Monday, May 21, 2012

The Beast is a Beauty

This is the new, but old, china cabinet that inspired me to sell the china cabinet formerly known as my favorite china cabinet in the whole world. My Frenchy Hutch, (seen here) was sold at the April sale at Restoration Emporium. I was lucky enough to meet the girl who bought it and I am confident that it went to a good and loving home, she was excited and so was I!


I found this beast/beauty when I went to pick up some other furniture from an older gentleman. He had tons of furniture and it was all being sold at great prices. It has five original, curved glass panels and amazing carved details. As lovely as it was, it also came complete with mouse doo and a plate of old, nasty fried chicken in the drawer. Seriously? Who does that! 


There was some major disinfecting that would need to take place here. I returned his plate of chicken, and loaded up my finds and promptly brought them home to sit in my garage for two months. Waiting for inspiration to strike. I had lots of ideas but none of them seemed quite right, sometimes you have to be willing to wait for the right idea. In the meantime, I decided to paint the whole thing with Annie Sloan Chalk paint in Old White. The base color is always a good place to start and I planned to add the accent color later when I made a decision.

I have always been a fan of the "big chippy" look, the look that can be achieved with Vaseline if you are spraying latex. It was just by messing around that I found a way to do this with chalk paint. I used a flexible putty knife and just lightly scraped off the paint in spots and then lightly sanded down the edges of the chipped areas. It was better than I had hoped and I decided to heavily distress it and leave it all Old White.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Although I love the look, I do realize that it is not for everyone. I had a client in my garage just after it was finished and she asked me what my plans were for it :-) I laughed and said that it was done, she looked shocked and said that it looked like the paint was peeling off.  Exactly.

I removed the back of the cabinet and sprayed it with adhesive spray and attached some alphabet script fabric. I have a weakness for script fabric, it is amazing to me that when the alphabet is written in script it looks fancy and not elementary. 


Here it is in my dining room as it is today, it is definitely a work in progress. But at least it is presentable and mostly clean. This is more of an accomplishment than you may know! Most of the time the dining room is the place my work junk lands before it is tagged and brought to the shop. So, clean is good!






So the Beast is a Beauty, to me.





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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Coco and Graphite Frenchy Desk


This desk came from a moving sale in a fancy pants neighborhood. The wife was clearly frustrated with her husband, he had decided 15 minutes before that they should have a moving sale and stuck a sign in the yard and didn't tell her. The kids were fighting. The movers had just left and there was complete chaos in the house. I felt completely at home there! Plus they were just saying "make me an offer" for their furniture. I thought about offering the pack of gum in my purse.


Somewhere (and I wish I could remember where) I saw a picture of a beautiful dresser painted with ASCP in a mixture of Graphite and Coco. The color was a rich grey. Of course I didn't write down any recipe that time or when I mixed mine. Nice right? I just dumped the bottom of two cans together and hoped I had enough. I had barely the right amount!


Because I love to see three colors after distressing, I used the off white that the desk was already painted and then distressed further through to the wood underneath. Kind of a neat look annnnnnd...somehow I forgot to take a closer picture of that! Uggggh!


I usually use both clear and dark waxes when finishing dark pieces, but this was such a pretty color that I skipped the dark wax and just used clear. 


This sweet writing desk is waiting for a new family at Restoration Emporium's May sale. She is well behaved and does extremely well in chaos. 
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Leprosy Buffet


This buffet had leprosy.



That's what I told my friend Sheila when she asked what I was doing. I sent her a picture of the leper. I had stripped and restained the top and it was looovely. However, I got a little carried away with the distressing and it had a very strange, sick look when I was done. It was one of those times I kept telling myself it will look fine when finished. Well, that never happened.


There was no way to fix it without starting over. Believe me, I tried. Finally, I just gave up and repainted it all again with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White. Much Better. It is such a pretty piece of furniture with the curves, I just hated to see it so spotty!


I made it a point to be less aggressive with the sandpaper the next go round! I like it this way much better!




I am pretty excited that she is looking less contagious these days. Curvalicious!


Linking to these fabulous parties!


Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Feature Friday


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