Antoinette and Coco Sitting In A Tree

These are a match made in heaven!  I have been horribly sick for the past week and haven’t done much of anything other than lay in bed but I did make time to refinish my dresser for my youngest daughters room.  This was not at all the direction I thought I was going with this room but when I went to pick up my Antoinette I bought some Coco for another project and then the light bulb went on.  I’m so pleased with this how this turned out that I have also done her little table and chairs which I will post later and I plan to do her desk to match as well. 

I used my new silver gilding wax for the details and painted the handles Coco and gilded those as well.  I absolutely LOVE the gilding wax!  I’m not keeping these black knobs, they were on the dresser when it was in my room but I haven’t replaced them yet.  I think I’m going to get some smaller clear crystal ones.

I used a 3/1 ratio of the Antoinette on the drawers and then full strength in the centers. 

Here is a before and after of the dresser…

 

~Sommer

I Love White, But…

I am a big lover of white.  White furniture, white linens, white paint etc.…  Okay maybe not white underwear.  But I am a lover of most things white.  However there does get to be a point where this too much of a good thing.  This was the case in my daughters room. 

I had painted the bed white.  She has an antique vanity that we bought which is white.  I will be painting it someday but I’m scared of it being lead paint.  She has white pillows, white comforter, white photo frames etc.…

So today I sold a piece of furniture and decided to put our money into some color for her room.  I say color… it’s grey lol.  Okay I’m a commitment phobe!  I admit.  But she does have pink sheets, a pink throw and I will be adding some pink pillows once I find a few cute ones.  I’m even thinking some pink and grey curtains.

Before:

After:  Oh I love Ikea!  Got two down pillows, a down comforter (accidentally bought a twin oops.  So I will pass that on to little bear and get a full) the duvet cover and both pillow cases for $100!!  She loves it and I’m jealous.  It looks more comfy than my bed!

 

I just found a new bed for little bear on Craig's list and sent an email.  If it works out her room will be black white and red!!  Exciting!

~Sommer

Girly Chevron Dresser

Oh boy… I should not try to be such an over achiever.  lol. I get bored just painting things and distressing and waxing and painting and staining.  So I got this wild hair up my derriere to paint my first chevron pattern onto this cute little dresser that belonged to my sister 23 years ago.  Well that was a total cluster.  It took me forever to figure out how to measure the tape and get it all zigging and zagging in the right direction.  And then when I finally got it right I had to do the second row!  Trying to get the second row to line up perfectly to the first row…. oh no.  No no no.  It was bad ju ju.  But here is how it turned out and I think it’s super cute.  I distressed it a tiny bit around the drawers too and used my jute once again to cover the knobs.

One Down Fifty Six To Go

Today officially marks the start of our summer break.  And the end of my sanity as we know it.  I’m trying to see the silver lining here though.  We are on a modified calendar so we have two less weeks of break than other schools since our fall and spring breaks are two weeks long.  I also get to wake up of my own accord in the mornings without feeling rushed to get kids ready.  We can live in our pj’s all day though I’m trying to implement that everyone be dressed with beds made once they are up each day.  My hopes with this is that it will be habit once school starts in August =)
I don’t have to be finished painting by 4pm.  I don’t have to schedule appt’s around school hours.  I do love the freedom that the summer brings to my schedule.  The question always remains, how do I keep them entertained?
For starters we have all started pitching ideas on getting their rooms finished.  So starting with the boy.  I finished his bed last week.  If you remember he has slept on a mattress on the floor since we moved in this past February.  His new bed is a full size which I find perfect for a ten year old.  It should last him until at least college. 

Time For Bed

Recently I traded the bottom of a hutch for this beautiful antique bed.  The headboard was 90% refinished and I just needed another coat of paint or two.  Here is the foot board unfinished.

Deja Vu

I’m having a momentary lapse in my short term memory here.  I could have sworn I blogged about my dressers before but I can’t for the life of me find them in any of my old posts.  I raised both hands over my head and smiled just be sure I hadn’t had a stroke lol.
So if by some strange chance you have seen this before in an alternate universe you have my apology for being redundant.
After finding the perfect bed I searched high and low for dressers and nightstands to match.  I knew what I was looking for and I knew the price I was willing to pay.  It took a while.  Like one of those dreams where you see the door at the end of the hallway and the hallway keeps stretching, becoming longer and longer.   Well instead of a door I saw my dressers lol.
Until  a man posted an entire set of two dressers and two nightstands on Craigs List for…. $20.  Yes can you believe that?  That weren’t top quality, they aren’t antique and they came to me in urine yellow with gold trim!  But they were functional and the right style and for $20 I knew they would serve their purpose for quite some time!  Sadly… I cannot find any before pictures.  I know before and after's don’t really hold the same impact without the before.  Just imagine a dog pee’d all over your furniture!  Oh scratch that!  Just found one lol.  The nightstand was mid process in the picture below. Oh sigh, I try.
 


Well it doesn’t exactly look as yellow as it really was.  But I promise you they were. 
 
 

Dreamy Little Room Makeover

So I feel like I am almost finished with little miss K's room.  There are still some loose ends to tie up but it's so close I'm just going to show you.  Because honestly those loose ends could take months to tie up according to my procrastination clock =)

This will just be another post of an ungodly amount of photo's with my little narrations beneath.


This is the before.  When I first started I had a vision and of course as time passed I went way off course!

My four year old ended up deciding she no longer wanted to sleep in a room of her own.  She wanted to move back in with her sister.  So we moved the daybed to the basement and lucky for me we had this full size bed unfinished in the garage. 

I know, ugly right?  I also got this darling little dresser for free!  I was going to need another dresser for two girls sharing a room.

Too bad those knobs were beat to sh.... crap.  But I loved the serpentine style top this beauty had.  So day by day, I started putting the new room together and I just have to say I'm really glad the girls ended up in the same room because I don't think I would have had it in me to do this twice!

The overview...

Chandelier...

I picked these darling little chairs up at a garage sale and my girlfriend got the pillow and foot stool.  We are selling these at the market this spring =)

I got this bird cage for an ungodly amount of money at the market.  I normally don't pay $35 for anything!  But it was so worth it don't you think?  I made the pink tissue paper pom pom and these both sit on the unfinished floating shelf I started but haven't finished lol.

Just a little subliminal marketing for my girls ;P

These I found over at MySweetSavannah when she re-did her daughters room.  She has links on where you can print them.

I have no idea why this one makes the wall look pink.  Neat trick though huh? lol

I got this little silver dish at goodwill and added some chalk paint to the middle.

One of my favorite Etsy purchases.

The reading corner complete with book sling, memo board and shopping signs.

Hobby Lobby... love me some tin art!

That is the closet you see and the unfinished vanity.  I'm thinking a powder pink.  I am also going to eventually paint the walls 3/4 high with grey paint and the top 1/4 pink.

View of the bedroom door from the back of the room.

My new silhouette has been treating me good making some stencils. I just loved the little Eiffel tower.

The girls vanity, yet to be refinished.  It's white and chippy which is fine for now.  Hopefully there is no lead in it!

Our vintage doll carriage houses most of the Care Bear collection, the pillow pet takes up too much real estate.

Here's the darling serpentine dresser. The drawers were drying =)

And a little touch of stenciling just took it over the top.  I'm waiting on more knobs =)

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.  There is an incredible giveaway over at Twice Lovely that you need to check out.  Worth about $400!  Go now...  http://twicelovely.blogspot.com/2010/10/damask-dresser-and-artograph-projector.html

Historic Little Dresser

I will restore, paint, sand and re purpose just about anything.  However this little gem is thus far the oldest piece of furniture I've gotten my hands on to date.  I was really excited when my girlfriend told me it was 1800's.  Probably mid to late century, more towards the later end.  When I picked up the "free" dresser listed as "broken" it was worse off than I thought.  Mr Garden looked a bit skeptical as did I about how much work it would need.  Normally I wont take on a project that needs a bunch of work because it costs me time.  But there was just something about this dresser calling my name.  So with the back panels missing and the drawer guides falling out we picked up all the pieces and loaded them up! Here was the dresser being carefully pieced together for the picture.  Just don't touch it or it will fall apart lol.

It sat in the garage for over a week because I started having serious doubts about restoring the pile of firewood I saw before me. One afternoon Mr Garden and I were just hanging out in the garage finishing another project when he started fiddling around with the dresser. Before I knew it we had it all pulled apart and started putting the jigsaw puzzle back together.

You can see where the previous owner used far too much glue for the drawer bottoms only to not slide them back into the tracks properly.  They will stay this way because the wood is so old and fragile it would split if we tried to take it apart.

Mr Garden scraping old glue out of the joints so we could re-glue and everything would fit flush.

The new back panel we purchased.  Made from MDF. 

Here she is all put back together and sanded, except for the drawers.  It actually made for a pretty unique look.

And now with a few coats of paint and some gentle sanding.