Busy week in our house

What a fantastic week here in Ontario :) We've had wonderful weather which included a hum dinger of a thunderstorm, which we badly needed.

And with weather like this, I've managed to finish some projects, one for our own home (for now).

Lets get right to it shall we?

I finally finished up a wash stand I started almost a month ago. The initial sanding down and painting was done, but I needed just the right hardware.

This is my "before" picture. It isn't really, but it's without hardware and the bar is missing. I took this at the cottage where I picked it up and worked on it.

 How it has sweet "old" hardware

 The bar is on :)

 I obviously distressed it. This came out soooooo smooth. Like butter. I love that.

And of course...sweetly curved legs with original casters.

I had also picked up a sweet dresser. (yes, still doing tons of dressers )

The body was bla...but I LOVED and still love the top curves.

 See what I mean? Very plain...but on casters (I'm a huge fan of casters)

Check out that top...isn't it just so pretty?

It didn't take long to pretty up..but finding the right hardware was a pain, nothing seemed to suit it.

But I prevailed and finally found something I thought was just right. Maybe not perfect...but right. :)

 I started with stripping it down, then added a layer of white chalk paint as a base. I wanted that to show through along with the wood.

 The top was stripped and stained. (sanded it of course)

 Those key hole covers are original and the locks work. I love that...love working locks :)

 Ahhhh those curves get me every time.

She came out just perfect!

Leave a comment. I love getting feedback :)

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And the dressers never end !

I seem to go in spurts. 

For a while there in the spring and early summer I was doing a LOT of tables and chairs. I just seemed to stumble across some great ones and couldn't pass them up. 

Before that it seemed I was doing a lot of desks, and before that, it was all about buffet and hutches. 

I seem to be coming across a lot of dressers right now, and I"m nabbing them. My poor garage, basement and the garage at the cottage are stacked full of "stuff". 

So what did I do at lunch today? I went looking for more of course..lol

I am sitting at the office while the back of my truck is holding a very nice Wardrobe. :) 

Can't wait to get started on that, course I have a few dressers to get done before that.....hmmmm anyone have a few hours they can lend me? 

The other day I was cruising through kijiji while on a break at the office (part time job which will end in Oct) and I came across an add for a couple of dressers. I called the guy up, and went to look at them at same night..then went back the next night with my hubby (who indulges me) 

I came home with these. 

This one is solid maple. I have no idea when it was built and it does come with a mirror which I'm not fond of. so not sure what I'm going to do with that.

 This one is solid oak..there was NO WAY I could bring it in in one piece.

 But look at those drawers! Don't you just love the curves. AND the locks work!!! (Happy dance)

 I tried looking this one up online.

The closest I could come up with as far as age and style is concerned is this. 

Obviously not exactly the same, but detailing and wood are roughly the same. 

And age is within about 10 years of each other. 

I was SOOOO thrilled to start work on this I didn't bother trying to take pictures of it during the process (I know I know I'm bad) 

But this is how she turned out. 

I wanted some kind of show stopper. I almost picked teal for this one, but will leave that for the Maple dresser on the top of this post.

 I "primed" it with a chalk paint in white because I wanted to do an overall distressing and wanted white to show through.

 All those great details now just kinda pop out at you don't they? There were even details on there I had no idea where there till I really got up close.

 The top was sanded back to wood and a coat of "dark walnut" stain was applied before sealing it. The mirror was in such great shape that all I had to do with is was clean and polish it.

Now I'm wondering if I should leave the mirror off and sell it as is and sell the mirror separately. 

I really don't know, I'm so torn on this. 

What would you do? 

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Even more dressers.

I did a post the other day about a couple of dressers I've redone. I'm going to add to that today. There is just something so wonderful about dressers. You can do so much. Turn them into just about anything.

I've done a few things myself.

I turned one large one into a credenza

You can read all about it HERE

One of my favorite projects though is turning them into benches such as these.

You can read about them HERE and HERE.

Sometimes I just love bringing them back to their natural state.

I had one two weeks ago that I bought at a yard sale.

Remember this dresser I picked up? Belonged to three generations of one family?

Obviously not the best picture. It had a zillion 10-12 layers of paint on it. But thats ok, I had a feeling it would be worth stripping down and doing it natural.

It was!!

I used an "American Walnut" stain. Not light, but very different from the dark walnut I normally use.

I think it fit this piece much better.

What do you think?

,

 Since it belonged to so many guys, I figured I had to keep it a "him". He just wouldn't look good all dressed up like a girl. At least I didn't feel he wanted to be a girl. Maybe I'm giving my furniture more credit than I should...but they speak to me. (no no no...not going to the loonie bin just yet)

The top came out almost PERFECT. Like it was originally intended to be.

 Look at that bottom drawer. When he came to me, you couldn't even see there was any design in it at all. Only after peeling off the first half dozen layers of paint, could the design be seen.

Going to add some casters and he will be all ready for his new home. Maybe he will go through another three generations of the same family.

Now remember my yard sale finds?

Hmmmm maybe I will leave that for another day.

Ahhhh I just love love love dressers :)

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All about Dressers Painted and Not!

What a great week we've had here in Ontario. All this summer warmth and sun. I'm totally loving it. I do feel for those that have suffered and some are still suffering in the north east USA who are without power due to the storms last weekend. 

When I started doing furniture it all started with a dresser. My husband received a dresser from his Oma and Ota. (grandparents) He stripped it down (kinda) and left it for years. I finally got sick of looking at it in the basement and BEGGED him to let me finish it. He finally relented and allowed me to finish it. 

I obviously don't have any before pictures...since I wasn't blogging way back when this was done. 

I have to tell you I got "the refinishing bug" 

I constantly have clients who come pick up furniture from my home asking for if this one is for sale. I have to tell them no, my daughter has dibs on it and since it is from family, family gets it. :) 

Now two weeks ago I was in our local GW store and saw a dresser. I fell in love. Actually there were two and I loved them both...but the price was outrageous. So sadly I walked away. 

Then Thursday I decided to go back and just drool a bit more if it was still there. 

And it was..both were still there. So I talked to them to see if they could drop the price ( you never know if you don't ask right?) Lo and behold...they were keen on moving them so I got them for 60% off the asking price!! WOOT WOOT! 

Wouldn't you fall in love if you saw this? 

ok ok, I know you are probably thinking that no matter what, this just wouldn't be worth the effort right? 

But with a bit of stripper and a LOT of sanding.......

 ALL the paint came off, then sanded it to bring back the wood grain, Then decided to paint it again. BUT I left the top natural. I used a dark walnut stain on it and it came out soooooo pretty.

 Now I'm sure you can see that there are no handles on it. This is only because I don't have the glass I want yet. I will be picking those up this week. I also need to raid my stash of antique wheels and will be adding those as well.

I love how it turned out. :) 

I'm going to head home now and will be adding more posts later today...I hope :) Enjoy your Sunday everyone :) 

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4th of July

Happy 4th of July, Independence day! 

I know I'm Canadian, and we just celebrated the founding of our country, but I have such wonderful family and friends that live south of the border I couldn't miss out on wishing you all well. 

:) 

I don't know about where you are but here in South-Western Ontario it is HOT. I love this heat. I love the sticky feeling when you walk outside and even the slight breeze (if there is any) makes you feel like you are in a sauna. A lot of people tend to think I'm crazy. I tend to think everyone else is crazy. This is after all Canada. We suffer through winters, we should never complain about summer! I revel in this :) :) 

I don't need 4 seasons. I could live with two...hot and dry, or hot and wet. :) Maybe that comes from living in Brazil years ago. Whatever it is..I love it. 

Maybe it's that time of year, but this week everything has been going well for me. I found some great deals at some yard sales over the weekend. 

I found this adorable little table. I have no clue what I'm doing with it yet, but I want it to be really fun. It just screams for something out of the ordinary. So going to leave it till inspiration hits. :) 

Then I found this amazing TV console. Obviously the tv part was gone, which is a bonus for me. I hate having extra parts waiting around till garbage day. This I knew what I was doing with before the money left my hands.. Can't wait to get started...ohhhh going to be so pretty :) 

 This is a very old chest. See the working lock? I had planned on stripping it down and adding those wheels to it, but after bringing it home I noticed it had been painted for a reason. There appears to be a lot of wood fill in one corner. It's rough, so maybe they used a lot for a little problem? I don't know, will keep you updated on that one.

 Then I found these two beauties. Actually they came from the same place as that little table at the top of my post. And these were not in the yard sale, so no one else had a chance to nab them. Apparently talking to owners will lead them to showing you things they weren't really thinking of putting out :) HUGE grins from me as I drove away with these babies in the back of my SUV :) :)

 Then came this sad little boy. I actually think he was feeling like he was being given away. He had been in the same family for 3 generations. Two of whom loaded him up for me, and spoke fondly of their years with this guy (the dresser that is) I never could understand giving selling a family treasure. Especially not after 3 generations of use. I will do a completely separate blog on this boy...it's almost finished and looks AMAZING!

And what yard sale day wouldn't be complete without a few little things that just make you smile. These wonderful old CANADIAN HONEY tins did it for me. 

Back to work for me...Hope you all get to enjoy a bit the sun and warmth and some time with family and friends over this week and weekend. 

CHEERS! 

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