Antique stores, craft fairs and Craigslist--Oh my!!

So I scoured some antique stores, went to a craft fair and spent endless hours on my computer looking at furniture on craiglist this weekend ( I was on a mini-getaway with hubby so I wasn't ignoring my children during these endless hours).  Oh and I also visited a delightful shop called Blue Dahlia's in Clearwater.  She has the most incredible things, and is a very sweet lady.  Besides many fabulous furniture pieces she sells all kinds of interesting jewelry-most handmade by designers, a line of dresses and clothing with the most amazing lace dresses  I have ever seen!   Oh to be young and/or thin again!  I would snatch up one of those dresses for sure!  Anyway, an interesting thing I noticed was that a lot of the stores I visited had distressed, antiqued and handpainted furniture as their displays--not necessarily for sale--but as part of the decor of the stores.  It is a very popular and useful thing!  I only wish I could figure out how to get people to buy my furniture for displays!   Hmmm, that's something to explore. 

I am also MADLY on the search for a french daybed/settee/couch like this one:

This is for sale at the Blue Dahlia in Clearwater...

OMG if I can be head-over-heels in love with a piece of furniture, this would be it!!!  It makes my heart go pitty-pat (much as a 5 carat flawless diamond ring would do)

If I had the $$ I would buy it and chuck out all of my living room furniture and have that as my couch.  Or maybe even chuck my guest bed for this...WOW.  So now I can only hope I can find one somewhere to make my own.  Of course I would have to have that luxuriously insanely beautiful cover/upholstry on it too!!! It is kind of gauzy and off white.

OK, back to reality...whew..I did actually have an out of body experience just thinking about it...

These are a few of my finds this weekend:

I can't wait to get started!  And Marley is excited too!!!  

Ta-Ta!

Gave up on the stripes

I gave up on the stripes and finally just repainted my chair all one color.  I actually like it a lot better now!  I need to find the perfect little pillow for it, but the one I used in the picture is ok.  I need to go hit some stores this weekend!   My hubby and I are taking a little "staycation" and going only over the bridge from Tampa to Clearwater for a little R & R...I am secretly hoping for rain so I can spend most of the time shopping!  I am dying to go to http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/bluedahliamarketplace  to check it out with no kiddies to whine or break anything!   I took them to a thrift shop  yesterday and you would have thought I took them to juvenile detention!  Oh, it was just the worst time for them, and oh so booooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrring....I guess I need to look for my fun finds on my own!!!  Here is a picture of my chair, with the temporary pillow!

My bathroom cabinets are all done too!   I am really excited how great they turned out!!  I used Caromel Colors paint, which has a wonderful country distressed look!  I think they look fabulous!!!  Now only hoping my husband doesn't see the black spots on the wall where I let my boys help me paint!  OOPS!   These things are better left to when he is out of town!!!

I am going to take a break this weekend from painting, but I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night thinking of my next project!!   I have 4 more chairs to paint just like the first one!

Adios!

My fingers are pruned and raw..but its coming along!

So this painting, sanding, staining, rubbing steel wool, washing my hands 100 times has taken it's toll on my fingers and fingernails...but my chair is coming along!  I am sure it will look good once it is finished!  Anyone want to buy it?  No idea what to price it.  I guess it depends on how much blood, sweat and tears I feel like I have put into it at the end (not really blood but LOTS of sweat and maybe a few tears from my kids who have been abandoned and neglected over my new hobby!!)   Not really, I still feed them and get them chocolate milk.   They are getting really good at beating all of the Lego Harry Potter wii levels tho...isn't that what summer is all about?   

I found myself awake last night in the middle of the night thinking about how I want to do the other 4 chairs I have.   Do I want to make them match and paint them a simple color?   Or do I want to get really creative and paint each one different but cool?   I have this fear of having tons of chairs in my garage doing nothing if I paint them all as individuals and just giving them away!   I never was a very good salesman anyway!!!   So, if you are a friend of mine, give me your ideas for colors because you just may end up with a new chair for free!   (especially when my husband decides my new hobby isn't cute anymore and wants to put his car in the garage)....

Pix later, apparently Blogger doesn't want to upload right now...

Welcome to my new adventure!

I  have just embarked on a new adventure-painting old discarded furniture to turn it into something lovely and loved again!  I have been scouring the web, blogs, and facebook for ideas and have found myself being all consumed!   My first project was an old table that used to be our kitchen table, it took much abuse and was banished to the outside porch.  I hand-sanded, tried an electric sander (which I found to be really heavy and harder than regular sanding), bought sandpaper that was stripper, bought liquid stripper, and finally just started painting the sucker!  I distressed it after painting it using regular sandpaper and beat it up with a screwdriver,  bottle opener and hammer...after that I applied a coat of glaze/stain combo and wiped off.   The end result turned out pretty good!!   Above are the before and after!

Next I decided to refinish a little sewing/end table that I have.   I did more research and I came across the most fabulous paint
www.anniesloan.com
 It is chalk paint that literally transforms furniture into a thing of beauty, but ALSO doesn't require sanding or priming!   A dream come true!   I also got a lot of tips and advice from Michele at Stiltskin Studios .  I follow her blog so check her out on the right!!

The table I refinished turned out great!!   Here it is:

SO!  My next journey is a bunch of chairs I bought from a nice man on craiglist...I plan on doing each chair separately, so we shall see how they turn out!!

Here is a preview:

All taped up and ready for some stripes!!!

I am also redoing the cabinets in one of my bathrooms black!  

Will share that when I am finished!!!

Thank you for checking out my new blog (my old one disappeared!)