Sweet accent tables

As hot as it's already been lately, I haven't felt much like stripping, sanding, or painting anything outside. So what do you do when you don't want to go outside and sweat with grit and grime all over you? 

You bring the smallest things you can find into the house and work on them in the kitchen! I still had to do a little prep-work outside on these babies but nothing that took more than 20 minutes or so. That's enough to render one's morning-shower completely obsolete. Ugh

Anyway. Here we go! 

Table No. 1 was a random find at a local trade-days event. Totally unexpected. So what did I do? I bought it and wandered around with the three kiddos for another 40 minutes. ha ha. 

$40

Isn't it sweet? I would love to see this on a landing with ivy trailing from the top and this little birdy peeking out. :)

 I don't know exactly what you call Table No. 2. Is it an accent table? An occasional? What is it?? It folds over to one side to make it easy to move out of the way but I don't know what that makes it. Oh well. It was too pretty to pass up so I bought it and sanded the HECK out of the top of it to get off the old super-dark stain/varnish. It wasn't its most attractive quality. 

Once I got it down to bare wood on the top, I thought about re-staining it with something already on hand but then I remembered this lovely idea: Vinegar Stain

I neglected to remember to use apple cider vinegar but I think it turned out really neat anyway. Also, I don't know off hand what the difference is between white vinegar and apple cider vinegar. They both smell equally gross. Thank goodness the smell doesn't linger in the wood for this process. 

$40

So, thoughts, anyone?

Custom table

This table might look a little familiar to those of you who have been following for a while. (And by the way, please 'join' my page if you're reading!) I did one very similar to this that happened to be my first lucky-find at a CCA reSale store here in town. I'm using the same unknown 'antique' white on this table and I'm currently trying to figure out what kind of filler to use where the leather inlays used to be. 

Aren't the details on the legs awesome? SUCH a find!

Don't you just love the 'grills' on this one? I'm so glad they're both intact. I went ahead and gave them a quick coat of the same old white but I'm thinking to sand most of that back off to reveal the original brassy tones. 

It just occurred to me that I could try a fabric touch on one of the open spots. A toile, maybe? What do you think, dear reader?

Here's a look at the first table I did: 

It's that time again - linking up!

Participating in French Country Cottage's Feathered Nest Friday. Have fun looking at all the other creativity going on in blog-land.

 Feathered Nest Friday

A Versa is NOT an SUV....

I need more staging room. This business of moving the girls' toys around to take pictures and then hauling the furniture back out of the room is cah-razy. Seriously. Anywhoo... here's "Claire" in all her finished glory. 

I think I'll add another coat of wax before selling her but all the hard work is done. I really like how Paris Grey and Pure White work together. I'm a little disappointed with the wax because it seems to buff uncertainly but the shine is great and it's easy to work with so maybe it'll just take time to work out the kinks.  

I just love the hardware on Claire. I found these at Michael's several months ago and intended to use them on my own dresses when I repaint them but they seemed to fit the vanity's personality. What do you think?

This next piece is a FIND. I had gone to pick up another table and this little nightstand? was just sitting there with its own price-tag, waiting to be loved. I asked what they'd take for both pieces and the lady gave them both to me for the asking price of the table I was there for. How awesome is that? I wanted to friend her right there! 

This is the table I went to pick up. Awesome, isn't it? I'm not sure if I understood the owner correctly but I think she said her husband bought an antique shop and these were pieces that came with it. Something like that. Anyway. I'm excited. My FIL has had me on the look-out for something like this and I thought I was going to have to buy pieces that were already done and just repaint them in the color he wanted but I'd much rather dress this fella up. He needs it. 

And yes, then I smooshed three kids into the backseat of my Versa and put this table in the front with me and the night stand in the back. And tied the hatch down. Yikes!

So, dear reader, what about you? Picked up anything fun lately and then crammed it into your car with three kids? :) 

Linking up at Miss Mustard Seed - Furniture Feature Friday

Hall-lelujah! ;)

Hooray! The hallway/entry table is finished. It looked a little rough when I picked it up but it's pretty fancy now. 

Before: 

The stain on the top was uneven, there were some pretty noticeable water/ink stains and the legs just looked a little dry and sad. 

After:

$65

The top sanded down pretty easily and the red mahogany stain just made a world of difference, don't you think? I debated trying to sand and stain the legs but with a few chips out of the veneer on the little foot accents, it made more sense to paint it. I'm glad I did, because playing around with the Annie Sloan waxes was fun. 

Have you ever come across a table like this? I wish I could find out something about it but so far, I haven't managed any Google image hits.

Slow and steady wins the race?

Like many people, I do image searches and Pinterest searches and blog searches to find ideas or just see what else is being done out there in the world. I thought I was being smart when I started saving bookmarks for all the blogs and projects that I like. Little did I know that I would end up with WAY too many to keep straight. This sort of hoarding leads to incidents like the other day, when I wanted to find the blogger who talked about putting new fabric on her old lamp shades. I hunted through saved links, Googled "fabric for lamp shades blog" to see what would turn up, and even briefly considered just going back through my history... surely it wasn't THAT long ago that I read the entry, right? haha

I DID finally find the blog I was thinking of (over here at Thrifty Inspirations) and then got lost for another hour or so, finding new things to swoon over and hope to recreate some day. 

After that fiasco, I thought maybe I should just write down a list of future project ideas with quick reference notes. Surely having it all on paper somewhere would help... And then I told my husband about it and he was all "Isn't that what Pinterest is for?" *sigh* Yes. Yes, it is. And if I were smart, I would have been making boards for each type of project/technique that I want to someday try. 

Anywhoo... that's what I've been boggled by lately. In case you wondered. 

And here's what I've worked on:

Ok, this cute little tea set isn't really a 'worked on' kind of thing. It's more of a 'Yippee! Look what I found!' thing. Home Goods, you came through. :) 

Thankfully, the finish on this little table was almost completely worn through already. I think someone tried sanding it before donating it, too. Anyway. 10 minutes of hand sanding got a lot of nasty off and made it super smooth to the touch.

I cleaned it off and decided the ink stain or whatever is in the upper middle area is just too deep to try to sand through. It adds a little character, anyway, right? (Like this table needs it!) So after wiping it down again, I busted out the Red Mahogany stain and gave it a nice thick coat. It wiped down really nice but I'm considering adding another coat to see if I can get the color any deeper. The legs will probably get an old white finish, since they're missing some veneer and just aren't as pretty.

Vanity time! I LOVE this little vanity. It was a little plain, though, so I added the accent moulding on the front lip to dress her up a little. I haven't named the last few things I've purchased... what a shame, right? How about Claire? 

Claire

                                    A little close-up of the accent. I love this one and you might recognize it from another  piece, too. Yup. I used it on "Chester". Which just goes to show... even boys can use a little embellishment from time to time!

I found this at the local Goodwill store. It has three glass doors that swing up and slide back to allow access to whatever you decide to store here. I'm guessing it's a curio cabinet of some sort. There are 3 more adjustable shelves, I just have them out for the painting process. I think the doors are going to get a coat of Heirloom White so they stand out a little. 

Charles

Deep Garnet China Cabinet

Please forgive the slightly unsightly surroundings and take a look at the finished china/liquor cabinet. 

The "Deep Garnet" looked WAY too light in the first coat and I think most portions of this have between 3-4 coats. It still seemed a little hollow so I added the black glazing and waxed it as soon as I could. Between the glaze and the waxing, I think the 'depth' of the Garnet finally showed up. I'm pretty proud of this piece and I'm doubly glad the new owner likes it, too. 

I'm not sure I'll tackle an item of this size again any time soon. Dressers and vanities are waiting in the garage to be re-vamped and they're definitely more my thing. I think. haha

What do you think, dear reader?

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Yup, it's Friday but I'm linking up over at Coastal Charm while there's still time. Thanks, Linda, for the sweet comment and invitation to "party" with you!

My latest crush...

... is on this lady right here:

 

Oh. My. Stars. She has done some amazing restores and repurposings and I just want to pick her brain for about 2 days. Get on over to her blog to check things out and I promise, you will be amazed. 

Night stand - oooh, la la!

I finally broke down and bought some Annie Sloan paint/wax and CeCe Caldwell paint to try out. This nightstand has been languishing in the back of the garage for several weeks now but I finally dug it out to dress it up a bit. 

A quick BEFORE:

Nothing terrible about it at all. It is in really great shape, both structurally and finish-wise. Just nothing fancy and the hardware color wasn't anything special.

And the AFTER:

$50

I painted it with Pure White (Annie Sloan) and Destin Gulf Green (CeCe Caldwell) and then waxed it all over with Annie Sloan's dark wax. It definitely ages the piece in an interesting way. I wasn't sure I liked it at first but it's grown on me. If I needed another nightstand, I'd keep it for sure. 

Linking up over at French Country Cottage again:

Feathered Nest Friday

FRENCH COUNTRY COTTAGE: Front Door Basket & Giveaway

FRENCH COUNTRY COTTAGE: Front Door Basket & Giveaway:

French Country Cottage is giving away a Lowes gift-card right now... go enter to win! This is the perfect time of year to do a little project!

'via Blog this'

Time's a-wastin'!

I promise you, I have not been slacking in the project department. It just seems like I'm too busy working on things to stop and take pictures of them.

This week, I've got 5 new pieces to work on. A desk, vanity, dresser, entry table, and a table/chairs set. I'm not sure what I'm most excited about but now the reality of how much time will be necessary is kicking in... where is it gonna come from? Certainly not nap-times. Those are getting shorter and shorter by the day. Anywhoo... I'm so excited to have come across so many interesting pieces to work on.

Entry table. I cannot WAIT to slap a fresh coat of paint on this . The details are going to look uh-mazing.

Update: the kitchen table has SOLD. Yay! The lovely lady who bought it is going to use it as a sewing/craft table and I'm so happy to have found it a good home. I hope it gets a LOT of use.

The little turquoise magazine table is going to a new home today. I'm a little (ok, a lot) sad to see it go but that's the whole point of things here so I'm just going to hope to find some more like it and maybe get to hang on to one.