearby.  "Light bulb".  I remembered that antique settee in the garage!  So now what to do with it?  Of course I would paint the legs, but I am not a "professional" when it comes to upholstery.  Yes, I have done my share of seat bottoms of course, but nothing this big.  

 So I decide to jump in head first and go from there like I always do!  I painted the legs ASCP Paris Gray and then white washed that with Old White which I diluted to a watery mix.  I distressed the whole piece and used a mix of clear and dark wax to give it a dirty aged look.  Kind of funny,  isn't that what I started with?

Tapping the Old White paint to give it a weathered look

 Next was the upholstery. I like using duck canvas  drop clothes for a lot of my chairs.  For $21 you can get large one and it goes a long way.  But, drop cloth is kind of stiff and frays and for this settee I wanted a softer material, so I opted for a material that actually resembles vintage grain sack material called Osnaburg. I learned this trick from my favorite blogger Miss Mustard Seed!   For $17.65 I bought 5 yards. I soon found out that was a little to much, but decided to use the rest for throw pillows. I got to work, and after 4 hours and a lot of pulling, cutting and stapling, I finished my very first big upholstery project!

The color is Patriotic from Martha Stewart acrylic paints

My hand made grain sack stencil, very handy!

After adding the final touch of the antique nail head trim, the grain sack settee is done and ready for the store floor!
I love the perfectly imperfect variations in the blue stripes, just the way real grain sack look.

I think I may have to do more with this nail head trim,  kinda loving it:)

Learning the Ropes of Estate Sales

Well it was quite another busy weekend!  As I've mentioned in my other posts , I hand pick many of my pieces from Craigslist.  I look for character, quality, and of course the right price!  It take lots of time and gas running around from city to city picking a piece here and there.  Since opening the shop, I've  heard from many customers that you can get great pieces at affordable prices at Estate sales.  Now,  I've been to auctions, which I like, and you can get some amazing deals from, but I'm not so keen on bidding.  So last week, I scrolled through all of the estate sale postings on www.estatesale.net and looked at all the pictures of what was going to be at each sale.  This is a great way to find out which sales you want to go to instead of running around from sale to sale taking your chance at hit or miss on things.  Looking through several, I found this estate sale in St. Louis not far from where I live.  From the photos, I could see several pieces in great condition and with a lot of character, my kind of sale!  Next I had to decide what time or day to go.  The sale was on Saturday and Sunday from 9 to 3.  Again, I heard from numerous friends to go on the last day of sale to get the best deals.  Ok, so that was an option, but what if all the good furniture was gone by then?  On the other hand, I was worried if I went on the first day, prices would be to high.  After much thought I decided to go on the first day of the sale which according to the ad, started at 9 but distribution numbers at 8.  What in the world is a distribution number again?!  I search the web and got the low down on what is a distribution number, which basically is a number they give you starting about an hour before the sale begins that represents your spot when the doors open.  Got it.  So hubby and I take off from home around 7 a.m. to get a good number and arrive near 7:40.  There was not a car in sight, so I jumped out to check the front door and found a basket full of numbers.  On top was lucky number 15 as I call it now!  We waited patiently until right before 9 when everyone, and I mean around 60 or more people, started lining up to go in.  I could feel my competitive side kicking in as I told my husband our game plan, haha! I remembered from the photos on the website that there was a nice desk which looked to be on a concrete floor, so I suggested he go directly down stairs of this house and find it.
It was time. The doors opened, everyone made a dash in according to their  number and I was on a mission!  At first glance I could see several beautiful pieces, but what about the prices? Fantastic!! I quickly grabbed the price tag from each piece that appealed to me and before I knew it I had a handful of tickets when my husband found me with his ticket of the desk I had a hunch on.  We did good.

the truck with all the goodies

AND our trailer with more goodies!

The company who hosted this sale was a local company called Carondelet Estate Services, carondeletestateservices.com, and they did an amazing job. They were very organized and patient with such a big crowd.  I paid for my goodies and we were loaded up and headed for home in no time!  I could hardly wait to get home and closely examine each piece trying to in vision what to do with it or what color it would be fabulous in.  So for us, the first day of estate sales was the way to go, because we basically took the balk of the furniture, and had we gone the second day, someone like us could have had it all leaving us with nada!

Power of Red and Mercury Glass

Happy Friday everyone!  What a beautiful day it has been.  The sun is out and the temperature is much nicer than last week!  I'm slowly growing my thick skin back from being out west in sunny California's climate for 6 years.  With Christmas being done and gone, I got to thinking about Valentine's day and what fun pieces I could have displayed in my show window.  There has been so much red everywhere during the holidays, that I thought OK maybe pink.  But then I remembered I just did the antique vanity and chair in Antoinette and Old White.  I have only used Miss Mustard's seed milk paint "Tricycle" for my reds and I REALLY wanted to try Annie Sloan's red which is just a deep gorgeous color called "Emperor's Silk", so that settled it for me, RED it was for the Valentine piece to display in the window!  You might have read about my long time friend Jennifer who has been my cheerleader (when it comes to my work), my babysitter, my 2nd opinion and last but not least my go to girl!  Being a busy mom and business owner,  it is REALLY hard for me to shop for supplies and paint, *enter Jennifer*:)  I can just call my trusty friend and I will have what I need in no time flat!  She was on the Emperor's Silk mission at 12 noon Saturday and by 2 p.m. I had my hands on that amazing paint.  I thought and thought about what piece was small enough to fit in the display window but big enough to stand out.  And then it hit me!  I had bought this really neat mid-century cabinet a while back that needed some spark.  It was a drab dark wood stain with boring knobs.  Well Monday couldn't come soon enough and as soon as my kids were off to school I was paint brush in hand and ready to go!  As I'm painting this stunning red on, I notice how ugly and dingy the inside of the cabinet was.  Washing it down was an option, however I thought a pretty light blueish gray would make it really unique.  So, after 2 coats of Emperor's Silk on the outside, I mixed up some Louis Blue and Paris Gray and that went on the inside, great color choice!  Now for the knobs.  This piece needed something special, something different.....mercury glass, oh yeah!  I always keep a variety of knobs and pulls on hand and was lucky to have just the right amount.  I couldn't wait to finish painting, distressing and dark waxing this piece so I could see the mercury glass knobs on it.

My patience paid off! After the paint, the distressing, the wax and finally the knobs...ahhh Valentine's Day Bliss:)

Enter my go to girl Jennifer again to help put this solid wood piece of yumminess in my shop window and tada, a beautiful piece just for Valentine's Day....ok, not so much it sold a few hours after opening on Thursday!  BUT,  I will be on look out for another cabinet or even a small dresser this time to do and maybe,  just maybe it will last until Valentine's Day!

Noting says WOW like mercury glass!

LOVE the distressing with the dark popping through!

Crazy New Year Beginning

Hope everyone had a healthy and safe New Year! My family was in complete bliss during the holidays as this is our first Christmas back home in the Midwest with our families!  Yes it was a chilly holiday week, but how nice it was to lounge about in comfy clothes, sit around a wood burning fire and just chill with my husband and kiddos.
But like all good things, they must come to an end, and as for me, it's that time to get back in the saddle again.  Eight pieces were sold this week in the store, which means it's going to be very busy in the work shop once again. Thanks to my supportive family and technology, my new business adventure is off to a great start and I am totally loving it! Because of technology, my furniture and new blog/website was found by a woman who was looking for a special piece of furniture and lucky for me loved my work and passed my information on to a friend of hers who works for a news paper!  You can imagine my excitement when last week I received a very surprising phone call from a writer for the Belleville New Democrat telling me how a friend of hers was looking for a piece of furniture when they came upon my website and loved my work!  She continued about how nice it would be to write an article on what is I am doing with furniture.  Well, with as much composure as I could muster up at that very excited moment, I agreed to meet with her today!
And so,  on my first day of the year back at the shop, I was blessed to have the opportunity to share my love of painting furniture with a reporter who probably wished she knew shorthand for as fast as I was talking.  But wait...there's more!  As I am sitting with this very nice woman who is writing up a storm, a customer comes into the shop.  I of course excused myself from the interview to assist her in looking for furniture for her new home.  She originally drove the 45 minute drive to check out  the antique cottage style dining table and chairs, but before I knew it, she, like others, was making her way around the shop and just like that 5 freshly refurbished pieces found a new home!  The reporter and myself was in awe as she pointed out in a matter of fact way, exactly which ones she had to have.  Needless to say it was perfect timing, the reporter got her story and then some! Although the young woman, who with her brought her adorable daughter,  couldn't stay around for a photo, she too was interviewed a bit and was as enthusiastic about my pieces as I am doing them! After that customer left another nice lady came in and was interested in some of the techniques I use which I thought was perfect, as  I got to explain them to both the reporter and a customer.  She  was interview as well and agreed to be mentioned in the article which I thought was quite nice.
So there you have it, my very first day of 2013, crazy and exciting all at once!
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Here are a 3 of the 5 pieces that found a new home today.  I just brought in a mahogany drop leaf side table painted in Florence this morning and didn't get to take any shots yet! Going to try to tomorrow before I deliver it all Sunday, and the 5th piece was a cute vanity chair I reupholstered in a patch work quilt block!

1 of the 4 cute cottage style chairs

My favorite chair, the cane back arm chair with burlap seat

the very interesting hand crafted harp table with antique glass pull

and finally the adorable cottage table and 4 chairs!