More of 17 - Big Summer Project

My BIG project for this summer was to paint most of our pulled-together-from-here-there-and-hand-me-down bedroom furniture the same color - a warm, distressed black was my plan.  I never listed this project on a published blog post, but it is one of the 17 projects - OK, it was one of maybe 35 projects swirling around in my head. 

After
Once I started painting, I realized I did not get before pics of everything, so I'll just have to describe the "befores" for the most part.


I don't have "befores" for the 2 little chests, but the one on the left was an unfinished piece originally planned for Earthgirl's room.  She now has a bigger chest of drawers (one my parents started housekeeping with over 50 years ago!), because she is a T-shirt clothes horse.  The chest on the right used to be in Nanny's sewing room.  It originated in the 70s, maybe even the 60s, and sported a home finish of reddish-brown stain, maybe oak?


The "before" headboard was a pickled-look finish veneer headboard.  My Mama picked it up at a second-hand store for her guest house, and I traded my brass headboard for it.  (The very plain very 1980s brass headboard, purchased when a store was closing,  was always supposed to be for just a little while, but we slept against it for about 17 years.) 

See what I mean about the furniture being second-hand-and-hand-me-down?

Headboard before:

The shelf is part of a 3-piece entertainment center, a Sauder piece, in a similar pickled look to the headboard.  The entertainment center was our family Christmas gift around 1995.  We put it together ourselves. 

The headboard, the 2 chests of drawers, the cedar chest, and the bookshelf are painted with Annie Sloan chalk paint, in Graphite, then distressed and waxed with both dark and clear wax. The inside color of the shelves is Chateau.  All the new drawer and door knobs came from Hobby Lobby, and are a purposely eclectic mix.

This chest started as an old, plain, not valuable cedar chest from Nanny's closet.  Daddy says he thinks the FFA boys made it in shop and sold it as a fundraiser, maybe back in the 60s?

Cedar chest before:

The doodad on front of the cedar chest also came from Hobby Lobby.

It add a little something, doesn't it?

Ahhh...Honey, we're home!

More of 17 - Buffing the Buffet

Christmas 2005

My buffet is the bottom portion of a hutch handed down from my mother-in-law. They had it made about 45 years ago, when they lived in a nice old house with hardly any storage space. 

We've had it for 6 years.  When we first hauled it home, we thought we'd paint or refinish it immediately, but once we put it in place, it looked OK, and we decided to live with it for awhile as is.  Or as was?

I took these pics back then to show Mom how good it looked with the reindeer she gave me.  Isn't he elegant?  Since the hutch really had some beat-upped-ness to it, I usually kept some kind of cover on top.

Christmas 2005

But finally the time has come to make it my own, now that I have some cool Annie Sloan chalk paint that can be painted right over almost anything without stripping or priming!

I painted the buffet inside and out  in Chateau Grey, a soft gray-green. ( I also painted the back in some leftover dark gray latex so that all the outer wood would be sealed.  ("wood would," clever, huh?) I painted inside, too, because the hutch had lived for a few years in the basement where some flooding has occurred, and it still had a bit of that mustiness that would not go away.  It's gone now!

 We have 2 pieces of furniture from the sixties that have 60s-type wood paneling used as a backing and drawer sides.  I guess it just made for good wood scraps.

Then the real fun began.  I clear-waxed it, then dark-waxed and wiped off, waited overnight, then buffed until my shoulders hurt.  I rewaxed the top just for some extra protection. 

And here is my "new" buffet.

Homeschool Hooky Day 2011

When Public school started up a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated the first day of school by NOT doing any school! We went with friends for pizza!

 Then I taught Earthgirl's BFF (one of many BFFs) to chain stitch while Earthgirl took her piano lesson.  I couldn't quite go for hooky from piano  - I pay whether we are there or not.  Since we waiting gals were "hooking" on our crochet hooks, I guess it was still hooky.

And there was peace sign art, because Earthgirl just loves peace signs.  I did when I was her age, too!   So many styles and motifs from my growing up years are back in style.  Her friend just wanted to keep crocheting, and asked me to teach her to do a single crochet.  I think she will be a natural!

Earthgirl is in 6th grade this year.  What a blessing it is to be her teacher.