ALMOST LEFT BEHIND!

So, this guy has been sitting in my inventory for over 6 months and not so much as one person has noticed it:(  I couldn't take it any longer, something had to happen!

Look how great it this piece turned out!

I stripped and re stained the top, box and base.  The drawer fronts needed too much patching and TLC to salvage but I am loving the "two tone" look!

It might have been cool to use the wooden hardware pieces but one was missing and although I am pretty crafty, my wittling skills are not that good...yet:)

FRENCH PROVINCIAL BEAUTY

I'm in love... with a dresser...again!

That's all I can say!

just one more thing...LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS FINISH!

MY BOY GOT A NEW DRESSER...AGAIN

Because I refinish furniture and have pieces come and go all the time, my 13 year old Jack has happened to have 5 different dressers in his bedroom in the past year.

Now we have built, renovated and moved many times and I know I am blessed with very flexible and adaptable children, but last week when I was hauling his dresser out of his room because I sold it, he was like "um, mom...do you think I can have a dresser that I can just call mine and actually keep"?!?

I think he was feeling a little sorry for himself until I reminded him that there are some kids that keep there small handful of clothes in a cardboard box...if they're lucky.  He got it:)

Still, I was feeling a little bad about taking it away and told him to go into my shop and pick out any dresser and think of color he wanted.

Well, the color he wanted, I didn't have. Because I LOVE to experiment and mix colors myself, I combined a few to get what he was looking for.  I LOVE mixing colors and coming up with something a little different, but unfortunately when someone wants a piece "in that color", I really can not duplicate it exactly.  I need to stop.

Loving that beautiful high end, seamless finish!

GIVING MILK PAINT A TRY

Don't worry my modern BFF's, I am not converting totally but have to admit, it's kinda fun having a paintbrush in hand and being a little creative.

I have used milk paint before but has been many years.  I had a secretary desk that I thought would be a  good piece to experiment on. 

The desk already had a nice coat of yellow on it, which I was going to just leave but then decided, after sanding it down, that I would try this pretty blue milk paint I had on hand.  After I painted it blue,  didn't like it because it was too baby blue for me, so I decided to use this pretty green color milk paint over that (your suppose to layer...right?!?!)

I have been seeing a similar decorative hand painted decal around the blogs lately and decided to try a freehand design myself. I did this before the distressing and glazing as I wanted it to look as original as possible too.  It's not perfect, but perfectly imperfect:)

I loved how the green looked especially when I distressed it and even more after I glazed it.  I really like how there are some areas where the blue comes through, some areas where the yellow shows and a few spots of wood peeking through.  Perfectly "aged".

I clear sealer coat and some new (old) hardware and it's done!

TURNING A MCM DRESSER INTO A TV CONSOLE / ENTERTAINMENT CENTER

I am sure Marc had other things he wanted to do ALL DAY Sunday, but because he totally ROCKS MY WORLD...he build 2 new slide out, tilt down drawers, complete with new sturdy boxes for my customer, instead.

First, lets show ya the before picture...Hmmm

It all started with a vision I already had for this piece and was playing around with on my own.  Then one of my customers caught on to what I was going to do and jumped on board.  Knowing she was going to be our "guiney pig" project of sorts, she was cool with whatever we whipped up.  Thanks Jessica!

What we (Marc) whipped up was a pretty sweet situation!  First we removed the front face of the door with a sawzaw.  Not the most professional way but after building and renovating houses, this guy can cut a straight line with this thing like nobodies business! 

We wanted sturdier boxes for the tv components, so he built new ones.  I am not really sure how as I went Christmas shopping:)  But I am sure it had something to do with some wood, table saw, router and a nail gun.

Instead of one the original middle rail, as you can see from the bottom middle drawer, we opted to do two glides to support the heavier box.

Really, the hinges are the trickiest part of all.  You have only about an 1/8" on all sides to make sure it sits in there perfectly.  

He decided to use the back of the glides, that we did not need as temporary brackets after we measured where the drawer front should sit, which we did by removing the back off the unit, with the box set in place in the dresser, I was in front holding the door front perfectly where I wanted it up against the box while he made pencil lines from the back.

After we liked where the drawer front were sitting with the temporary brackets, he was able to attach the hinges.  You don't want to have to move hinges 5 times to get them perfect, so this is a great way to do it.

TIP-- as you can see I didn't finish the inside of the drawer front till AFTER everything was set perfectly, BIG MISTAKE!  Once you have it perfect you really don't want to remove those hinges again.  It took about an hour to get everything lined back up perfectly and had to basically repeat the whole process over again.  So finish the drawer, front, back and box (which I clear coated) BEFORE you get it all installed.

It turned out beautiful and we learned a LOT on this project of what to do and what NOT to do next time around. 

SIMPLE HIGHLIGHTS ADD SO MUCH

I just finished a couple of pieces for a customer and love how they all turned out.  This piece in particular is a great example of how adding a little glaze to the decal on the top drawer can really change the look.

In the before picture, The cool decal doesn't do much for the dresser.  The original plan was to refinish the piece in a dark grey and do a little distressing with black glaze over the entire piece.  But after the piece was sprayed, she really liked the awesome finish but still wanted a little "something", so decided to add glaze to just the decal.

I used a Q-tip to try and keep the glaze to a minimum

 Then wiped it, pushing it into the corners

I really do like this Valspar antiquing glaze as the working time is long and I was able to keep it where I wanted it.  

New satin nickel hardware and finish chances this into a beautiful and more masculine piece.

SUPER EASY TRIP TO MASK OFF CORNERS OF MIRRORS OR PICTURES

Nothing is more fun and exciting than to try and mask off corners on window panes, mirror corners or picture frames.  Of course, I am being a smarty pants again...it's time consuming and boring!  Here is a way to hopefully help the process go a little faster and be less painful, because it's those dang corners that take the most time.

I always remove the mirror when I have to refinish the frame, just so I can get the inside lip of the frame.  But sometimes, when the picture frame is huge, custom and the back looks all nice and pretty like, I feel bad taking it all apart, knowing the customer payed good money to have this done at one point.  Not to mention I really don't feel like removing or replacing 800 staples.

I have found a PERFECT way of dealing with those corners!  I hope these pictures below will help explain the steps for you.

 1- bring the tape over the edge

2- fold at a 90 degree angle, keeping it tight to the edge and tucked as close as possible.

3- press tight and close to edge, keeping a razor blade nearby to help

4- Perfect, tight corner and super fast!

Awww.  Peter deserves an award for putting up with the daily "deep love and serious affection (aka...torture) he gets from my youngest.  Tonight he was a lion with a the fur off of someones coat wrapped around his neck. Doesn't he look happy! 

I MADE MY OWN "SKINNY" JEANS

I have no idea why they call skinny jeans skinny jeans because nothing makes my normal size body look heavier than a pair of these bad boys!  Either I shop at all the wrong places or I am just not made to swear them, I could NOT find a pair that looked even half way decent on me!  They all made my butt look really flat or my legs looks large and totally look like I had "mom" jeans on, which wasn't the look I was going for.

I am all about cutting and sewing and doing whatever it takes to make something fit better in this new world of really odd fitting clothes.  I have taken in a lot of tops in the side and waist area because the new styles all look like maternity tops on me. Now it was time for the pants!

I have a handful (ok, about 15 pair) of jeans that I can't get rid of, they are either too tight and I AM going to get back into them or too long or too short or whatever.  They are ALL boot cut, which I totally prefer on my body.  But because I am evidently the only person in the world that does not have a pair of skinny jeans, I was thought I should try this route before I give up altogether.

I picked a few pair that looked good in the butt, (which really is the most important factor) but that I didn't mind tossing out if my experiment didn't work.


I put them on and going with the seam that is stitched on the INSIDE, determined where I was going to start taking them in and put a pin there and then again at the bottom.  I turned them inside out and with a sharpe, made a gradual line to the bottom hem.

My seamstress grandmother would kill me for my very unprofessional method but to be honest, I HATE SEWING andmy patience level is zero when it comes to these kind of projects.

I stitched along the lines I drew and actually cut off the hem so they they would be more comfortable zipped up in a tall boot, which is really the only way I was going to wear these, so I didn't really care about the bottom hem looking like crap...it's all about the butt!

Excuse my pictures in the kids bathroom, I really wasn't planning on doing a post/tutorial, I was just going to send these to my sis. But at least I wasn't standing on the toilet!

I really like how they all turned out.

SAVING THE "JUNK" FOR MY FAMILY

Ok, maybe this is not "junk", but certainly not what I would sell to a customer.  Is was pre-painted, something I typically shy away from and did not have rails, something I typically do not even look at.  But because the standards for myself are obviously WAAAAY lower than what I would want for a customer...It was perfect!!!

My girls are 9 and 11 and they share a room.  As you can imagine, storage is an issue.  They have great closet space, but the amount of t-shirts, pj pants, mismatched socks, tanks and underwear are CRAZY!!  Every few months I do a "ok, lets go through this stuff and get rid of what you don't want". They seem to only come across 1 or 2 items.  I don't get it.

This beauty sat over in my "what the hell am I getting myself into pile" for months.  I knew it wasn't up to most of my customers standards but look at those lines!!!  So pretty and unique.  I just couldn't part with it.

Their room is not lacking in color whatsoever, but there was no way I could put another creamy white dresser in their room.  It had to be (another) pop of color. I used BM- sweet vibrations.  Ever since I did a huge coffee table a few weeks back for a customer I have been dying to use this on a piece.  But I know that it's not the easiest to sell something with such a strong color, so I am glad I found piece for myself to use it on.

I did some distressing because I had a feeling that the because the drawers didn't have rails, they were going to get a little "naturally" distressed anyway.

And because I am cheap and didn't want to fill in holes for new hardware, I just refinished the existing hardware in white.  Which ended up being the perfect choice I think.

2 FUN NEW PIECES AND FIXING A BROKEN DRAWER

I love little accent pieces just as much a big substantial ones.  Fun and bold way to add great a pop of color to a room.  That's just what my customer was thinking as well.

This antique desk look great in with the modern yellow finish.

And I KNEW this guy was going to look awesome... sitting all alone in the corner of my "stash", waiting for someone to notice it's potential:)

Little gold "rub and buff" on the original dingy hardware and they look perfect with this piece!

I knew the desk was SUPER old and needed some TLC before I even got to sanding.  It became more apparent when I removed one of the drawers and it fell onto the floor into 5 pieces!!  OOPS!!!

Wood glue and a nail gun to the rescue.  It's really like a puzzle, dabbing wood glue in the groves, taping it back together and bungee strap it tight until it's completely dry.  If you have a nailer, throw in a few nails too.  But if you don't, the wood glue will work just fine:)

Super easy to fix a broken drawer.  I actually ended up wood gluing all the drawers, just in case.

All better!

Check out the "before" pics...how sad did they look!!