Console Table

So, my sweet husband is something of a pack rat :)

He comes by it naturally, both his parents are too.  

But, I must confess, there are times when those pack rat tendencies come in quite handy.  

Like when I decided I wanted a console table behind my love seat so that I would have somewhere to set drinks, magazines, glasses, etc.  And since it is technically in my "office" area, I could throw a few office things on there, too!

So, I come up with a picture in my head of what I want, explain it to my hubby, via pics on the web, and voila! I have my console table! 

The wood we used had a couple of different looks to it, so we took advantage of that.  The wood on the top and on the shelf came from an old bunk bed that we took apart.  It had a dark finish already.  The rest of it was pine from inside the wall we removed.  

I wanted to try the recipe that I have seen with steel wool and vinegar to age the wood.  Didn't work quite like I had envisioned, or I did something wrong.  Because it turned the wood quite orangey. And there was a dusty orange film on it.  

So I rubbed it all down and started over.  This time I used a water down version of black milk  paint to just give it a wash of color.  Liking this much better!  I only painted the pine boards, not the ones that were already dark.  Then I gave it a coat of antiquing wax and it was done!

Well, maybe not quite that simple since I ran out of the wax I was using and was too impatient to wait until I could get some more, so created my own using clear wax and a bit of dark stain.  

I like the way it turned out!

Blessings, 

Ronda

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Tricycle Red Chair

Another chair has been completed for my dining room set!  This was another that originally had wood seat and the rest was white.  After my experience with the last one, I thought I would try a different route so that I wouldn't have the white showing through when I distressed.

So I spray painted the white parts with brown primer.  Primer, thinking that it would hold up better to a little sanding.  Then, once again (since I am a lazy painter) spray painting the whole thing black, followed by a bit of sanding.  

Hmmm....

The overall look, not bad.

BUT...

upon closer inspection...

 Not only did I do a poor job of spraying...

Yep, the white still showed through!  ARGH!

I even tried a little stain on the white spots, but the white paint didn't want to take the stain.  

So, spray it again, or do something a little different?

How about a little red milk paint?

 These were taken after one + a bit more coats of milk paint.  

And then another coat, some sanding, some more messing with paint after the white showed through again.  Still not thrilled...

So, a little dark wax...(and yes, I realize that I am using a lot of dot, dot, dot)

And...

I am actually quite happy with the finished result!

Sorry I didn't get more up close shots.  I tried, but they didn't turn out so great.  You'll just have to come by the house and see it in person!  

So now, I have 6 black chairs and one red!  One more to go to have a complete 8! 

Blessings,

Ronda

And In My Spare Time...

I am listening to Pandora accompanied by the pounding of 2 hammers.  Two of my kids are helping DH get ready to lay the flooring in the Family Room.  The carpet is gone.  They are working on laying the sub floor.  The walls are all painted, this time BEFORE we put down the new floor.  I think hubby is hoping this will be done by the end of tomorrow.  We'll see...

Anyway, amidst all the chaos of the renovations, I thought it would be a good idea to add another project. (Do you hear the sarcasm?) My grandma's lyre table had been sitting in the garage since my parents brought it to me in October.  I was getting tired of it being a cat bed, so I thought I should bring it inside and work on it.  First it sat in daughter's room for her to put her little Christmas tree on for the month of December.

You can see the top was in pretty bad shape.  I didn't get a close up of the legs that were splitting.  Hubby did a little work on those.  The cute little claw feet needed a bit of work.

 I tried a cleaning method that I found on line for brass, only to discover that they were plated and I kind of ruined them.  So I chose instead to spray paint them with oil rubbed bronze.

I painted the rest of the piece with MMS milk paint in Linen.  I know, the pics sure don't look like that color...but more on that in a minute.  I was curious to see if the paint would work it's chippy magic, since the end table that I painted did not chip.  Well, I messed up on the mixing and ended making way too much because I had to keep adding water to it.

And you can see, it certainly did chip!!!  When I took my scraper to it, the paint started just falling off.  The only places that didn't just fall off on the legs, I did a little bit of sanding on.

 Since the creamy color of the linen is not really me, and didn't really fit my decor, I decided to use an antique glaze on it.  Since I wanted it to soak into the paint and actually change the color, I didn't put wax on it first.  And it REALLY changed the color.  I'm not sure what I would call the color now, some kind of a mix between gray, green and taupe.  Anyway, it works for me! I finished it off with a couple of coats of spray on poly ( I was too lazy to try to wax all of the details on this piece!)

 I just realized you can see the line in the wall where we stopped painting between the music room and the entryway.  BAHAHAHAHA!  Ah, well, trying to find a good space to take pics right now is crazy!

Hoping to have another room reveal soon!

Blessings,

Ronda

Welcome to My Mess!

Those of you who know me, know how much this drives me crazy!  

 My Family Room has now been in disarray for over a week.  Can I say this again??? I like my house neat!  Ah, the things we can learn to live with for a little home improvement!

Sneak peek of my lyre table that I have worked on between painting woodwork.  Haven't found the perfect spot to set up a little vignette.  One day soon....

Blessings,

Ronda

Merry Christmas!

I am hoping that all of you had an awesome celebration of Christ's birth!  We have had a very quiet, relaxing day.  That on the heels of a few very hectic, noisy days! :) I have had all my little "chickies" here since Saturday.  Sadly, my oldest and his wife had to leave today about dinner time to try to avoid the incoming blizzard.  I am excited about the prospect of getting snowed in for a day or 2, but very sad that they had to leave early.

As our kids grow and leave, and we get closer and closer to having an empty nest, we are little by little putting new traditions into place, all while trying to hold on to some of the old ones.  We find ourselves in the position of moving our Christmas dinner to Christmas Eve and moving our traditional chili Christmas Eve meal to Christmas day.  Minor changes so far!

My DH bought me an absolutely awesome Christmas gift this year!  Actually, he bought me several very nice gifts.  This particular gift is one I had been eyeing for a few months now at one of my fav stores.  And some of you will find it very strange that for a person who enjoys refurbing furniture that I would prefer a store-bought piece.  But this was made with old barn oak and distressed to perfection! I had been on the look-out for a china hutch to re-do, but nothing was ever quite right.

So here is my lovely china cabinet:

When I took the pics there was nothing in it yet.  I have since moved all the things out of the top of my corner hutch.  My family didn't think it would all fit, and it didn't...quite.  I put a few things down below.  For example, my china plates don't fit at all.  Ah, well, they will have to be stored below.

 I just love the details that this furniture maker added, making it more than just your standard primitive piece.  They just make it really special.  And yes, the desk will be moved so that this piece gets to stand alone along this wall.

If you are in the Midwest, stay safe!  If not, sorry you can't be snowed in ;)

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Blessings, 

Ronda

The Chair Story

I promised you the chair story, so...

On Thursday I found a set of chairs on Craigslist that I wanted to check out.  The post said Bedford-- 45-50 minutes away depending on where in Bedford.  We were planning on being out and about, closer to that area on Saturday anyway, but knowing that if I waited till then, they might be gone, I called Friday morning.  A laid-back male voice answered and said, yes, I could come see them that day.  He was actually located in Heltonville, which would take me at least another 20 minutes.  Ok, whatever.  So I headed that way.  

It wasn't until I was about halfway there that I started having second thoughts about my plan to go alone.  Hubby was already having a busy day, so I hadn't wanted to ask him to tag along.  I called him to talk to him about the wisdom of going alone, but he encouraged me to go ahead and just trust my own judgement.  I think my mother would have disagreed!

I passed through the small town of Heltonville and kept getting further and further into the "boonies." And of course, getting more and more nervous.  I did actually find the place on my GPS, but the spot marked was actually nothing.  There was a vague lane off the road, but I went on past to the next mailbox, about a 1/4 mile, then turned around when I realized that had probably been it.  By this time I had Jeff on the phone directing me via googlemaps.  I cautiously drove up the driveway to find a very dicey-looking house (using this word loosely!) and a shed that must have been his barn.  I sat there in my car for a minute, waiting to see if someone came out.  I had to hang up on Jeff to call this guy and find out if I was in the right place.  I was, and he came out of the house....

BIG GUY!  Ripped, dirty overalls, plaid shirt, shaggy beard and hair, knit cap.  OH MY!!  What had I gotten myself into?  He was waving me up closer.  I hurriedly speed-dialed Jeff again, then just held my phone in my hand. Now, what could he have done if this guy was a serial killer or a rapist?  I don't know, but it made me feel a little better!  

The chairs were great, the guy was just a kind-hearted, back-woods hick and things turned out fine.  But I still made the transaction as quickly as I could and beat it out of there!  And promised myself I would never again go alone!!  

Unfortunately, when I got them home, I realized there was a slight smokey smell, but I think it is wood smoke, not cigarette.  

Here is a pic of the "booth" my husband created for my in the garage so that I could spray paint out of the wind and soon-to-come cold weather.  I may or may not have felt a bit loopy when I was finished....Shhh!

Blessings, 

Ronda

The Big Reveal!

Some of you have been asking when I am going to show you my table.  I had thought that I would put it off until I had all my chairs done and show you the whole "ensemble."  But I couldn't wait any longer!  Ok, maybe just a bit longer, long enough to torture and show you the "before."  So grab your cup of coffee and settle in for a long story!  And remember, you asked for it!

So to start a very long story--
I found this table top Labor Day weekend at a yard sale in a nearby town.

Note, I said table TOP!  Nope, no legs-- but I absolutely fell in love with the details on the apron, and we knew that legs would be simple enough to add.  As the saying goes, "if I knew then what I know now..." I don't know if I would have even given the $10 for it.

The top was veneer which was started to chip along one edge.  The pic is where I had started to pick at it to try to see underneath....um, yeah, that was just the start of things to come.  I knew there was going to be no way that I would be able to patch this since I wanted to strip and stain the top.  So did some research on how to remove veneer...

The process involved softening the glue with steam and prying it up.  When I started it seemed to be going fairly well until I realized that I was only getting up one layer of the veneer! Oops!  And so I wasn't actually getting down to the glue.  So what you see me doing is putting a wet towel on the top and then putting a hot iron on top.  And yes, it ruined my iron! Do not try this with a good iron!  Needless to say it was a very long and tedious process.  It got a little easier when we got smart and borrowed a large wallpaper steamer from a friend.

The look that I finally got it down to was never meant to be the top surface of the table.  It was a mix of woods, what we are guessing was some oak, some hickory and some maple.  The strips around the edges were even all different widths! But I was loving the uniqueness of the look, especially with the deep knots and the wormholes.  I was even kind of liking the look of the few little gouges that I had put in it with my putty knife (OOPS!).  The pic above is after we had it all sanded down.  We have now realized that we probably should have sanded the wide edge pieces a bit better as I think there was still some glue left on them.

Part of the reason that DH and I fell in love with this piece was because it had the hardware to open out to over 100 in.  We had been looking for a table that would start small, but be able to grow with our family as we add spouses and eventually grandchildren.  But, of course, no leaves came with the table top, so DH agreed to take on the task of making leaves.  It is already unique enough that they wouldn't have to match exactly.  The one problem was the edging pieces- we couldn't find any that matched anywhere we looked.  So we ended up picking new edge pieces.  It changes the look just a bit, but I'm ok with that.

So all of this wood got 3 coats of Minwax Special Walnut stain. I thought about using the Dark Walnut, but was actually worried about it going too dark.  And then I finished with Wipe-on Poly in a satin finish.  6 coats!  Hope that's enough to protect it.  I don't mind a few more nicks adding to the character, but would rather avoid water rings.

So I admit, I was too lazy to strip the apron pieces.  Besides, I knew that I was going to have to put something on the legs so that I could distress them and it didn't look just like new raw wood showing through.  So I painted all of them with brown spray paint.  Then 2 coats of Swiss Coffee.  Then a bit of distressing.  One coat of paste wax, followed by antiquing glaze.  I was a bit concerned about this step since I wanted to keep these parts as white as possible with just a hint of the glaze in the crevices.

 You can see the antiquing pretty well in this pic.  You can also see that some of the decorative pieces are missing.  A few of them had fallen off while the pieces were sitting in our garage, so I glued them on and hoped that the glue plus the paint will cement them well enough.

Ok, I admit it, I still swoon every time I walk in the dining room!  We are pretty pleased with the finished project.  The next time I post about this table, I will show it with a leaf in it and all the chairs done!  Tomorrow I will tell you about my adventure finding my latest 2 chairs!

And if you have read all the way to here, I'm sure you have finished your coffee by now! ;)

Blessings,

Ronda

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This and That

I know, I know, it has been several days since I have blogged!  Bad me!  Kind of waiting on the time when my table is done and I can finally show more than a sneak peek!  I have been working on it, as has my hubby, but it is not quite there yet.  Fingers crossed, hopefully this weekend!

So, in the mean time, I thought I would share a few pics of various things around the house!

 This first pic is my recent birthday present from my wonderful hubby.  It replaces the awful brass and ivory chandelier that was put in when we built the house.  It was actually pretty to begin with, but we hung it so high in the entryway that it was impossible to get to in order to clean.  So it was really grungy and covered in bugs and cobwebs.  Not to mention the fact that some of the "candles" were warped-- eww!!  So this time we got smart and hung it quite a bit lower so that I can actually get to it to clean it and change the bulbs!

This random decor pic is a shot of the rustic lanterns that I bought with the birthday money from my mom.  Thanks, Mom! Love them!

And here you see our current dining room table.  This has been our main table for the past 26+ plus years!  Several family members went together to buy this as a wedding gift for us!  And it was used then!  It was originally all dark pine.  Several years ago I stripped the table top, chair seats and backs and stained them to match our woodwork.  The rungs and legs were dark blue, but are now black.  This weekend the table gets passed down to the next generation.  We are giving it to our son and future daughter-in-law.  It is a very solid table and chairs and is actually still in very good shape.  I am just ready for something new!  You can see my beginning of my collection of black chairs to go with my new table.  Also my pumpkin table runner!  But I'm thinking the red candle box doesn't look so great--- might change that out tomorrow!

Be watching for my table soon!

Blessings,

Ronda

China Hutch

Happy Tuesday!

A little more about myself today--  while I am a stay-at-home mom, I also am a work from home mom.  I teach private piano lessons here in my home.  I have had 25 students at my highest point, but at the moment am down to 16, including my own lovely daughter.  I do those on Monday and Tuesday afternoons and evenings.  In fact, I have several openings if anyone is looking for a good piano teacher... ;)

On to the project of the day!  Even though I have painted furniture off and on through the years, this was the first project where I started to play around with distressing and antiquing.

I had a can of clearance paint from Lowes that was an off-white shade.  It was a little too yellow-ish for my taste, so I mixed in a bit of brown to try to tone it down.  Since I have no ASCP dealers near by, and I was unwilling to pay shipping in addition to the rather salty price of the paint, I decided to try a little DIY chalk paint.  My first try was with calcium carbonate and I totally guessed at the amounts.  I have since switched over to using plaster of paris and it actually creates a much smoother paint.  Keeping in mind that this was all experiment...and even though I had spent quite a bit of time haunting various blogs about using chalk paint and distressing and antiquing...I still had to make a few mistakes in the process.  Yes, I tried putting antiquing glaze right on top of the chalk paint.  MISTAKE!  It does soak right into the surface.  I finally ended up mixing a little bit of dark walnut stain into a clear glaze and this gave just the right amount of color to darken up the surface and settle into the crevices of the piece.

Here is a closer shot of the inside.  You can see I decided on a pop of blue for the inside.  I don't imagine you can tell from the pics, but my china has blue around the edges, so the cabinet color really brings that out. Yes, I was too lazy to take everything out of the hutch for a photo shoot!

I changed out the knobs and pulls that I found at Hobby Lobby.  YAY for 1/2 off!  Spray painted the hinges an oil-rubbed bronze to match.

Finished it all with a coat of clear Minwax Furniture Wax.  And I LOVE the way it turned out.  Especially for my first try.  In fact, it is probably still my favorite of the many very few (!!) projects I have completed.  I am actually considering trying to sell this one in favor of one that does not have to sit in a corner.  What do you think?  Would you buy this?

Blessings,

Ronda

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