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!

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...