Painting Frenzy

I made a valiant attempt. 
I've shared with you my dilemma about painting furniture so I did everything I could think of in the dining room to lighten it up short of that.  
I painted the walls a gray that is pretty but it reads a little green for me. I'm not repainting them - yet.  
I painted all the picture frames. 
I made a white wood tray and set it on a table of white stuff.

I painted the lamps.
I filled the dish dresser with white dishes.

I came to the conclusion that a piece of furniture was going to have to be sacrificed to the paintbrush gods. 
The gods would not be denied!! 
I think you know what I mean. 
Sometimes a decorating problem just has to be fixed even if it goes against an unspoken principle. 

The likely candidate for the sacrifice was the $5.00 buffet that was just a little too orangey oak. It had a long 23 year run in my possession. 
All we had to do to this piece was fix a door, get new pulls and prop up the drawer now and again. 

I hoped that a lighter finish on the buffet would draw the eye in and bring out some pretty but subtle details. 

It wasn't an expensive piece in its day. It is made with veneer from the 20s or 30s.
I'm pretty sure it had been refinished by the time I got it. 
I hate to be the first one to alter a finish on furniture. 



It's also not un-reversable. I can always refinish it later when orange oak comes back in style… What? You don't think orange will be back in style anytime soon?
Nope! It won't. 

This buffet is probably my crowning garage sale achievement. $5.00!! 

We were in a new, bigger house when I found it but we were house poor. We needed stuff to fill up this place.

I have really enjoyed this piece over the years but it was time for a new look.
Now I won't just see a sea of the same color wood when I look into the room.

My dad's table will stand out a little more. 
  

I bought a brand new quart of CeCe Caldwell chalk paint in Vintage White the other day.

The temptation was too much to resist so I went a little crazy on this piece and two others. 
I'll be sharing those with you later. 
Katie   
Linking with,
The Charm of Home   
Funky Junk Interiors  
Feathered Nest Friday  
A Stroll Thru Life   
Coastal Charm   
Dwellings - The Heart of Your Home   
Savvy Southern Style

Furniture Swap and Advice?

Hi blogger friends,

I have a question today.

Rebekah and I traded some furniture so I have a complete bedroom suite in the garage. 

It is Hepplewhite in style in a cherry finish from the 40s, I believe. 

Link

20 years ago, I would have loved to have this set but now I'm not so sure.
The dresser is very similar to the one above.

In my picking and gathering method of furnishing a home, I have had no bedroom suites.
 Part of me would love to finally have a complete matching set of bedroom furniture but I am over dark, cherry stained wood. 

I don't know if I should paint it or not.

Link
 

I have a painted furniture board over on Pinterest but is the painted furniture craze coming to a crescendo?

I don't want to be late to the party only to find that I would love this stained furniture again. 

 

Link

 

I have refinished plenty of pieces to know I don't want to do that in a few years and 

I vividly remember my mom's avocado green piano.

 

I painted Rebekah's room last night and I am styling it today.

 I lost my shabby and white space when my youngest moved back in with us this summer. 
Read about it his room before here.
It was one of my first blog posts, so be kind.
 I went with white walls because I am sick of the dark walls. I wanted to try white for a change. I've haven't painted a room pure white since our house in Lubbock in 1990.
I like is so far. 
This room has been white, Celadon, Tiffany Blue, khaki and dark Moss.
Bill came home from his trip last night and said it's green.
It is not green.
It's a mixture of Glidden and Colorplace white.
Off the shelf: pre-mixed- white. Argh!  
This house just reads green. I didn't want to buy our house when we first saw it because I was convinced the carpet was Celadon green.  My realtor called the owner and she confirmed it was gray.??! She had the original order for the carpet. Gray!
(I've had problems with all my grays reading green….) Hmmm.
 
Back to the furniture.

I love white furniture with white walls but it would be a beating to have to paint all that furniture 
and
 I have Gene to contend with…
Who is Gene?
I am so glad you asked. 

This is Gene. Gene is a family heirloom that belonged to a state Senator or Representative. It was in his office down in Austin at the capitol. Rebekah named it during her childhood.  
Rebekah hopes to have Gene in a home someday but can't take it at this time. I am ready to move Gene out of here but he has a dysfunctional leg from being moved too many times.

This is what Bekah said after she saw the room.
1. "It looks smaller."
2. It looks likes I dumped all the furniture outcasts in it.
3. "I hate the color of the washstand and the bed."

Gene, the washstand and the bed are all the same color so what is she going to do about Gene if she doesn't like the color?

Yikes. 

So I am conflicted.
Scrap it all and start over? 

Help?
I think I better stock up on disposable paint brushes.
 Katie  

Shabby, Cottage Chair

I found the perfect shabby chippy chair at my favorite thrift. 

A fun spring green under the white. 

A wonderful red popping through as well. 

 

I took a quick pass around the store after dropping off a few things. 

I saw this cutie a couple of weeks ago and I talked myself out of it. 

I didn't need another chair. 

I have plenty of chairs.

 But chairs just seem to find their way into the back of my truck for some reason. 

I decided it would be the sweetest seat for my bathroom after the remodel.

At first I could visualize it in the finished space, but then as things started to come together I realized it wasn't meant to be.

This one is a little more casual than the space upstairs turned out to be.

It has been at the kitchen desk the last few weeks. 

The longer it sits here the more I am smitten.

I guess I will just have to keep looking for the perfect chair for the bathroom. 

Katie  
Linking with,
French Country Cottage  
Common Ground
The Charm of Home  
Funky Junk Interiors  
Between Naps on the Porch  
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia 

Shabby Music Cabinet

Oh my!
I got so much done last weekend. 
I had the urge to redo another piece of furniture. 
I have been so pleased with some my other makeovers, that I wanted to try another one. 

I also felt the room was a little off balance. 
White on one side

brown on the other.

I thought about painting my little French chair but it needs to be recaned and I haven't figured out how to do that. 
I decided a white end table would help bring balance to the room.
I've been looking at some of the local thrift and antique shops for a candidate. 

I realized that I had the perfect cabinet in my garage.

 I found this little cabinet years ago at a little thrift store. 
I think I paid $40.00 for it.

It was a creamy color when I found it but I stripped it and painted it black. 

When we started moving furniture around it ended up in the downstairs closet for my  hoard of Christmas magazines.

It was next on the list to be given to the resale shop until

 I realized that it would be perfect. It has great lines.

Usually I just prime and paint but this time I thought it needed to be stripped.

Stripping furniture is easy and I did this piece after work one afternoon.
I paint the stripper on one section at a time, let it sit for about 10 minutes and then scrape it off.
Don't let the stripper dry on the piece. It is like removing oatmeal after it has hardened in the bowl.
It took about an hour and a half.
 In between coats I caught up on Pinterest. :)

The next morning I sanded and gave it a coat of white satin oil based paint.
It needed two coats.
I let it dry over night and then put it in place.

I let it cure another night before I accessorized it.

The knobs came from Old Home Supply.

I went with new knobs instead of vintage because I wanted them nice and sparkly.

 I don't know if this was a record cabinet or a sheet music cabinet. Either way I call it the music cabinet.

I moved the spool table over to the other side of the loveseat.

I even recovered the sofa and French chair.
I will show those in another post.

I got up early this morning to admire it once again. 
There was a little friend in the garden room to enjoy it with me.

Sprinkled with a cabinet and a gecko.
Katie 
Linking with,
French Country Cottage
The Brambleberry Cottage   
Cowgirl Up Link Party   
Funky Junk Interiors  
That DIY Party

Paint it White

I grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y. in an Arts and Craft's Style home. 
I think my parents bought the house the year I was born. 

I remember my mother standing on the front porch stripping white paint off of each interior door. 

They stripped and stained every door in that house to a more original finish.

 I decided to see if I could find a google image of my childhood home. Instead... I saw that is has been listed and has sold recently. 
How fun to be able to virtual tour my childhood home.

 I noticed that some of the doors have been refinished in a lighter tone and others have been repainted white.
I guess it was time. It was in the 60's when my parents were working on it.

That memory of my mom refinishing those doors has been deeply ingrained in me.

Which is why I had a bit of a hard time finally brushing paint on some of the surfaces in my home. 

I started painting stuff white back in January when I did a post on the dish dresser.  
Bill built it for me back in the 80's. 

It was light pine which was super popular back then. 

He was not feeling sentimental about this piece and said I could give it away, but I couldn't do that. He built it with the tools and skills he had at the time from a drawing I gave him.  

He thinks it is crude, but I love it. 
I just didn't love the pine stain. 

The effects of the paintbrush were so unbelievable and immediately gratifying that  

it started me on a quest of painting some of my furniture.
My parent's voices were kind of echoing in my head.  

But, I couldn't stand some of the stained wood around here. 

vintage Ethan Allen clock

$5.00 shelf from a antiquing weekend.

10 year old wholesale shelf

a thrift store make-do cupboard.

the bucket from an old ice cream freezer

our mantel

 an $8.00 chair

the kitchen desk. 

my kitchen cabinets.

(We had those done.)

I have had more paint in my hair than you can believe but
I think I am about done. 
I still have to decide what I will do with the banisters.

Am I going to paint every antique I have in this house?

No because...
I can still hear my parents saying

"You don't paint good wood."

I hope you enjoyed my stroll down memory lane and 
the painted finishes as well. 

Sprinkled with painted projects,

Katie 
Linking with,
Savvy Southern Style  
French Country Cottage  
Between Naps on the Porch