The Yellow Piano

In April, I received a Facebook message from a young man named Lance. He asked if I would consider painting a piano as a wedding gift for his bride, a gifted pianist. His thought was yellow and chippy, my thought was, yep, a yellow piano!! Count me in!

In the real world, one of the greatest blessings in my life has been the restaurant we own. It is obviously the main source of income for our family, but, it is so much more than that. The relationships that have been formed there have been life changing to me. We are so fortunate to meet many teenagers at a time in their lives when they are still figuring out who they are. Most of them have no idea how amazing they are yet. I know, but they don't. I love watching them grow through high school and college and beyond to marriage and babies. It is truly a thrill.

Lance was one of those kids. In high school, he drove 45 minutes each way to work with us, this was a purposeful young man. He met his (now) wife in high school and was just as intentional with her. They dated in high school and then long distance through college. She has his heart.

When Lance brought the piano to my house, his father explained that this was Lance's grandmother's piano. He said that she would be honored and proud to be a part of this gift. 

The theme of the wedding was vintage and the colors were yellow and brown. Thus, the yellow piano. The fabric on the seat is the fabric from Lance's wedding tie. Seriously, my boys need to take lessons from Lance!

I painted it using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Arles and chipped it with a putty knife for a truly vintage look. I LOVE, LOVE it! 

The sparkly crystal knobs came from Hobby Lobby...

And her gift to him? She played...beautifully... on the chippy, yellow piano that used to be his Grandmother's.

Linking to these amazing parties;

Beneath My Heart

Funky Junk Interiors SNS

Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Feature Friday

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If I Could Marry Furniture....

I just love it when a plan comes together!

It doesn't happen all of the time, sometimes its a good surprise and others, ummm, not so much. This buffet turned out almost exactly like I had imagined it in my head and, I think I want to marry it.

I found this buffet and a matching china cabinet on Craigslist. The seller had recently moved and the movers broke the matching table and chairs, she was "over it" she said. I am fine with over it! I love over it! I am actually trying to devise a way to weasel my way into cahoots with a moving company...you break some, I buy the rest...hmmm. Working on it. I'll let you know...

I would like to start out by giving credit where credit is due. This is good furniture. I could have painted it a putrid green with orange accents and it would still be good furniture. I did not choose putrid green, I hope that's ok. 

I started by stripping the top with Citristrip. It is the only stripper that I use. I have never been disappointed with the results and it smells good. It has also never burned the skin off of my arms like some other products I have tried. I actually look forward to stripping :-) Seriously, it's the simple things that make me happy!

I then restained the top with Minwax Dark Walnut stain and coated it with 3 coats of varnish. I am a little new to the varnish game, but, its quick! It goes on easily without streaking and dries super fast. I kind of love it! Thank you Benjamin Moore guy for the recommendation! You rock!

I painted the base with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Graphite.It is not one of the colors I use often, but for this piece, it was all I could imagine. After distressing, I went straight to dark wax, skipping clear altogether.

 I. Love. It. As in, puffy heart love it.

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Big News and Furniture Exchange!

We have some exciting news in our house! Relax Mom, it's not another baby! We are moving! Not moving away, but moving closer to everything that we do. 

Our business and the boy's school are 5 minutes from each other, unfortunately, our house is 35-40 minutes from both of them. Strangely, with fighting children in the car, I do not enjoy this drive very much. Sometimes, I drive this loop three times a day. Over three hours a day in the car! So, we are moving. I am excited! So much shopping to do....

My husband has been less than enthusiastic about my shopping plans. The style I love has changed in the past year or so, my furniture has not. So I have come up with a brilliant solution! BRILLIANT!! Are you ready?

I call it the "Furniture Exchange Program". It costs zero dollars. At least in my head.  I explained it to my husband like this. We will sell the the things that either don't fit right or work well with the new house and exchange them for money, which we will then exchange for new things. Probably not actually "new" things, but new to us. See? no "new" money. Free... right? Exactly. 

The only restriction is that upholstered furniture has to be new. I have a healthy fear of bugs, which I am pretty sure live in all pre-loved, upholstered furniture. Anything else, bring on the old and broken!

I thought I might show a few pictures of our current house, there won't be any room makeovers here, but you  will be able to see style changes in our next house. I may, in the next few days show some of my favorite projects in this house. There are bunches of them, pre-blog of course :-) 

I am not sure why this makes me nervous but here goes...

I will miss this closet! I built the cabinets from scratch!

The bathroom is one of the projects on my list of faves! I framed the mirrors, they were just the plain, builders mirrors.

 This is one of the boy's rooms. I built the furniture using modified plans from Ana White's website.

This is what I may miss the most! It's soooo peaceful!

I have a thousand plans for the new house and of course, absolutely no pictures! Soon though. Let the packing begin!

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Dear Craigslist Seller, Please Wear Pants

There should be a rule on Craigslist. An assurance. A box to check. A guarantee. SOMETHING!! That all Craigslist sellers will wear PANTS!!

This dresser had such a great shape and such a great price that I decided to ignore the "weirdo warning" alarm going off in my head when I talked to the seller on the phone. He just sounded weird. Not, I-will-just-be-wearing-underwear-when-you-arrive weird, but, weird. Everyday weird. 

I always take someone with me when Craigslist shopping. Always. You should too. This time, the guy sounded strange enough on the phone that I insisted that my oldest son come with me. He's 6'1" and pretty strong, I've seen him fight with his brothers. I felt like we would be ok. We each put a knife in our pocket. Did you read that? I put a KNIFE in my pocket, for FURNITURE. Are you kidding me??!!

Truth be told, when we arrived, the dresser was in his open garage and he lived in a townhouse community with several people outside. Otherwise, when he met me at the door in his underwear, I would have simply averted my eyes, bolted to my truck and left. But I could see the dresser and the peeling paint and I had a KNIFE in my pocket. A knife. My mother would be so horrified.

After what may have been the quickest Craigslist buy ever, I didn't open a single drawer, we were out of there! Creeper! 

Sometimes a piece of furniture just tells you what it wants to be and this was one of those. Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Country Grey and Old White with some rubbed back places revealing a bit of Provence. It had such fantastic chippy paint, there is no good way that I know of to recreate that, so I left it. I sanded it down a bit to remove the loose pieces but most of it was still in place, yaaaay!  I love the way this turned out!

After removing the orange rope handles that were obviously original to the piece :-) I filled the holes, drilled new ones and added sparkly crystal knobs. Perfection! 

After a stern warning to my son to "do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do" I guess it might be necessary to add another question to my Craigslist seller list;

1)Is the piece in reasonable structural condition?
2)Is it in a location that can be easily accessed?
3)Will you be wearing pants?

Linking to...

Miss Mustard Seed Furniture Feature Friday



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