A Little White Desk

I recently finished this sweet little desk for a client, my cute friend Brooke.  I have a lot of cute friends :)  It started out a dated golden oak but had pretty lines and was nice and solid.

She wanted bright white, with just a little distressing and some dark glaze to add a little balance to a 12 year-old girl's bedroom with brand new, glossy white furniture and a shabby chandy.

 She'll add new hardware and a fun upholstered chair.

I also painted and glazed two of these shelves with stained pegs to hang above the desk.  (Sorry for my lack of good pictures.  This summer and fall seriously kicked my butt.  I'm hopeful the butt-kicking is mostly over.) 

Brooke has fabulous taste and is currently in the process of building up her design portfolio.  I hope this helps a little!  Thanks Brooke!

Can't Get Enough

More pink!  It seems when I did these tables, I may have created a very pink-very cute-monster.  But that's ok, I really like pink monsters.

Another project for my ever-adorable friend, miss Lindsey.  She had two matching twin beds from her childhood that she wanted to paint for her two equally-adorable little girls. Here is the before of one of them: 

The perfect shape, just a little flowery and beat up.  She wanted pink and cream with dark walnut stain and distressing again, to go with dresser that I recently refinished for her.

I may never get tired of this particular monster.  It is so very sweet.  Plus, keep in mind that when the bed is all made, with the box spring, mattress, duvet and pillows a lot of the pink on the headboard will be covered up.  I think that'll keep it from being too much.  You'll get just a hint, which is what we are going for.

The inside of the foot board, which again, will be mostly covered with bedding.  But I wanted the consistency.

Lindsey is going to tackle the other bed herself.  Last we talked the plan was gray where this bed is cream and cream where this bed is pink.  Won't that be gorgeous?!  I'm sure she'll do a fabulous job and I can't wait to see it!  Please send me some pics of both rooms when you get them put together, Lindsey!

Thanks! It is always so much fun to work with you!

Prettier in Pink

Yes, long time no blog. What can I say- sometimes life takes you by surprise and plans change. So I was so happy when my super cute cousin called.  She is having her first baby girl! Yay! When Kellie asked if some of her boys' nursery furniture could be done to look like this dresser and the Molly tables, I was so excited!  I'm loving how they turned out. Without further ado...

The crib:

You would never know that this crib used to be chocolate brown and live in big brother's room.  White with pink accents and a dark walnut stain-nothing brother about it now! 

With no dust ruffle, the under bed storage trundle will be getting the spotlight.  I added a pretty little applique for another fun touch of pink.

 After all the painting and staining was said and done, I distressed, distressed, distressed.  But don't worry- all that chippy goodness is completely baby-proofed and sealed in with a clear polycrylic.

 Just love.

 Kellie also brought me this adorable bookshelf and hutch that was hers as a little girl.  It was all white and in good condition, but I just had to add some fun to pink it up a little more.

 I added my favorite pattern on the back panels, then stained and distressed the whole thing.

She plans on adding pink glass knobs like those I used on Lindsey's dresser. 

In real life the pink is softer than in the pics.  I amped it up just a little to make it easier to see on a screen.

Kellie, thank you so much!  I hope that you and baby girl love it!  And I wouldn't hate some pictures of it all put together sometime, either :)

The Dresser That Goes

A few weeks ago my cute friend Lindsey took one of the Molly Tables home to live in the room shared by her two little girlies.  She mentioned that they were also sharing a dresser that had belonged to her husband as a little boy, and that she'd like to it have refinished to match the table.  Remember how the Molly Tables were all pink and cream and girly curves?  Well, a few days later she dropped off this dresser:

Can you say Total Opposite of pink and cream and girly curves?  And then she said something along the lines of, "Oh, just do whatever you think will make it look good with the table." Hmm.  It took a few days of contemplation.  Here is what I came up with:

 I thought about white with pink drawers, pink with white drawers, white top, pink bottom you name it.  None of it seemed right for this piece. Because the dresser has a completely different shape than the tables, I didn't want to do an exact replica of their paint job. I decided it would be best to keep a simple dresser  simple and do something that would just "go".  Besides, its not really chic for everything to be exactly matchy anyway.  At least I'm pretty sure I've heard that around:)

So I painted the whole thing the same white as the tables, distressed it, stained it with the same Dark Walnut, and coated it in polycrylic.

To bring in the pink and a touch of  girliness I played around with a bunch of appliques and ended up again keeping it pretty simple by adding just one, similar to those on the tables, painted that sweet Ballet Slipper Pink and stained.

  For fun and just a tiny bit of curve I added feet, and painted just the balls of them pink as well.

 

 And of course pink glass knobs, the perfect finishing touch. Larger roses on the top three drawers and smaller round knobs on the rest.

Can you picture them living in a room together?  I hope so.

 Thanks Lindsey!  I hope you love it!

Linking up to Cassie's party :)

And

And

Molly Tables

These tables are so Pretty in Pink I named them the Molly tables.

A matching set finished in gorgeous ballet slipper pink with cream tops, then distressed and rubbed all over with Dark Walnut stain; which completely and totally made the tables what they are today.  Thank you, Dark Walnut.  I am not a photographer and I never really think my pictures do the furniture justice.  The colors here are rich rich rich.  And of course they're topped off with polycrylic to ensure protection and no yellowing. 

Beautiful curvy lines and details.

 The before.  When I picked these up, I believe that they had been refinished already in a seafoam green with blue peeking through.  Cute enough, but the paint job was, in my humble opinion, sub-par and I don't think they were sanded or primed first, although I guess I'll never really know.  I immediately had visions

of rich pink and cream. 

If Zoe's room wasn't tiny and shared with a certain boy, they would definitely be living there.  Just in case you didn't catch it in my last post, I would go all out, over the top girly if I could while she is little and sweet and has no opinion on pretty rooms and such matters.  Alas, I can't do that to poor Ash, making my loss your gain.

The matching set of Molly tables is now for sell in my shop.  Check it out for all the details.

Linking up:

Thanks for stopping by!

His & Hers: A Start

Our house has six potential bedrooms.  And three actual bedrooms.   Chalk another one up to someday when the basement is finished...  So for now we (happily) make our actual-in-reality bedrooms work,  two of which can accurately be described with words such as small and/or tiny.  After doing the math, you may have come to the conclusion that the four children split the two smallest rooms.  And after perhaps a little more math, you conclude that one of the three boys- the smallest- shares with the one and only girl. Whew.  That's a lot of math.

When my little Zoe was born, I had visions of over-the-top girly with pink, ruffles, dripping chandeliers, the works. Hmm, how to make that work with Asher and his Batman obsession.  I decided to keep things reaaallly neutral and try to work with stuff I already had.  Keep in mind that this is, as everything, a work in progress that has just begun.

Zozo's zone. Not much, but again, this room is pretty small.  There's space for either a bed and dresser, or two beds and a dresser in the closet, which is the configuration we're going with at the moment.

I found this frame at a flea market a few years ago and had the mirror installed.  I'm constantly hemming and hawing about painting it a brighter color.  But I also really like the original vintage chippy paint.  For now its sealed with poly.  And a muslin wreath inspired by this linen wreath from Emily at Jone's Design Company-hers is way better.  That's ok. Of course sporting the flat-ironed ribbon.

 After looking around and not finding anything like I was picturing in my brain, I decided to recover the crib set that all three of my boys used.  Alert! I am not a seamstress.  I can sort of sew, and I'm not that much of a perfectionist when I'm doing stuff for myself.  Considering those high expectations, I'm pretty happy with the results.

I sewed flat ruffles, or really just flaps of fabric (drop cloth-what else is there?) right over the old crib skirt.

I like the flat flaps because I think they give a layered, slightly flouncy look without being too poufy for this shared room.

 Then I sewed more of my handy-dandy canvas drop cloth right over the old bumper, after covering the piping with a gorgeous floral scrap.  I'm in love with that floral.  I ran out of it when I was making the ties, so some are flowery and some are an awesome neutral leopard from another scrap piece. The pink afghan was made by Tyler's mom and is the perfect piece of pink. It is.

One more touch of pink for the girl.  The corsage blanket chest from here. Love it.  Have always loved it. I love a lot of things. That's also ok. Centered at the end of the crib to store blankies.

 Now whatever to do for Mr. Ash that will sort of work with all that.

Here's what. Paint one half of the bunk beds black to tie in with the crib.  Flip over the old bedspread from navy plaid and use the more neutral stripy side.  Stick with the red under-bed bins we've had forever.

Add some navy ticking stripe pillow cases and sacrifice my beloved seed sack pillows, made from this estate auction steal.

Create a super-sophisticated wall of preschool art-of which Asher is SO proud- and throw in the white board where its easy for 4-year-olds to reach. 'Cuz we really like the white board.

I also hung some curtains that I made for the kitchen in our last house.  Linen-esque (cheaper) tie tops with a white cotton band on the bottom.

.

There you have it.  His and Hers. It's a little plain, could totally use some more color, and there is a lot of blank wall to fill, but I'm hoping its a respectable start :)

Thanks!

Part One

This is Part One of a big project that I've been working on for possibly the nicest client ever. Really. She actually contacted me a while ago about refinishing some furniture but I was pregnant and had to turn her down. Fast forward a whole year and here we are. She called me again! How great is that?! She had a whole list of pieces that she wanted done, starting with her bedroom furniture.

This is the before of the dresser that she sent me. It was quite a pretty dresser in great shape, she just didn't like the stain.

And after.

Please excuse the not great pictures. They were sort of a quick afterthought this time.

She expressed an affinity for distressed black furniture and wanted everything in her bedroom to match, so that's what I did. Black with a lot of distressing, a khaki glaze, and poly for shine and protection.

A thumbnail of the bed before. She had actually painted it herself in a flat black finish and was unhappy with the outcome.

So I redid it.

Also there's a Sad Headboard Story-right before she came to pick it up it tipped over and SPLIT. Crap! I might have said a swear word. But just a little one. I hate it when things like that happen-swear words and splits. I felt so terrible and she was so very gracious about it.


Foot board


Working on pieces that belong to someone else is both highly fun and highly stressful. After spending so much time and energy on something I'm always afraid that it won't be what the client is expecting, or that some part of it won't meet their expectations. I love doing this, but I often doubt myself. I want so much for clients to be happy with my work. So thank you so much, Vanessa, for being so awesome to work with! I'm beyond thrilled that you and your husband were excited with the end result.



Now on to part two, after which I hope you will be equally happy:)

Thank you!