Melissa's Armoir

My good friend Melissa asked me to paint one of her armoirs. It was mid summer when I agreed to it, and late summer when I finished it. It was a labor of love...

The Greens

These are also hand-me downs, but I have no idea where they came from. It was funny how I didn't realize how messed up they were until I painted them.

More Furniture

The air is cool, sort of, the Arizona winter is here. As I type a soft rain is falling steadily, a cool breeze lazily twirling through my open window. It's a lovely night, the kids and husband are asleep, and I have time to blog.







It's also the time of year that my garage is a hospitable place again. I am excited to be back in the furniture business.







I started this year by doing what I have been thinking about doing for some time. After moving ten times in ten years, my wood furniture is MESSED UP. It's what I call, BTH... or beat to H***. So I decided to banish the dents and scuffs and dried milk and Sharpie with a little sandpaper and paint.







I started with my bedroom dresser. It was in my parents bedroom all my childhood, I remember. It was in my brother and sister in law's (Brent and Emily) bedroom for a few years. Emily actually put the cute silver knobs on it.

I picked red paint... it turned out great and looks good in my room....

Dress Up Clothes... Where to Put Them All?

Elli is slowly accumulating donated dress up clothes and I have been stuffing them in a plastic drawer. I have been looking for a bench with a lid at all the garage sales. Last Saturday I went with my friend Molly to a community garage sale (basically where multiple households set stuff out in their driveway and you just putt putt around the neighborhood instead of chasing single sales all over the valley.) We hit the jackpot that day. It was really fun finding great deals all over the place and trying to find a way to stack our treasures in the back of Newell's truck. At one point we were trying to use these old straps that Newell gets working in seconds, and it took us half an hour to figure out the old metal gears. I mentioned we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies at the end of the day with all our furniture over-flowing.

I saw this bench and when the owner shrugged and said I could have it for $5 I knew I had found the one I had been looking for. They had let their (hopefully) daughters use cheap craft paint and glob on layer after layer of letters and hand prints and other indistinguishable markings. We stood there for awhile trying to figure out what the writing on the front said. I understand the concept of encouraging creativity, but I must be a bad parent because seeing this thing in my daughter's room every day would literally be painful for me.
So I carefully washed off what looked like pizza sauce and other unmentionables, and sanded it down numerous times until the wood grain started to resurface. Then I painted it all black and let it sit in the garage for a few days. I don't like to sound like a cheesy artist, but I would stand there for a few minutes at a time, walk around it, and let it speak to me. I tried to imagine what the structure wanted. I decided to decoupage a portion of it and then I went to Hobby Lobby with my friend Kris. As I was browsing the scrapbook paper section I saw a large package of gems in swirling patterns for $5.99. I grabbed those, some paper, and some Modge Podge (Dumb name, I know. Seriously, who thought of that? But it's a life saver for any crafter...).

So the bench is done, complete with a red crystal knob on top. Elli just sits on it all the time, singing and playing with her toys. I think the bench still needs something, but I will wait for it to tell me what it is...

Go out and try this! Happy Decoupaging...

Elli

Mother's Day, in the car on the way to see my Dad speak in his branch. She is so pretty!

Pretty in Pink

I bought this dresser from a craigslist about two weeks ago. I think I probably paid too much for it at $50, still learning at this point. It's up points are that it's solid real wood and it's large and simple in structure. All the pieces are wood, not plastic. The down points are that it's pine and not heavy hardwood. One thing to remember with wood furniture is that wood that comes from trees that grow quickly, like pine trees for example, is soft and doesn't scratch so much as dent at the slightest trauma. Hard woods come from slow growing, usually deciduous trees. So this would be your maple, hickory, etc. These don't dent, they scratch. Scratches are very easy to sand away. Dents, not so much. Pine is also light and not terribly resistant to breaking.

So, my kind husband drove me out to deep Queen Creek where an eccentric older woman chatted with us about her dogs and repeatedly informed us of her 11 back surgeries. She also rolled her incapacitated husband out of some hidden back room to explain, in detail, his recent experience with suffering a massive stroke. I could practically hear Newell biting his tongue. He hadn't signed on for this.

We brought it home and I began work.



So I went to Walmart thinking I would go with the standard black, but I kept thinking about something my Dad said a long time ago about how I am always painting over wood and how it was a shame that I cover the natural beauty of it. This didn't make me want to refinish this cheap piece of pine furniture, because I personally think wood grain is out of fashion right now. But it made me think about changing it up a little. I don't know how my Dad's voice in my head helped me pick out this color, but it did.

It's called Ballet Slipper and it's a Krylon color. I think it's really perfect for a certain kind of bedroom. Pink is my favorite color, has been all my life. I hope that when I am 90 and drooling I still prefer pink roses over white. It's a little bit of the little girl in all of us women.

Dresser and Armoir--- Fun in my Garage

I picked up two more pieces from Goodwill. I keep thinking about those "before and after" shows like Design on a Dime and Designed to Sell. We all like them... some of us more than others. I would put myself in the more category. I am ashamed to say I even enjoyed Extreme Makeover, the regular edition. The one where they mangled people and made them look like strange plastic versions of themselves. I liked the before and after aspect of it. So here are two ugly girls in need of plastic surgery. The Armoir portion comes tomorrow.

The dresser struck me just because it was unusual and was, once again, solid wood with the dovetail construction on the backs of the drawers. It is also unusual because it is tall and narrow. It was a little pricey for Goodwill at $40, but I didn't see anything else there that day. I broke one of my own rules, which is, always be willing to walk out empty handed.

So I brought her home and sanded her down, meanwhile discovering the scent of cedar during the sanding. Then Newell came home and pointed out a few indicators showing this was a home made piece. I probably would not have bought it if I would have known that. I am trying to see if I can turn this hobby into a money making venture, and I think the style of the piece is a little unplaceable. I listed it on craigslist and didn't know what to call it. Not shabby chic, not classical, certainly not french provincial.

But I do feel some satisfaction in one thing. As I carefully cleaned and sanded and painted and fixed this piece, I thought over and over again about the carpenter. I am sure he made it in his shop, carefully planed and then sanded and stained each individual piece. Then he carved a pretty design in each door. No doubt he was making it for someone, I would guess a woman, maybe a wife or daughter, and no doubt he thought about her as he made it. He put thought into it's natural beauty, the waving lines of the cedar planks, and made the shiny finish perfect for her. It made me think about love and the things we do for each other. Then it was used, certainly for years, maybe even decades, and maybe passed down. Then in became antiquated, supposedly "ugly," and then someone dropped it off at the donations center at the Queen Creek Goodwill. It reminded me of the Velveteen Rabbit.

But I digress... here are the Before and After photos. Enjoy.