Beachy buffet

Life has been rather hectic recently.  I started grad school full-time, so along with the numerous home projects and personal furniture projects, business furniture has been pushed down the list.  This project is a custom request that I just dedicated an afternoon to.  It made me cringe to paint this piece-it has beautiful quarter-sawn oak veneer and really in good shape.  

I just jump in and forget to take before pics, so pardon the multiple pics...and the background.  We took this off the truck, I worked on it and it went right back onto the truck.  

The customer wanted me to replicate another piece that I did that is currently in the store.  I like for my work to have texture and layers, so that it feels like it has been this way for years even when freshly painted. 

Missed the before of the hardware.  It is interesting hardware.  The pull plates are very light, so I think they are aluminum, but old.  They were painted a gold, not brass, but gold.  I gave them a quick layer of primer and a couple of layers of brushed nickel and I think they look perfect with the paint.  


Savannah has had low humidity (miracle) for the past 3 days or so, so the dry time on this was ridiculous, but welcomed.  Annie Sloan chalk paint dries so quickly anyway, but amazingly so yesterday!  Even the spray paint on the hardware was dry in 10 minutes.


So, I'll be linking to some parties this week and I'll update on that as it goes.  


My husband has replaced the majority of the windows in the house with the low-e, argon gas filled kind.  While they are wonderfully more energy efficient, they have also altered how sunlight filters in.  Now our in-good-shape-and-tolerable-color paint in the living room has turned into a depressing cream with yellow tinge color that I won't be able to handle very long, so the living room painting project is now pushing to the top 5 on The List.  Of course, with that comes the picking of the color.   Wish me luck...


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The Bar is Open!

Hello!  New Year, time to get blogging.  New house, new workshop, new school.  Lots of new for me!  

I'll do a post with info about the house and the m.a.n.y projects that are on the to-do list.  The crazy thing is our limitations about placement in the kitchen have everything to do with the lack of electrical outlets!  It's not like electricity didn't exist in 1957, but obviously it wasn't used like today! 


The cool thing about the limitations is I am being creative and resourceful...and I finally got to do a piece of furniture for myself us!  


Besides the fact that our friends told us we needed a bar, I also need a place for the microwave that we stalked Craigslist for.  When you see my kitchen, you'll understand why, but I will say two words:  outlet and counterspace.  

Found this on Craigslist and it happened to be with someone I had already purchased an item from last spring.  Snagged it and got to do it last weekend.  Didn't know until I started taking the hardware off that it is an Ethan Allen piece from 1983.  I wasn't thrilled with the hardware, so I filled the holes on the drawers so I could use single cup pulls.  I also got a little crazy and layered 2 Annie Sloan Chalk Paint colors that I have not seen together before:  Old Ochre as base coat and French Linen as the top coat, in a semi-dry brush fashion.  So here is the finished project:

Totally in love with French Linen-it is not nearly as blue as Paris Grey and not as green as Country Grey.  


So, the bar is stocked and the microwave will be going on top for the time being.  Until I determine how to do it differently.


I lied.  This is actually the second piece that I got to do for me us.  I just haven't taken any after pictures of it because I have to move it to a different spot to do so.  


Linking to:

Past projects in the here and now!

 China cabinet before:

China cabinet after.
Hubby and I picked this jewel up at the Goodwill for $35 like, literally, New Year's Eve.  Unfortunately, you are missing a glimpse of the glamorous puke teal green that covered it's true glory.  It's a miracle I continued this "therapy"; this piece should have killed it for me, but it didn't.  We spent a day stripping it and then it sat for about a month til I decided it was time to tackle it.  Oh yeah, in the interim I kinda learned how to paint furniture.  On small cheap stuff (not cheap quality!)  Here are some more pics of the after.  Please forgive the setting.  We live in an apartment and I work on our little patio.  Maybe I'll post pics of the day that the "Hoarders" show could have showed up and we couldn't have said no.

Yes, it was missing the door.  The side glass is that concave (or convex?  don't want to be anal and go refresh my definition) glass that sounds hollow when you tap it.  It's cool.

This half table was a practice piece.  It came from the ReStore for like $3.  Was not pretty before, but I did not take before pics. Yea!  I have before and after for the coffee table.  This one was fun painting inside in January!

Once again, no before pic.  Yes, I'm learning.  Never been much of a camera person, so I just go to work!  This was a deep pinky toned dark red stain.  Sanded and sanded and sanded some more.  Made a great base color for distressing, though.  Used the wooden pulls-just sprayed them with ORB and bam!  Set it off!

Our first farm table and we don't have a pic to show off the top!  Grrrrr!  Painter's dropcloth covered seats (hubby's idea).
Thought I would share some of what we have done (what pics we actually have) and get caught up!  Still have more to share from items already sold and gone, then we can be current (like grown-up bloggers do!)  I will share our story and pictures of the CUTEST CAT IN THE WORLD later, but here is a preview pic of the CCITW.

Do not look in the background, please!
Like father, like daughter!

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Tables here, there, everywhere...

Hello!  This is a post to just see if I can even make this work with pictures... don't worry, I have someone who is going to help me with this craziness later this week.  But, me being me, I have to try on my own first. 

Here are pictures of the lastest farm table just completed.  Since I have good pics, I decided to post them.  We take the basic-sold-at-every-inexpensive-furniture-store-style table with the light wood top, find chairs from anywhere and create vintage looking farmtables. 

Okay, now I'm excited with how easy it was to load those pics.  Now, take a look at the endtables...