Monday, 18 March 2013

White!

Sometimes I just have to state the obvious. I'm surrounded by white this week. 
It's snowing outside. I'm so ready for spring. 
Officially it's only two days away, but it seems like forever with all the snow we've had in the last two months. 
I'm dreaming of this

And inside..White is the colour of the week. 
I just finished a white custom order and am working on a totally white bedroom set. 

The custom order is for a friend of mine. She is one busy lady and although she can do it herself she opted to have me do these two pieces for her. 
 I quickly snapped these pics when they came in because I know I'm horrible at taking before pictures. I love this dresser. What a lovely curve to it eh?
 And check out this vintage hutch? My friend makes stained glass and replaced the glass in this herself. 
She wanted it all white and distressed to match the chairs she did for her dining room. 
So that's what I did. 

 Didn't she turn out wonderfully?
 I did remove the glass and paint the decorative wood piece along with the entire inside.
 This piece has a fair amount of distressing to show it's wonderful age. 
Now why is it that we women don't want our natural "distressing" showing? (I know, random thought)
 I'm always in love with legs like these. They are just so majestic don't you think?
Funny story for a min. As I was taking this piece apart before starting I opened this drawer to find it still full of family pictures. I set it all up and took a pic to send to my friend. She groaned since she had asked her daughter to empty that drawer. I laughed because it exactly how my own kids would have left it if I had asked them....ohhh the joys of having pre teen and teen kids :) 

The second piece..the dresser was stripped and had the top restained. 
 I know the one handle is missing. This is my fault. For some reason after cleaning them (before painting them) I left one in the kitchen and so it didn't get painted with the rest. Talk about having a mini panic when putting it all together again and one piece was missing!
 The top drawer is one drawer but it's sectioned off. Very handy for those of us who love to organize things. When this dresser came it me the inside was pink. Great for a little girl, not so great for a piece that will find it's home in a living room. So I painted this a vintage green...so much better right?

 Aged in all the right places. :)

I'm not done with white for a bit yet. 
I have a complete bedroom set to do. Wait till you see it all :) 
Stay warm if you are where it's cold..which I think tonight is most of North America. 


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Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Getting ready to sell your home?

I love my home. I really love it. It's pretty and it's special. You see my husband and I designed it. Every inch of it has been touched by us. 
No we didn't actually build it, but personally I was here between 3 and 5 times every single day of it's build working with the builder and the foreman..all those little design and construction decisions that needed to be answered. And everyone that has gone through this process knows that it's better to find mistakes sooner rather than later. 

But what does this have to do with Selling? 
Well I've sold my share of homes. In my whole life I have never lived in one place for longer than 5 years. Really! 5 years was my limit. 
Until now that is. We have lived in this house for just shy of 6 years. 
When I hit the 5 year mark I started to freak. I had no idea what to do or how to think. I started pressuring my husband to sell! 
He held firm. 
I'm still a bit nervous about this whole staying in one place thing, but I'm getting used to it. 

So no, we are not selling and moving at the moment but for those of you who are.... a friend of mine has a blog about house and home and she has a great post today about staging your home, so go check it out and leave a comment. I'm sure she will appreciate it since she's new to blogging :) 

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Monday, 11 March 2013

Industrial style dresser

This is a first for me. 
Normally I love doing the whole paint and distress or glaze thing. And I did do both for this piece but in a totally different way. 
If you read my post on the French provincial set From ewww to Ahhhhh You would know that I was able to go in and remove some wonderful pieces from this home that will be sold. 

One of the things I picked up was a solid wood dresser. This one is unique though. It's not all that old I would guess it was built in the 60's or early 70's. But it's solid, I mean solid. The shape was not something I had ever seen before and when I laid my eyes on it I knew instantly that I wanted to give it an industrial feel. 
Sadly I was so excited I neglected to take any before pictures. I was getting so good at the whole before thing too...so please forgive me for my slip up. 
I stripped it down, stained it and then painted the base with a really nice medium grey. 

 I then started mixing different coloured glazes. I started with a green glaze, followed with a light grey, then layered a purple over it...then I sanded it down a bit. Then finally followed it all with a black. Then sanded it down again before sealing it with a Poly.
 I really wish I could get the colours to come through in these pics. The pictures don't even come close to what it really looks like.

 I do love the unique shape of this dresser.
 And don't you just love the new wheels? I thought it added to the whole "industrial" feel. 




I really love this. I wish I had a place for it in my own home or cottage. I picture it in a man cave or in a rec room with a TV on it. Or I see it in a boys room. It to me is just to cool! 

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Saturday, 9 March 2013

From ewww to ahhhhh

I love the internet. 
No seriously. I know there are people out there that think it's wonderful but there are just as many out there that think it's awful. 
Personally it's been a wonderful tool for me, but on top of the information and helpful hints it's given me it's also given me some wonderful friends. (not to mention I met my husband online..almost 12 years ago, but that's another story) 

One person I met through my facebook page (sweet sweet woman) keeps "sharing" my projects on her own facebook page. As a result a friend of hers called her and offered her some furniture that she deemed fit for the garbage and not good enough to even give to Goodwill. 

You see where this is going I'm sure :) 
I received a panicked call from my friend, "please, can we just drop it off at your place for you to redo" YUP!
I had no idea what I was in for....lol 
 I thought I better snap so "before" pictures as they were dumped in my front hall way.
 The set included this long Dresser, two matching bedside tables, a mirror and a king sized headboard.
 All that yellow stuff is nicotine stains. The husband thought it was the colour of the paint that was once used till I pulled out a bottle of spray cleaner....can we say ewwwwwwwwwww!
 Since I had just finished another dresser and a couple of chairs it wasn't much to move them all out of my workshop and put most of this set in. I got to work right away!
 I stripped and sanded it. There was NOTHING wrong with it! It's solid wood with some veneer over the top, no chips, no cracks. A real pleasure to work with :)

Now I'm not totally done. I do have the dresser and the end tables complete, the headboard and the mirror still needs to be worked on, but my workshop is only so big. 
And here she is! 
 Ok...go look back at the befores, I'll wait :)
 Isn't she lovely?

 I know I'm the one that worked on this, but I still can't believe how wonderfully they all turned out :)
 Ignore the dust please, I did polish them, but forgot to clean my own fingers before moving them and grabbing the camera.

 I can't wait for my friend to see them in person, and I can't wait for her husband to see them...oh and the person who thought they weren't good enough for Goodwill. Another sweetheart of a woman who allowed me to go and grab some more things from the house she was emptying...but that's another blog..or two or three :) Lets just say I have my basement full of projects now :) 


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Thursday, 7 March 2013

Longggg dresser redo

I can't believe how quickly this week is flying by, look it's already Thursday!
I'm in a Dresser kind of phase right now. 
And I've come across some pretty awesome ones too. 
Last night a friend of mine dropped off this amazing bedroom set for me to redo, that will be for another post. 
But last week my partner in crime (aka Jo) found this dresser at the Re store.


I know...the pictures aren't the best and my dog (Riffy) managed to get himself in the shots. 
He's such a suck you know, he loves the camera and as soon as I pull it out he no longer walks behind me he has to be close to whatever I'm taking pictures of. 

I absolutely love the curve on the front of this dresser. So often with these types of dresser there is a bit of design, but everything is flat. 
I'm still loving the natural tops so I set to work and stripped and sanded this girl down and gave her top a wonderful deep colour, then painted the base a very light green. In most light it looks off white but in very bright light you can see the hint of green to it. 
 Isn't she pretty now? I saved the hardware. Scrubbed it all down and gave it a flat black coat of paint.

 The top came out amazing. And check out the insides of the drawers? They were all in great shape and all of them had this faux newsprint. How cool is that?

 After some poly and a final sanding, she is ready to go to her new home! 

Now to run to the grocery store and get to work again. Finishing up another dresser, chair and get to work on that bedroom set. 


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