Pretty as You Please

At  TLC Vintage Collection here in Central Iowa, I've wanted to paint a piece of furniture like this with Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan. Two things made me hesitate: 1) some of the inlay is so fantastic you hate to cover it up and 2) what if I couldn't pull it off. But I think it worked just fine!

This piece is a coat of Coco all over. Then Country Grey and Duck Egg in selected areas. But we didn't start out so nice. That is why I decided to try this piece first -- it was a mess.

It had a broken caster, tons of scratches, missing hardware, chipping varnish. I went at it inside and out with STP and -- unusual for me -- did a quick light sanding to the top to get rid of any loose varnish.

I painted right over the hardware with Coco. Here is what the piece looked like after one coat Coco and then one coat each Country Grey and Duck Egg Blue in chosen parts of the design.

A coat of wax, distress, rewax and voila! Buff til your hearts content. So fun, so pretty! Picked up a couple cute knobs to give it a touch of whimsey!

Create a Life you want to Live!

Taking a Floor Up A Notch(es)!

We are taking the shop floor up a few notches with Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan® as well as Annie's Lacquer for floors! I wanted a vintage look, old and imperfect and that is what we have! I'm loving it and so do our customers.

We've only finished a little over 200 of the 1900 SF so far, but there will be other techniques in areas. The workshop/classroom floor area gets a lot of random painting, if you know what I mean -- LOL. So we may be looking at a splatter effect there so that the next time I drop an open can of paint you will hardly notice! (Yep, it does happen.)

I chose what was supposed to be a blizzard day for this project. Of course, the meteorologists were somewhat wrong and we had record weekday sales that day -- go figure! But the customers just worked their way around the misplaced furniture and tiptoed around the wet paint! Thank you all for your understanding.

First was to clean the already sealed floor. I chose to have that honey khaki color show through a rolled layer of French Linen as I wanted some dimension to the floor. This happened with darker and lighter areas of paint.

Remember those old plastic lace table cloths your grandma had. I had found one some time ago at a garage sale for a dollar or two. I've use parts of it as a stencil for a number of furniture projects, but never the entire thing. So here we go with a roller and Graphite!

I worked my way with the roller around the tablecloth. I was not concerned about even coverage or if I went over the edge. It was meant to look old and irregular. Then I overlapped just ever so little one stenciled area to the next.

I was thinking awesome. I must admit I loved how this was working out! I must warn you that after this many "circles" the tablecloth gets pretty heavy and messy with residue paint. It starts becoming sticky -- so 200 SF is about the limit or you need to rinse it off after a while. I managed to complete the whole area I had cleared for that day. Final step -- to coats of Lacquer rolled on with time to dry in between. The lacquer comes in liters and should be poured out into another container and stirred before putting into a roller pan. I used one of those oval plastic ice cream containers which works great and can be sealed up with the lid if you don't use it all!

 

You need to allow the floor to dry overnight before walking on it. I found it best to wear socks rather than shoes when applying the second coat so I didn't pull up any paint and lacquer from the first coat with my tennies. The test of this floor came over the weekend when water came into the shop from the floor above. Although water sat on parts of the floor, it held up fine. In the future I will simply clean it with a swifter! I have also painted and lacquered our wood laminate floor in our home powder room and it is working perfectly after many months!

 

This project took two quarts of French Linen, one quart of Graphite and a little over two liters of Lacquer.

Back to my 4-H Days!

I loved 4-H, and all those years of projects and hauling things to the Pocahontas County Fair has paid off in many ways during my life. But I must admit that it is probably due to Lanore Thumma and Shirley Ludwig up in Laurens, IA who were the Swan Lake Everreadies (don't laugh) leaders, that I can make a pleat, a dart, do hidden stitch and refinish a piece of furniture! I can still repeat the 4-H pledge!

 

The best change since then is a miraculous paint that allows you to paint over most anything without stripping or priming! How happy I am not to be working with caustic stripper something we were not so fortunate to have 45 years ago. But today I get to combine to of the three different year curriculums we had -- sewing and home furnishings -- in my new life as an artisan!

 

 

 

Thank goodness that Annie Sloan came along and 23 years ago developed this awesome Chalk Paint® decorative paint for me to get involved with and that around ten years ago, a woman named Lisa Rickert discovered it hidden away in England and brought it to us across the big pond.

 

Best yet, Chalk Paint® is made right here in the Midwest by Davis Paint Company in Kansas City!

Plus it is ever so green and is saving a lot of old stuff from going to the landfill. From old barn wood to shipping pallets to vintage furniture, repurposers, upcyclers and decorators are making homes and offices more interesting by incorporating the past. And that makes me feel, downright patriotic!

 

So let's keep on "Making the better best and the best better!" What have you repurposed today?© by TLC Vintage Collection!



 

 

Junker Girlfriends & Life Truths

At TLC Vintage Collection, central Iowa's go-to place for Chalk Paint® decorative paint by Annie Sloan, there is no longer time for procrastination. Let me explain!

I have two junker girlfriends that I get together with at least once a month for our "fix" on junking. We share some pizza, some laughs and some life truths in the course of a few hours! In between all that we work on projects and try to keep each other from pilfering good little junk bits and pieces from each other! Like that odd shaped key or that sparkley bit off of a Chico belt -- you hear me, Cheryl? LOL

I digress from the true topic -- my procrastination. I looked around my workshop this week and was disheartened. Several pieces of wall decor in half finished states, the bottom of a huge china cabinet that is unfinished so not marketable yet, a curio cabinet that is really about an hour from completion, plus miscellaneous "good ideas and best intentions" spread across my work tables! Sound familiar?

Then there is all those ideas I have for spring that include a lake/seashore cabin decor display and a sun room display (guess who has spring fever???) All need painting.

Then there is the entire floor of the shop, plus a lot of the walls that still need paint and finish! Plus the fireplace that is in want of a hearth and backdrop!

I think you get the picture -- after all these pictures are worth at least a thousand words of my continued procrastination. As I told Cheryl the other night: It is so much more fun to start a project than to finish one! Yep, she said. At the beginning of the project all your imagination is going into it and you are excited and working fast and furious. Then.......you hit a bump in the road -- execution did not play out the way it looked in your head! OR you come to a part of the task you don't like to do! Ummm, that bottom part of the china cabinet means crouching/lying on the floor with my head inside the cabinet to finish the lower shelves! 

OR you find that perfect piece of furniture with the beautifully turned leg and artful carving and you just HAVE to get started on it! 

Cheryl laughed, saying a good deal of why she likes to get together is that being around me validates her own experience about procrastination! I am NOT alone! She realizes she is not odd or different. Ha! Well maybe we are -- but I would hazard a guess that in this line of work we are not alone! How many half finished projects do you have going?

And she also loved how I kept misplacing things -- my cell phone, my hammer, the gilding wax, cola, my mind........'cuz she does that too!