Lonesome Dove Dresser

Does everyone have these strange moments when you are working on a piece of furniture and you know just what the post title will be before you even finish it?  Hello?  Hello?  

Well Lonesome Dove here started out as a good idea that ended up being a hot mess.  Really, I was doing this awesome job of brushing paint on every which way in a pile of "complimentary" colors.  Ha!  It was pretty bad, and what do you do when you think it's bad, but you really don't want to start completely over...Distress it...a lot.

And then you end up liking it.  It's now not a hot mess, but rustic.  Viola!

It's a combination of ASCP in Old White, Old Ochre, and Coco.

Love these big ole wooden knobs.  Sweet.

Huge, deep drawers and solid wood construction.  Does it look familiar?  I've had others just like this one that came out of a sorority house remodel.  I have more too...yee haw!

You just never know sometimes how it's all going to turn out.  And sometimes that's the best part.

Goodbye Summer!
Deb

Blowin' in the Wind

Another breezy day on the Plains or, Peter, Paul & Mary, your choice!  I think I'll just turn on my ipod every time I need a post title and you can see my exceedingly eccletic music collection right along with my excessively eccletic furniture projects.

It is always strange how furniture finds seem to run in phases and flashes.  Lately it's been a glut of mid-century modern pieces when a year ago I couldn't find any at all.  Luckily I have a few antique pieces in my stash to pull out when I feel the need to change things up a bit.  Here's a piece I snuck in quickly before moving on to a custom order on a new, traditional piece.  I do love me some antiques!

I showed this before a couple of weeks ago.  The top had already been sanded smooth and restained, and rough spots and veneer damage patched.  It wasn't in horrible shape, just showin' her age.

I decided to play a bit with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paints and just haphazardly slapped on Old White and Old Ocher all over this piece.  I only painted 1 coat, and sanded back until it was "baby bottom smooth".  It distressed it beautifully and the combination of closely related paints gave it a neat patina.  I suppose I could have created a similar look with dark wax, but it was a great way to use up a bit of paint left in the bottom of both paint cans.

I kept the original brass hardware, just gave it a good cleaning to remove the buildup of gunk and grime.   Here's the close up for you to see the details.

The top was satined in Minwax, Jacobean which is a really rich dark brown and my personal favorite.  I know this picture doesn't do it justice, but the way the top was originally designed there was a border of darker wood around a lighter inset.  You can sort of see it better in the before photo.  It is still apparent in the top after the re-do, and I love that!  This short dresser came on wheels and those bottom 2 drawers are huge, both wide and deep.  It took everything I had to summon up the will power to not stick this over next to my sofa with a lamp on it and stake a claim.  It will make a great addition to a family room, bedroom, or entry hall.  I would use it as a side table or nightstand in a heartbeat, but it would look great at the foot of a raised bed, under the big screen, or in a dining room as a shorter sideboard.  Shoot sneak it under a window as a sort of window seat and your cat will love you forever!  I do believe you better beat me down to NJ & Co. in Omaha for this one or it just might be coming back home with me.  Seriously.

Hope you have a wonderful week filled with your own special Sunshine!
Deb
Linking to:

NJ & Co. News and a Custom Piece Reveal

Good Morning Friends!  It's cold out there.  Can I hear an AMEN?

I just wanted to let my local, Midwest area peeps in on a brand new service NJ & Co, where I vend some of my furniture pieces, is now offering.  Who doesn't want to know when new items have been marked down?  Who doesn't want to know when a shipment of fantastic new things has arrived?  Who doesn't want to receive special VIP discount savings?  Here are the details, and stay tuned after for a quick custom furniture reveal!

NJ & Co.

Guess what?  NJ & Co. is now sending secret sales and specials to our VIP customers. And you're one of them. With our new VIP Text Club, we're sending text messages (no more than 10 per month) to let you know

about fabulous finds and special happenings in the store. 

Here's all you need to do: 

Text the word:  NJCO to 36000

As a special bonus, when you text, you will get a text back that gives you 10% OFF one regular-price item! So, next time you're in the store, just show us your text and you'll get the discount.

Thanks so much for your business, and we'll see you soon!

-NJ & Co.

Text HELP for help. Text STOP to cancel.

Msg&Data Rates May Apply. Terms & Conditions available at

http://www.homepagesdirectories.com/, email textsupport@homepagesdirectories.com, or call 1-800-807-6870

Go, text, get signed up right now!  Even if you don't live in Omaha, you might live close enough for a road trip when you see hear about some of the stuff in there.  Yesterday a friend and I stopped by... oh my...new art work, new RAD, and I do mean Rad chandeliers and light fixtures.  

Here's a quick pic at my new treat for myself.  

 We have a Golden, and this reminds me of the age of my oldest 2 girls when we first got our Golden.  Isn't this cool?!  I got more, and if I'm thinking about one of the light fixtures for my laundry room.  Shh, the Mr. doesn't know about that yet...

Now, in addition to creating some furniture treats for NJ & Co., and for our best of times Prairie Market, I've also been able to take on some custom furniture refinishes.  It's definitely keeping me hopping (whew)!

Sadly, I'm a dork and have rarely managed to get a photo of a finish before it gets picked up.  Here is one I just completed and it has returned to it's lucky birthday girl!  I just have to say that you gotta like a husband that would do this for his Mrs. for her birthday.  Thinkin' outside the box, love it!

A lovely french dresser, finished in ASCP Old White, heavily distressed, light and dark wax.

Here's a better photo of the true color.  I don't know what happened with that yellow mess above.

The clients seemed genuinely happy with the results...which is the best feeling EVER!  They were very sweet, very patient as they waited their turn, and very happy.  

I've got another finish to share next week.  Another custom piece in the "winter workshop" aka my dining room/everything room, and more pieces to come.  Have a great weekend everyone and stay warm and safe!

Deb

The Bee Twins Older Brother Comes To Visit

It was a dark and stormy...morning, when the Bee Twins Older Brother slunk out of the shadows and into...more shadows.  Ok, it was a crappy day to take a photo, but it was on my agenda and so by golly I muddled through it.  Sorry, but I'm tryin' to stay on schedule with my turn arounds before the Mr. takes away my keys and blocks CL from my computer. 

Older Brother was part of the set I purchased several weeks ago.  Here he is.

Large, chunky, and solid, solid Oak.  This is a truly functional piece of furniture.  See these gorgeous knobs?

It's a nice drawer for remotes, manuals, more remotes, and lots of other goodies. 





BOTH ends open up for even more storage.  Think games, a blanket or snugglie, magazine storage.

Nice and deep storage...with air holes in case the little people in your house decide to "hide" the cat in there...or their little brother.  It does have safety piano hinges that I had not reattached when I took the photos...in the dark and stormy light. 

This Bad Boy is going to be for sale at the Mini Prairie Market coming up soon.  More on that in a later post, but hint, hint there's a Prairie Market button at the top of the page.

Look, beadboard panels, sigh.  Aren't they dreamy? and Cottagey? and Beachy?  This is one hansome Older Brother!  Color is AS Old White, distressed, and waxed to within an inch of his life! 

Have a great day!
Deb

Double the Fun

Do you know how many "double" title ideas I went through?  A bunch I tell you, but for some reason I kept coming up with a way that they could have been taken wrong and I don't want THAT kind of traffic coming to my blog expecting something very different!  This is what I do have, two side tables, finished. 

I stumbled across a set of side tables and a matching coffee table.  The coffee table is still in process, but I thought I'd show you these cottagey cuties.

These are solid oak and have a certain rustic feel with the paneled type top.  Actually I first thought "Beachy", but let's face reality here.  I live in a totally land locked state smack dab in the center of the country.  And while we do have some lakes and lake houses (lucky ducks!), there just isn't normally much demand for true beach themed furniture.  Sad, but true.  However, we do have cottages, and decorated with a cottage theme is definitely here too.  Voila`, a nice rustic side table with a french graphic in the center.

At 26 inches diameter these are a perfect lamp table, but would also work nicely in a bedroom as a nightstand, or even in the center of an entry hall as a drop zone table.  They ar painted in AS Old White, lightly distressed, and the graphic is a lovely bee with an oak and tulip garland wrapped up nicely with a bow. 

Graphics from The Graphic Fairy, and the pattern was applied with the pencil transfer method and then finished with a permanent fine, .05 and .01, marker.  One thing I would always recommend is to test ahead of time your marker on a scrap piece of painted wood to make sure that it will not smear when you are applying whatever finish you desire.  I found that my paint pens smeared, a sharpie did not and my Perma pens did not, but always, always test yours first independent of my tests.  I applied 3 coats of Minwax furniture paste wax to the top and the rest of the table was also given 2 coats. 

If you look closely you can see that the oak grain definitely shows through on these tables.  I'm totally down with that.  I think it gives it a great deal of character.  I should have the coffee table up for a quick post later in the week, and then I'm off to find something I can use some color on!!  I'm feeling the need for a break from the neutrals for a bit. 

Have a super week!
Deb
linking to:
http://primitiveandproper.blogspot.com/2012/03/piece-of-work-wednesday-furniture-link.html

More Coffee Please!!!

It seems we are sprinting through September!  Two of my children have gotten older this month, with one fun birthday party still to come this weekend.  Marching band for the older two is in full swing, which means parades, and football games, and even some pep bands, and many early practices, and sectionals.  We've also had  volleyball practices and games for one of kiddos.  And now that they are older we are lucky enough to have great youth group programs at our church that they love attending.  All this just means that I have to take advantage of the hours they are tucked away in desks at school to get my work done.  It also means more and more coffee to keep me moving as we are in the home stretch before PP&PM! 

I can't remember if I showed you this before.

A very unflattering workshop picture where I didn't even bother setting the end table on it's feet!  Sheesh, that's bad.  I think I was taking some afters of one of the buffets, and turned around saw them and remembered I had not taken a before and snapped this before the sun set.  The story of my life these days, sunset photos.  Well, I finally got to these two this week.  They both got a nice little update.  I have to give thanks to my inspiration on the coffee table to Red Hen Home and her coffee table projects.  There have been many, many more out there in blog land that have also done this, so I'm not unique by any stretch, but it's the first time I've seen it in my "neck of the woods" and I hope someone out there will think they are a refreshing update on some very 80's tables.

The French postcard graphic from The Graphic Fairy (what an amazing site that is!) was transferred, handpainted, and then sanded down to distress it a bit.  Here is the Coffee tables friend, the End Table/Lamp Table, with his own small graphic a No. 3.

These two play nicely together, or seperately in a family or rec room.  They are wearing Annie Sloan's Old White chalk paint, lightly distressed, and multiple coats of wax to protect them. 

One of my neighbors drove by during the photo shoot and yelled out his window, "It looks like Nebraska Furniture Mart in there!"  Now, only locals to Nebraska and the Kansas City area understand what "the Mart" is, but it is a HUGE furniture store.  I'm hardly there, but I do have to say that I have a nice tidy bit of restyled furnishings for everyone's shopping pleasure so I hope you'll stop by for the Market!

Happy Thursday, Good Luck Dragons both band and football at your competitions this weekend, and yeah, Homecoming!
Deb
Linking to:
http://missmustardseed.blogspot.com/2011/09/furniture-feature-friday-favorites-link_29.html

and

http://redoux.blogspot.com/2011/09/friday-redoux-link-up-party-23-and-les.html?showComment=1317446003484

Restored & Distracted

I'll have to make this short and sweet today and I'll tell you why.  Well, I'll show you first.

A little, bitty, 8 week old adorable tyrant named Pepper has moved in.  She wants to snuggle, she wants me to play with her like her litter mates used to, she wants to climb up me.  She makes it tough to get much accomplished, but she makes my heart happy. 

Luckily before we got Pepper I managed to work on and complete a buffet.  Remember this 1930's era buffet?

She was so, so sad.  Her top veneer was totally wrecked, well, really all of of her veneer was a total mess.  Some of her trim pieces were missing.  The drawer glides were so worn down that the drawers no longer lined up well enough to close correctly.  But what was there had such pretty detail.  I imagine this once was a stunning piece.  So, we reworked the glides, patched the veneer, sanded a lot, used Kwik Wood to replace a couple of missing swirls.  Thank you Annie Sloan for Chalk Paint!  Here she is today,

in all her Duck Egg/Old White loveliness.  We decided to celebrate her imperfections and pretty much used 1 coat of duck egg so we could distress her quite a bit.  The top was no longer stainable so it got the same treatment.  I love the contrast on the details.

Duck Egg is absolutely one of my favorite colors.  This piece will be for sale at the Prairie Pickers & Peddlers Market here in Omaha. 

I'm hoping she appeals to someone, but if not she sure is appealing to me. 

Have a super week!  I'm off to snuggle little Pepper for a bit!
Deb
Linking to:
http://missmustardseed.blogspot.com/2011/09/furniture-feature-friday-favorites-link_22.html
http://redoux.blogspot.com/2011/09/friday-redoux-link-up-party-22-and-les.html