Low Chest from the Low Country

Here is another of our finds.  This one was in really nice condition no repairs needed.

Has a nice bow front on it.  I had to change out the hardware.  Some simple wood knobs did the trick. We tried sanding down the drawer fronts they are narrow pieces of wood glued together and two of the drawers came out beautiful, one came out green.  It was ugly and there was no fixing it....boo.  We did sand the top and put a provincial stain on it.

I painted it ASCP in Paris Grey.  Then waxed it with clear and dark wax.

I added a bit of paper to the inside of the drawers......

I have to confess it has been at the store for almost 3 months and has not sold.  They told me at the store it was not a very good color choice.  Too blah

What do you all think?

What color should it be cause I am bringing it home and doing it over......


Help Please.......

Small Foyer Table

I found this table at a new consignment store close to me.... there wasn't anything wrong with it but I thought it could use a bit of my new Anne Sloans Chalk Paint in Coco...

It had some great detail as you can see on the legs.  I painted it Coco and then thought I would be real creative and stencil something on the top of it..

I used a real light touch and added purple in the stencil on the top.

I thought it added something......

Then I distressed it, and put on clear and dark wax.  I must say I love the color.

Then I took it to Treasures Consignment store where I volunteer and put it up for sale.   It sold alright but can you guess what she wanted.....? 

Yup "Can you paint over that stencil on the top so it all looks the same?"  Sure no problem.  So much for trying something new or adding a creative touch...

Bitter no not me just want to please the customer that's what its all about in the end.

Have a great week.

French Table and Chairs And a Chair Upholstering Tutorial.

 Be prepared, I fear this turned out to be a Photo laden post.

Before:

I hinted at this project HERE When I mentioned that they had caned backs and a couple of them had holes in the caning. 
  We used our handy tool there and cut out the caning.  Worked great and was pretty quick.  We sanded down what wouldn’t come out, and I was ready to go.
I painted them with Anne Sloans Chalk Paint in splotches of Paris Grey and French Linen.  Then I painted Old White over the whole thing. Oh I did the table too.  We sanded the top down and Stained it with Provincial and then put Polyurethane on the top of the table.
I saved the piece of caning that we took out so I would have a pattern to cut the drop cloth fabric which is what I used for the upholstery.
Then I stapled the cut out piece where the caning was. Pulling tightly alternating from side to side and top to bottom so it would be stretched evenly.
This is the front of the chair with the first layer of drop cloth added where the caning was.  You can see that after I painted the chairs I distressed them back down so you can see wood, the Paris Grey and French Linen. 
This is the back of the chair after that first layer of fabric was added.
After I had put the first layer of fabric on I needed the padding, using the same caned piece I had saved I cut 1 inch foam to the same shape.
I felt that they needed a little shaping to cut off that sharp edge. So I used our electric knife (you can pick one up at your local thrift store, this one is 40 years old we got it for our wedding, still works! So 1970’s in that lovely green color!!) and cut that edge off.

This is the front of the chair with the foam over that first layer of fabric.  I then cut a piece of poly batting larger than the caned piece I was using for a pattern.
I laid it on top of the foam and tucked the edges around the foam.
  After this layer was laid down, I cut another piece of drop cloth larger than the pattern. This is the next layer or top layer to go over the foam and poly.

You can see that I laid the chairs down on their backs and laid all these layers down.  Next came the stapling.  I have an air stapler. Worth its weight in GOLD for stapling.
I stapled as close to the place where the caning came out as possible following the curves at the top, the trick is to use lots of staples and just line them up like stitches. Pulling tight and working from side to side and top to bottom.  Meaning a few staples at the top then a few at the center bottom.  Then move to the center of the side and do a few on one side then a few on the opposite side pulling tight.
The next step was to get all that excess fabric away from the staples so we could add some really nice trim to cover up all those staples.
I used a very technical tool razor blade. It worked well on the Drop Cloth material some fabrics can be trickier. Meaning harder to cut. I would know that from HERE this fabric did not want to be cut at all.
After the excess fabric was cut off I added the "Gimp" that's what this fancy trim is called.  Fancy and Cheap lucky me, also it turns corners really well. So it was me, my hot glue (not the cool glue gun that will not hold up) and the gimp 14 yards of it!


Where they meet you have to be careful and blend the two edges together.  For those of you who have not used this “gimp” before it unravels REALLY easy.  When I start, I make a puddle of glue and dip the end of the gimp into it and lay it down and start around the stapled edge of fabric.  At the end I cut it very carefully dab some glue on the cut edge and squish them together.

The seats were already upholstered when I got them.  So I just covered up the existing seat cushion with my drop cloth fabric.  Stretching side to side as I did the backs of the chairs.
DONE!  All 6 Plus the table… Its at the store if anyone is interested.

Hope you all enjoyed my huge project.
Have a great week!

Linking up at:
Piece of Work Wednesday
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Drop Cloths Who Knew

Who knew that Drop Cloths came in different colors?  NOT ME!

After going to Home Depot and purchasing a drop cloth to cover some chairs for a post coming soon, I brought it home and thought it was kind of blue grey.  That was not what I was looking for,  I wanted more of an oatmeal color......

Off to Lowes I went, purchased a similar size drop cloth and brought it home opened it up and low and behold its lots more beige!!!

This is the package from Lowes!!  They have the beige ones!

Just thought you'all might like to know this.

Welcome!

A Stenciled Chest

I found this chest at our local Goodwill.  

  I thought it was oil based paint but NO it was Latex OVER oil!!

That made for a difficult start to my project!   What a mess!!

It flaked off real nice....NOT

After getting off all the latex. I primed the whole thing with oil based primer,  and painted with a true white, off the shelf at Home Depot.

I then laid out the drawers in order and tight together.  I am using one of the stencils I got from 

Cutting Edge Stencils.

I measured out the center top to bottom and side to side and marked it off with tape then I laid down the stencil and taped it down and marked each corner so I could lay it back down once I got the back of the stencil sprayed with the tacky glue.

Here it is with the stencil laid down on top of it.......I used a what I thought was close to the "new" Tangerine color.  I bought a sample pot made at Home Depot (its a Glidden color which I don't have the color name for sorry) and poured it into a small paint tray.  Then used a sponge roller.  I loaded up the roller and then rolled it onto paper towel before going to the stencil.  That way it isn't loaded with so much paint and it hopefully won't seep under the stencil.

When I finished I took the stencil up and let it dry.  Then I put the drawers back in the cabinet, the stencil is a little bit spaced out but the eye tends to attach the pattern and you don't notice the spaces.

I added small crystal knobs I didn't want anything to distract from the design on the chest. They only cover the stencil on one drawer.

I also found these three fabrics when I was at the store getting supplies for another project and couldn't resist getting them because they would go with this piece SO well!  Now I want to design a room around all this......

alas that will be someone else's project, not mine.

The drawers were lined with a very old floral print paper that I could not get out. So I went and lined them with some grass cloth wallpaper that I got from our picking trip south.

Am taking it to the store hope someone else likes it as much as I do!!

Linking up to:
Meet Me Monday
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