Junkin' Luncheon

When you a begin a new adventure you never know what is around the corner!

When I decided a few months ago that the old kitchen table out on my patio would be fun to paint, I didn't realize at the time it was opening me up for new adventures, new interests, new places to visit, and most of all LOTS of NEW FRIENDS!

Deciding to paint that little table led to me researching online about painting furniture, and THAT led me to all kinds of creative and beautiful blogs by women who are doing the very same thing--in many many different ways and styles and colors and paints!   Speaking of PAINTS...who would have thought PAINT would lead me to MEETING some of these extremely talented and fun women that I only read about in cyberspace!!!

Last Thursday, a great lady named Jessica who has a blog named http://stellarjunk.blogspot.com/ organized a get together of women who all live (somewhat) locally to meet up at the oh-so-FABULOUS store belonging to Robyn Story in Tampa http://robynstorydesigns.com/ and gather around some great food, great conversations, great sharing and most of all GREAT PAINT!!!   After having a tour of Robyn's totally cool studio where she gives incredible workshops (I can't wait to take one once my boys are back to school) we all excitedly grabbed paint brushes and wood pieces and got to PLAY with all the fun colors and waxes of ANNIE SLOAN!   It was fun to see what colors people went for and what they did with them!   It was amazing to see how diverse and different lots of little wood pieces could turn out all because we all have our own style and creativity!!

It was so much fun, and our hostess Robyn is always so gracious and sweet!   The best part was making new friends--Kathy http://www.facebook.com/pages/Junk-Drawer-Diva/222694241078241?sk=wall, Jessica, Deena http://highfalootinjunk.com/, Elizabeth http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-Things-Work-Together/101739616550504?sk=info, and Michele http://stiltskinstudios.blogspot.com/!

And, while meeting NEW friends, I got to spend time with a good friend who has decided to take this journey with me, and is now my new PICKER PARTNER!   Watch out, because when our boys go back to school you might see us cramming all kinds of TREASURE in to my van from all ends of FLORIDA!!!   It is fun to have a friend to share the passion with me --so HERE's to CHRISTINE, my fellow hunter of all that need to be redone and made lovely!

Seeing that a bunch of women can be doing somewhat similar things, can be supportive of each other and cheer each other on is so awesome!    We all have our own ideas and love of what we are doing in similar but different ways!!!!   WE ALL NEED EACH OTHERS ENCOURAGEMENT and SUPPORT and I found that in these new friends !  HOORAY!!!    All because of some pots of paint...

WHAT FUN WE ARE ALL HAVING!!  If you want to join in the fun too and win some of Annie Sloan's fabulous paint... CLICK on the LINK below to JOIN the FUN!
Robyn Story Designs and Boutique: "EVERYTHING ANNIE SLOAN" GIVEAWAY

GREAT new ANNIE SLOAN paint giveaway!!!

Here is a new Annie Sloan paint giveaway!
Check it out!

Paint Stuck Under My Fingernails: Do What You Love, Love What You Do!

 

I hope to win so I can try out some of the new colors!  PURE, FRENCH LINEN and COCO!

How Sweet it is...

To be loved by you...

I finally finished this vanity.  I think I repainted it 4 times before I was satisfied with how it looked.  I don't know what the deal is, but the wax doesn't do the same thing on veneer as it does on real wood and I am still learning how to adjust for that.   I am not very good at wax yet.  I really need to take an Annie Sloan Chalk Paint workshop at Robyn Story Designs.   That is what I am going to ask for for my birthday...

I really need a new laptop too...tho...but it would be so fun to take a workshop and really learn just what the heck I am doing!   I hope to get a little better at this painting furniture thing by the time school starts!   I will have more time to hunt for treasures too!  Right now I am pretty much relying on craigslist to find good items, but I need to be able to drive down to St Pete or Clearwater and scour some of the thrift shops down there. 

I need to have patience, which I don't have a lot of! 

I am Woman, Hear Me ROAR!

Ok its not really THAT big of a feat, but I just got this:

and it's an "antique"...but when I got it home I noticed a corner of the top was peeling off---ARRRGGGG---veneer!  YUCK!  I didn't look that closely when I bought it...I guess I was noticing the hardware was in good shape and it has good bones...so I pulled on a corner of the veneer--and a whole piece stripped right off!!!   I peeled and peeled and got that whole darn veneer off the top of the vanity/desk!   YIPPPEEEE!   It was pretty easy, except for sweating my tail off in my garage. 

Now the top is bare and ready for some fun!!

See the hardware is kind of funky!  I should have stopped at www.robynstorydesigns.com  for some new paint!   Oh, well, maybe it will be country gray just like everything else! 

To be continued...

What I am

I now know what kind of table this is:

Drum roll please.....

Its called a

Pembroke table, light, drop-leaf table designed for occasional use, probably deriving its name from Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke(1693–1751), a noted connoisseur and amateur architect. The table has two drawers and flaps on either side that can be raised by brackets on hinges (known as “elbows”) to increase its size. Usually provided with casters (it was often used for bedside meals), the legs of the common English versions, as illustrated by Thomas Sheraton and others, are supported or reinforced by X-shaped stretchers.

In the United States a distinctive type of support, shaped like a lyre, became popular toward the end of the century. It is also known as a flap and elbow table

Now I can rest!

I also can paint it since someone had already done the honors of sanding it down and the drawer is missing.  So even if it was worth a million, it isn't now!   

What am I?

Part of the fun of finding a "treasure" (or to some, trash) is trying to figure out where it came from, how old it is, who made it, and is it worth anything?  After a fun jaunt to the flea market with my girlfriends, I sat and stared at this little table I got for $5 (it seemed like a great deal at the time) and realized it is basically a Frankenstein of a mess of a piece of furniture.  Instead of being one particular type, it seems to be many different parts all throw together into one. 

A good place to start when you are trying to figure out a piece of furniture is to study the legs.  Googling "table legs" will bring up many different kinds of legs on tables so you can somewhat identify what style your table is.  This isn't foolproof for identifying the authenticity or age of something, but it will give you a start on the style, reproduction or real thing  (that is a whole other issue)... Queen Anne, Victorian, Louis xv, whatever...the legs are a great clue...in my case, the legs are straight with a long vertical lines carved in them...of course I can't find anything on the internet about that. 

Another clue to whether something is an antique or not is the hardware.  My table also has drop down sides.  That is popular on many antiques.  In the case of my table, the little swing out parts that keep up the sides are kept in place with two plain nails.  I am guessing the lack of real hardware indicates that it was handmade and not by machine.  The man at the flea market guessed it was made in the 1940s but who the heck knows if he knew what he was talking about.

What really confuses me about this table is the mixed styling.  The crossed supports on the bottom are quite fancy and perhaps were added later, since they look like they are machine cut.  To me they look victorian?  There are also little corner decorations that look victorian.  And then there is the rope detailing on the front and back. 

Someone had already sanded it down, so I guess there is no sense in trying to keep the integrity of the table up.  Maybe I shouldn't think so hard about it and just have fun painting it!!!

And to close, I would like to share the great Paul Simon's words:

"One man's ceiling is another man's floor"

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!