Shades of Yellow (bowfront dresser)

Ever have a love affair? 

Nooooo, not that kind. Geesh. 

You have to think out of the box here. 

I'm in love with colour. Depending on the day, I love different colours. Each time I do a piece of furniture or paint a wall in my house I fall in love. 

Hubby is convinced I'm in love with Grey. And he's right. But I love pairing it with other colours. 

But then there is yellow. Different shades of yellow. And some pieces scream for it. 

Take this dresser. 

The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it. I also instantly pictured it in yellow. 

So after having it home for a couple of weeks I set to work. 

 Aren't you proud of me for taking "during" pics" ? LOL

I had to abandon it for a couple of days while I went to the cottage and going to yard sales...but I got back at it and finished it up on Monday. 

 I re-used the original handles because they were so pretty to begin with. I just cleaned them up.

 A bit of yummy distressing and sealing and viola!

In love.

Eventually it will be paired with a table and bed

 I'm going to be working on these this weekend...but won't it be a great marriage?

 I can't wait for the new owners to send me pics in it's final home.

Can't you picture it all together? 

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Savvy Southern Style
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Something super special :)

Please bare with me as I share a short story. 

As you can see by my last couple of posts I went to my first town wide yard sale of the season over the weekend. 

After unloading everything, organizing and doing some emailing with clients, calling two of my boys (I have two boys who share a birthday, which happened to be Sat) I grabbed my hubby and we headed out for dinner across the border. After all, the next day was my hubby's birthday. That's right, half our family's birthdays are done in two days time. 

On our way home we took the scenic route..something we often do. 

Always on the lookout for interesting things left on the side of the road. You would be surprised how many people do that. Often things are not worth stopping for, broken kitchen counters or toilets etc. I can't count the number of couches with and without torn pillows I've seen sitting there waiting for someone to rescue them or the garbage man to haul them away. 

Oh that's not helping me get through my story is it? 

On the way home we passed a pile of things on the side of the road...a futon, some pillows and something laying on the ground..looked like bed springs or something but the colour was interesting...so I asked hubby to please turn around and have a look. 

I hopped out and knew instantly that it was some sort of fold up bed. I didn't mess around but asked him to help me load it up in the truck. 

Believe me when I tell you this sucker is heavy. There is no way I could have loaded it on my own. Even with the two of us it was a bit of a struggle. We are not weak people! 

After taking this pic we folded it up and put it away, and carried on with our evening. I measured the width and then went home. 

It wasn't until last night that I finally was able to sit down and do a bit of research on it. 

Turns out this is called a campaign bed because it was taken along with solders during the civil war! 

ALL of the ones I've seen on the net were 30 inches wide, with no casters (which is not surprising as they often fall off) Mine is 47 inches wide and has all it's casters and is in GREAT shape. 

So I decided to contact a few auction houses to see what they had to say. This could get interesting since Sotheby's have contacted me twice about it today. 

Stay tuned. It could mean nothing...but it's could get interesting :) 

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More Yard sale finds

More Yard Sale finds.

Oh how I wish I could have had a really big van, or a trailer behind my SUV. There were soooooooo many wonderful things I could have bought on the weekend. 

I just had to keep reminding myself that this was only the first town wide of the year, and I had to pace myself.

 I found this lovely old scale and plan on removing the broken glass then placing it in my booth. These sorts of things always sell really well.

 I have several tables waiting for refinishing and these chairs will go perfectly with one of them :)

 And who doesn't love a cute side table? This one is actually taller than most and could work really well as a bedside table too.

 Then this wonderful coffee table that opens up to reveal a chest. I love the iron bands and I have something perfect to add to it. Can't wait to get started on this!

 Crates! Who doesn't love crates?

This is a reproduction phone from the early 1970's. Just a fun piece. I called my daughter on it when I got back from the cottage, just to make sure it works. It does! :) 

I picked up a few pieces for our cottage...didn't take pics however. No worries, you will see them once I finish redecorating the cottage :) 

Ohhh and one super special find. But I will leave that for a post all on it's own! 

First town wide yard sale of the season!

It's spring.......I think

You couldn't tell by the wind....brrrr it was cold. 

But I got up this morning and braved the cold temps, grabbed my coffee and headed out. 

Small towns are not nearly as small as you might think. All those back streets to wind through. Drive by yard sales too. You know the ones. You look to see if there is anything of interest to you. 

Normally if there is a stack of clothes and lots of tables with kids toys in bright colours, I drive on by. 

Not that those things aren't wonderful, they just aren't what I'm looking at at this point in my life. That was wonderful when my kids were little, just not right now.

And the crafty ones I drive by too. Mostly anyway. The ones where there are a ton of birdhouses or candle stands set up. Again, wonderful things, just not for me. 

I look for the old and run down stuff. Furniture piled up. And believe it or not...new houses that are barely built. Often people do a wonderful "purge" when moving into a sparkling new house. 

Bonus for them and for me :) 

ok ok ok...enough talking right? Stop rolling your eyes and just poke me in the ribs. 

First thing I picked up was this amazing industrial storage unit. Galvanized steel and OH MY HEAVY! When I went back to pick it up it was sitting by it's lonesome on the driveway and no one around to help me load it up. Two wonderful 60+ year old ladies came to help me. One jokes that "us women can do anything better than a man" I just had to laugh. Love small towns for the helpful women! 

 Then I came across all this wonderful "stuff. 

The bedside tables are self explanitory..the little boxes are from a hardware store and I just love the industrial yumminess of them. Is yumminess a word? 

Then the unit holding the boxes (drawers) 

Want to see what is inside? 

 Did you guess a sewing machine? The man who sold it to me told me that when his family moved here from Austria after the second world war, his mother insisted this was the one things she needed to bring with her.

 It's actually in really good shape, it just needs a bit of love.

How awesome is that? 

And at that same yard sale I picked up this amazing bed. 

 The legs sold me!

 And the details. Although the finish needs a bit of work...it's very solid!

I have lots more...but we will save that for another post.

What did you find today? 

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Small project big impact.

Hey Everyone, welcome back :) 

What a great week. Well so far. 

Just wanted to share a little project I made up for ME! 

What a change. 

Ever have left over pieces from one of your projects? I have a house full of them. Some people collect all sorts of things and then have to call shows to declutter (I think they are called Hoarders) I'm kinda like that too, except I collect furniture and furniture pieces (from things I've redone) 

I had this big beautiful wardrobe but I removed the door inserts. 

You can see it HERE

I wish I had taken pics of just the inserts...but like normal, I don't have that. 

Sooooooo just picture a plain oak insert ok? 

This is what I came up with. I just barely covered it with white chalk paint. When I say barely...I mean that. It just went on that well. 

What fun! 

 I really wanted a very distressed/worn through look for this. Then I added some screws to hold some of my treasures. I started with this clock I picked up. I'm clock crazy, but I"m very picky. This one is some kind of metal and was just perfect for me.

 Then I added these vintage window sash pulls. Turned them upside down and attached them. I'm going to use these as key holders. Great idea right? I thought so too :)

I have a few great frames that still need backings on them to hold them up, but then they are going to fill in the spaces here. One is a pic of me with my daughter on our trip to the Netherlands and another is me with my aunt in the Netherlands. I will get to those soon, I promise.

 And if you've noticed, it's still sitting on the ground.

See that wonderful space? Yup, it's going there.......someday..........when my husband gets to it. 

See I've been banned from certain things in our house. Hanging things on the walls is one of the big ones. 

I've tried. Seriously I've tried. I can do light things...which means little things. 

But when I try to do the big ones....wellllllll I fail. 

They never seem to go up right, even when I "do it right" 

So I leave it for him to do. 

And I leave it...a long time sometimes. 

It's been there for about two months now. 

I'm still waiting. 

Ohhhh gotta love my man. lol 

I have to share a couple of personal pics now. 

As many of you know, I'm an Oma now :) 

I have a wonderful 4 month old grandson. 

And this week my grandson finally got to meet his great oma (my mother) for the first time! 

Gotta love Easter right? Great reason to get together. I should have gotten one of those 4 generation pictures, but it totally slipped my mind. 

 So here is a pic of my mother with her great grandson! This isn't a first for her though. She already has 5 other great grandkids...this makes #6.

He is however my very first Grandbaby...and I'm loving ever second I spend with him. He even fell asleep on me. What a precious baby! Love you blue eyes! Being an Oma is the BEST! 

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The Brambleberry Cottage 
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I Missed my anniversary!

I do this every year. 

I want so badly to celebrate my blogging anniversary, but miss it every time. 

At least this year I remembered to mention it in the right month. 

Just want to share with you some of my favorite projects from over the last Three years. Yes it's been THREE years! woot woot. 

I can't believe the changes in my own style and how far I've come with the tremendous help of my husband. 

This Union Jack dresser was such a learning experience and I love combining colours like this :) 

I really need to do another one like this...the Harlequin design is so classic and so much fun.

And doing wonderfully detailed pieces like this is something I LOVE! All the amazing vintage details come out. 

This of course is one of my personal favorite pieces. I so wish I could have kept this one, But at the same time I'm glad it went to a wonderful home! 

I'm still looking for more of these....how yummy is that?? 

Ohhh there are so many more. 

If you have time, have a look through some of my old old OLD blog posts and let me know what you think is the best. 

Thanks to all of you I'm still having a lot of fun sharing with you all the things that I've had the pleasure of passing through my home...even if it's only for a short time. 

THANK YOU!!!

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Knick of Time
Domestically Speaking 
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Cottage kitchen....part 2 The painting is done!

We got to spend the long weekend at the cottage! 

And we even had one son there to share the time with. Sadly it's still to cold to spend a lot of time outside. 

So we (as in I) continued work on the kitchen. 

You can see the full "before" pics HERE

I was able to finish the cupboards, the walls and the trim. Yeah me! 

 Please excuse the mish mash of stuff. This is reality for me when painting and actually living in the space at the same time.

 I did end up doing a grey glaze on the cabinets. It now looks amazing with the blue I picked for the walls. Of course it will look much better next weekend when our new to us microwave is installed. Anyone want an old microwave? Black, works great and is free :)

 I still love my tins. I put less up than what was there originally...I finally decided which ones were important to me and which ones were just gathering dust.

 What a difference a bit of paint make eh?

A view from the back entrance hallway. Next step in there? Rip out the counter tops and replace with Barn Boards! 

I'm excited! 

Sharing:
Coastal Charm
Knick of Time 
Domestically Speaking
Elizabeth & Co.
Savvy Southern Style  
The Brambleberry Cottage